I theck we will get twiss.

So, in February 2011 we had this absolutely beautiful, un-seasonably warm day. After a long, cold winter I was pumped about the opportunity to bring the kids to the park for the afternoon to play. We got there and the park was packed! I guess everyone else was eager to enjoy this gorgeous day too. So I sat on a bench, soaking up the sunshine, and watching my kids as they ran, and giggled, and played with all the other little cuties that had come out to celebrate the day He had made. 

As I'm taking it all in, Ave comes running up and asks if we can have some "girl time". I'm like, "sure sweetheart" this sure is a strange time and place for that but okay. She pointed to a big rock, and said, "let's climb up on that one and do some girl talk." I told Alex that we would be watching him from the big rock then we strolled over to it hand in hand to "do some girl talk". I climbed up, sat down, then helped my little love up to join me. She laid her sweet little head in my lap, and as I played with her hair the dialogue began:

"Hey Momma, I've been thinking".... "What about?".... "well, I've been thinking that God sure has blessed our family..." "He sure has sweetheart"... "and I think that He wants us to adopt babies..." "Really?" (At this point we are on YWAM's waiting list. We agreed not to tell the kids until we were off of the waiting list and were official prospective adoptive parents. She knew NOTHING about it, and we had never discussed adoption with them at all.)... "Yes Momma, and I think we are supposed to adopt them from Africa"... (I did not think she even knew what Africa was.)... "Well sweetheart, if that is something you feel like the Lord wants us to do you need to pray about it, and we will be too."

All time and space stood still for those few moments. I will never forget the way I felt when I heard her say those sweet words of confirmation to me. I will treasure it forever.

Fast forward to April... It's the day before Easter and we have planned a scavenger hunt to surprise the kids with the adoption news. They find the last clue and discover that we are adopting from Africa! They were ecstatic! After jumping up and down and celebrating, Ave looks at us, and says, "I need a bag." We were like, "what?" She said, "I need a bag, like a great big garbage bag to put all the things that are too little for me in for my baby sisters. My room is full of stuff I can give them." We went through the whole speech of, "Baby, Momma and Daddy do feel like the Lord is leading us to adopt two children, but we will have to see what exactly He has planned for us. It could be that we only end up with one, but even if it is His will for us to adopt two He will give us exactly what is best whether that be two boys, a boy and a girl, or two girls. We do not know, so don't get your heart set on baby sisters." Through out the day she would refer to her twin baby sisters, and we would remind her that we did not know yet what He had planned for us. She would just kinda brush us off and go on about whatever she was doing. This went on for months! The pics below are drawings she did on June 1, 2011:

....and so, on November 16th we have our transition plan meeting over the phone with Becky @ YWAM. During the course of the conversation we ask if there are any siblings available to adopt right now. Becky said that there were not, and that it didn't look as though there would be any any time soon. Then she mentioned kinda nonchalantly that there was a set of twin girls that were having their paper work processed right now, but that they were probably too far away from being ready for it to be an option for us to adopt them. I wish to goodness there had been a video camera here to record the looks on our faces when we heard those words. There was so much feedback on our three way call that Nick was across the house from me. Our eyes met... he mouthed to me "Did you feel that?"I nodded my head yes, and we continued on with the call without skipping a beat. We finished up the call and cried like babies (Sorry Nick, but we did:). We prayed our hearts out as we waited for our referral. We asked Him to make it absolutely clear that these girls were our little Wigintons. We asked Him, the Author of time, to speed up the clock on their paperwork if it was to be. We had been praying ,from the time that we realized that we would have to select which child/children was/were to be ours, that our little ones would be impossible to miss... and that if it wasn't contrary to His will, that we wouldn't have to make the decision at all.

.... and then, just a few days before Christmas we receive a call... "Nick, you know those twin girls that I mentioned during the transition planning call? They're ready for referral, and we would like to know if you guys would be open to adopting twins." All I hear is, "Yes, Ma'am, we would. Let me talk to Millie. We will pray about it and call you back. Do you have a picture you can send us so we can see their little faces? You do? Okay great, we'll call you back." With eyes as big as saucers he shares the news and we rush to the computer to wait for the first glimpse of our little angels. Within minutes, there they were... Be still my heart... The most beautiful little twin baby girls I had ever laid eyes on... our girls...the little Wigintons we had been praying for for so very long. Talk about love at first sight... and the sense of knowing... just absolutely knowing that they were ours and we were theirs and that was just the way it was:)

After some time in prayer... then some time of celebration... we called Becky and shared our hearts with her. We told her that we would hop on a plane TODAY and go pick them up if we could. That we were that sure that they were ours. Then I told her that just because I wanted to know, I had some questions for her. I asked her if there were any other sibling sets available at this time. She said, "No, they are the only ones." Confirmation #1! I asked if anyone else could swoop in and adopt them out from under us. "No, you guys are the only family currently approved to adopt more than one child." Confirmation #2! Are twins very common in Africa? "well, they are fairly common in Africa, but oddly enough, they are the only set YWAM has EVER had." Confirmation #3! Wow, He couldn't have made it any clearer for us:)

We waited until Christmas Day to tell the kids the good news.

Avery's christmas list. The first two items requested were for her "baby sisters":)

So, what better way to tell them than to put pink bibs and pink baby "balldolls" under the tree?

They ran down the stairs to see what was under the tree. When they saw the gifts that were left for their sisters, Ave picked them up and said "For our baby sisters of course!" There was never a doubt in her mind:)