Adoption, Dave and Life

I have had a few people ask where we are with the adoption. We just sent in our supplement 3 for our I800A last week and it was confirmed USCIS received it on Monday. What that means is when you adopt, you have to have approval to bring an orphan into the USA (that's the I800A approval). With Finley, we had an I800A approval and that is good for 18 months. So, since we are still within the 18 months (it expires November 24, 2011-- cutting it close) we don't have to submit a bunch of additional paperwork and wait the 2 months plus for the full approval rather we just have to submit and new document that says we want to add an additional child to the original approval and then they approve it and send the new approval out to us. We expect the approval in about 3 weeks and then as soon as we get the approval back, it will be about 1 week to get a bunch of paperwork for our dossier (a bunch of papers that go to China) authenticated and sealed at the Chinese Embassy and then we are DTC-- DOSSIER TO CHINA!!!! Realistically, we are about 1 month from sending out paperwork to China and that is a HUGE step!! Once our paperwork goes to China we will be logged in (LID) and then and then we wait and wait and wait.  Our goal is to be in China in May, so it appears we are probably in line to be at about that time frame.

That is the timeline update and once paperwork is in China we will be able to show pictures and do all that stuff but until then, I have to keep things quiet.

On other notes, we are still working the Dave Ramsey budget really well. Even in the process of desperately trying to get money together for this adoption, we are still finding money to be able to pay things off. We are moving down our DEBT LIST that is posted on our refrigerator really fast-- way faster than we thought. Of course, we have some major adoption payments coming up so we might have to slow down on paying things off for a few months, but as soon as we pay our agency fees, we are back paying debt off. We actually only have a few things left to pay (bigger $$ items) before we are out of debt except for my student loan and our house. I cant believe how close we are and our goal of debt free except for the house in 2 years is totally going to happen-- I have faith!! Don't get me wrong, we still struggle but for the first time in our lives we are living below our means. It is not easy. I don't shop-- at all! I have not bought the kids anything new in many months with the exception of one birthday gifts for the girls. I have not bought myself ANYTHING in months and I am living on a tiny budget with literally no wiggle room. We don't eat out unless it is Wednesday nights (church) and we use a restaurant.com certificate and a few little .99cent things here and there. We are crazy dedicated  but it is serving us well. We have been able to save and pay things off and we are actually able to pay for our adoption expenses. Again, it is not easy, but we are doing it and I am loving the freedom I feel knowing this area of our life is in control-- literally for the first time in our lives. I don't mention this to say we are so great. I say it to inspire other that control of your finances CAN BE DONE!! We are proof of it and we were HORRIBLE before this program. If we wanted it, we got it and didn't really understand the idea of delayed gratification. We started to change things about 2 years ago but still did not live within a budget over the last 2 years. While we did not incur more debt over the last 2 years we still did not manage our money well and we are now digging out of the hole we created. I am so proud of ourselves!!! Plus I mention all this because I do get people asking about how we are doing with Dave's program so I figured it was time for an update.

 Owen giving the girls hockey lessons. Finley taking a slapshot. Sorry the quality is poor. It was with my cell phone.

Mia taking her slapshot

Other than that, we are living life. We are trying to slow things down during this time of year and to focus on the reason for the season. We are going to try to implement some low cost traditions this year so if anyone has any suggestions, we would love them!!! I am looking forward to this holiday season so very much and cant wait to bake cookies and bundle up in front of the fireplace (ya right-- not too cold here in So Cal) and watch Christmas specials. My friend Kim at 3Peanuts wrote a great post yesterday about slowing down and de-stressing the holidays. I read the post out loud to my husband and we both agreed we wanted to de-stress our holidays and we are going to talk about ways we can do that soon. I encourage others to de-stress as well and slowing down and paying attention to the reason we celebrate Christmas.

Sorry, a glitch & Generosity!

Sorry everyone but we had a glitch on our blog today and it reverted to only invited readers. I did not want the settings to be that way so it is changed back now. So sorry if anyone was unable to see the blog.

I wanted to thank so many of you who have offered to send me clothes and those who already have. It is amazing to see the generosity in the adoptive community and I am moved by all of you!!!

I wanted to post one story in particular. The day I posted my "clothing plea" I received an email from a wonderful woman who was going through some turmoil of her own. She had a dream of adopting from China and had collected lots of beautiful clothes and dolls etc. over the years. I do not know the specifics that went into her decision but she had been feeling that God was calling her to give up her adoption dream. She had restled with the decision and many tears were shed but she felt she needed to be obedient to what God had been asking. The night before I posted my clothing plea she had laid the adoption at God's feet and asked him to show her what to do.  If He wanted her to give this adoption to Him then to show her someone to give all the wonderful clothes to. The next morning she looked on my blog and saw my post and I guess she was moved and felt like God had put this whole situation together. She felt that it was devine arrangement of circumstances that she had made her plea to God and asked for a person to give her clothes to and the next morning she saw my post about needing clothes for our daughter from China. She felt Gods leading and tremendous peace about her decision to give the adoption back to God and that He had something different for her in the future. She emailed me and told me the situation and asked if she could send me the clothes. Of course I was terribly moved by her story and felt that God's hand was in the whole situation. I was amazed by her trust in what God had for her and felt blessed to be a part of His plan.

This amazing woman sent us a HUGE box full of the most beautiful NEW clothes and toys. It was such a blessing to us not only to receive the gifts but also to see how she had trusted in the Lord and He was leading her life. Opening that box was so emotional. There was tremendous  excitement about seeing the items but tremendous sadness of a dream ending but tremendous excitement about what God had in store for her. Her obedience to what HE wanted was moving. When opening the box and looking at the items, Ethan actually said that he thought this lady was "very brave". When I asked what he meant he said that she was being very brave to be giving up what she wanted and doing what God wanted. I think she taught all of us a lesson- a very valuable lesson about obedience and I cant wait to see where God takes this amazingly Godly woman!!

I did ask if I could post her story and she was gracious enough to allow me to do so. She had hoped that through her journey that another struggling person might somehow be  influence or moved by her situation and be lead to follow blindly to what God has for their life. What an amazing testimony!! We feel blessed to have been a part of her journey and genuinely appreciate her generosity. I hope to grow our friendship!!

Within all the clothes were a few older girl outfits so I put this beautiful Matilda Jane dress that she had given me on Finley. I will let the pictures speak for themselves-- ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!!!

 Just beautiful!!

 Finley loves spinning and thought this was a spinner dress so she decided to spin and spin and spin!

 And Spin

 And Swing

 I love her true smiles. It is so full of life and shows so much of her personality. She is such a happy easy going little girl. We feel so blessed to have her!!

 What a beautiful dress!!!!

 On the horse trail behind our house

 Barefoot-- ouch!

 Running-- they were racing and Finley was holding her own with her speedy sister-- man can Mia run!

 Sisters-- awwww!!!

 They have so much fun together.

Mia is the typical type A leader and Finley is the easy going happy to play anything one. I wonder how our new little one will fit in???

Download this mp3 from Beemp3.com

The Girls Preschool Halloween Party

The girls had their fun little Halloween party at school today. The girls sported their cool costumes and off to school we went!! I was in charge of the cookie decorating station so I did not walk around with the girls but they came through my station and I was able to get some cute pictures then.

Finley enjoying some awesome frosting. Finley was Jesse.

 

Mia and Addy getting ready for one of the fun centers.

 

My pretty little girl!!!

 

She is so sweet at school :)

 

Mia getting ready for one of the fun centers

 

Mia decorating her cookie

 

Addy and Finley at the cookie decorating station

Finley showing Mia her loot. I love the look on Finley's face-- it is so cute!

 

Looking at their candy

 

Waiting for the next center

 

Love how Finley is sitting. She actually sits like that often.

 

The teacher made me take a picture with the girls-- not overly thrilled with it-- love the bags and wrinkles-- this is why I stay out of pictures-- yikes!!!

Is Mundane OK?

Sorry for the recent lack of pictures but lots of thoughts have been going through my head but not a lot of camera time to take pictures-- so, you are getting lots of narratives.

With lots of time taken on my off work days to complete adoption paperwork, my sweet little girls are spending lots of downtime being board. They are watching lots of TV, doing lots of coloring and just sitting around being board. I am not normally a sit at home and watch TV mom but I have to say that has been the way things have been for the last month. I feel guilty for letting the girls just sit around and play and not giving them lots of activities to do but a part of me wants to get rid of that guilt because is it really THAT BAD that my kids just chill? The mommy guilt really gets to me but I keep thinking that letting my kids chill should not be a source of guilt.Yes, they are probably watching too much TV but it that really that bad? They go to preschool 4 mornings a week so a chill out afternoon is kind of nice.

I'm starting to realize with our new little one coming home in spring that we are going to have to have a bit of a new normal. With 5 kids and 3 little ones, I think we will probably be spending more time at home just playing and chilling. If that is going to be more of the new normal, I need to kick the guilt thing because if I don't, I think I'm going to be feeling guilty all the time.

So, what can I do about that? Are lazy afternoons and doing nothing Fridays (they don't have school on Fridays) OK? Is it OK to just have maybe a couple days a week where we go out and do something-- other than preschool-- OK? I am just such a busy person and like to be active that these down times are freaking me out a bit. I hear other moms talk about all the activities their kids are in and that they do this and that and those are the times I look at the girls schedule and I feel bad. Honestly, a lot of our time centers around the boys hockey so we do go to hockey together as a family but the girls are just not in a lot of activities right now. I don't see this getting better anytime soon-- especially adding our new little one to the family-- so how do I get OK with this?

Anyway, any input would be appreciated. I honestly am struggling with this right now and would like to have others weigh in if this is OK or not.

Thanks for the input and also for all the help so many of you are willing to give with regards to clothes for our new one. All of your generosity is amazing and I thank you so much for that!!!!

What??? Another One???

When you announce to people that you are adopting # 3 and moving onto # 5 you get some interesting reactions. Some think it is great and others just say very little. It is not like when we adopted Mia or even Finley-- it is just different. People are never rude, but they have different feelings about adopting "AGAIN!" Many think we should be happy with our 4 and why are we putting the ourselves through this stress and strain again. Many think it is not fair to the kids we have and others think we are crossing the line into a LARGE family and that is not our societal norm. Many are very happy for us and understand our calling to adopt, but others do not get it and frankly, are not overly thrilled.

I had an awesome email from a family member who admitted that when he saw we were adopting again he thought "What-- again??? When are they ever going to stop?" He proceeded to tell me what a hypocrite he felt like because he remembered after having that thought that God calls us to be outlandish-- to do things that are not normal and challenge the rules-- to be WEIRD!!! He referred me to a book that I am going to read about being weired for God. He said he felt so bad about his thoughts and was so happy we were following the Lords calling in our lives and that we were being WEIRD for the Lord. I genuinely appreciated his email and it really made me think.

I wanted to post this article written by an adoptive mom who explains the reasons why many of us adopt and grow our families into bigger than average families. She experienced peoples judgement upon growing their family outside societal norm and continuing to adopt children. She explains things so perfectly and I encourage you to keep reading as it really sums up what I am feeling.

Thanks

Over the years, starting even when we had just two kids, I have heard statements (from friends, family, and strangers alike) such as “you don’t need any more kids,” “you have enough kids,” “well, surely now you have enough kids” and “why would you adopt again? You have enough kids already!”

These types of statements used to make me feel like I had to explain our decisions or they used to make me feel like I needed to be a better parent because maybe if they saw that I was the best parent in the universe, they would think that I could “handle” more kids.

I have tried (in vain) to explain to people that we are adopting children WHO DO NOT HAVE A FAMILY, kids who NEED A HOME, but this does not seem to matter to those who continue to make this statement after or before each addition we have made to our growing family. I know that some of it has been said by those who are concerned because they do not want to see us overwhelmed or having a harder life than we could have if we chose the easier path, but this is the path we have chosen, and all we need need is support.

Recently, a family member said to me again, “you have enough kids” and for the first time, instead of feeling like I needed to justify our decisions and make excuses and explanations, I felt angry. I thought about all the other times that people have said to me similar things and I realized that many of those things were said before the addition of some of our kids, kids who those same people now love and adore. Kids who now have a home and a family. Kids who are no longer orphans. Kids who I could not be more proud to call my children. Kids who have made our lives richer, not harder. Kids who have taught me more than I have taught them. Kids who have given me more than I have given them. Kids who we would not know had we thought of our family in terms of “enough.” And, I was angry.

I have listened to well-meaning friends or family members over the years say things that have hurt, badly, and for the most part, I have remained silent. Some people said this when we only had two kids or three or four, if four was “enough kids,” then what does that say about the last three?

Another reason it has me so upset is that we are talking about human beings here, precious children, not possessions. To say that one can ever have “enough” children sort of sounds like they are shoes or something.

Another is that I have never seen how it is deemed okay for people to question our personal decisions and give unsolicited advise and judgments, but it is not okay for us to do the same to them. What I mean is that when it comes to things that go against the norm, things like adoption, having a large family, and homeschooling, it seems that everyone and their neighbour thinks it’s somehow acceptable to tell us what a terrible thing we are doing.

Can you imagine how inappropriate it would be for me to say to a friend that I thought it was a selfish decision to go back to work full time when their baby was 4 months old because they wanted to pay for a nicer vacation or to say to a family member that it sickens me to think of all the starving children who could be fed for the cost of one of the brand new vehicles they buy for themselves every year? People judge it wrong that we went into debt to pay for an adoption of two children, but think nothing of going into debt themselves for a newer car, a bigger house, or even the latest computers, gadgets, and fashions!

I do not walk around telling people that they should not move because the house they have is “enough” or that they should not get another TV because the two they already own are “enough” or that they should not buy the latest iPhone because they just bought the last version and that should be “enough.” And, if you are shaking your head thinking, “yeah, but those are things, not children” then you are starting to get the point here! It is actually pretty uninformed to say “you have enough kids” as though they were objects. If there were ever anything I would want “too many” of, it would be children. Children are a blessing.

In response to the inevitable question, “are we going to adopt more kids?”, the answer is this: I don’t know. If you look only at logic, then the answer is…probably not. Logic dictates that seven children is nowadays, in North America, a huge family. Logic dictates that seven children is a huge expense. Logic dictates that I have a husband who is much more rational than I am and is less apt to make decisions based purely on emotion. Logic dictates a lot, but it does not dictate the size of our family. For now, we are done. That could mean forever. Or it could mean that tomorrow we will start the process for another adoption. Because God trumps all logic in my mind and in my heart. Our family size will be determined by God. He has called us to adopt, and I know that He is still working in our family.

As a message to our friends and family and to the friends and families of others who choose paths that are less socially acceptable…

Please support and love us where we are at, on the path that we have chosen. Pray for us, because the path that we have chosen is not an easy one. We know that you did not choose this path and we are not asking you to adopt yourself or have a large family yourself. We are not even asking you to understand or like the path we have chosen. If you choose to come and visit us on this journey once in awhile and ask how we are or offer your help, we would appreciate it greatly, but if you can only offer judgment and harsh words, please heed the wise advise of Thumper in “Bambi”…”if you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all”!

Clothing Plea

Ok, many of you who know me or have read my blog for any length of time know that I am a clothing freak!! I love clothes and nothing is more fun for me than to dress my beautiful little girls. With that said, dressing my beautiful girls is NOT CHEAP!! I have managed to do pretty well up until now and did not have the spending restrictions I have now that Kevin is retired so the girls clothes have been filled with Naartjie, Baby-Kid Gap, Gymboree, Janie and Jack and other great clothing makers. I am not a huge saver of clothes so I have made it a practice to pass the girls clothes down to friends or people that need them. The problem I am having now is that I have passed all the little clothes to others but have not wanted or needed them back since I didn't ever think we would have a little one again. Well, things change and now we are going to have a little one and we are going to have to outfit her. I have no idea where all the 12 month to 3T clothes ended up so I cant really get them back so I am asking others that might have 12 month to 3T clothes who might want to pass them down to let me know! I would be happy to save them all and send them back when our little one grows out of them, but I am trying to figure out how I am going to clothe this child with our non existence budget. If anyone has tubs full of about 12 months to about 3T clothes that they would like to pass down to our little one, I would be sooooo thankful!! Honestly, that would be a tremendous blessing as it is kind of stressing me out thinking of how I am going to dress her. Thanks guys for any help!!!

Also give me your thoughts-- and my parents and sister are not allowed to contribute because I know what you think --lol!!!

Harper Song- still my fav

Ella Song- getting way too popular

Kendall Song- really like this one

Elsie Song (Elsie is a family name)

So which of the above names does this little face look like???



I need help. Seriously having issues and Kev and I just cant commit. I'm thinking we may have to wait to see her updated pictures but I am getting sick of calling her our "little one". I would like to call her a name-- sigh....

Swimming with friends!!

We had the Yingling's over for a nice swim/ moms relax day. The girls had a great time reconnecting and the moms had a great time talking. We swam, ate lunch, decorated cupcakes and even got in a naked swimming time too-- the girls love that!! It was a wonderful day and I always enjoy spending time with Karen as she always challenges me to be my best. She holds me accountable and I always feel like we have known each other for 20 years.

 

The girls love swimming and had a blast. Finley is not quite as brave as the other 3 but she is coming along.

We also decorated cupcakes which the girls loved!!

My pretty little thing

Katy really loved the cupcakes as evidenced by the frosting all over her face.

Miss Mia

Miss Becky

Sorry the following pictures would not separate but the kids had a blast swimming!!!

Test is Done!!!

Thanks so much for all of your support and prayers. After mulling this over and speaking to several people regarding the pro's and con's of having this test, I decided to go ahead and have the test but to prepare Finley for the test and talk through the process. I did exactly that and from the second I picked her up from preschool till the second we walked into the test, we discussed what they would be doing and that this is a really hard test but that after we were going to get a treat! She was very receptive to this and kept asking questions and I think the prep really helped her get through this process.

She wanted an orange cell phone as her "treat" so that was the lure the whole time we were in the test. She kept asking for it to be over so she could get her phone. She did cried quite a bit but honestly, it was not as bad as I thought. It was better- in terms of her crying- than the xray and I really attribute that to the fact that she was totally prepared and knew what to expect. She did great!! Lots of tears at the beginning but then she just relaxed and she did well. She was very proud of how she handled it and off we went to Target to get her orange cell phone. She has been saying all night "mommy no more bad Dr. tests for me anymore-- right?" It is so cute and she keeps showing off her cell phone (which by the way Target had an orange cell phone-- go figure). She was perfectly normal from the point when she was off the table and on. No trauma, no regression-- nothing. I really felt the Lord controlled this whole thing and I am so thankful for that.

Anyway, I wanted to let you all know what happened and thanks again for all your support. It was not an easy decision but I appreciate all of your kind words and input.

HELP!! I don't know what to do...

I am at a loss right now. After Finley's horrific test last week I decided a couple days ago to call the urology department where she is having a test called a CMG this afternoon. I left the nurse practitioner a message asking what the test entails so we both can be prepared-- like we WERE NOT with the last test.


The nurse practitioner called me back while I was walking the girls into preschool this morning (so I missed her call) and she left me a message about what the test is like. Turns out, it is WAY WORSE than the one last week. It sounds horrible-- 90  minutes long- insert catheters into urethra and anus and then fill up everything and it is just horrible. I called the nurse back to ask more questions but she has not yet returned my call.


I am at a loss. Kevin is out of town so I have to take her to the appointment myself and I just don't know what to do. I am in tears right now because I cant imagine making her go through this again. She was so scared last time and barley made it through the test and now I have to subject her to something even worse. I don't know if I can do it. I seriously am sitting here trying to decided if I should take her or not. This test was not ordered because she is showing issues rather it was to get a baseline of her bladder pressure so it is not something that is imperative.


I honestly don't know what to do. How can I make her go through something so horrible again? I don't know what to do. Can you guys pray for the situation and any words would be greatly appreciated. I just don't know what to do...