A Beauty to Rescue

So grateful

2012-01-10T14:49:00.000-08:00

As hard as life is right now, with all the craziness and chaos at times, I am so grateful. I love having four children. This morning, I may or may not have said that. I was trying to make lunch, while holding the baby. Justus pooped in his pants, so I laid the baby down. I took Justus to the potty, heard the baby cry. Told Justus to stay on the potty, ran to the baby. Kaylee had fallen on the baby with a huge hard plastic toy. So, I consoled the baby, took the chicken out of the oven before it burned. Then went back to Justus, who WAS still on the potty, but had scooted all around the potty and smeared poop everywhere. So, yeah, I may not have said that this morning, ha ha. BUT, I am grateful that God must have seen way more in me than I see to trust me with each of these little ones. I love them all so much. I love to watch them run around playing with each other.

Here are a few pictures from the last month.

The kids with their cards from my Grandma. They were so happy to have them. Justus carried his around for two days and called it his "book".

Malika decorating her gingerbread house. It has been our tradition since Malika was a baby to invite our friends over to make gingerbread houses with us.

Our family with our gingerbread houses. They had so much fun making them, but mostly eating all the candy.

All the kids that made gingerbread houses.

Kaylee LOVES the bird. When she hears the him she goes crazy, and recently has started requesting to hold the him. She looks so happy to hold him here, although, I'm not sure she really likes it. Yet, she always holds her arm out for us to put him on it.

So excited! Kaylee actually loves any animal and when she sees one, she starts screaming.

It was so nice to have Kaylee here this Christmas. I went back and read what I wrote last Christmas and it seems like a lifetime ago. It's hard to believe that was just a year ago. So much has happened in just a year.

This was Christmas Eve, the kids got to open their stockings. I found this little container to put snacks in for Kaylee while we are in the car. It was too funny at first, she knew there was food in it, but couldn't figure out how to get it out.

But, then Big Sister showed her.

Our other little one celebrating his first Christmas. Oh how blessed we are to have two new little people this year.

Justus got some new soap in his stocking. I took this picture for daddy, because he thinks it is so funny when Justus smells something. Yes, he is smelling it and no, he doesn't think it smells bad.

The kids got new pencils and paper. They went right to work coloring on all the papers. They loved it. Oh the simplicity of life with children. This was Christmas Eve though, so, after the next day, no more simplicity. Two days after Christmas, Justus said he wanted to open more presents. We didn't go crazy getting gifts for them either, but after grandparents, they had quite a bit.

Kaylee at the counter getting ready to help make the birthday cake for Jesus.

Our birthday cake for Jesus. Malika asked again this year if Jesus was going to be there and eat the cake.

I thought I took a lot of pictures on Christmas day, but this was the only one of the kids opening presents, oops!

Kaylee's first Christmas pictures. Well, at least her first Christmas with a family. The orphanage gave us some pictures of her in front of a Christmas tree, so they must have celebrated Christmas with the kids.

I came out one night to this...

Justus and Kaylee. Justus has been potty training for a week now. It was so rough at first, but going so much better now. So glad I didn't give up.

Justus and Seth. This is how they were this morning when I walked back into the bedroom. Justus decided he needed to wake Seth up, then he somehow propped him up on this pillow.

Malika loves Seth so much, she is always asking to hold him, she would prefer it if I let her hold him standing up, but he is just getting so big now.

The perfect gift

2011-12-21T11:36:00.000-08:00

Last year for Christmas one adoptive mom started a new tradition by putting money in an envelope and putting it in their stockings. The money was for each person to pick a child off the angel tree from Reeces Rainbow and send the money to go into that child's account. So, on Christmas morning when they found their envelope, they would go to the computer and pick out their child, put that child's name on it and then put it in the mailbox.

I love this idea so much, that we will also be doing it this year.

It seems others liked it as well, and they have started a new thing called Angel Tree dollars.

Please go check out Julia's blog post about this and consider doing this with your family as well. The more money in each child's account, the easier it will be for that child to be adopted. So many people want to adopt or have thought about it, but don't go through with it because of the cost. If we can raise the money for them, then so many more children will have homes and can celebrate their first Christmas next year!

Go check it out for yourself. These aren't just faces, they are children. Children who are waiting for a Mommy and a Daddy, waiting for someone to care, someone to love. Some are suffering as they wait.

Don't turn your head the other way

They need someone to care. These are just a few of the many children that are still waiting.

"Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act" Proverbs 24:12

Kaylee's eyes

2011-11-03T15:37:00.000-07:00

When we took Kaylee to the Eye Doctor, we realized how bad her eyes really were. We knew that she couldn't see well, we just weren't sure how bad they were.

She has several things wrong with her eyes, and from what I have read about them, they are all connected. She has nystagmus, albinism, and severe astigmatism. The nystagmus causes her eyes to vibrate back and forth. She tips her head back to look at something, at first I thought it was muscle control. The Eye Doctor said it has to do with the nystagmus and it is a good thing, because she has found her null point. My understanding is that this is where her eyes stay still so she can see. The albinism, we believe is just in her eyes, though we haven't tested to know for sure. Ocular albinism is when there isn't enough pigment in the eyes.

The Eye Doctor prescribed glasses to see if they will help.

So, we set out to find the ~~most attractive and stylish glasses~~ least destructible glasses. And here they are (see the baby on the floor in the background? It is a real baby :), I put him down for a minute to do something and he slept for an hour!)

I'm not sure if she really can see better out of them though. From what I've been reading, glasses may not help her condition. The Doctor wasn't entirely sure, either. So, we will try them for awhile.

In this picture, do you see how Kaylee is tilting her head back? She is looking at the cookie. (Justus looks like he might jump across the table to get to the cookie). This is how Kaylee usually tips her head back.

But, with the glasses, she tips her head even further. It looks as though she is trying to look under them, but I don't think so. The strangest thing, she also opens her mouth very wide while wearing them.

In this one, to get her to not tilt her head down, I snapped my fingers near the ground. See, she isn't looking at the camera.

Oh, there you are.

Ok, so I wanted to see if she still did it with the glasses off. No, she doesn't. This is probably one of the cutest pictures I have of her. Look at her poor face, she has been falling so much lately. That is another thing that is worrying me.

5 months

2011-10-28T17:25:00.000-07:00

Kaylee has been part of our family for 5 months now. To say that these past 5 months have been hard, would be an understatement. It has been a rollercoaster, lots of ups and downs. We had many, many hard days in the beginning, then just hard moments, back to full on hard days. Then we finally got to the place of "yes, we can make it" rather than "please, God, help me make it, because I can't do this". Then all that came tumbling down when the baby was born. Thankfully, it did not take long to get back to where we were, but those first couple of weeks were sooo difficult.

I think because of the many hard times, I have not wanted to write on my blog. I didn't want to just put up a bunch of cute pictures with empty words and I definitely did not want to put it all out there, how hard this really was. I wanted to have it all together. I didn't want to look like a failure, I wanted to be like the many other adoptive parents and just completely fall in love with my child. I so wanted that love, but it wasn't there. Some days, I tried so hard. Other days, I failed miserably and did not even try, but cried instead.

I never once dreamed this would be me. I thought that I could love anyone. I didn't expect it to be so hard. When we went through our homestudy, our social worker asked so many questions about loving a child that was not biologically ours, my answers were all the right ones. Of course, I would love any child. It has always been easy for me to love the "least of these", my whole life, I "mothered" anything I could possibly get my hands on. So, why would this be any different.

I'm sure we will still have difficult days, but last week, I had a major breakthrough. I don't know how or why, but it just happened. I was at home with just Kaylee and the baby. And I played and spent time with just her. Strange, it just happened like that, I can't even explain it. I love her. I am so glad she is here with us.

Kaylee has changed tremendously in the last 5 months, she is not even the same child. I cannot even begin to tell you of all the ways she has grown. It actually brings me to tears to think of what she would have become had she stayed in the orphanage. She has a hope and a future now.

She can paint now

And even taste it if she wants to, AND love it!

She has a brother and a sister to teach her many things

She can sit in the middle of the yard with her brother, as he pretends to read to her

She can be brave enough to venture out into the yard to play in the sprinklers with brother and sister, and then decide she STILL does not like grass and have a mommy to run to.

She is now part of a family (she is giving him a hug)

She is sooo in love with her baby brother. She gets so excited when she sees him and yells loudly "ah-dah", this is her universal word :). That is why he is crying, he was sleeping peacefully, then she yelled and woke him.

Kaylee is even starting to communicate more. Just now, she was sitting on my lap looking at the pictures and saw the outside ones and signed and said "outside" and more.

Someone else is in love with her little brother. Malika wants to hold him all the time.

Our little chunky boy. He is already 1 month old today.

Seth David

2011-10-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

Things have been so busy and crazy around here. I wish I was a good blogger. I read other blogs and the people are so funny and have wonderful captions for each picture. Oh, and they keep it updated. Well, that's not me. I wish it were, but it isn't.

We had our new little baby, his name is Seth David. He is 4 weeks old today. Everyone loves him and all the little ones are adjusting pretty well to having him here.

Our first family picture with all of the kids.

These are his newborn pictures

I do have a lot to say, but I will have to come back and update more later.

Kaylee is doing great. She amazes me everyday. She is walking everywhere and has even started to say more sounds.

smart little cookie

2011-09-20T17:19:00.000-07:00

The other night Kaylee fell asleep in the car and actually stayed asleep when we stopped. Usually she is such a light sleeper and wakes up very easily, but that night she didn't wake up, so I was able to watch her sleep. When I was staring at her, I just thought " how beautiful she was". It makes me wonder what her mom looked like and also makes me wonder what she would think if she saw her now. I just think she is so beautiful and smart. I wish her mom could see her and see that she is going to be something when she grows up.

I know I keep saying it, but Kaylee is just so smart. She has learned that when we go through a drive thru that means we get food and she just gets so excited and starts squealing. She has learned that if she refuses to eat vegetables, mommy might feel sorry for her and feed her something else. And if she keeps signing please, mommy will think it is so cute and give in to her and give her more to eat.

Ok, seriously she is smart. Yesterday, she learned to sign "cheese" after I only showed her one time. Cheese and french fries are definitely her favorite foods. She doesn't really like fruits or vegetables, she still eats them though. I'm really not sure if she ever had fruit in the orphanage, she still makes a face when she eats them. She also loves bananas, but I'm not sure if it would be something she would request or if it is just because she eats so many of them. One day, I was thinking about it, and wondered why God only made one fruit that did not have to be cut up and was so easy for babies.

I think she is loving this american life and is starting to show her independence and personality more. She knows what she wants and if she doesn't get it, she will definitely let you know. Sometimes, I think she knows she wants something, but either can't tell me what she wants or maybe she isn't sure what it is she wants, just knows it is not what I am doing. Last week, we were outside and she reaches up and grunts to be picked up, so I pick her up, then she wants down. Then she wants in her swing, then wants down. Then wants on the slide, then wants off. Finally, I just say "enough" and just let her figure it out on her own.

She has figured out how to go up and down the stairs too. And has figured out that bedtime is not her favorite time. She used to be so easy to put to sleep and would not make a peep. Now, I let her climb up the stairs on her own, but she is so smart and when she figures out that it is bedtime, she slides all the way back down, with a huge smile on her face.

For anyone wanting to know, she is doing so much better with eating. I do still sit next to her while she eats and have to keep a close eye on her, but it is still way better than it was. She does not usually shove her mouth full anymore and takes bites of things, even if they are bigger than I'd like. The last week, she has done pretty well on chewing, but goes back and forth. She is very good at her pincher grasp now, but still has to be reminded at times.

I have a question for those with children with DS, do your children stick their tongues out when they eat? The OT said we really need to work on it, but she just isn't getting it. I know it is a common thing for DS, but really, is it all that necessary to do anything about it? It is kind of gross, but it isn't really bothering much. If I make her keep her tongue in her mouth, she does better about chewing, but I have to watch her like a hawk. It has only been about a week, should I just keep at it, or give it up for now? Oh, yeah, she sticks her tongue out when she is trying to swallow something.

This is how Justus woke up from his nap one day.

The kids wanted to play with the hose in the front yard, then Kaylee decided to just crawl in the muddy water, so I said "Oh well, have fun"

Kaylee has somehow figured out that she should smile when I get the camera out.

I love this smile.

I know this picture is so blurry, but he is just too cute

I put Kaylee in this pack and play so we could work on the bathroom floor and not have her into everything. She really does hate it, but with Malika and Justus joining her, she has a blast.

Malika's birthday

2011-08-28T19:33:00.000-07:00

Last week, Malika turned 4! I just cannot believe she is already 4. She is so big now and so helpful, sometimes, if Justus or Kaylee cry, she will pick them up and bring them to me and say "It's ok, do you want your mommy", it is too funny to see, since they aren't much smaller than her.

We celebrated her birthday at home with family and then the day after went to the Haglers and celebrated again.

Malika has been waiting so long to have her birthday, she has been talking about it for months. And has had to wait through the other kids birthdays. The first thing she said on her birthday was "where are my presents?" Kids are great! I'm sure many times in the past, I had wanted to say that too, but it would just be impolite, so I refrained. But, kids say whatever comes to their minds. :)

I love this picture, she is so sweet. It makes me want to pick her up and give her a big kiss and tell her to stay little :). The saturday before her birthday, I took her to the mall and she picked this outfit out. She loved it so much, she wore it for 2 days straight and would have worn it for 4 days, had I not made her take it off to wash it in between.

I finally got a good picture of them together, I think I will hang this one on the wall.

Daddy working with Malika on a project. He took her to home depot to pick something out for them to make together and she chose this treasure box.

We went to the park in the morning on Malika's birthday. It was so hot, but we stayed until we were very sweaty.

At the Haglers. After we got there, I noticed that the kids were segregated :), our three Ukrainian babies were "playing" together...

... and I look over and the other 4 were playing together (Justus was here too, until I got the camera out)

They were so sweet and even made Malika a cake. So, she had two birthdays.

Malika and Trey. I think they are best friends, it is so cute to watch them together. They played all day long. When we were in Ukraine, we would compare our kids, it is just so amazing how many similarities there are. They are so different than most other kids, but yet, are so much alike. I never thought I'd meet another child like Malika. I think these next two pictures really show how much they are alike. Maybe only their families can tell :), but with Trey putting his arm on the table and not smiling... just waiting...

...and how I know Malika is happy about her gift, but she refuses to smile :)

Here they are again. I just think they are so cute together. They were watching this video and kept whispering to each other, finally Malika whispers to Trey " Let's go play" and so they run off together.

Lindsay was so sweet to put up their bounce house for the kids to play in. They had a blast.

I loved watching Kaylee, she is a different child than she was 3 months ago. Instead of staying by me the whole time, she actually gets out and plays. She is playing more like a 2 year old should play now. She absolutely loved the bounce house and even figured out how to go down the slide.

Lindsay and me with our little girls. Lindsay is truly the best friend I have wanted for so long. It took us sharing a house half way across the world and 3 little orphans for us to find eachother :)

orphanage behaviors

2011-08-23T01:17:00.000-07:00

Since bringing Kaylee home, I have struggled with wondering if we really did so much for her by taking her out of the orphanage. I know in the long run, we have, but she just seemed so happy there. And she was well fed and seemed loved. But, tonight, after discovering a new orphanage behavior, I realized she may have "seemed" happy, but was probably just coping. She may have not known she was coping, since it was all she ever knew.

Kaylee has had sores and scratches all over her. I knew she was scratching herself, but I didn't realize how bad it was, until I realized the sores are from her scratching. I thought they were just bug bites and maybe they started out that way, but are now infected. I have been watching her the last few days, wondering why she has big welts all over her legs and now understand after watching her scratch her legs raw. And there are what looks like bite marks all over her crib. That is what I thought they were, except, I just couldn't understand how they got there, since, she does not have top teeth. Now, I'm thinking they are from her scratching it. Her poor little nails are so tore up.

This just makes me so mad. Not at her, but just that she has had to resort to that in the past to entertain herself and it now seems to be a habit. This even bothers me more than all of the eating issues she has, I think it is because she is hurting herself, and doesn't even care.

And then it makes me mad to think that some mothers think they are doing what is best for their child by putting them in the orphanage. We saw that everyday while we were there. Some of the mothers would come and visit their child everyday, but still wouldn't take them home. One little girl in particular, I fell in love with and would go back to get her, if only she were available for adoption. I saw her mom come to visit her and I could tell she loved her, I just wish she were told she could have a better life and that she would believe it. An orphanage is no place to live.

Kaylee is starting to crawl correctly now. Three weeks ago the PT said to go back and only work on crawling, since it is so important. So, we did and it has paid off, because this last week the PT said we don't have to put an emphasis on either anymore, since she was doing so well. I bought some new shoes for Kaylee and they have helped so much, she is walking and crawling better because of them.

Cardiology appointment

2011-08-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

When we adopted Kaylee, we were told that she had an open oval window and a heart murmur, but that both of these had healed on their own. We were also told she had a thin muscle in her heart.

When we were in court, one of the witnesses sitting next to the judge was trying to convince the judge that she would not be able to travel by plane because of her heart condition. Even though we didn't know anything about it, other than what the orphanage doctor told us, we had to convince the judge that her heart would be fine and that she would be fine. We even had to tell him that we had Doctors here in America that we could call if anything went wrong. We do have doctors here, but not sure they would have or could have done anything.

Anyway, fast forward to her cardiology appointment, which was yesterday. When we went into the room with the Cardiologist, he looked at her chart and then turns to me and asks "what is an open oval window?". At first, I thought he was joking, then he said there is no such thing. He asked where she was adopted from, and then said that usually they over diagnose to get them out of the country. Well, I'm not sure if that is true, but it completely makes sense that there is no such thing as an oval window, because I have googled it and haven't found much, other than other adoptive families wanting to know what it is too.

He did an ultrasound and her heart is completely fine. He said it looks like she had a VSD at one time, which is a hole in her heart. He also said that since he didn't see her from birth, he is unsure when it closed. It could have closed before she was born. By looking at how it healed, he could tell that it was a very large hole and if it was there after she was born, then she would have had to have surgery, which she did not. I asked about the heart murmur, he said she did not have one now and thinks maybe there was just a lot of noise before when they checked her.

He said we did not have to come back and everything looks good. Praise God!

Here are a few pictures of the kids:

Playing in the bathtub

Kaylee got caught playing in the bathroom trash, after this, it has been very hard to keep her away from the bathroom. She is starting to get into everything now. Last night, she dumped all the toys off the toy shelf, trying to climb to the top of it. I just sat and watched her to see if she could do it, and she almost succeeded.

Me and my girls. This was right before I bonked Malika in the nose with the camera. Poor baby, she had a huge bruise and bump for two days.

The kids playing with their babies. They were pretending to drive. I love it, Kaylee wants to play with them all of the time now. Oh, and she loves that baby. One day, I asked her to give me a kiss, she starts looking around for her baby. I think for some reason, she associates "kiss" with banging her baby against her face :)

videos of Kaylee

2011-07-28T07:21:00.000-07:00

I had this long post I wanted to write, but I haven't had time yet, so I will post these videos for now.

Kaylee started feeding herself with a spoon 3 days ago, she is doing amazing.

Here are two videos of Kaylee doing the signs she has learned. I am amazed at how quick she has learned. She still sometimes gets them mixed up, but is learning. She knows about 10 signs and even tries to say "all done" and "outside". I'm so proud of her.

Justus and Kaylee turn 2

2011-07-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

We had a hard time deciding what to do for Justus and Kaylee's birthday and ended up just doing separate parties. We had originally wanted to have a joint party for them, but since neither of them really care about other kids yet, except Malika, we decided to just do Justus' party at home with family and celebrate Kaylee's birthday at the zoo. Here are some pictures of their birthdays.

We tried to fill the living room up with balloons for Justus. We wanted to make the whole day fun, so we started off with some gifts in the morning and just played and had fun all day. Later in the evening my family came over for pizza and cake and more gifts.

I love Justus' face in these pictures, he was just so excited about his gifts.

Trying out his new gift. He loves to use Daddy's tools, but these are much safer to walk around with.

My mom makes all of the kids cakes, it's a good thing, because if I was doing it they would just have a plain cake with frosting and sprinkles :). Justus loves Cars, so she made this cake for him, it turned out so cute.

Both Justus and Kaylee trying out Justus' new blocks.

This was after everyone left, I found them on the table eating the leftover frosting.

In case anyone wants to see my HUGE belly and my silly husband :). I look at pictures and think, "no wonder I feel huge and uncomfortable". Actually, I started taking iron yesterday and I have so much more energy, it is amazing. I am 29 weeks here.

Who wouldn't want a super cute, naked carpenter?

Me with Malika at the zoo, I wanted to take this picture, because I have one holding her in this same spot when she was 7 months old.

Trying to get one of the kids together, but it never fails, at least one child won't cooperate.

Kaylee and my dad. She loves my parents and my parents love her. They act as though she has always been apart of our family. I am so glad for their support through this whole process and their acceptance of Kaylee.

Playing in the amphitheater.

I took Justus and Kaylee's 2 year old pictures while at the zoo. It was so hot and it was nap time by this time, so maybe it was a bad idea, but I got a few and I was happy with the few I got.

These are Kaylee's typical faces, so it is really difficult to take pictures of her. She always has her head back, and so in the right one I tried to take it from the top, thinking she would keep her head in the same direction, but instead she put it back even more. The eye doctor said it is a good thing that she puts her head back, because she has nystagmus and her eyes don't move as much when her head is tilted either up or down. He said this at Malika's eye appointment, Kaylee's is tomorrow, so we will find out more about it then.

My favorite picture of her.

I tried again to take pictues of the kids. I just held my finger down and hoped for a good one, I think I took about 50 of the same shot. I think these are pretty good.

Josh found this butterfly and it followed us through much of the zoo, it was strange to see it so friendly. I tried to get it to fly away or put it on a tree, but it kept coming back to us. It loved Kaylee, if only it knew sitting on her was a bad idea and it might become her snack :)

At the hotel, Kaylee opening her gifts. We actually took her to the store to pick out her gifts, since she has some sensory issues with some things. I was trying so hard to get a picture of Kaylee holding her baby and thought the second one was cute, until my mom pointed out that she was really looking at the piece of wrapping paper in her hand. She was way more interested in the wrapping paper than the toys.

Here you can see how excited she was over the wrapping paper and a preview of the next few days with Kaylee's new toy. I think she has gotten to play with it maybe once.

Eating her first cake.

I love this picture, it is one of the few I have of her actually looking at me.

Oh, and I had to throw this one in, the last bite before choking. We all knew it would happen and were just waiting for it, but also wanted to let her enjoy her first cake like any child would a first cake. She was so upset when we took her cake away, but was happy again when I put her in the bath.

Kaylee is doing really well and loves her new home. Some days are great and it is like she has been with us forever and other days are really hard, and she acts like she has never been with us. It is all a progress.

Our biggest issue is with eating. She has gotten better, but it is still difficult. She usually doesn't crawl around in search of food anymore, except for the last two days. And she is learning to feed herself and not shove her mouth full, but as soon as I look away, she starts shoving her mouth full.

Sometimes, she won't even feed herself if I am sitting next to her, she will hold her hand out and want me to do it. I think she is afraid of getting in trouble. It is really frustrating at times, because I don't want her to be afraid, but I also don't want her to choke on the food. I probably overreact when she does it, out of fear of her choking and I have somehow caused her to be scared that she will do it wrong.

She did feed herself using a spoon all on her own, for 2 days, I was so excited, but now she won't do it.

We just take 1 day at a time, and I know that in a year things will be completely different.

She seems to be very attached now and is always crawling around looking for me or if I come in a room, she will try to come over to me. I was so happy a couple weeks ago, when she crawled into the bathroom on her own to find me.

She has also become interested in toys, and tries to play with them. She still ends up hitting herself on the head with the toy though.

She has learned to climb up the stairs and climb off the couch. I was so happy when she got off the couch on her own, because we have been working on this since she came home.

She wants to walk so bad, she will stand up by the couch and just go, of course she does a nose dive after about 5 steps, but it doesn't discourage her from trying again. I think she is so proud of herself when she does it.

4th of July

2011-07-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

This was Kaylee's first 4th of July, so I had to get her an outfit to celebrate it. It was a little difficult finding one last minute, but we did and she looks so cute in it.

I am always trying to get a good picture of the three kids together, and I have yet to get one, this is how it goes...

Either Kaylee is crying..

Or Justus is crying.

I actually kind of like this one, even though none of the kids are looking at the camera. Really, there wasn't much to choose from and at least this one no one is crying :)

And then there is this one, no one is crying, but Malika is chewing her flag, and both Kaylee and Justus have weird looks on their faces.

Oh well, one day I hope to get a good picture of all of them smiling AND looking at the camera.

We had a fun 4th of July, we just stayed home and spent it as a family. The kids and I made sprinkle cookies from this website, except we used red, white and blue sprinkles. Too bad we didn't have a picture, we ate them too fast :). Then Josh grilled stuffed pork chops and I made broccoli salad and mac and cheese.

Later we went and watched fireworks. Malika talked about them all day and said she wanted to see them, but as I expected she was scared of them, but still did better than last year. Both Kaylee and Justus LOVED them, they both reached out and wanted to touch them.

This picture is so cute, even though Kaylee has a strange look on her face. I think they look alike here.

Kaylee can take about 5 steps. I just think she is so beautiful and I wish her mom could see her. I don't really know her mom's circumstance other than what we were told, but who knows if what we were told was true, so whatever happened, I still wish her mom could see how happy and beautiful she is now.

Malika blowing raspberries on Kaylee's tummy. Kaylee is starting to play and love Malika. She still has a hard time around other children though. Maybe because she was in a crib with two others and not really watched all day. One day when we picked her up from the orphanage she had a bite on her arm. Poor girl, she probably thinks all children are mean, and Justus hasn't been much help to prove that wrong.

Random things about Kaylee

2011-06-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

I have debated many times whether I should write anything else on here. Well, actually I did write a really long post, it's still there, I just never posted it.

I have been unsure whether to just write the happy stuff, or the whole truth, or maybe just a portion of the truth. I am still unsure what to write. It seems most adoption blogs only have happy, beautiful posts, so it makes me wonder what is really wrong with me. Maybe it just depends on the day that people write stuff. Or maybe it is like how I write in the kid's journals. I keep a journal for each of the children, but decided that I would only write the good things and never the hard or frustrating things. I definitely don't want them to read something I wrote on a very frustrating day and think I just didn't want them or that they were a hard child.

Anyway, to be completely honest, this is very hard. I believe it is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. But to be even more honest, parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. There are many completely exhausting and frustrating days with the children that I have to remind myself that I indeed chose this life and that this is what I have always wanted. And then there are those days that I absolutely love every minute of the day. So, did the hard days only start when Kaylee became part of our family? No, but in all honesty, things are just harder with her than they were with the other two. I don't completely know why, but I have theories as to why.

Anyway, all that to say, things get better and then they get worse, and then they get better. Last week, up until yesterday, things were extremely hard. I think Kaylee took a huge step back. But today, she has been amazing. I only wish that I knew why and could re-create to make it always easy. It definitely gives me hope for the future.

I still think she is the smartest little girl, yesterday she signed outside all on her own. I was so excited. And she said "Da" and reached up to Josh.

So, now she can sign "eat","more","drink","outside", the one sign I know she knows but won't do is "all-done", she just doesn't want to be done eating, so she won't sign it :), we are trying to sign it at other times too.

We have been working on her walking between furniture and she can now take 5 steps. The way I motivate her to walk is by putting a piece of food on the couch and having her walk from the ottoman to the couch, yesterday she actually by-passed the food to walk to me. This is Huge! And if she falls down and I know it must have hurt, she never cries, she actually kind of laughs, but yesterday when I picked her up, kissed and hugged her and said "oh you poor baby", she actually wanted that over the food.

She knows who we are and is starting to prefer me over others. If someone else is holding her, she will reach towards me. Except with my mom :). We are working on attaching even more, because she still will go with anyone who smiles at her.

She loves her swing, I kind of think that is why she signs outside. At first, she hated it, now I think it is one of her favorite things to do.

She also lets us throw her up in the air and laughs, she hated this at first. I think she is trusting us more.

She loves the big pool now, still not the kiddy pool though. And now that she is becoming more attached to us, she prefers to be in our arms than in a floatie.

This absolutely drives me crazy, but she will crawl to her chair and stand up and scream until I get her or feed her. It drives me crazy, because one day I decided to see how long she would do it and if she would stop and come to me on her own when I called her, she did not. :) But, it just shows me how smart she is and how fast she picks things up.

She is starting to play with toys, but still prefers to bang the toy rather than playing with it, but it IS a start.

She is learning to use a spoon, but still won't do it on her own. But, it is progress because she doesn't cry now when I put it in her hand. She will put the food in her mouth, but then hold the spoon straight up in the air until I put food on it.

She is starting to love Malika as much as Malika loves her. She will now laugh and smile at her instead of screaming at her. Last night, Malika and Justus were running around laughing and Kaylee would not take her eyes off of them and would turn her head when they passed her.

Kaylee moans alot now, it is more of a zoning out. She will pick up anything tiny and stare at it and play with it and just moan. She would probably do this much of the day, except I try to stop her and re-direct her. This is one of the orphanage behaviors she has. It actually seems worse than before.

Yesterday, I was thinking about her life at the orphanage. I am sad for the life that she was given, that no one was there to care for her or love on her. I am sad that she spent the first 3 months of her life in the hospital with no one to love her or adore her. I am sad that she did not have someones eyes to stare into. I want to make up for all that. I want her to know she is treasured and loved now. On the days that I am frustrated, I don't want her to know the frustration, I only want her to know the love and peace of being in a family.

Malika and Justus are doing well too. Justus is starting to like Kaylee again and he is even giving her hugs and kisses now. He is starting to share with her, but only if he is told to. If I see him being rough with her, I say be gentle, so he will rub her head, it is too cute. Malika, of course, adores her and loves her as always, she will go up to her and laugh in her face and talk baby talk to her just to get her to smile and laugh.

Here are some pictures of the kids:

Malika loving on Kaylee

The sweetest picture of Kaylee, this is the picture we are using for her American passport.

Malika and Justus in the sprinkler, wearing floaties, just in case they thought they would drown :) (yes, Lindsay, those are your floaties, we thought since we accidentally borrowed them, we should put them to use)

Kaylee finding a leaf, then putting it in her mouth.

I couldn't refuse this picture, even though she is crying, she is just too cute. This was after I took the leaf out of her mouth.

Reaching out to me when I called her name.

Malika and Justus driving a car. Malika is pretending the thing she is holding is her stick shift and the hangars are the steering wheels.

Playing in the puddles after it rained

Kaylee sitting on her car outside.

This is from today. I put Kaylee down for a minute to get my camera to upload pictures and this is how I found them when I got back. Justus was patting Kaylee, saying "Kay-ee" over and over.

Leaving this blog

2011-06-07T10:56:00.000-07:00

I am not going to continue writing on this blog, except an occasional update. I know, I hate it when I read an adoption blog all the way through the adoption and then they drop off and never write again once coming home, so I'm sorry to be doing that too. I really have enjoyed writing on here and hate to leave, but I'm just not liking the idea of putting my thoughts and life out there for people to read and critique and to take it differently than I meant.

I have updated this blog and will keep it up to for other adoptive families to read and learn from. I hope to be starting a private family blog when I can come up with a name :)

Kaylee is doing great. She is so sweet and happy and snuggly. She does not scream as much anymore. She seems to be learning what we mean when we say "no scream". She is doing new things like, finding a crumb or piece of dirt on the floor and bending over until she is literally touching it, then she moans to it. It really is cute, but if I don't stop her, she would continue to do it.

She is signing more all on her own and usually at the right times :), but I think she may have confused it with eat, because she signs it when she wants to eat. She does more of a clap and does it so excitedly, probably she got that because I was so excited when she started doing it. We are working on the signs for eat and drink. She gets eat, but doesn't do it on her own and I'm not sure she understands it yet.

We are having some issues with eating. She cries at the top of her lungs if I walk away during meal times, even if I just gave her a spoonful of food. I am hoping she will figure it out that I will come back, unless I sign and say "all done". She doesn't want to use a spoon, but we are still working on it. I try to use a spoon and hold it in her hand for the first few bites, then either let her pick up her food with her hands or feed it to her. She prefers to have her hands in the air while eating, of course that way, the food usually ends up behind her :)

Kaylee absolutely loves food and gets so excited about it. She loves it so much, she tries to eat everything. I take leaves and mulch out of her mouth constantly. Yesterday, she even found the cat food. I told Josh and he said "she is taking after her brother". I have joked about sending cat food to college with Justus, because even now at almost 2, if he finds it, he will eat it and say "mmmm", yuck! So, she pretty much fits into our family :)

We went to visit the Haglers for Memorial Day. We took the kids swimming and Kaylee did not enjoy the water, we figured out it was because of it being cold, because she loves our big pool at home (which is warmer) and the bath. All the other kids loved the water so much, it was a little scary as a parent to try to corral so many children who can not swim, but we had fun.

Here are our 7 kids, 3 from Ukraine

I have been trying to teach Kaylee to play. I have heard that other children adopted from orphanages don't know how to play. I did not understand that fully until bringing Kaylee home. Her idea of playing is to hit herself in the head with a toy.

I have been working on playing and being sweet with a baby doll. She is getting it, when I put a baby in her arms and say "oh sweet baby", she gets a huge smile on her face, but as soon as I take my hands away, she will drop or throw the baby. I'm sure in another 6 months she will be a different child.

Really??

2011-06-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

I just read a comment on my blog, which I deleted and it has made me really upset.

Whoever you are that wrote it and for any other people who read this, know one thing, I love Kaylee, and I love children. And never would I only adopt a "normal" child or think that any other child deserves to stay in an orphanage. That is not what I think and that is not what I meant about Kaylee being so smart.

I only was writing what was in my heart, that is what a blog is for, right? Or do you just want only the happy and pretty stuff?

I do carry Kaylee wherever I go, I put her in a sling, I try to keep her with me, I take her from room to room with me, so don't even judge me for leaving her or being sad that she acts like a baby. I am not sad that she acts like a baby, sometimes she does act more like a baby and sometimes she acts like a two year old. I wouldn't trade her at all, yes, sometimes it is hard, but no I do not expect her to be anything other than who she is, EVER. I will always love her as she is.

We are dealing with screaming issues with her, and it has nothing to do with me leaving her or that she doesn't know I am coming back, because she can be next to me and see me and still does it. But, do I expect her to always be that way, no I don't. But, still it is best for me to speak the truth on here rather than just paint a happy pretty picture if things are not.

As for her having Down Syndrome, I do not and will not treat her any different than my other children, yes, she may learn slower and differently, but if I treat her differently, then that will be her disability, not Down Syndrome, so please don't judge me saying that she is not the child I should have adopted.

So, please, if you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything. If you want to ask me a question, then please ask.

Kaylee's first photo shoot

2011-05-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

I did a short impromptu photo shoot with Kaylee yesterday and wanted to share the pictures. It was so hard to pick my favorites, so many turned out really cute.

It really is hard to pick a favorite, but I really like this one, probably just because she looks like a baby here and really, she does act like a baby.

Kaylee is doing really well. She really is a very fast learner. I figured out today how to get her to crawl. Actually it kind of was my friend Lindsay's idea, she said the only way she will be able to get Ana to do anything is with food, so it got me thinking. I put a gerber puff a few feet in front of Kaylee and had her crawl to it. I know, it sounds like something you do for a dog, but you know what, it worked. We did this for about 15 minutes. And she was even crawling with her head up, though I think she doesn't have very good muscle control of her legs with her head up, strange how that works. She did more of a hop like a rabbit than a crawl, but she was trying so hard.

We also worked on walking today. I would stand her up against the couch and hold out my hands for her to walk to me. Normally when I do this she just falls forward, but today she actually took a few steps.

For the first couple of days back home, things were very difficult and I wondered why we adopted her, not that I think we shouldn't have, but that I wondered what I really had to offer her that the orphanage couldn't have or didn't. I pretty much felt like I was only meeting her physical needs. But now that I see how smart she is and how much she truly wants to learn, my view has completely changed. She is already thriving and doing so much better than she was before.

Kaylee has started to scream and cry unless I am holding her or sitting on the floor next to her or doing something directly with her. It completely baffles me as to why she does this. She has sat in a crib for the last 2 years, why would she be so needy now. It does frustrate me, but I am trying really hard to be patient. I have cooked dinner while wearing her on my back in a sling. She seems to be happy with that. I really hope this phase doesn't last too long. If only I knew what she was thinking and feeling.

She's a true American now, eating a popsicle. This was her second popsicle since coming home and she loves it. Today, she actually held the popsicle while eating it, and this is a huge thing. I think she must have some sort of sensory thing with holding stuff while eating or maybe it is so ground in her to not touch her food. Usually she cries when I hand her something, but this time she took the stick and started sucking away.

Pictures from our trip home

2011-05-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our journey back home.

Feeding Kaylee (she is on the floor), right before our near disaster (keep reading :)

We were so blessed to have our tickets changed, without even asking, to the bulkhead section. They had these really cool basinets, it really helped, both Justus and Kaylee were able to take naps.

We met a family who are missionaries to Russia. They are from our same town and were on their way home for a visit. We found out they even go to the same church as some of our friends. They had 5 children and they all loved Kaylee and played and played with her. We've never heard her laugh so hard.

Very sleep, but still happy Kaylee.

Our homecoming. We were met by a huge group of friends.

I love this picture, and it has nothing to do with my head being cut off :), I love it, because it captures the moment, with Malika being nervous and hiding behind me. Looking at this picture, now I see why people smile when they see me and say " you have your hands full". Really?

Our friends who greeted us. We feel so loved.

Malika meeting her Grammy, they were so happy to finally be re-united.

Kaylee so happy with our friend Linda.

She was a trooper to meet all of our friends and be passed around to all those that have been in this journey with us. Poor thing, she was so exhausted though.

In the carseat for the first time after our long, long day. She is doing amazing with it

Malika in her new position in the back row. I thought she would have a hard time, but she loves it.

Kaylee is so smart, she is picking things up so quickly, I am completely amazed by her. While we were still in Ukraine, I worked with her on putting food in her mouth, and after only a handful of times teaching her, she figured out how to do it. This has back fired on me though, because now she puts everything in her mouth and tries to eat it. The worst thing that happened was while we were on the airplane. We were in the bulkhead section, so we had a lot of room at our feet, so I put her on the floor to play, she picked something up and ate it, but I didn't see her do it, so I didnt know what she put in her mouth. She started to gag, she has done this many times, so I wasn't worried, thinking she ate some food we dropped, so I gave her something to drink, but that didn't work. I put my finger in her mouth but didn't feel anything, so I thought maybe it was a hair, since that has happened to Justus. I gave her more to drink, but she wouldn't drink and was having an even harder time, so I stuck my finger in her mouth again, this time further in her throat and felt something. This really scared me, I wasn't sure what to do, but the momma part of me took over. I turned her over and upside down and stuck my finger into her throat, and thankfully pulled out a piece of plastic covered in blood. It scared me so bad, I was shaking and crying. She was crying too, so I just held her, she stared into my eyes. This was probably our first real "bonding" moment. She looked at me with what seemed like gratitude, I think maybe she knew I just saved her life. We have been very careful to try to keep a closer watch on her now, even Malika will pick things up around her to make sure she doesn't put anything in her mouth.

She has also learned to crawl, except she puts her head down and rubs it across the floor as she crawls. My guess is that her head is too heavy to crawl with it up. My mom said I crawled that way too, I guess I also had a big head :).

Kaylee did the most amazing things today. I kept telling her how mart she was. I started working with her on drinking from a straw. We bought a special sippy cup that is great for special needs kids. It is like a juice box, so if you squeeze it, something comes out of it. When I first used it, she didn't like the way it felt in her mouth and would not wrap her mouth around it and instead just let the water fall out of her mouth. We tried it again two or three more times, I knew she would get it, it just would take time. I had no idea she would get it so fast. She has learned to suck out of it and hold it on her own. She is absolutely amazing.

Malika decided to feed Kaylee on her own. I was in the kitchen and she said she was feeding Kaylee, I looked over to a very messy girl.

Kaylee drinking out of her sippy cup. She was so proud of herself.

The other thing she did was sign more, all on her own. We have been trying to get her to sign more every time she is eating, because she is very impatient and screams when she wants more, even if she still has a mouth full of food. Usually i say more, while making the sign and then make her hands sign it. Normally she screams again and then pulls her hands back. Today, she started making my hands sign more on her own, then once she did it completely on her own. I was so happy and surprised and excited. I called Josh over, but of course like any child, she wouldn't do it again when I wanted her to.

I put Kaylee's hair up in a ponytail, and then Malika wanted hers up that way too. Malika loves Kaylee so much and talks all day long about how she is her sister and that she is going to live with us now.

Update:
I wrote this two days ago and now Kaylee seems to have taken a step back. She is refusing to do any of those things I said she could do. She won't drink out of the sippy anymore and is even refusing to drink out of the bottle, I tried to give her something to drink from a spoon, but she didn't like that at all.

I am trying to just be patient with her, since she has only been with us for 1 week and lived in an orphanage for 2 years. I know it is a process, but it is frustrating when one day she is doing great and the next not so great. Today was a really hard day, but I am hopeful that tomorrow will be better. One good thing, I can tell she is starting to bond with me, because she cries when I leave the room.

We are home!!

2011-05-21T00:26:00.000-07:00

We just got home last night (friday) after a really long day. Everyone did really well, considering we were up and flying for over 24 hours. Not too many melt downs.

Kaylee did wonderful. She is still sleeping now. I can't say the same for Malika and Justus, they have been awake since 1 in the morning, I got up with Justus to feed him and Malika comes to the top of the stairs and says "good morning, Mommy", so sweet.

It is really good being at home.

I will write more later and post some pictures, I just wanted to let everyone know we made it safe.

Secret

2011-05-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have had a secret that I have kept for a few months, but now that our adoption is complete I am ready to reveal it.

I am pregnant!

I know, you must be thinking we are out of our minds. Probably you are right :) No, this is not an accident, nor was it planned. We love children and know that God also loves children and we want to trust our family size to God. If we took it into our own hands, we may very well miss out on the things God has in store for us.

What does this mean for Kaylee? Will it change anything?
It means she will be a big sister. No, it will not change the fact that she is still our daughter and we will still love her as our daughter.

What about being so busy with Kaylee's needs?
We will take one day at a time, but I will definitely not put her aside, because I believe in her and I believe in giving her all that I can to help her become all that God wants her to be.

Does this mean we won't adopt again?
We want to adopt again, and believe we will.

Here is a picture of me today with baby number 4! at about 20 weeks

Today, we finished up all of our final paperwork. We are officially able to take Kaylee out of the country. We weren't sure on the timing, so we scheduled our flights for friday instead of thursday, just in case. We will be arriving at home at 5:30, if anyone wants to meet us at the airport. I honestly can't promise when we will be able to get out or have people over, with the many doctor appointments we will have, and we really want to just take the first few weeks to bond with Kaylee and get back to a normal life. So, if you are dying to meet her or see us, you should probably just come to the airport. I hope I don't come across as rude, to not invite people over, but we have been away for so long and would really like to get back into a routine with the kids and establish one with Kaylee. Please feel free to call though, if I do not answer right away, I will definitely call back. And who knows, maybe I will be bored and want people over :)

Life outside

2011-05-17T12:30:00.000-07:00

We have had Kaylee for 5 days now. It feels like she has been a part of our family forever. Sometimes I forget that we just took her out of an orphanage, like today at the grocery store. She was in a stroller and started screaming, I knew she was tired and just ignored it. Of course, everyone else did not ignore it, and finally I started to realize just how loud she was when I noticed all the stares. I bent down and covered her mouth with my hand and said "shhh", thinking she would be ok. Her screams got louder and I could tell she was about to cry, I picked her up and she was fine. I just forgot that she has lived her whole life in an orphanage and has only seen the four walls in her room and maybe occasionally the hall way until we arrived. So, for her to go to a grocery store and not see anyone or anything familiar was probably really terrifying to her. Poor baby.

Things have been going amazingly well with Kaylee. Like I said, she really does feel as though she has always been with us. Things are going even better than I imagined. She doesn't have any "orphanage behaviors" that I can tell. She does scream some, but I think that is just her way of communicating, since she doesn't know of any other way. She doesn't scream as much since being with us. She loves Malika and Justus, and they love her. All of my worries with Justus were for nothing. He loves her. They all act like brother and sisters already, even having the occasional fight.

Our train ride into Kiev went so much better than the last one. There was AC on this one. I think we made the right move to take the evening train, the kids slept for the last half of it.

Things have been a little difficult here in Kiev. We are all ready to come home, and I know it is only a few more days, but we are quite homesick. We have switched apartments since coming here, the first we only stayed at one night, because of the cost, no internet, and it was far away from everything we would need. So, we switched to a new one, which seemed much better at first, then we realized things don't work properly here or are broken and it is so dirty it is disgusting. You will thank me for not going into details :). It has internet and it is in a wonderful part of town, close to everything we need, so we are managing. I am trying not to complain too much, and that is why it has taken me so long to actually write a post, I just didn't want to complain too much.

Today we had our first embassy appointment. The appointment went really well, and we even met another Reece's Rainbow family, the Hinz Family, they were so sweet, and like us, they brought their two biological children with them. They have adopted two children, Dusty and Sonia. When I saw the kids, I thought they were maybe 2 or 3, but no, they are 5 and 6. I am just amazed when I see children who are so neglected they look several years younger than what they truly are. I am so glad for these babies to be adopted by a loving family who will truly care and love them to health. Please pray for them, especially for Dusty. They said if you patted his belly, it sounded like a watermelon. I felt his belly and I have never felt anything like it before. And you could even feel his hip bones. The embassy doctor wasn't so kind to them and even said Dusty would not live long. Makes me angry that a doctor would barely look at him and make some comment like that, when God is the author of life and decides that.

This evening, we met another Reece's Rainbow family, the Cox family. They actually stopped us on the street, because they saw Kaylee. I love getting to meet other RR families, even if we have nothing in common, adopting special needs kids draws us together. It is a special kind of bond.

I have figured out why Kaylee cried that first night after dinner when I put her on the floor, she loves food. I think it is funny and sad all at the same time, even if I know she has eaten enough and can't be hungry, she still wants food and cries big huge tears, and might I say, sounds pathetic. Makes me almost feel sorry for her and give her more food. She is ok after she has been distracted, or Josh brought these Mum-mum rice cake things for babies, if I give her one, she is ok with that, and I imagine it has virtually no calories. So, I have a theory about why she spit up while in the orphanage, since she hasn't spit up since we got her. I bet she cried after they fed her and felt sorry for her or thought she was still hungry and fed her more until she was over-fed. Of course, this is just a theory, so who knows. She is quite chunky, so she definitely was fed. Makes me that much more grateful for good nannies when I see children like Dusty who looks malnourished.

Kaylee loves food and did not seem too picky about what she ate, until we tried gerber baby foods. Two days ago, she loved it, now she turns her head away, probably knowing that our food not only smells better, but tastes better. She has eaten everything I have given her even if it is a McDonalds hamburger, she was starving though. I brought a jar of baby food to the embassy with us and she refused to eat it, but I know she was still hungry, and of course I felt sorry for her. Hey, I wouldn't eat it either. :) I promise, it won't become a habit.

Here is a video of Justus feeding Kaylee his dinner. I love to watch her eat.

One orphan less, part 2

2011-05-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

I am too tired to write much, but I just wanted to finish my post since I said I would.

Both Kaylee and Justus slept for about 3 hours, Malika fell asleep too for about an hour. After nap we went into town to get a new Internet card for the phone, we joked about it running out the day before we left here, and it really did. Oh well, it is only about $6.

We stopped at the park on the way home. Kaylee was doing so well. She didn't scream the whole time we were out. She kept looking around. This is probably the first time she has been outside the orphanage, other than our trip to the passport office.

We fed the dogs at the park. There are stray dogs everywhere around here, the dogs just roam around all over and run in packs, we usually see about 6 or so laying by the road when we go to the store. We have been saving our food instead of throwing it away to feed them, kind of like feeding the ducks :)

The kids made a friend at the park, a little boy about Malika's age. He blew bubbles and they all chased them.

After that, we went back home and made dinner. Kaylee did really well and ate, but then we put her on the floor to play and she cried a very shrill cry. I didn't even think she knew how to cry loud, I bet she was saving it :). Anyway, I don't know what was wrong, but she finally calmed down.

She went to bed pretty well. We didn't have any trouble with her, except I was afraid she would crawl off the bed, since one side is open.

Malika absolutely loves her, they played together tonight before bed. I will try to post a video when we get to Kiev.

Tomorrow afternoon we are getting on a train to go to Kiev, please pray for us, the train ride here was awful, it was so hot and miserable, so I'm hoping for a better trip this time.

One Orphan Less!

2011-05-13T07:28:00.000-07:00

Today was Gotcha Day! The day when we can finally take Kaylee out of the orphanage forever. We have been waiting for this day for months.

I can't believe she is finally ours and we don't have to return her.

This morning started with an early wake-up call, so sweetly by Justus at 5 am. Ok, so it wasn't really sweet, but nonetheless we were awake. Then, a little later, Malika wakes and the first thing she said was, "mommy, I so excited today". Then, of course she started to say "3 days and we get Kaylee". She is too funny. She has been so excited and asked all morning until we left if she could put her shoes on to get Kaylee.

We left the house at 9:15 to meet Marina at the orphanage. When we got there, it felt a little strange just knowing this is truly the last time we will be there. We met up with Marina, who went with us to take our gifts of boxes of chocolate and wine to the director, doctor and lawyer. Then we went to Kaylee's class to pick her up. It didn't go at all like I expected. They handed her to me still in her clothes and asked if today was the day we were taking her. I think I expected her to be handed over without clothes or for them to dress her. We dressed her in her "gotcha day" outfit with matching bow. She looked so cute. We then said bye to the nannies and took a few pictures. They were so sweet. I don't know if they will miss her, but they seemed truly grateful for us, probably knowing this is her only chance at a normal life. It was bittersweet. I didn't think I would cry, but I did. I thought I would be so happy to just get out of there, but these ladies and this routine have been our life for the past two months, it is hard to not feel a little sad to say bye (I am definitely more happy than sad though :).

After we took her out, we walked over to the sandbox to leave our sand toys, since we don't have room to take them home. Justus was confused and had no idea what was going on (probably still doesn't. As soon as he can talk good, I bet he will ask when we are taking her back :). He wanted to stay and play, so we did for a little bit. Then it was time to leave for good. We walked out the gates, never to return.

After getting home, the first thing we did was give Kaylee a bath. She loved it.

Then, the kids ate a snack, played some, then ate lunch. Kaylee did pretty well with lunch, but didnt seem to like snack. I don't know what she has been eating or what her schedule is like, so I'm having to figure it out as we go. I think it would be a bit easier if I knew. I asked several times, but wasn't told much. Twice I went in as she was being fed something from a bottle, it looked like cabbage and milk, because it was a milky, greenish, brownish substance. Anyway, I really have no clue if she has ever eaten anything solid. So, for snack, I mashed up an apple. She ate it, but cried after. Lunch was much better, I mashed up macaroni and cheese with carrots and she seemed to love it. While she was eating, Nina our landlord, who also cooks at the orphanage came up. She tried to tell us that carrots are bad for them (when we first came they said all down syndrome children are not allowed to eat red foods), anyway, I just pretended to not understand :), because I think that is just the craziest thing I have ever heard.

After lunch, they played a while. She didn't cry this time. So far, things are going well. It was a little difficult when she cried, because nothing I did made it better. But, thankfully that didn't last long.

I was worried about sleeping time, but nap was so easy. There is a crib here, with just 3 sides up, against the bed. I put her in it, while I put Justus to sleep, fully expecting to have to rock her or walk with her, but she just fell asleep on her own. She played for about a minute, then laid down and went to sleep on her own. She will by far be our best sleeper.

To be continued...

It's Official

2011-05-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Kaylee is officially a Thumann!

This morning we went to the courthouse to pick up the court decree for our adoption. Then we had to take it to change her birth certificate, apply for a passport and close out her bank account.

It all went pretty fast. We took Kaylee with us for the passport part, but the rest we just went on our own with Marina, since it is a lot of waiting.

When we went to close out the bank account, the bank was full of people, we later found out they were all there waiting to pay utility bills and have to wait several hours, because they are very slow. Anyway, after seeing how crowded and busy it was, Marina went to a separate part of the bank and called someone in the back, a lady came out immediately and worked quickly for us, because Marina gave her a box of chocolates. She explained to us that people around here will not accomplish things unless you give them a gift, then they work quickly. I was surprised at how easily they can be bought, this box of chocolates was probably no more than $5. I can only imagine what would happen if it were like this in the US, I think it would be disastrous and turn into who can by the best gift or pay the most. I know this does sometimes happen, but I am glad it is not the case for most things.

Anyway, if you are wondering about the bank account, we were told it is set up for orphans with special needs and set aside for if they have medical needs or one day when they are moved to an institution to care for them. I don't know about other orphanages, but the director at this orphanage is very honest, Marina told us if not for her the children would not have the amount they do in their accounts. The money that is withdrawn is donated back to the orphanage, we are told it is split up into the other childrens accounts.

We still do not have Kaylee with us, it is strange that she is ours and that we even signed her out, but still do not have her. We are planning on taking her out on Friday and them going to Kiev on Saturday. Her passport should be ready on Tuesday, which is also the day that we will start our appointment with the embassy to get her visa. This will take two days, so we are planning on coming home next Thursday if all goes as planned.

The Haglers took Sasha and Ana out of the orphanage today and are now on a train headed to Kiev. It is sad to see them leave, but I am so excited for them to see their journey coming to an end and starting their new life with 4 children. They are planning on going home Saturday, pray for them that the children will do well traveling.

Sharing, screaming and bottle feeding

2011-05-09T04:01:00.001-07:00

The last few days have been good, but very slow going. We are very ready for our time here to be over. Only two more days until we can start the paperwork process to get Kaylee's passport. Pray that we can finish all of that in one day and that it will truly only take 4 days to get it back.

Malika says everyday "only 3 more days and we can bring Kaylee home", I don't know why she is stuck on the 3 days, but it is too cute. I think she is very anxious to have her home as her sister. We tried out the bottle this morning to see if she could drink out of it (she can) and Malika was so excited to be able to hold her and give her the bottle.

I'm afraid Justus isn't going to be quite so excited to take her home. He is so happy to go to the orphanage to see her, he runs straight to her class and says "Kay-ee, Kay-ee", but I think he is also relieved to take her back. We tried so hard to get a cute picture of them together this morning, but don't be fooled, even though Justus is smiling, he doesn't want to sit next to Kaylee, and just before the picture, he was hitting her. He is usually so sweet, except when it comes to Kaylee. I think he is realizing that he will have to share me. Poor little guy. I think we are all going to have a hard time for a little while after bringing her home.

I think we are making good progress with Kaylee. She has started to come to me when we are playing on the ground (yes, we are breaking the rules), and she wants to give me hugs. This morning, when I handed her back to a nanny, she even tried to come back to me. I am encouraged that she is bonding sooner than I expected.

Now, if only she would stop screaming. I don't know if it is a DS thing or an orphanage thing, but Kaylee screams. Not everytime we have her, but more often than not. I was trying to figure out why, but my conclusion is that either she wants something, is tired, overstimulated, doesn't like something, wants to do something different or just wants my attention. So, yeah, my conclusion isn't much of a conclusion. One day, I thought we would try to break it and I said "no scream" and tapped her mouth, so she understood what I meant, after like the 30th time, I tired of it and decided we would work on this later. I even tried screaming myself, and then say " no scream", but that didn't work either. Oh yeah, and when she does scream, sometimes it's as often as every 5 seconds. I hope it is something she will stop soon on her own, otherwise we wont be going many places. At least not anywhere she has to be quiet.

Advice on crawling

2011-05-06T02:47:00.001-07:00

I need some advice on crawling, if any of you might know the answer.

Kaylee doesn't crawl, but she does this scoot thing on her bottom. Her right leg is straight, and her left leg is bent, she uses that leg to move herself around and she moves sometimes in a straight line and sometimes in wide circles, but she always gets to where she wants to go.

I had read somewhere that true crawling is important for brain growth, so I have been working on her with it. She is a very fast learner and can crawl on hands and knees, but only if I make her.

So, my question is, is this important or should I not worry about it and work more on walking than crawling.

She seems to be about 10-12 months old developmentally.

I know everyone would have their opinion about this, so if you have experience with this or can find any information on this, please let me know.

Math Problem

2011-05-05T23:37:00.001-07:00

From Josh again...

What do you get when you add five adults plus boredom? A plastic deer figurine wrapped in pipe cleaners. Here is the "mathematical proof":

She feels like ours now

2011-05-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

Today we took our own clothes for Kaylee. She looked so cute and really felt like she was ours. I just want to take her home now. It has become increasingly harder to go to the orphanage everyday, and it has nothing to do with the orphanage so much, just that we are tired of going and just want to go home and start our "new" life.

Really, I just cant wait to go home and be a mom to my children and learn how to take care of three kids. I have been thinking about how in the world I am going to go grocery shopping with three kids, one who can't walk, one who I don't trust to walk by himself and one who doesn't want to walk. Probably Kroger will be the only way to go, since they have grocery carts that hold 4 children, or send Josh. It would be wonderful if someone would do all my grocery shopping for me, of course then I would probably complain about how much they spent. :)

Anyway, today went mostly well. Justus threw up all over me, the chair, the floor and Malika's blanket. And it wasn't just a little bit. Poor little guy, I don't know if he is sick or if it was just a one time thing. He is sleeping now. I really hope he is not sick. Please pray for him.

One week from today and our "10" day wait will be up! So excited, maybe in two weeks we will be coming home.

(if anyone at home is wondering what size Kaylee is, she fits perfectly in 12 months, but could probably fit in 18 month, except for the length.)

Her name

2011-05-02T22:12:00.001-07:00

Why we chose Kaylee:

When we first decided to adopt Kaylee, we thought her name was Priscilla, but then we came to realize that was just the name Reece's Rainbow used and that her real name was Irina. Both Josh and I wanted to keep this as her name since it would be the one thing she can keep from her past. It was her name and we didn't want to change it. So we sought to come up with a middle name that would go with Irina. I found many I liked, but Josh never liked any of them. One night we went to Barnes and Nobles to look at baby name books to come up with one. We both wrote several down, but neither of us liked the other's names, except we had one in common- Kaylee. But we both agreed we liked it too much to use just as a middle name, so we decided we would save it.

We still hadn't come up with a name when we arrived in Ukraine and found out that we had to know what we wanted to name her the same day we met her. I told Josh he could name her, since he didn't like anything I came up with. He decided on Kaylee Irina, since many people mis-pronounced Irina and we both liked Kaylee. I wasn't sure about taking her name away, and was surprised Josh wanted to change her first name, because he was adamant about keeping her first name the same.

We also found out that she isn't called Irina, but that they either call her Ira (ee-ra), or by her last name, so that made it easier to change it.

Kaylee means "pure", and Irina means "peace".

During court we found out before she was named Irina, her name was Katerina. That is what they named her in the hospital. And then somehow between the time she was in the hospital and when she went to the orphanage, it was changed.

The really awesome part is, I looked up Katerina and it comes from the same name that Kaylee comes from. They are both forms of Katherine and they both mean pure. I think it was meant to be.

She does know her name is Kaylee now, and does look our way when we say it.

Life goes on

2011-05-02T03:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a few days since I've written, so I guess it is about time I should update the blog. I actually did write a post a couple days ago, but then I accidentally deleted it and didn't want to take the time to re-write it. It is probably a good thing I didn't post it, because I had written it more out of guilt and i didn't write the truth about what was going on here.

I have been feeling guilty because I was so concerned with all that was going on here and wanting to go home so badly, all because I just don't want to be here anymore or visit the orphanage or eat the food. All the while people at home are suffering and going through huge devastation because of all the tornados last week. Our house and our family are fine, though I haven't heard from all of our friends. The last I heard, the death toll was up to 340 and there are still people missing. And most of our friends haven't even been able to get on the Internet, because they have been without power since last Wednesday.

Anyway, I've just felt selfish, because life is still going on here, and things are relatively fine, but I have still been complaining.

I should have been rejoicing when the judge granted us permission to be Kaylee's parents, but I didn't (well, momentarily I was happy), but then I think the stress of it all really got to me. And then we found out we would have to wait even longer here before coming home. Instead of the 10 day wait, it would be 12 days and then after the wait is when we apply for her passport, which takes about 5 business days. So instead of the wait being up on a Monday, it will be up on Wednesday, which means we will have to be here about a week longer due to the weekend.

Even though we went to court and the judge said we are to be her parents, things go on as they did before. Nothing has really changed, except that now we know we get to bring her home instead of being uncertain. I am definitely rejoicing over that. Court was so hard on me emotionally, I thought for sure they were going to say no about three times. Our facilitator was even nervous. There was a witness sitting next to the judge, they are supposed to be silent, but this one was not. He was trying to convince the judge that Kaylee was not healthy enough to travel on an airplane. Then at one point the judge asked the social worker about her age, he thought she was too young to be adopted. That she wasn't available long enough for a Ukrainian family to adopt. They are supposed to be listed for a year for ukrainians before being available outside of Ukraine, and for some reason she wasn't available for adoption until she was several months old. The social worker said that no one has been interested in her, only us, so it would be in her best interest to be adopted by us. Thank the Lord this convinced the judge.

Things have not changed much, we still visit Kaylee twice a day. We did go to the Ukrainian circus this weekend. It was interesting, my first thought was "there are children here", the women were hardly dressed. It opened with a couple on an acrobat ring thing, I would say that because of what the woman was wearing and what they were doing would have made it at least rated R if it were a movie. I was quite embarrassed having brought our children, and this place was a family thing, it was full of children. Anyway, it did get a bit better. Justus loved it, Malika did not, because it was very loud, she wanted to go home.

After it was over, we went to eat at McDonald's. It tasted so good while eating it, but then I felt sick after, probably because I haven't eaten fried food in the past 5 weeks. It was so nice being able to get out and do something different. I think we will try to go into town again next weekend too.

I will write another post soon about her name, I have something really interesting to share about that.

She's Ours!

2011-04-29T06:34:00.001-07:00

From Josh:

We have just finished court. We have been granted permission to adopt Kaylee! We were nervous at the end because they kept us waiting a long time, but they ruled in our favor at last. We are excited and relieved. We have to wait 10 days still, and there is a holiday, but should be able to move forward May 11.

Court in 2 days

2011-04-27T04:08:00.001-07:00

This morning Kaylee had to wear boys clothing and a silly bonnet. She looked ridiculous and cute all at the same time.

Josh should be on an airplane right now. It is so hard to know he is traveling but not sure where he is and I don't have any way to communicate with him. He should be here sometime Thursday morning.

Friday afternoon is court. We are 8 hours ahead here, for those wanting to pray for us. Court is 2:30, which would be 6:30 in the morning in Alabama. Please be praying for us. Pray that it will finish that day. If all goes well, we could be coming home in about 3 weeks.

Things I miss

2011-04-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

Things I miss about home:

Meat, hamburgers, French fries, Mexican food, salsa, peanut butter, friendly people, smiles, being able to dry our clothes, clear water from the faucet, water that doesn't smell like the sewer, being able to flush the toilet paper, understanding people, not having to dress the kids like it's 20 degrees, cheese that melts, friends, family, fast food, being able to drive where I want to go, not having to go to the store everyday, watching tv that isn't dubbed over in Russian.

I'm sure one day I will miss something from here, well maybe. Anyway, I will be even more grateful for the things at home.

Today was a good day with Kaylee. She got so dirty today. I wouldn't care, but I'm afraid I will get in trouble, so instead of telling them, I am just going to take her clothes home to wash them and then sneak them back. She had a ton of fun though. She even took two steps on her own today, though I'm not sure yet if it was just a fluke or for real.

Yucky meat

2011-04-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

We are all sick. It isn't anything major, I only hope we don't get any worse. I was in the bathroom much of the night. No more little un-refrigerated pizzas, at least that is what I think caused my sickness. They do not refrigerate their meat here. In the grocery store there are whole chickens just sitting on the counter. They even sell meat out of the back of cars, and it is not in coolers, and people just walk up and touch it. It may be harmless, but goes against everything I have been taught, so it scares me. When we first got here, we bought chicken, but it was bad, so we pretty much stay away from the meat. Except for those little pizzas. I usually take the meat off mine ( I have no idea how long it has been sitting out). The one I ate yesterday didn't taste right. The one the kids ate tasted fine though. So that is my theory as to why I am sick. The kids just have runny noses and coughs.

Last week at the orphanage, all the little girls were dressed up and they were headed somewhere, I'm guessing it had to do with Easter. I also saw someone carrying this tall little bread like thing with white frosting and sprinkles, the way they were carrying it, I knew it was something special. Then, the other day when we went to the store we saw those little bread things too, hundreds of them. So we bought one. It was like a raisin bread with a frosting on top. I figured out it was an Eastern European Easter bread called Paska. Ours was just white, but can be made with swirled white and yellow, the yellow represents the resurrected life of Jesus and the white represents the Holy Spirit. I think that I would like to start making them for Easter to continue on some of the Ukrainian heritage for Kaylee. They weren't bad tasting, but would definitely be better homemade. (the paska bread is in the picture)

Only a few more days until Josh comes back. We made a calendar so Malika can count down the days, but I kind of think it is more for me than her. The kids don't understand so much, it is hard. We talked to Josh on the phone last night and afterward Justus put his head on my shoulder and cried "daddy". Then when I was putting The kids to bed, Malika cried and said "I just want daddy". I'm so glad the separation will end soon, I don't know how families in the military do it.

Last week, I took just Malika to the orphanage with me one time to spend time with her. I was curious as to what she thought about being here. I asked her if she liked it here, she said yes. Then I asked if she wants to stay here, she said yes, but she really wants to go home too because Grammy and Poppy and Liberty (our cat) love her. She said this in kind of a frantic voice, maybe wondering if we were going to have to stay here.

Kaylee learned how to slide down a slide all by herself today.

Another picture from today

2011-04-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

I realized I post mostly pictures of Justus and Kaylee, so I took this picture to share. Malika absolutely loves Kaylee.

Today while kids were playing outside, she looked at them and said "I just want to take the kids home, I want to take them all home". I love her heart, I hope she always has a that heart.

Not depressed

2011-04-22T03:20:00.001-07:00

I realize by some of your comments, that you think I am depressed. I am not. Yes, this is very hard, yes, I want to go home, but the Lord has been good and I am very grateful for what we do have. I am glad that I have been able to keep the kids with me, I am glad we are able to stay near the orphanage and the cost is reasonable, I am glad that we are all still healthy, and so many more things. On my way to and from the orphanage, I remind myself of these things. If I did not, then I probably would be depressed. Because at times, since it is the same thing over and over, day after day, it does sound depressing when I write about it, but we are good. :)

Why do we have to stay 3 more weeks?

As far as I know, this is the process. After court we have to wait 10 days, To allow family members to come forward and take her home if they choose to. During this time we cannot do anything. After the 10 days, we have to apply for a passport and visa, which could take up to 7 days, then we have to get a medical done for her to make sure she is healthy before traveling. Anyway, it all becomes clearer as we go through the process. I don't understand it all, so I am grateful Marina (our facilitator) handles most of it. After the 10 days, we will stay here about a week longer, then we are in Kiev for 2 days. Then we will make that wonderful trek by plane with 3 wonderfully behaved children :)

This morning was great, they allowed us to take Kaylee outside, and it was beautiful out.

I tried to take a picture of Justus and Kaylee on the swing, but they both looked silly in all of them.

Kaylee is sick

2011-04-21T03:18:00.000-07:00

Kaylee has been sick for the last few days. Today she seems a lot better to me, but the nannies make it seem like she is worse today. I was so worried about her a few days ago because she had a fever and was having trouble breathing. I haven't been able to take her outside, I think they think the cold air is what makes you sick, not germs. Then today, I was told to keep her away from the window. I just follow the rules, but I think they are strange. The strangest thing they told me was that all children with down syndrome are not allowed to eat red foods. I wonder where they get their information from.

I haven't taken Malika and Justus to the orphanage in a few days because of Kaylee being sick. And since we can't be outside, I don't want them to be around her and get sick also.

It is very difficult being there by myself, it makes the time drag by. I have a ball, a bag of wipes, a paci, a teether, and a baby for 2 hours, 2 times a day. She is pretty content with the wipes. It is funny that that is her favorite thing to play with. It is becoming more difficult to entertain her, especially since she is sick. She just wants to sleep, but I am not allowed to let her, so she cries. I feel so bad for her.

This morning when I got her she had a bite mark on her arm. I pointed to it and they said this little boy did it. It seems hard to believe, because he just seems so sweet. I wonder why he bit her, especially since they aren't even in the same crib. I wish I knew what happened when I wasn't there.

Things are so difficult here, I am trying to stay positive, but it is much easier said than done. The hardest part is the language barrier.

Josh will be here in 7 days and we have court in 8 days. I asked about waiving the 10 days, but was told by Marina that they won't do it in this region, so it looks like it will be another 3 weeks after court.

I wish I could post pictures from my camera, they are so much cuter.

Overcoming trials

2011-04-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

Today was a really good day. This morning started out a little hard, because Justus woke up at 5:30, and Malika was having a hard morning. I prayed and asked God for something to help me get through the day. I was lead to read Ephesians 6 again. For some reason I have been stuck there, so when I heard Ephesians again, my first thought was that I must not have learned what I needed to learn from it. It talks about putting on the full armor of God and that we fight not with flesh and blood, but powers and authorities of darkness. It really did help me to read over it again, because yesterday was a really hard day and I wasn't sure how I was going to get through today.

Yesterday, I went to the orphanage on my own in the morning. After about an hour, Kaylee fell asleep, one of the nannies (she is the only one who has never smiled at me and she always glares at me in the hall. I think she either hates me or Kaylee), anyway, she saw Kaylee asleep and stared at me for a bit, then talked to two other nannies. Then she came over and started yelling at me, for about 5 minutes. And she was so rough with Kaylee. I didn't understand the words she was saying, but I got the message. After she yelled about letting her sleep, she got angry and said something about not taking her outside (I was standing next to the door, just looking out), I had no intention of taking her out. Anyway, when I managed to wake Kaylee up, she just cried. I took her back to her class and one of the other nannies yelled at me again. Seriously, I think they think that since I don't understand them that I am stupid. When I left, I cried. I really tried not to, but it was just so hard. I called and talked to Marina about skipping the evening time, she said that was fine, so we took the kids to the park and to get ice cream instead. It was nice to just spend the evening with Malika and Justus, but I felt bad about leaving Kaylee with the mean nanny.

So that scripture really helped me this morning. I didn't want to go to the orphanage again, but I know that I am fighting something bigger than mean people, I am fighting the powers of darkness and there is nothing to fear in people, afterall, if God is for me who can be against me.

Today was sunny and warm (for Ukraine), we played outside all morning and most of the afternoon time. Kaylee did so well outside and all the kids had so much fun.

I can tell Kaylee knows who we are now and likes us, in the beginning she did not like going outside and she screamed often. Now she is so happy to be anywhere with us, and rarely screams anymore. The screaming was unnerving because I didn't understand it and I wasn't sure if it was a DS thing or an orphanage thing. She would do it at the same time as throwing herself backwards. She still does that some, but less. I kind of think she just likes the way it feels.

I have completely fallen in love with this little girl, I just think she is so beautiful, I love her almond eyes and the way they close when she smiles and laughs. I love her little chubby cheeks and her short and stubby fingers.

In all honesty, the love was not immediate and it worried me. I thought I would love her the moment I saw her, but she was nothing like I imagined, that little girl never existed. I had stared at her picture for so long that I fabricated a little girl in my mind, but that was the only place she existed. The real little girl didn't love me, she smelled bad, and had strange behaviors. I really had a hard time with whether we were doing the right thing, because it didn't feel right. I didn't think I would ever love her. I wanted to write the truth about it on my blog, because I thought others going into this needed to know the truth, but I was afraid to, thinking people would always wonder if I loved her or wonder if I thought of her as my own child. But now that I can say I truly love her, I can also say the truth. This is hard, it isn't sunshine and roses and it doesn't always look pretty, and definitely doesn't smell pretty, but that is ok. We may have hard times to come and hurdles to get over, but she is my child, just as if I gave birth to her, she will be no less in my eyes. And well worth it.

Answers

2011-04-16T06:28:00.001-07:00

To answer a few questions and clarify some things left in the comments.

Is our nanny still with us?

Yes, she is staying with us until we come home. I couldn't be here with the kids without her. I have taken pictures of her, but they are on the camera, so I am unable to post them.

About our Internet.

We have very limited access to the Internet, I am only able to check email and look briefly on my blog. I send the blog posts by email, that is why I can't put captions with the pictures or put them where I want. Our Internet is really slow and I never know when I will have it, it is really spotty. So, I am unable to look at anything else on the Internet. I am grateful for what we do have.

Can we buy toys for the orphanage or at least for the kids to play with while there?

The town we are in( if that is what you want to call it) is very small. We are actually about 30 minutes outside of the city. We do have a small grocery store and inside it does have a small toy store. We have bought a few things, but the toys here are expensive, so we haven't bought too much. As for buying toys for the orphanage, I would not, only because the children there would probably not get to play with them. It is sad, but we have seen two large rooms full of toys, none being played with. And in Kaylee's room, there is a large cabinet full of toys, but once again they remain in the cabinet. I do not understand it. Even when you see the children outside, they are not allowed to play on the swings, slides, teeter-totters, etc., instead they are put in big cages/crib like thing. They look more like something for animals, they do not have a door though, the kids just know to stay in it. I'm not sure how else to explain them. I am posting a picture of Justus standing in one

Thanks

2011-04-14T23:08:00.001-07:00

Thanks for all of the nice comments, it sure makes my day to know that y'all are reading what I write and praying for us.

Thank you so much Sarah for the game idea. We will definitely do it. We made a tent this morning and they had fun with it, but played more on top of it than under it. If anyone else has fun ideas for toddlers please pass them on.

Day 17

2011-04-14T10:02:00.001-07:00

I wasn't planning on writing anything else for a while just because I am sad and everything sounds so depressing, but I'm bored and have nothing else to do.

The Hagler's had court today and it went extremely well. They were only asked a few questions. They are now officially parents to Sasha and Ana. They left this afternoon to go home during their 10 day wait. I am so happy for them, but still a little sad, because we will still be here when they come back and we will still be here when they leave for home for good. Everyone who had their SDA appt the same week as us has either already had court or will tomorrow.

I should be happy that court went good for the Hagler's, because that means it should go good for us, since we have the same judge. But I'm not even going to just expect that, nothing else has gone as I had expected. So, please keep praying.

Kaylee is doing good, and I AM glad for the time to spend with her. Yesterday wasn't a very good day with her. I'm not sure what was wrong, she cried a lot and just wasn't herself, I thought maybe she was getting sick. Yesterday was the first sunny day in a week and a half, it has rained everyday since we got here, except the first day. It is back to rainy today. Anyway, since it was nice we took advantage of it and played outside yesterday. The kids played in the sand box, Kaylee absolutely loved it for about 5 minutes, then she cried the rest of our visit, unless I was holding her.

This morning I went to the orphanage by myself, hoping some time alone with her would help. She was back to normal again. This afternoon the kids came and they played with Kaylee. It was really cute, I took pictures, but I can't post them, only pictures I take with the iPhone can be posted and even then I can't decide where to put them or put captions.

Anyway today was a good day. It was so cute, Kaylee was walking around holding my fingers and following Justus everywhere. And then when I took her back to her class she wanted to stay with me. This is the first time this has happened, usually she is so happy to go back. Please pray that this is a start to her bonding with me.

Malika and Justus are doing ok. I think they are starting to get bored, because there isn't much for them to do. We don't have many toys, and even at the orphanage there isn't anything to play with, unless we go outside, but that has been hit and miss since it has been so rainy. I'm still glad they are here, I just hope they will be able to make it another 5 weeks or so. They watched the few movies we have on the iPad over and over, they can now repeat most of them. It is sad they are so addicted to tv now, but I just feel so bad I let them. We will have a no tv rule for like month when we get home :).

Rules

2011-04-12T03:55:00.000-07:00

Josh left yesterday to go back home for two weeks. Saying goodbye to him was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. It is already had being here, but now having to do this on my own, without Josh will be harder. I am praying for the time to go quickly.

It is very difficult going to the orphanage for 4 hours a day with not much to entertain your child. Some people have these amazing pictures on their blog of play rooms with toys. Can you believe it! They a actually have toys or even a room to play with their child in, but not here. We have the main hallway to play in. And they have so many rules here. The most ridiculous rule, is not being able to sit on the floor. It makes it really hard to bond with your child when you can't just sit down and play with them. Then, yesterday, one of the nannies tried to get us to take some shoes for Kaylee, we had already tried on the 2 pair they gave us for her, one was too big and the other too small, so then they told us we can't let her feet touch the ground with just slippers on. Luckily, I remembered the shoes I brought for her. So, then today, I got in trouble twice for letting the kids do things they shouldn't. The first was letting Kaylee touch the curtains, I thought it would be good for her to experience different textures, but some lady yelled at me for it. Then a few minutes later another lady yelled at Justus for standing on the couch. I already felt on guard with being watched, now I will have to be extra careful. I look forward to going home and just sitting on the floor. I still don't even know if Kaylee can crawl.

When we first got here, there was this little kid in Kaylee's class that I was sure was Quinton, it turns out, she is a girl ( sorry Carol, still haven't seen him, he must be in a different group). Anyway, she is so adorable. I think she must be older than Kaylee, but even more delayed, because as far as I can tell, she can't even sit up. She and Kaylee share the same play crib. I asked her name, they said Sonya. I was planning on asking Marina more about her and why she is not listed on Reece's Rainbow. I have been thinking the last few days, that if I can convince Josh :), I want to come back for her ( as much as I never want to come back, I will). Anyway, today when we took Kaylee back to her class, this lady came in, the nannies gave Sonya to her. She was crying so hard, I couldn't help but cry as well. I asked if she was the mom, they said yes. This just breaks my heart, because you can clearly tell she loves her child, greatly. But, it is just not accepted here to raise a child with DS. The saddest thing, no matter how much she loves her child, or how much she visits her, she will still have to live her life in an institution. I am still going to ask about her.

Justus giving Kaylee a hug.

News from today

2011-04-10T08:20:00.001-07:00

Josh has decided to go back home so he can work for a couple weeks, while we wait for our court date. He will be leaving tomorrow. I'm very sad to be left here without him. It will be hard to be so far away. I tried to explain it to Malika this morning, but she didn't understand, both the kids will be so sad when they realize he won't be coming back right away.

The kids are doing better. Malika is starting to talk to Kaylee and play with her a little bit. She still asks everyday if we are bringing her home, I try to explain, but she doesn't understand time. Justus cam say Kaylee now, and yesterday he gave her a hug before we left the orphanage.

I'm having a really hard time with being here so long. I'm very ready to come back home and live life normally again.

Prayer Requests

2011-04-08T13:17:00.000-07:00

I have been struggling with what to write, the words just aren't coming very easy. I want to write positive things, so we don't discourage others from adopting, but the truth is that this is really hard.

We really need prayer right now. This is one of the most difficult regions to adopt from, I don't think I knew just how difficult until now. It is all very confusing to us.

Yesterday, our friends the Haglers told us they were given their court date, it is next Thursday. At first, the judge they were assigned to would not hear their case until July! But Marina (our facilitator) begged for a new judge, it was granted and court was rescheduled for next week. Sounds great, except this judge has only heard one other adoption case and it was not for a child with special needs. This judge thinks that people only adopt children with special needs to harvest their organs. I have heard of this and it sounds like a joke, but it is not. They have to have proof that they are a good family and really will take care of the children and that that will be good in their family. this is all too much to do without the Lord and without your prayers. Please pray for them and their children that are at home.

We need your prayers too. Soon after the Haglers told us their court date was assigned, Marina called us as well and said we were given the same judge they were originally given and that our case wouldn't be heard until July as well, but once again she begged for a new judge. We were assigned the same judge they will have, but our court date is not until April 29th. This is 3 weeks away and a lot longer than we had anticipated. Marina is doing all she can do to get it sooner, but if it doesn't happen, Josh will have to go home until court because he can't take that much time off from work. This really scares me, it is already difficult here, it will be even harder to be here without him and to be here for this long.

I am trying to be positive, but it is hard to think that we will get to the end of this and still not be able to bring Kaylee home. I do see God's hand in some of this, like the fact that we brought our children with us.

So please be praying, tell everyone you know to be praying, we need all we can get. Pray for the judge and pray that he will act in our favor. Pray for an earlier court date, but also pray that we will be able to endure if that isn't what happens.

We did have a good visit with Kaylee today, though she fell asleep for a little bit.

Family Photos

2011-04-06T03:34:00.001-07:00

More meetings

2011-04-05T21:37:00.001-07:00

We have Internet on Josh's phone. It isn't the greatest, but I am so happy to have access to the outside world. The picture I sent the other day was from Gary Hagler's phone, so it wasn't the greatest picture and I wasn't able to write anything with it.

We met our sweet little girl yesterday, she is so perfect. We first met with the social worker, I was so nervous, I had to pee like 5 times :), it wasn't as bad as I expected though, she asked us several questions, like why we decided to adopt a child with special needs and how will I be able to take care of a child with so many needs when I have two little ones. It was hard to answer them, just cause I didn't have time to think about them. After, we went to the orphanage and met with the director, the social worker also came to observe. The director asked us the same questions plus a few extra. One that took me by surprise was "Don't you think this will be a bad influence to your children", I said "no, exactly the opposite, they will learn to love people of all kinds for who they are and what they are." Then she told me not to be offended by her question, but she has to ask it, because others will ask her. People are very different here in what they think of children with special needs, they don't understand why we even bother. The director was very nice and seems to understand.

After this they bring Irina in. I jumped up to go get her, but they told me to sit for a while. So she was sitting on a nanny's lap for about 5 minutes while we had to sit across the room. I was very emotional and cried several times, I just couldn't believe we were finally here and this is really happening. She was so beautiful and so happy.

Finally she let us get her, it was one of the happiest moments of my life. she was so happy and smiled and laughed the whole time. We only got to see her for about 15 minutes or so, then they asked us if we wanted to move forward with the adoption. Of course we did. Then we took her back to her class and had to go to the notary's office to make the documents to go forward with our adoption. We were there FOREVER. The notary is more like a lawyer here. They had to create the documents and they don't use computers because they are afraid they will lose everything.

We get to visit Irina 2 times a day for two hours each time. This morning we didn't have long to visit, because we had to go back to the notary. So we stayed inside about 15 minutes with her then had to leave. After the notary we still had about an hour left of visiting time, so we went back. But they wouldn't let us see her, we were sad, but we were able to play with some other children outside. They called us mama and dada, they were so cute.

This afternoon we took the kids with us for the first time. Malika couldn't stop smiling, she was in love. She wanted to hold her, but they stuffed her in a snowsuit, it was hard to hold her or interact with her when she can't move. It's not even that cold here, it is cold but not cold enough for that many heavy layers. Justus had a really hard time, I really didn't expect it. Please pray for him, I'm hoping he will adjust soon.

We hope we don't confuse all of you, but we have decided to change Irina's name to Kaylee Irina. We will call her both names for a while until Malika is used to it, then we will drop Irina. I will explain later why we chose that name.

Kaylee is so tiny, but yet a little chubby. She weighs about 17 lbs, but is about 6 inches shorter than Justus. She can sit up really well, and can pull up to standing. She tries to walk a little bit, if I hold her up, but tires very easily.

I will try to write more later and post some pictures. Sorry for the book, again :), it is so hard to write everything, there is so much I left out.

We met her!!!

2011-04-04T08:02:00.001-07:00

We are off today

2011-04-02T18:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I just looked at the time and I'm surprised to see that it is only 4:15 am, and I just took a shower. I got up when josh's alrm went off, he said he was going to get up at 5, so that is what time I thought it was. It must have been only 3 something. I am going to be so tired today, especially since I couldn't sleep last night.

We will be leaving here in about two hours to get on a train to dnepropetrovsk. I'm very ready to meet our little girl, but still so nervous about it. I hope she likes us and that we bond easily. I am really hoping she gets along well and loves the kids, Malika would be heart broken if that weren't the case, like us, she already loves her. She has been a daily part of her conversation for so long.

The kids are doing so well. They have adjusted to the time difference. The last three nights they have slept all night long. Justus has stopped his screaming fits, not sure if is because he learned that he would get spanked when he did that or if he just did it because he was so tired, and now he is not. I know he was doing it because he was tired, but he was so mad and would scream this really shrill scream, it was awful. I am amazed at how well children adapt to wherever they are, way better than us adults.I am really glad the kids are with us, I couldn't do it without them. Yesterday I was in such a bad mood, I had to pray all day that God would change my attitude, I am really starting to miss home and realize we have a long ways to go.

We will be staying with our friends, the Haglers. Instead of it being $30 a night, it will be $50, which is still doable. It will be nice to have other Americans here going through the same thing. The language barrier is the hardest thing to deal with. We really do like it here so far, but it would be so much easier if we could communicate easier.

The culture is so different here, it would be nice if we knew all their rules. When we first got here when I was talking to Serge on the phone, he made it sound like it was unacceptable for our kids to sleep on the floor, it didn't make sense. Then, yesterday we were out walking and got some ice cream, we sat on the ground to eat it, so many people were staring at us, then I looked around and saw that amidst the hundreds of people, no one else was sitting on the ground. Lindsay Hagler said the kids are absolutely not supposed to sit on the ground. It must be some sort of taboo here.

Things to pray for:

That we would get along very well with the Haglers
That Irina would love us and bond with us easily
That the kids would not become bored but enjoy it
That our court date would come quickly
That I will have some sort of Internet connection, so if Josh has to go home it will be easier
That everything from here on out will be smooth

Oh, and for those of you wondering, our friend Justine has been great to have along. I am so so glad she came with us, she is perfect. The kids love her, and she is so much fun, plus it's nice to just have her to talk to.

We got our train tickets

2011-04-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

Today we got our official referral for our little Irina. We will be leaving on Sunday morning to go to the town her orphanage is in. I am so excited to finally be able to meet her.

Sorry to have sad news for all of you, but I don't think we will have Internet access :(. The Haglers, who are also at the same orphanage spent a long time at the Internet store today trying to get Internet, but are unable to. So, I can't promise anything. I'm very sad about this, because I love to blog, and I think all of you are just as eager to see pictures and would want to know how we are and what she is like. it will be difficult to not have outside contact, especially since we will be here for like 8 years :), just kidding.

So, please keep us in your prayers the whole time, especially for court, that everything will go smoothly with that. And that our time will go quickly, so that we can all stay together the whole time. Also, please be praying for our safety and health.

I am still planning on journaling all of this and may put it on a separate page on my blog for when we get back.

Maybe we will have access though, so please pray we will.

We still don't know where we are staying, but I'm just not really worried anymore. It will be a fun surprise :)

We had a great day today, we did a ton of walking. We were trying to save money, so walked instead of getting a driver. There aren't any overweight people here, part of the reason is that everyone walks and the other is probably because their food portions are about half the size. Today we stopped at a tiny sandwich/wrap shop. We ordered chicken wraps, because that is what we could order. They were, oh so good! It was a wrap filled with chicken, potato, cabbage, a pickle spear, and who knows what else. On the top was mayo, we were skeptical at first, but tried it, it was garlic mayo. I think we all agreed it was the best part of the wrap. And it all costs about $10 to feed 5 people.

Later we went to exchange money and I went to talk to someone. Now, I try to speak in Russian, but I'm not that good. Instead of saying hello, I said thank you. They both start with s. I immediately knew I made a mistake and was so embarrassed. They probably laughed at us when we left. Oh well, at least I tried.

SDA appointment

2011-03-31T13:58:00.000-07:00

Today we had our SDA appointment, that is when we get our official referral for our child. Our appointment was scheduled for 10:00. We were told somebody would come pick us up at 8:30, at 9:20 he still wasn't there, I started to get worried, so we called Nico to see when he was coming. He said he would call him, About 5 minutes later our doorbell rings, and Eugene is here, he is our driver today.

We were running late, so Eugene is walking as fast as he can and his legs are long, so we had to run to keep up with him. We get to the SDA building and were told to come right in. Usually Serge is there and maybe Yulia, but today it was just Eugene, he said Serge didn't come because he was nervous. Strange! Anyway, they got out our little girl's file and then asked us a few questions like what our family was like and why we wanted to adopt a child with special needs, then they told us her name and that she has down syndrome and that she has heart problems, all of which we knew. We were shown two baby pictures, one was more recent, she was so beautiful and happy in the picture. The other one was a newborn picture, but she wouldn't let us see it up close. After, I asked if we could trade pictures, because I brought the one I have. She almost gave it to me, but then changed her mind, so I asked if I could take pictures of them and she said no. I was surprised because most other families are allowed to do this. She said we can't have them until we proceed with the adoption, then we could get them. Knowing we wouldn't be coming back to the SDA, I was confused, so asked if we would be coming back, she laughed and said no, so I asked how we could get them. Eugene says he will get them for me, maybe he will, but I think I will never see them again. I was really upset about this, because we are going to be her parents and they belong to her, they will probably just go into some file and get forgotten about. Oh well, what can I do, at least we will have her.

I am learning that I cannot expect anything, or compare to other people's stories and that we should just go with the flow. It is very difficult to actually live that way.

Anyway, our appointment went great other than that part, and we will be picking up our referral tomorrow, but because it is the weekend we won't be able to go to dnepropetrovsk until Sunday. :( but, that is only4 days until we can meet her.

I am feeling very taken advantage of here, like people think we have all kinds of money to spend. Yulia called us this afternoon and said she found an apartment for us that is 10 minutes walking distance from the orphanage and only $30 a night. We were so happy and praising God, then a few minutes later she calls back and says the person who agreed to $30 was talking to other people and changed her mind to $80 a night. That is such a huge difference and way over our budget. Plus from what we were told the amount that would be in a month is more than 4 times what middle class people get paid. Yulia said it is too much. We are still working on it, so please keep praying that wherever we end up is exactly where God wants us and is reasonable.

We did have a great day, despite those things. It really is ver nice here. I love the language and we can tell they truly love their children. It is just very different than our culture, but still fun. We found a park to take the kids, it was the coolest park I have ever been to, very old and kind of dangerous :),but very fun. We had to walk uphill, about 20 minutes with many stairs to get there. I realized when I got to the top that I had to go to the bathroom, but there was no going back. I did make it though :). The kids had a blast, laughing and having more fun than ever before at a park, until Malika got hurt. Poor thing, she scraped up the entire left side of her face and her nose was bleeding. It will look so pretty tomorrow :). I took lots of pictures, too bad you can't see them. I can't figure out how to upload pictures from our iPad yet (note to all other adoptive families: bring a laptop, not an iPad). I think I can upload one at a time, so if I can I will put the important ones on here.

I know this is getting so long, but this is kind of a journal for me too.

I just wanted to share with all of those who don't know already, Priscilla is not her real name, it is Irina (ear-ree-na). Priscilla was the name Reece's Rainbow gave her and we didn't know in the beginning, so that is what we put on our blog. We were told not to write it on public things, but now that it is private, I think it is ok. We will keep it Irina. We have to come up with a middle name by Monday. So fun!

Oh, and thank you to all of you that left kind words and are praying for us, it really means a lot.

We are here

2011-03-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

Yay! We finally have Internet. I was worried we wouldn't have access to it, but praise Jesus, it worked out.

We arrived yesterday afternoon. The kids did pretty well, not great, but good, considering how tired they were. They did wonderful until we got on the plane from D.C. To Munich. That flight was about 8 hours. We left about 5 pm and arrived at about 12:30 our time. Malika did really well, she slept about 4 hours. Justus didn't do so great. He tried to sleep, but was so uncomfortable and tired. He woke about 3 times and screamed, and it wasn't just a little scream, it was very embarrassing, but there wasn't anything I could do. He slept only about 2 hours. When he was awake he was great though, so it wasn't too bad. When we arrived in Munich, it was morning their time, so that threw all of us off. The kids did good and played. Our layover was about 6 hours there. I think they did better than us adults :). The last flight was to Kyiv, it was about 2hours, so not so bad, but none of us did good, we were all crying by the end.

So, after we get here, we were on our way to our apartment and Serge, one of the facilitators calls and says he has bad news, we can't stay in the house we were planning on staying in where the orphanage is. He says we have too many people and we should have told them we were bringing so many people. It must have been mis-communication, because the lady who emailed about the house said it was fine. Anyway, he wasn't very nice on the phone and made it seem all my fault and that he couldn't find anything. I was pretty upset, but was trying really hard to trust in the Lord, because He did after all bring us this far.

So, later he calls back and says there isn't much they could find, and how much were we expecting to pay, I said since I thought we were getting the house, we brought enough to pay about$30 to $40 a night. He said he couldn't do that and found something for $80 a night and it is a drive to the orphanage and would cost us $37 one way for a taxi. We would have to do that 4 times a day, so that would be around $260 a day in just rent and transportation. He said they would keep looking but he doesn't expect to find anything else. He said I could look myself. I have no idea how to look or where to look. Anyway, I was so upset and just cried. We can't afford that, plus that would make a very long day everyday and really hard on the kids.

Gary and Lindsay Hagler came over right when I was crying so hard. They are adopting also. We were planning on sharing the house with them. Anyway, I'm So glad they came, they were very encouraging. Lindsay gave me a hug that was very much needed, and Gary encouraged me not to give up (at this point I seriously thought we made a mistake and was really thinking of going home). He said for them if they left they wouldn't be obeying God. I realized it would be the same for us. They got to Dnepropetrovsk today and said they would talk to Marina (our facilitator in region) and see what they could do for us.

Anyway, long story short, I cried most of the night, but morning did come :). When I got up, I prayed and read my bible and the Lord really encouraged me. I know God will provide, it may not look like what I think it will, it may be better! And whatever situation we are in, we trust in the Lord. He has gotten us this far through un-imaginable difficulties, He won't leave us stranded, and my hope is in that.

Ok, this was way too long, I probably lost half of you:)

I will post pictures of our adventures so far in another post.

So excited!!!

2011-03-27T13:05:00.000-07:00

I can't believe we will be meeting our little girl soon.

2 days

2011-03-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

We are leaving in 2 days. I have mixed feelings about all of this. One moment, I am extremely excited and can't wait, and then the next moment is a very overwhelmed feeling. I would say a feeling of dread, but it is not quite that. I can't explain it. I am so so happy to be finally meeting our little girl, and I absolutely cannot wait to see her, hug her, kiss her and just let her know how much I love her, so it isn't that.

We are taking our kids with us, so part of the reason that I think I have mixed feelings about all of this, is that part. Maybe it is the unknown. Not knowing how they will handle any of it. Not knowing if they will be allowed to go to the orphanage, or if they will just be bored while we are there.

My plan is to just stay the whole time, until we can bring our little girl home, but Josh won't be able to stay the whole time. So, I'm not looking forward to being there without him. We are taking a friend with us to help with the kids, so I won't be totally alone.

And then there are all the negative comments, or people "warning" me about taking the children. I know most are in good heart. But, it still makes me re-think our decision. In the beginning of our adoption process, we prayed about taking them, and decided that for our family, this was best. I would rather take the children and it be hard and make the best of it, than to leave them and it be emotionally hard. Besides, children are so adaptable, I don't think this will even phase them much, as long as they are with us. And I have been talking to other families who have taken their young children and they were grateful they took them.

Anyway, I'm not complaining about it, I'm just pouring out my heart. So, please be praying for us. Pray for safety on all of us and that the children will be happy and adapt well to all the differences and the time change.

And please, please, only leave positive comments. We have the plane tickets bought, our minds are made up and our bags our packed, we won't be changing our minds, we are ALL definitely leaving in 2 days. :)

Thank you

2011-03-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

I just want to say thank you to all of our wonderful family and friends who have donated their time or money to help us. We are completely blessed by everyone's generosity. It has been amazing to see how God has provided for us since we began this journey. When God said $25,000 is like 25 cents to Him, I really did believe and have faith, but I still laid awake at night thinking of all kinds of fundraisers. I learned very quickly that when God says He will provide, He means it. The wonderful thing is, we didn't have to do all kinds of crazy things for the money, though I would have stood on the street corner and begged if it were the only way to bring our little girl home. But, I didn't have to. I am completely humbled by this too, because I know that many families are struggling to raise the money they need.

Once again, thank you. I have seen so many of our friends seflessly give, when I know they could use the money themselves. We are honored to have so many friends who stand behind us. you are just as much apart of this mission to save an orphan as we are.

If you wonder how much we have saved, it is a little over $30,000. This is combined what was given to us plus what we saved. I think it is a little more than what we need, but that is great, I would really like to get some things for the orphanage, and we would also like to bless another family, as we have been so greatly blessed.

My heart is broken...

2011-03-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

for this poor sweet little girl. Her name is Carrington, she was recently adopted and brought home.

She is the same age as Malika, but she only weighs 11 pounds! I sit here with tears running down my face thinking of this sweet little angel. She is in the hospital right now, because of malnutrition. This poor little girl has suffered so much, because she was thought of as worthless. How in the world can somebody look at a little child as worthless? It is so beyond me. Animals are treated better than this.

Here are some posts about her if you would like to read more about her story and see pictures of this little baby.
http://psalmsixtyeight.blogspot.com/2011/03/under-fluffy-pajamas.html
http://angeleyesadoption.blogspot.com/2011/03/urgent-please-pray-for-carrington.html
http://angeleyesadoption.blogspot.com/2011/03/carrington-update.html

Please, please pray for sweet little Carrington. Pray that she will hold on longer and that she will start to gain strength. Pray that she will know what it is to be in a family that truly cares for her. Pray that her memories will be of kisses and laughter, not of hate and loneliness.

Our waiting for you book

2011-03-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

This is the photo book that I made to take with us.

If you are adopting and unsure what kind of photo album to take, maybe this will give you an idea. I don't know what others have done, but I think ours is pretty nice. It only costs $13 too, so it was pretty cheap.

Click here to view this photo book larger

I love Malika

2011-03-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

This morning Malika was looking at my blog and saw two pictures of our little girl. She said "Look there are two "Priscillas", I'm going to have two "Priscillas", and Justus is going to have two "priscillas", and mommy is going to have two "priscillas" and Lilly(this is her baby doll) is going to have two "priscillas"

I love it, she is so sweet. She talks about her all the time. I think they really will be the best of friends. I can't wait for them to meet.

Going private

2011-03-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

Since we will be traveling soon, I will be making my blog private while we are gone. If you want an invite to our blog, please send me an email or put your email address in the comments section. I will probably make it private in about a week or so.

I am going to delete the replies after I get your email address, just to prevent you from being spammed. :)

Received our SDA appt!!!

2011-03-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

We received our SDA appt for later in the month. We will be leaving in a couple weeks. I still have to book our plane tickets and so much more to do before we leave.

I am so very excited, we will be meeting our little girl soon.

sigh!

2011-03-10T14:06:00.000-08:00

I was trying to think of a title, and that is how I feel right now.

We are waiting to receive our travel dates and they still haven't come. I was expecting them sometime this week, like by yesterday, just going by other adoptive family's timelines. Well, I guess I should not have been doing all that expecting, because it is just a huge let down.

Please pray they will come soon. We are so ready to go and meet our baby girl.

Dreams

2011-03-04T07:00:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking of nothing but our little girl. All day, all night. When I am awake at night, I think and pray for her. I have even been dreaming about her.

I had the strangest dream the other night. I went to pick her up at the orphanage, but since they weren't supposed to know that I know about her, it was all hush hush. I wasn't even supposed to be there. They wouldn't tell me which room she was in. And they asked me all kinds of questions about her, like her hair color, name, eye color. After that, I had to go search for her. I was afraid I wouldn't know which child she was, since the picture I have is old.

As I was walking down the hall trying to find her, they turned out all the lights. It was so dark, and I couldn't see where I was going. They were telling me they were going to call the police, so I knew I had to find her fast.

I went into this room. It was so bright in there. And there were two children in cribs. The first child looked more like her, with blond hair, but I knew it wasn't her. It was the other child. She looked so different though. She had very dark hair. And the funny thing was, she had hair all over her face. But, I still wanted her. I picked her up and fell instantly in love with her.

Then I woke up. Very strange. Not sure why I had that dream, probably what I ate the night before. :)

I just can not wait to go meet her. I think we will be leaving in about 3 weeks! I cannot believe it. I hope we are ready. But, of course, if we aren't, it won't matter. We are still going.

Still here

2011-03-02T14:30:00.000-08:00

We are still here. We have all been sick for the last 2 weeks, so I haven't been on here much. We are still waiting on our travel dates. I am expecting them to come sometime next week. It won't be long and we will be going to get our little girl. I am both excited and nervous about it. Mostly excited, but just a little nervous because we are taking our children with us and I don't know how they will do on the flight. And I just learned that the town we are going to only has a grocery store, nothing else. Hmmm, it may be a very long trip, but we will make the best of it and enjoy it.

This week I have been working on going through all of Malika's old clothes to see what I have for Priscilla and what I need. I am very surprised at how many clothes have stains on it. Now, why in the world would I have saved all those stained clothes?

I wrote that yesterday, if it takes me this long to write one post, I wonder how long it will take me when I have more children. :)

Yesterday, I was reading a blog about an 11 year old little girl who raised $30,000 in ONE WEEK! to bring home an orphan. Can you believe it? Just one week! And she was only 11. Now she is raising money again for another child. I just think this is so amazing. She wrote a blog post about it on her mom's site and said she cries when she thinks of this little girl, who is 5 and will be sent to a mental institution. Her sister is 5 ( who was also adopted) and she can't imagine her being in a mental institution. I just can't believe all that she has done at only 11 years old. Most children I know at that age are more consumed with their own life than those around them. I'm not judging those kids, I was that way too. I just know that I want my children to be like this little girl. I want them to know there is a whole other world out there, and it isn't all about the here and the now.

I laid awake in bed last night just thinking about our little girl. I am just so excited we will be bringing her home soon. I also was thinking about the awfulness of a child going to a mental institution. I read this excerpt from another blog about what it is like when a child leaves their baby orphanage for the mental institution :

One morning a child wakes up in the only home they have ever known, a baby house, or orphanage for children from birth to age four or five. The child is dressed by their caregivers for the last time, put on a bus and driven out in the countryside to a hidden mental institution for children and adults. I have heard that sometimes they shave their heads when they arrive so that they do not have to deal with their hair. The child is placed in a room with lots of other kids all the way up to teenagers and even adults. There are no toys, no books, no baby dolls, no toy trucks or trains, no TV, NOTHING. There is probably one caregiver for every 20-30 children. Sometimes the children are tied to their beds so that no one has to supervise them. No one really talks to them and no one shows them any affection at all. Their only interaction is usually with the other special needs children who have varying degrees of needs from very mild CP to profound mental delays. Whatever they knew when they arrived at the institution they quickly lose. They begin to rock back and forth to give themselves some sort of stimulation. Some children claw at their own skin and eyes. Many will die from a lack of nutrition, medical care, neglect, human touch and love.

I have just been haunted with these images in my head. I imagined my children having to go. It would have been a very real thing for Priscilla in two years. I am so grateful that they won't have to go. I am so glad that we are able to rescue her before this would have become a reality. But, it is still a very real future and daily life for many other children. There are 163 million orphans in the world! 163 MILLION!! We are saving one, but what of the others.

What can you do? Don't just sit there and do nothing. There is so much to be done. Pray that God will show you.

We were submitted!!!

2011-02-24T10:42:00.001-08:00

Our dossier was submitted today!!!

Now we are waiting for our travel dates, we will probably receive them in about 2 weeks and be traveling to get our little one in about a month.

patiently waiting

2011-02-14T11:43:00.000-08:00

Our dossier arrived in country today!! Yay!! We are getting closer.

I have resigned myself to just be patient and wait. I can't really do much else anyway. I think I will go crazy if I try to count down the days anyway.

So, instead of checking my email, my blog and every other source of information 15 times a day, I will just enjoy my children. Soon, our life will be completely different and probably a whole lot busier, so I am going to try to just enjoy the season I am in.

Please keep praying though,

For Priscilla to be safe and healthy and well taken care of.
That she has a caretaker now that she has bonded with, someone who loves her and cares for her like their daughter (yes, this will be harder for her to leave, but easier for her to attach, since she will already know what love is)
For our dossier to be translated and submitted soon.
That everything will fall into place so we can go rescue our little beauty soon.

Dossier

2011-02-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

Well, our dossier was NOT delivered friday. The UPS tracking now says it will be delivered on monday. I'm thinking it is because of the weekend, and when they say monday, maybe they mean their time? I am hoping anyway.

The night after I mailed our dossier I was up all night, and every time I woke, I thought of "Castaway", you know the movie with Tom Hanks and he is on an island because his FedEx plane went down. Anyway, that is probably silly. But, I kept thinking about how there could have been a dossier on that plane. And what if the same thing happened to ours. :) Funny, I know. But, all I could think of was "how in the world am I going to do this again", somebody would seriously have to come take care of my kids, just so I don't go insane.

Since starting this journey, I have had so many times where the Lord has reminded me that He is in complete control, and that no matter how hard I try to make it happen in my own time, it just won't , because He already has the day and time mapped out. My heart keeps screaming, "but, Lord, can't you just give me an idea of the time. Maybe just the week?" Aghh, it is just so hard to wait. If I weren't waiting for a child, who is living and breathing and all by herself, it would be so much easier. All I can do, is pray.

Since our dossier won't make it there until monday, I don't think there will be enough time to translate and have it submitted this week. So, we are praying for the following week.

Dossier is in route!!!

2011-02-09T18:18:00.000-08:00

I am happy to say that the last 5 months of my life is sitting in an envelope on it's way to Priscilla's country. Woohoo!

Wow, it has been quite a journey getting here. Many, many tears and prayers have gone into this.

If you wonder what in the world we have been working on so hard for the last few months, maybe this will give you a glimpse.

I didn't count all of them, but I do know there is well over 100 pages and 33 documents. Some have been quite easy, and others have been extremely difficult. Many times (like last week) I wanted to give up so bad, because it is taking every ounce of patience and endurance I have had to get all of these papers together.

So, today I received my last apostilled papers for this dossier. You would think that the sending part would be the easy part, but it didn't go that way.

I took everything to FedEx. I had both kids with me, I put Justus in the stroller, so he wouldn't run off. I am trying to push the stroller with one hand, while holding onto my folder with our dossier in it and my planner that has the address in the other hand and trying to open the door with my third hand. :) Then I drop everything, and the folder falls on the ground and all of the papers fall out (now that I am thinking about it, I think it happened in slow motion). Luckily, it was still in an order that I could pull it together. Whew!

After, I finally manage to get the door open, I see 2 employees just watching me. Like they couldn't help.

Then, I went to mail them. First she said she doesn't know the city I am mailing to. I told her I mailed with them before to the same address. Then she says "I'm not sure where this will end up". Yeah, talk about being uneasy. Anyway, when she finally finds the city, she says it won't get there until the 15th. I said no that won't do. So, she laughs at me. Made me mad, so I took my papers and took them to UPS.

They were wonderful, so friendly. And they are going to be there on the 11th. Thank you Jesus!

This is the so, so helpful and wonderful lady at the UPS store. She didn't even think I was crazy when I wanted to take a picture. The picture is bad. Right before I took it, she was smiling. Oh well.

I didn't think I would cry, but I did. I guess it was just that I have put so much into this. After we mailed this, we went to Walmart to pick up Malika's new glasses. On the way, I was thinking about it, and the thought occurred to me, we are trading paper for a real live baby girl. Yes, in reality it is more than paper, but the truth is, it is just paper. Our dossier is paper, and money is paper.

I know we aren't done, but I would do it all over and over again just to give life to our sweet little girl.

Here is a picture of Malika with her new glasses. Isn't she beautiful.

Please continue to pray with us, our journey is only half over.

Pray that our dossier will be translated quickly and submitted next week.
Pray that they will send us our travel dates soon.
Pray that all will go smoothly.
Pray that Priscilla will stay healthy and bond easily and quickly.

Crazy week

2011-02-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

This has been one of the most stressful weeks. I don't really have the heart to go into detail on everything we have gone through this week, I'm just plain too tired to.

Our dossier did not make it into the mail this week, at least not headed for Eastern Europe. Maybe next week. Several of our documents, I was sure were good, were rejected by the team that checks all of our paperwork.

We had a water leak, actually it has been going on for quite some time. We paid someone to fix it in October, and found out this week that it is still leaking. And on top of that, the wall is rotten, moldy and ants have made it their home.

These are not the only stresses I have been dealing with this week, but they are the only ones I am at liberty to share on my blog.

Anyway, it has been a very trying week. But the Lord is good, because last night I had a beautiful dream of our sweet little girl. God knows, I really needed that. I had a much better day today, thinking of her sweet little face and smile.

I am confident we will bring her home, I'm just not sure when. Please be praying with us that all of our paperwork will come together so that we can for sure send it next week.

Our Day

2011-01-31T17:31:00.000-08:00

I took pictures today to kind of document our day. It was a bit of a whirlwind day, the pictures make it look a little dreamy, but it definitely wasn't (other than our wonderful approval from immigration, yay!) Anyway, first on the list of things to do today, clean the bathroom. Be thankful, I didn't take pictures of that. It was gross! No matter how hard I try, black mold keeps coming back in the toilet.

Anyway, the kids were at eachother all day, the pictures don't show that. One day, I will look at the pictures and only remember the good times. Then when my children have children and ask me if their children are like they were, I will say "no, you were perfect angels, just look at these pictures". Ok, it sounds funny in my head anyway, because my mom does that. :) ( of course, I think she thinks my kids are perfect angels too)

We made heart placemats for Valentines Day. The kids loved it, and were so proud when they could use them for snack and dinner.

Justus tried to eat his. I think he is doing some major teething lately, because he is chewing on everything.

This actually was a peaceful moment this morning. They were playing with babies together.

Until... Justus decided he needed to do something more "manly" like fix something.

After nap, we made strawberry banana mufiins.

Malika wanted to wear her apron and she insisted I wear mine too. We need matching girly frilly ones.

Justus, of course, had to unroll all of the paper towels.

Our strawberry banana muffins. Mmmm, with a glass of milk, these were heavenly. I could have eaten all of them. (Josh just had one and said they were good, but he expected sweeter, well, they are healthy muffins and I haven't had sweets in a while, so I thought they were wonderful)

Strawberry Banana Muffins

1 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 c. white flour

1 t baking soda

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t salt

3 ripe bananas, mashed

3/4 c sucanat (natural sweetener, but you could probably use regular white)

1 egg

1/3 c. butter, melted

1 cup chopped strawberries (I used frozen)

Prehat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, set aside. In another bowl, beat bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Add strawberries. Pour into lined or greased muffin cups.

Optional crumb topping (this would probably make it sweeter, I forgot to do this, but thought they were great without it).

Mix together 1/4 c. sucanat or sugar, 2 T flour, 1/8 t cinnamon, 1 T cold butter, until it resembles course cornmeal. Sprinkle over muffins.

Bake for 18-20 minutes or until center comes out clean.

Our Golden ticket!!!!

2011-01-31T11:54:00.001-08:00

Oh my gosh, we just received our I-171H in the mail. I am so excited, I can't even think straight. I'm trying to figure out how to get everything finished to mail our dossier by this weekend.

Thank you Jesus.

Just an update

2011-01-30T13:59:00.000-08:00

I haven't written on here in so long, because there isn't much to say. We are still waiting for our approval from immigration. I am hoping it will come this week. I called immigration last week, just because I am so anxious. They said our case has been assigned an officer. This is a good thing. But, each officer has about 80 cases on their desk at one time. I am still pretty confident it will come soon. The days have been dragging by while we wait though.

After we receive the paper, we have to get our homestudy, then send the rest of our documents to be apostilled. After that, we send our dossier to Priscilla's country! Yay! We are almost there.

We have been quite busy with things at home lately. I have thought and thought of ideas of things to write on here, but none have played out well enough to post. Tomorrow, I will take pictures of our day, and post them though, just so you can see that I don't spend my ENTIRE day by the mail box. :)

Twin stuff

2011-01-20T06:44:00.000-08:00

Our first twin thing! I made matching bibs for Justus and Priscilla. Of course, Justus already used his and it is dirty.

Down Syndrome Dancers - Awesome video

2011-01-16T19:24:00.000-08:00

I love this video, so I had to share it. I smiled and cried happy tears watching it.

Aghh! I'm going crazy

2011-01-12T14:34:00.000-08:00

Lets just say, I am probably one of the least patient people. I really am going crazy with all of this waiting. I am reading blog after blog of people going to get their babies or submitting their paperwork soon, and it is making me even MORE crazy. Why do I do it? Even though we only started this 5 months ago, it feels like an eternity.

I have been trying to get our social worker to send me our final copy of the home study to send ahead to Priscilla's country for translation and haven't had much success with that, so that means it will be pushed back more.

It seems everything I try to do to make it go faster only fails. Our fingerprint appointment is next week, but sometimes they take walk-ins, so I've been thinking we could try to do that, but then it snowed and we have been snowed in.

I keep playing it out in my head, "next week we get fingerprinted, then 2-3 weeks later approved, then we...", oh, if only it really were in my hands. But then, I am reminded of Proverbs 16:9 "In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps".

Really and truly, I just have to resign myself to just trust in the Lord and that He knows exactly when this is all supposed to take place and it WILL take place in his timing.

I just want to go get our baby. I wanted to go yesterday. She will be 18 months this week and I am missing out on so much with her.

Please pray with me for our sweet little one, pray that she is safe and healthy and well cared for. Pray that immigration will be quick and all will go smooth to bring her home.

accepting

2011-01-07T07:04:00.000-08:00

Priscilla's country is accepting dossiers on February 10th! I am so excited about this, we are getting closer. Please pray that immigration will be quick so that we can send our dossier (this is the huge packet of documents we have been working on) soon. After we send it, it has to be translated, then submitted to the SDA (state department of adoption). Then we will be given a travel date, about 3 weeks after submission.

Yay! This is getting more real, and definitely closer. I have a picture of Priscilla right by the computer, so whenever I am on her, I keep looking at her sweet face to remind myself she is real and that this really is happening.

Board book

2011-01-04T17:33:00.000-08:00

I wanted to make some board books to take with us to get Priscilla. Some for the kids on the plane and one for Priscilla to look at of our family. I looked into getting them made, but they seemed pretty expensive, so I googled how to make them and came upon two different websites and made up my own, you can check them out here and here. I thought it was so neat, so Malika and I made one. It is far from perfect, but turned out cute. I will do things a little bit different for the next couple, but will definitely make more.

If you live near me and want to come make some, let me know. It would be fun to have a book making day.

fingerprint date!!

2011-01-04T11:36:00.000-08:00

We got our fingerprint date from immigration. It is going to be scheduled for the 18th. Yay!! I'm so excited, we are moving forward. Hopefully it won't take long to be approved through USCIS after this. We could be submitting our dossier next month. Pray it all goes smoothly and quickly.

A family is in need of your help...

2011-01-03T20:28:00.000-08:00

to bring their little girls home. The Lane family has been in the process to rescue two little girls from a life without love, but they desperately need help bringing their two precious little ones home. They already have their travel dates and they know they are going. But it is all in faith, because right now they only have the money to get over there.

We have been completely blessed by all of our friends, so I just wanted to send this out to ask you to pray about giving to help them. Every little bit will count, so please pass this on.

You can go here, if you would like to donate.

What we've been up to

2011-01-02T20:21:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting here for about 30 minutes trying to figure out what to write, but I can't think of much, so I will just write the random things that have been happening in my life (at least the things that I don't care if the whole world knows).

Lately, I have been feeling very stuffed in our house, so I have been looking for houses. We even went out with a realtor last friday. We found a house that we LOVED, we really didn't expect this to happen. When I saw the house online, I didn't really even like it, and thought I would hate it even more in person, but that didn't happen. It has been torture for both Josh and me, because we really wanted this house and could possibly make it work. Anyway, long story short, we have been praying about it, and both of us know this isn't really the time to be buying a new house. It is hard, because we both love this house and could see it as our forever home and we could have many children there, but we also know that we would be walking out on our own if we did it. I know that if we wanted to, we could make it work and get that house, but I also know that I would regret it.

So, we took down our Christmas tree, and what do you know, it isn't quite so stuffed in our house. :)

The other day, Malika said something so funny, I'm still not sure what she meant. She said her sister was going to get in a bubble and come over here and we would pop it and she would live here. She's so funny. I made her repeat it twice, because it just didn't make sense. Since then, she has heard me say this to others, and she thinks it is so funny. Now she tells me Lilly (her baby doll) said the same thing. The things she comes up with.

I have been checking our mail everyday waiting for our fingerprint appointments from immigration. So far, nothing has come. Hopefully this week. Please be praying with us, that this part of our process would go very quickly. We are almost done. I only have one paper to redo and then waiting on immigration and we can send our dossier. It's starting to feel more real.

We are so amazed and surprised at how much money people have donated. If you were one of those, thank you so much. We are so grateful. People have been so giving and supportive. I really expected more people to question us, but really other than the couple in the beginning, everyone has been extremely supportive. I'm still in shock that we have the money and that this really IS happening. And that I really did hear the Lord about the finances. I mean, I thought I did, but money is such a huge thing today, that I thought we would be having to do many fundraisers for the money to come in. But, now I know when God says $25,000 is like 25 cents to Him, He means it. If I had just truly believed Him in the beginning, I could have saved myself the time trying to come up with fundraisers. :)

Her last Christmas

2010-12-25T18:41:00.000-08:00

Today has been a hard day, and even as I write the title to this post, tears are coming. I have been reading others blog posts, some of who have brought their children home, or are now meeting their children, and some bringing their babies home this week. I am so beyond happy for them, but it grieves my heart to know that my sweet little baby is all alone this weekend, she doesn't even know we are coming for her. It is the weekend, I have heard that on the weekends the children sometimes stay in their cribs all day. Did anyone even tell her it was Christmas?

Well, baby girl, this is your last Christmas you will be spending by yourself. Next year, you will have a family. You will have a brother and a sister who already love you, pray for you and include you in their days. You will have a Grammy and Poppy, who are just as excited for you to come home as we are. You will have 2 cats that you can chase around. You will have a home that you can run and play, and be free to be whomever you want to be. You will have enough food to eat that your belly will never ache with hunger again. You will have more than enough arms to hold you. You will never have to live your days in a crib again. We wait for the day to meet you, and pray that it will be soon.

We love you.

Good news on the vote

2010-12-23T07:08:00.000-08:00

This is from Andrea Roberts, founder of Reece's Rainbow

The vote did not even happen yesterday. And it won't happen before the new year. And when it does happen, it will be a vote to go Hague, not for moratorium or anything else. This is what our team has known and told us all along, and what we fully expected.

Reece's Rainbow is prepared with a Hague accredited partner (one we already work with and trust) to continue adoptions without interruption in the country, with our same amazing team of helpers and facilitators who have built this program from the ground up.

We are just trusting and having faith in God that we will still be able to bring our little girl home in the spring.

Please be praying with us for these things:

1. That immigration will be very quick

2. That the Lord will keep our little girl safe, and that she will have a bond with at least one care taker

3. That nothing will stop us from bringing her home as soon as possible

Thank you to all of you who have been praying. Have a wonderful Christmas!

Home Study and the Vote

2010-12-20T20:34:00.000-08:00

Our Home Study is done!!!! I am so relieved. It is being overnighted to immigration, so should be there tomorrow.

I found out that the vote is going to be wednesday, just before noon. So, that would be tuesday, US time. Please, please pray that it will not get passed. Or that it would not get voted on. The way it is written up right now, if it is passed, it will halt ALL adoptions. We would not be allowed to adopt, if they pass it, so please pray.

Is this your little girl

2010-12-15T13:15:00.000-08:00

I just know somebody is out there that has been thinking about Leeza. She needs a mommy and daddy more than she even knows. She needs someone to take her home and love her and teach her and be patient with her.

Are you that someone? Will you rescue this sweet little girl?

Even if you know she in not your child, please go donate here so it will be that much easier for her family to take her home. Many people have the heart to adopt, but the cost of it turns them away. Please don't let this sweet little angel fall through the cracks. Let's help her find a home.

Another blogger has this great idea for a Christmas gift, please go read about it. I think it is one of the best ideas for a Christmas gift. You will be blessing both, the person you give the gift to, plus a Reece's Rainbow child.

Will you pass this on? I just know someone out there wants to be Leeza's forever family.

yay! Look at our funds

2010-12-14T19:43:00.000-08:00

God has completely blessed us. This past sunday we went to a church I used to go to, to share our adoption story and take a church group picture and individual family pictures.

Wow! We are completely blown away by their generosity. The church gave us $3,000 and one family gave $2,000. Plus, a 6 year old little boy wanted to give us all of the change he and his siblings had been saving for a vacation. And it wasn't just a little bit of change, it was two huge jars full of change. We haven't counted it yet, but it looks like several hundred dollars. What an amazing family, to teach their children to be so selfless. It is hard to take all of the money this little boy had been saving, but I think of the selfless widow and want his life to be blessed with more than a vacation could ever do. He is helping to bring home a little girl and give her a mommy and daddy. I hope that I could teach my children to be as selfless as this little boy is.

They also prayed for us, it was so wonderful. The words they prayed felt like they came straight from God's lips. One man prayed for all of the officials, and anyone in power. He went through each one and named them off. All I can say is, I had chills. Another lady told me after that while he prayed, she saw angels standing in between each of those people. Brings tears to my eyes now, just thinking about it. "If God is for us, who can be against us".

Thank you NHCC for all that you have blessed us with. With your generosity, we will not have much left to raise. I am hoping to be able to raise money for another child when we have the money we need.

Slipper Drawing

2010-12-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

The slipper drawing was yesterday. Here is the link to the video of the drawing.

The winners are:

Picture Frame - Patricia Ohler

Gift basket from bath and body works - Mike Young

gift card for Outback - Patricia Ohler ( since she won twice, she entered this back in and Becky Gordon won the second time)

Thank you to everyone who donated. We have 38 pairs of slippers to send to the orphanage.

What about them?

2010-12-07T07:45:00.000-08:00

It is so amazing all that God has done in our lives, in just the last few months. Wow! Just thinking back this time last year, I never would have expected that this is where we would be, even just 6 months ago.

God has changed ME a ton.

Not just me, God has changed Josh too. Just the other night when we were having our family worship time, Josh prayed for our 3 kids! It just makes me so happy that he already thinks of Priscilla as ours. I do, but to hear it from him, confirms everything I feel.

I can't even begin to say all that God has changed in me, maybe it is more of an attitude toward life than anything else. I know for sure that I feel I have a hope and a future now, or more, that I can kind of see what the future holds. I have a vision. The scripture that says "people without a vision perish" is so true. When I have something to hope for and hold on to, something to look forward to, I continue to press in, because I can see what is waiting for me around the corner.

I think about our sweet little baby girl sitting in an orphanage. She doesn't even know we are coming for her. Does she have something to look forward to? What about all of the other orphans. What about the ones who have already been transferred to the mental institution. Is that the reason 90% of them die within the first year? Because they have no vision. No hope for their future.

I hope that some of you reading this, will also catch the vision and be a father to the fatherless and hope to the hopeless.

If you want to adopt, and think that you can't because of the money. There is a tax credit right now for over $13,000 per child. You can read about it here. And God will provide if you take the step forward. We are a testament to that, as are the many other families adopting through Reece's Rainbow. I know that adoption is the heart of the Father, and He will do all He can to see these little ones into a family. So pray about it, and then pray some more. :)

Is this your little girl? This little girl has captured my heart. She needs a mommy and daddy to love her, and color with her, teach her to swing, and kiss her goodnight. She is 3 years old, and could be transferred to a mental institution, please don't let that happen.

Or what about this little girl. Isn't she a sweety? She has arthrogryposis. Most children with this condition are only affected physically. She needs someone to tell her she is beautiful and that she can do and be anything. Will you be that someone?

Look at this sweet face. He also has arthrogryposis. He deserves a mommy and daddy. Is Igor your son?

These next little girls are in the same orphanage, so they can be adopted together. Aren't they just beautiful. They have HIV, in their country, people with HIV have no place. When they turn 16, they are out of the orphanage like other children, but they will not be able to get a job. So, most likely they will turn to prostitution. I saw the second little girl on another blog, she said this orphanage is overrun and they have no room for the children, but the mental institution has room. It just makes me sick to think of them having to go to a mental instituion. Will you step forward and adopt one of these beauties?

This little girl has a special place in my heart. She is in the same orphanage as Priscilla, so I will most likely meet her, and maybe hold her and love on her. I want to take her home too. She has down syndrome like Priscilla does, but she also has Fetal Alchohol Syndrome.

Is this your baby?

I could go on and on, but that is what Reece's Rainbow is for. :)

Eric Ludy - Depraved Indifference

2010-12-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

This is long, but if you have time, watch it. I am in tears now.

2010-12-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

This week is the week that our home study is supposed to be complete. I'm really hoping to hear about it soon. I think I am starting to annoy our social worker, I have emailed several times to find out how it was going.

Things have slowed down so much, with the adoption part of my life, anyway. Yesterday, I mailed off a packet of papers to get apostilled. I sent it through FedEx, just to make sure it actually got where it was supposed to go. It costs $20, and that is only one way. I still have to pay for them to come back here. Oh well, God has provided all of our finances so far, and I'm pretty confident He will provide all that we need.

I was trying to think of a good idea for another fundraiser. I was hoping to raise at least $15,000 by the end of the year. We will have close to it, we have almost $13,000 right now. I thought about doing a raffle for a Kindle, but I'm not sure if we would even cover the cost of the Kindle. Anyway, I think a raffle would be a great idea, if I had somewhere to sell tickets. So, if any of you have any ideas, please pass them my way. We don't have access to a building, so we can't do a fundraiser that involves a place.

We haven't heard anything about Priscilla, so I hope that is a good sign. :) Oh, how I wish we could see new pictures or hear something, anything. I get jealous when I see that others have new pictures or videos of their children. I have met through email 3 families who have adopted from her orphanage. I think from Reeces Rainbow, that is all that have. So many families are traveling now or will be soon to get their children, but no one going to her orphanage. So, there isn't really a way for me to find out how she is doing. It is so hard.

Here are some pictures of the kids, and a little of what we have been up to.

Yesterday, we decided to get adventurous and paint on the floor, on paper, of course. Justus painted on the paper, and the walls, and himself, well, just about everywhere. I don't know if we will be doing this again, anytime soon. :)

Look at those cute little chubby legs. I couldn't resist a picture of them.

Malika was very neat, and only painted on herself.

Yesterday we didn't paint enough, so today, Malika and I tried to do a painting with the salad spinner and a paper plate. She had so much fun (can't you tell by her smile). Sadly to say though, the paintings didn't come out so well.

10 days left for the slipper fundraiser

2010-11-30T12:06:00.000-08:00

There are only 10 days left for the slipper fundraiser, so if you would like to enter the drawing for one of these prizes, be sure to donate before then.

Prizes

Digital 10" photo frame (holds 2500 photos)
$40 basket from Bath & Body Works
$25 Gift Card - Outback

You will also get a chance to send a pair of beautiful slippers to an orphan in Priscilla's orphanage. And of course help us to bring our little girl home.

Random thoughts...

2010-11-26T11:21:00.000-08:00

I know I must write something, so I don't leave everyone hanging, things are just difficult right now, and I don't know what to write about, since things seem up in the air. We are moving forward though, just slowly, since we have to wait for our home study to be completed. Our social worker says any day.

Malika has been talking about Priscilla a lot lately. This morning, she sat down next to Josh, and I overheard her say " Will you pray for Priscilla with me, Daddy?" So sweet. I'm not sure what she really thinks about her. She has a baby doll with the same name, and sometimes when we are talking about Priscilla, I think she is referring to her baby doll, rather than her sister. But, we put up a picture of Priscilla on our mantle, and she knows that is her sister.

I just can't wait for her to come home. I am constantly thinking about her.

Yesterday we went to my Mom and Dad's house for Thanksgiving, I can't help but think about next year. What it will be like to have 3 kids, and that will be Priscilla's first Thanksgiving. We went to the park yesterday afternoon, and it was very windy. Josh and I were talking about how she may not even know what wind feels like, or what it feels like to get in a pool. We are so excited and ready to go pick her up and bring her home, to begin her life. And to enjoy all of her firsts with her.

And then, all these thoughts come crashing down, when I think about the vote.

Somedays, I have faith to move that mountain, and other days, I can't see anything but that mountain. All I know, is that we want her home, and we are going to fight until she is here.

So, Priscilla, just hold on. Mommy and Daddy are coming for you.

News on the vote

2010-11-21T21:04:00.000-08:00

I just read on the RR group about the upcoming vote. It is scheduled to be read for the week of December 14-17th, and it is said to be very last on the list.

So, hoping that it either will not be read, or that it won't get passed.

If it does get read and does pass, then pray that they will not stop adoptions that are already in the process, or those with special needs children.

This is taken from the RR yahoo site, about the Hague convention, and why it could be good :

For those of you not familiar with the Hague convention and what the laws say that govern Hague, I just wanted to add that the reason you hear many of us saying "Hague would be a blessing!" (and it WOULD) is because the Hague convention would ensure that ALL orphans in "Priscilla's country" are registered for adoption and that children can NOT be placed in an orphanage indefinite without parental rights being terminated (which happens to a lot of children...hence the reason "Priscilla's country" has so many older children in orphanages that are not registered for adoption or just became registered for adoption at a much older age). It would also GREATLY improve the process....no unknown, unpredictable length of travel, no expediting fees or surprise expenses, no secrecy to the process and what's actually going on while you wait in a car, no unexpected paper work changes and 40 pages worth of documents in triplicate :) It would STREAMLINE all adoptions.

Also, for those of you in process, the Hague treaty specifically says that countries should NOT stop their adoption programs while working to become Hague compliant. So, the Joint Council WILL encourage "Priscilla's country" to keep their adoption program OPEN should they express a desire to "shut down to become Hague compliant". They are actually already doing this!

Finally, I do want to add one other thing to clarify a little about why you hear us talk a lot about the children with special needs specifically. The Hague treaty also says that countries that are members of the Hague convention should FIRST do everything possible to keep the children in THEIR OWN COUNTRY. Those programs start with the "young and healthy" kids. While we certainly hope and pray that it will also one day include the children with special needs (hence Connecting The Rainbow), the reality is that "Priscilla's country" (and other countries in Eastern Europe)are years away from those programs filtering to include children with special needs. That is why you hear the urging to not stop the adoptions of children with special needs (and older kids...who also aren't included in those programs right at the start). It is NOT because we don't think ALL children deserve a family...we DO.

Thank you to all of you praying and sending letters. I have a huge peace about this right now.
I'm not sure what God's plans are for the future of our little girl, but I do know that He placed her in our hearts for a reason, and I also know that He loves her way more than I ever could. So, we are just trusting that He knows best, even if it doesn't turn out the way we would like it.

Saying all that, I still have a peace about it. And strangely, I still feel like she will be coming home in the spring. So, I am just going on that little piece of hope that I have. We are just moving forward as though nothing will stop us.

Why???

2010-11-16T20:41:00.000-08:00

Why not? Ok, just kidding, I just couldn't think of a better title.

Yesterday, I tried to take my mind off of the stress with everything going on, so I found this cool blog, and made this tissue box cover. Well, it didn't really help me take my mind off the stress, but at least I got a cute tissue box cover out of it.

I woke up this morning with Priscilla on my mind. So, I got out this little dress that my friend, Judy gave to us for our little girl. It even has a cute matching baby doll outfit. I want her to wear it for her 2nd birthday. Please, oh please come home by your second birthday.

Even Justus wants her to come home to wear her dress.

Today has been so hard. I'm not sure what is going on right now. I will go re-mail the documents. All is not lost in that, I think. My heart is just really torn up. I tried to go shopping tonight, to see if it would help get my mind off our little girl, it didn't. Everywhere I turned, I thought of her.

I feel like I am pregnant and the doctor just told me they aren't sure how my pregnancy will end, they aren't sure if the baby will make it. And even if the baby does make it, I could be very overdue. I may never see her beautiful little face or hold her hand or look into her eyes. I love her beyond any words could ever say. I don't know how this has happened, when all I have of her is a picture. I just know it happened.

Unless God says in a huge audible voice to stop, we will keep trudging along, we aren't giving up. I don't think I can give up. But, in all honesty, I don't want to do this anymore. I just want my life back. There, I said it. Now, isn't that selfish of me.

I don't even want to go to bed tonight, because then I will just have to wake up tomorrow. Ok, I'm not depressed, just sad.

I am so beyond mad right now...

2010-11-16T10:52:00.000-08:00

...because, guess what showed up in the mail today? My documents that I sent to EE, 2 months ago!!

They weren't supposed to come back. Arghhh, I am so upset. Because, not only does Priscilla's country not even know that I am trying to adopt her, now I will have to re-pay to send these. And they aren't cheap.

Just praying that things will work out in the end. We are NOT giving up. We will bring her home.

Something that can be done

2010-11-12T20:48:00.000-08:00

Today, I have been thinking and praying all day about this vote that is going to be passed. I have been very sad, because I just have this bad feeling about it. I posted on a chat group for other adopting parents from Reece's Rainbow, and someone posted a link to someones blog, this post gave me a little hope, at least to know that there is something I can do.

This is the post:

Even if you don't feel the call to adopt, you can get involved in orphan care. And here's a simple way to get involved today...

By now, most of you have probably heard about the decision in Ukraine to go forward with a vote to halt international adoption until an inter-country agreement is in place. Please take a moment to write to your senators & congressmen, then encourage your friends and family to contact do the same!

Below you'll find a letter that you can use, or write your own.

To send a letter to your congressman:

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

To send a letter to your senator just click on the state and follow the link:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Please help us get the word out!!

________________________________________________________

Dear (name),

I am writing to you today regarding a VERY urgent situation. Many families in the US are currently in the process of adopting children from orphanages in Ukraine. Most of these children are older or disabled. American families adopting these children offer them what may be their only opportunity at a normal and productive life free of crime, prostitution, or institutionalization due to illnesses that are treatable in the United States. I personally know one of these families.

On November 3, 2010, the Ukrainian parliament voted to proceed with voting on legislation that would halt all international adoptions until inter-country adoption agreements are in place (see the State Dept. announcement at http://adoption.state.gov/news/ukraine.html) . At this point, all that is needed for this to become law is one more vote in Ukrainian parliament and a signature by the Ukrainian president. This could happen any day. If it does, many families and innocent children will be greatly affected. I personally know one of these families.

I am writing to you to urge you to act quickly on this matter by 1. Contacting your Ukrainian cohorts and requesting a consideration of revision of the law to allow adoptions to proceed while the agreement is being drafted (as was done in Russia) and 2. Work with your colleagues in congress to begin drafting this agreement so that it is ready to go in the event the law passes.

Thank you for your timely consideration of this urgent matter!

Please take the time to write these letters. Please forward this to all your friends and families. Post on facebook or twitter or wherever else people may read it and help out.

Pray,pray,pray....Here we go again

2010-11-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

We need prayer again, desperately. Ok, not just us, but all families adopting from Priscilla's country. I have known about this for a little while, but haven't said much to anyone, because it seems I am asking people to pray constantly. And I guess I was hoping it would go away, but it hasn't.

Remember last month or so, I asked everyone to pray about the bill they were trying to pass in EE, that would stop all adoptions. Well, they have been up to it again. I don't know the full details, but it seems there is another bill. This one is to stop adoptions, in order to clean up how they adopt. From what I hear, they want to become a Hague country, basically this is just a set of rules in order to protect the children who are being adopted. You can read more about it here. This could be a good thing, but if they do this now, then ALL adoptions would be stopped. There are about 75 families adopting, at least through Reece's Rainbow, with about 100 children involved, with most of the children having medical needs.

If they pass this bill now, these children's lives would be in jeopardy. Also, adopting families have an expiration date on all paperwork being done, so everything that we have worked so hard on would be void, and we would have to start over.

I know, I know it has been a huge roller coaster. I wish they would just get their act together and stop scaring us. I hope that they will consider the children in this matter. So, please pray.

I have even thought, wouldn't it be nice that they could set a date in the future, like say, the end of 2011 to do this, so that adopting families can finish adoptions, and future families will know before committing to a child.

I have not been too worried about it, until now. So, maybe that is the Lord's grace or His way of showing me it will be ok, I don't know. But, I do know enough to have people praying. I think the bill may be voted on next week or so (actually it was already voted on and passed, but has to be voted on again).

Hmmm...don't have a title

2010-11-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

Well, nothing new is going on, just a big waiting game now. I do hope everything comes back in time to submit in February. I really don't know what I was thinking when I thought there was a chance to submit this year. Everything becomes clearer by the day. :)

I emailed a lady who adopted from the same orphanage we are adopting from. She said it was one of the better orphanages and that the children are very well taken care of and loved. She said I would be happy with how well taken care of they are. That makes me so happy, to know that Priscilla is being loved and fed properly. So, maybe she won't be as little as I was thinking.

Oh yeah, and we have raised half of the money we need already! Praise God!

impatient

2010-11-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we had our last home study appointment. I also thought we would be done with it, and it could be sent to USCIS, but our social worker said it would not be completed until the end of the month.

I am really trying to just trust in the Lord and not worry about things, and just hope it will all get taken care of in time. At least we have the winter break and I won't be stressing over it (too much).

I am so impatient today. I just want to hold her and take her home so bad. I am glad things are not quite so stressful right now. We are nearly done with getting the dossier ready, and there is not much to do on our end, except wait. Sounds good, but is kind of torture. At least to me. I thought I would rather like it without stress and busyness, but now, all I do is think about our little baby, and how we are missing out on this time with her.

Aside from my impatience, today has been a good day. It has been very normal, we stayed home and just enjoyed life. I absolutely adore my children, and I am so grateful for this time to spend with them. My hope is that the next few months go by quickly, but not too quickly that I forget the children I already have. :)

We have the document!

2010-11-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

Well, as some of you know, we have had a very difficult time getting a document for our dossier. The Proof of home ownership. This is one document that we had no idea it would be difficult to get, we have owned our home for quite some time, and even pay taxes on it!

I won't go into detail about what we went through to get this document, but I will say, we have been quite busy getting this one little piece of paper. We went to the courthouse a total of 4 times, went to the mayors office once, to a lawyers office twice (to get a new deed to our house), and I was on the phone many times to many different people trying to get it resolved.

I have to say thanks to my friend, Jill's dad, Senator Tom Butler, for his help. I called him last week to ask him for help with something else, not expecting this to come up. So, anyway, he called me back and I told him of the problems I have had, he said to email him everything and he would take care of it.

And he did!

Senator Butler forwarded my email to a lady in the legislative office. She called me and wanted to know in detail everything that happened. She said she would take care of it. So, about 30 minutes later she calls and said she found someone to do it for me, and that when she told this person of all that we had been through, she said she would be happy to help us.

I was so nervous, but I once again went down to the courthouse. I was afraid this lady was going to be mean, too. She was the nicest lady. When I went into her office, she even said it was so nice to meet me, and she said "so, I've heard you have been through a lot". Then she asked what I needed her to do. Then, just like that, she did it. No questions, nothing. When I opened up my folder with all the papers, she saw Priscilla's picture, and said she was beautiful, and that she wanted me to bring her back to meet her. I'm still in shock that it was so easy. After I left her office, I couldn't believe it, and kept looking at the paper, just to make sure I really had it. :)

Praise Jesus!

A family for Vika

2010-11-01T20:51:00.000-07:00

I've just read about this sweet little girl on someone else's blog. Her name is Vika, she is 4 years old and has just been moved to a mental institution. You can read about her here. This post breaks my heart, please go read it. Just to think that she would cry when taken away from a mommy and daddy that she so hoped was hers. I can't even imagine what she is going through right now. To be taken away from the only home she has ever known, and thrown into a mental institution, where they are forgotten. 85% of the children moved there will die within the first year, please consider donating to Vika's account, so she will not be one of them. Help her find a forever family.

Many people want to adopt, but the cost is the biggest thing that holds them back, so please donate to her account. Give up your coffee for a day, or your soda. Fast at lunch and donate what you would have spent. Remember, it is all tax deductable too. It doesn't take too long to donate on line, don't put it off until later, she may not have a "later"

Her blog link is here. Every $5 donated will be entered into a drawing to recieve an $800 gift card to Best Buy.

This has been a very trying week

2010-10-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write something, just to say "I'm still here". But, I cannot write in detail what has happened this week.

I would just like to ask for prayer. We have come up against a lot of opposition this week. We have one document that is needed for our dossier, but are unable to find somebody to sign it.

So, please, please pray. Right now, I am unsure whether we will be able to adopt. And I am having a really hard time with it. I have not been able to do much, just thinking about losing our little girl. She needs a mommy and daddy.

We will definitely not be able to submit this year.

Does she resemble Malika?

2010-10-25T18:59:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of Malika. It is hanging on our wall, and I noticed, it looks a little like Priscilla. What do you think? It would be so neat if she looked like us.

Where we are

2010-10-25T11:51:00.000-07:00

So many people have asked lately where we are in the process of adopting, and when we will be getting Priscilla.

I am not completely sure, but I will do my best to tell you what I know.

Friday, we will be done with our home study.

Right now, we are waiting on getting a fingerprint appointment with USCIS (US citizenship and immigration).

We will have to send a copy of our home study to USCIS and wait approval.

We are almost done with our dossier (this is all the paperwork we will send to Eastern Europe), but we can do nothing with this until we receive approval from USCIS.

As of right now, I am unsure whether we will submit this year or next year. I have been working very hard to get everything in place to submit this year. We still have a chance, but it is looking slimmer everyday. After friday, it all depends on how fast USCIS gets things done.

Priscilla's country will only be accepting dossiers until December 1, then they will take a break until February sometime, I won't know the date for sure until December.

If we are to submit now, we have to have everything mailed over to EE by the middle of November, and hope they will get everything translated and submitted in time.

From what I understand, if we submit this year (which would be close to December 1st), we would not travel to get Priscilla until January or February. If we are unable to submit until next year, we should travel sometime in April (of course, this is just a guess, we won't know for sure until closer to time).

My hope the whole time has been to get her before her 2nd birthday. So, if we are unable to go until
April, we would still be able to bring her home by her birthday. I would love it so much if we were able to get her earlier, but I can do nothing else at this point except wait.

Hope this makes sense to everyone. If you have any questions, just leave it in the comments and I will try to answer them.