Some days I ask myself, "What the heck have we gotten ourselves into?" (By the way, I've asked myself that every time I've been "pregnant" since I was pregnant with child #3.) I know I'm not the only one. Today was one of those days. Tonight, my friend, Liz, (Shea's mama) shared a post about how she answers her "What the heck?" days. She would do it a million times over and so would I...
Please go read her post HERE. (Caution: This is a heavy post and not for young children.) This may help those who don't understand why we are adopting yet again. Haven't we done enough? Isn't it someone else's job??? Nope. Not at all.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Saturday, April 20, 2013
BRINGING GRACE HOME: Dossier update
(I'm going to label blog posts relating to Grace's adoption as "BRINGING GRACE HOME" so you can decide if you want to read them or not. :-) Our regular posts will be titled as normal.)
Our paperwork to bring Grace home is moving right along. We received our final home study this week and sent our I-600A off to Texas. YAY!!! The rest of our dossier is almost complete. We will receive our state police background check letter this week. We just need approval from our facilitator on all of the documents "print 'n sign" documents and a few others (once my scanner works again! ugh!) and that will be it - except for that pesky - but oh SO important - "Golden Ticket".
(I'll try and have my blog designer (Sarah) put the page back up on this blog for all of the adoption process abbreviations. But for now, if you are new the process or need a refresher, the I-600A is the application sent to the US gov't (USCIS) to get immigration approval to bring Grace back into the country. The approval comes on a form called I-171H, or affectionately known as the "Golden Ticket". The I-171H is part of the dossier and takes the longest to attain. Once we receive approval, we will be able to send the whole dossier over to Ukraine for immediate submission. After we are submitted, we should receive a travel date about 5 weeks later.)
We have sent our POAs (power of attorney) and Grace's letter of inquiry over to her country. It will be good to have official verification that she is indeed available.
Pulling a dossier together is SOOO much easier the 3rd time around. I can't even believe it. Things that took eight hours the first time and 15 minutes the 2nd time, just took about 5 minutes this time. We've still had minor glitches, but nothing that is not easily fixed.
Please pray for a quick immigration approval so we can get over to Grace as soon as possible. Thanks!
Our paperwork to bring Grace home is moving right along. We received our final home study this week and sent our I-600A off to Texas. YAY!!! The rest of our dossier is almost complete. We will receive our state police background check letter this week. We just need approval from our facilitator on all of the documents "print 'n sign" documents and a few others (once my scanner works again! ugh!) and that will be it - except for that pesky - but oh SO important - "Golden Ticket".
(I'll try and have my blog designer (Sarah) put the page back up on this blog for all of the adoption process abbreviations. But for now, if you are new the process or need a refresher, the I-600A is the application sent to the US gov't (USCIS) to get immigration approval to bring Grace back into the country. The approval comes on a form called I-171H, or affectionately known as the "Golden Ticket". The I-171H is part of the dossier and takes the longest to attain. Once we receive approval, we will be able to send the whole dossier over to Ukraine for immediate submission. After we are submitted, we should receive a travel date about 5 weeks later.)
We have sent our POAs (power of attorney) and Grace's letter of inquiry over to her country. It will be good to have official verification that she is indeed available.
Pulling a dossier together is SOOO much easier the 3rd time around. I can't even believe it. Things that took eight hours the first time and 15 minutes the 2nd time, just took about 5 minutes this time. We've still had minor glitches, but nothing that is not easily fixed.
Please pray for a quick immigration approval so we can get over to Grace as soon as possible. Thanks!
Monday, April 15, 2013
So very proud...
Last week, my oldest daughter, Sarah, earned her first college credits! She did this by studying US History and then taking (and passing!) the History of the US I CLEP test. So, she now has three college credits to her name. Not too bad for only being 14 years old and being in 9th grade. :-)
We are so very proud of her! She worked hard and earned her score. But more importantly, we are so proud of her desire to serve the Lord in all that she does and passion to help those in need, especially special needs orphans.
In case you are interested, we used CollegePrep, which is part of the CollegePlus program, to guide her through the process with the help of an accountability mentor. CollegePrep helps homeschoolers earn dual credit - meaning Sarah earned high school and college credit at the same time. CollegePrep also evaluated her critical reasoning strengths and weaknesses, and then she went through a Critical Reasoning course which will help her with test taking her whole life. She will continue on her path of dual credit throughout her high school career and hopes to shave a year off her time in college. That would make all of us very happy!
We are so very proud of her! She worked hard and earned her score. But more importantly, we are so proud of her desire to serve the Lord in all that she does and passion to help those in need, especially special needs orphans.
In case you are interested, we used CollegePrep, which is part of the CollegePlus program, to guide her through the process with the help of an accountability mentor. CollegePrep helps homeschoolers earn dual credit - meaning Sarah earned high school and college credit at the same time. CollegePrep also evaluated her critical reasoning strengths and weaknesses, and then she went through a Critical Reasoning course which will help her with test taking her whole life. She will continue on her path of dual credit throughout her high school career and hopes to shave a year off her time in college. That would make all of us very happy!
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Our "Real" Big News!
Ok, so I hope you don't mind I had a little fun yesterday with it being April Fool's Day. :-) (To those of you who emailed me, I'm very sorry, really.) The picture I posted yesterday was actually from February 2006 when I found out I was pregnant with Rebekah. Heehee
BUT......I am actually pregnant...sort of...I'm "paper pregnant"! Yes, that's right!!! We are adopting again!!! Lord willing, it will be a little girl this time. Yes, a little girl with Down syndrome, and yes, from that same "Eastern European" country that we know and love so much. Our hearts belong in the country that gave us our two youngest boys, that gave Sarah her passion and mission for life, and that will give us our 5th daughter and 8th child here on earth. (Of course, we would go wherever the Lord called us.)
This journey started out a little different than our last two adoption journeys. Pat came home from his work trip to Russia and told me a week later that he felt the Lord was calling us to adopt a little girl with Down syndrome. We just didn't know who yet. It took us a few weeks to seek the Lord's discernment and we believe we have found her. And again, different than our other journeys, we will not be sharing "who" we are adopting until we are in country, either when we get her referral or after court. We'll have to see how things go. There are a few reasons for this confidentiality that I can't discuss there. Sorry, but that's just the way we need to do it this time. I hope you understand.
We are hoping to travel in late July/August, but only the Lord knows. So please join us in celebrating with us (if you are truly happy for us, 'cuz not everyone is, but that is totally fine) as we seek to bring our newest daughter, Grace, home. We would appreciate prayers too of course. The attacks on our family pretty much began immediately, but we trust in the Lord. I would love prayers for a continued smooth adoption process and paperwork. Things are going well so far. Just let me say compiling a dossier is a breeze the 3rd time around on this end (so far). Hopefully, USCIS immigration approval will go smoothly too.
Our kids are SUPER excited too! They were literally jumping up and down when we told them. :-) I love that the Lord has given them a heart for the orphan and a willingness to open their hearts to another sibling yet again. Rachel (3 years old) has already informed Sarah is her favorite big sister is Grace, not her. :-) She's got it all figured out. And Anna said a very beautiful thing. Referring to the family photo at the top of the blog, she said, "Look Mom! There is a spot for Grace right in front between Rachel and Elijah." She's so right. It definitely looks like a hole that needs to be filled!
BUT......I am actually pregnant...sort of...I'm "paper pregnant"! Yes, that's right!!! We are adopting again!!! Lord willing, it will be a little girl this time. Yes, a little girl with Down syndrome, and yes, from that same "Eastern European" country that we know and love so much. Our hearts belong in the country that gave us our two youngest boys, that gave Sarah her passion and mission for life, and that will give us our 5th daughter and 8th child here on earth. (Of course, we would go wherever the Lord called us.)
This journey started out a little different than our last two adoption journeys. Pat came home from his work trip to Russia and told me a week later that he felt the Lord was calling us to adopt a little girl with Down syndrome. We just didn't know who yet. It took us a few weeks to seek the Lord's discernment and we believe we have found her. And again, different than our other journeys, we will not be sharing "who" we are adopting until we are in country, either when we get her referral or after court. We'll have to see how things go. There are a few reasons for this confidentiality that I can't discuss there. Sorry, but that's just the way we need to do it this time. I hope you understand.
We are hoping to travel in late July/August, but only the Lord knows. So please join us in celebrating with us (if you are truly happy for us, 'cuz not everyone is, but that is totally fine) as we seek to bring our newest daughter, Grace, home. We would appreciate prayers too of course. The attacks on our family pretty much began immediately, but we trust in the Lord. I would love prayers for a continued smooth adoption process and paperwork. Things are going well so far. Just let me say compiling a dossier is a breeze the 3rd time around on this end (so far). Hopefully, USCIS immigration approval will go smoothly too.
Our kids are SUPER excited too! They were literally jumping up and down when we told them. :-) I love that the Lord has given them a heart for the orphan and a willingness to open their hearts to another sibling yet again. Rachel (3 years old) has already informed Sarah is her favorite big sister is Grace, not her. :-) She's got it all figured out. And Anna said a very beautiful thing. Referring to the family photo at the top of the blog, she said, "Look Mom! There is a spot for Grace right in front between Rachel and Elijah." She's so right. It definitely looks like a hole that needs to be filled!
Monday, April 1, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Happy Easter!
Sarah here... as you can guess because this is a picture post. ;)
We're with family this weekend, and yesterday we had the egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's. Elijah and Jonathan quickly got the hang of it if they didn't remember from last year, but I don't think either of them realized that there was candy inside!
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| Jonathan |
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| Elijah |
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| Rachel |
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| Rebekah |
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| Isaac |
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| Anna |
And... this would be where my camera stopped working so no pictures of me. Not that I would have posted them anyways. :)
And some pictures from this morning (from grandma's camera)...
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| Best picture we got of Rachel in her dress... she wasn't in the picture taking mood. This beautiful Ukrainian sparkle dress was Little Miss Ruby's dress. She generously donated it to a blog auction to help her new big brother, Maxim, come home from Ukraine. Rachel loved wearing it today, even if she didn't want to pose for a picture. |
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| Elijah was all dressed up too. |
Happy Easter from our family to yours!
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
World Down Syndrome Day
World Down Syndrome Day is tomorrow - March 21st -- 3-21 -- for 3 copies of the 21st chromosome. We will be celebrating with our local DSAW group at Monkey Joe's. The kids are very excited!
In honor of this special day, I invite you to watch the following video produced by IDSC. It has a GREAT message!
In honor of this special day, I invite you to watch the following video produced by IDSC. It has a GREAT message!
Friday, February 22, 2013
You know you live in WI when...
...your husband comes in from plowing the driveway and using the snow blower with a drenched shirt from sweat. At my surprise he says, "It's hot out there!" I turn to look at the thermometer, which reads 36 deg, and say, "You're right. It is!"
Yes, only in Wisconsin is 36 deg "hot". :-)
Yes, only in Wisconsin is 36 deg "hot". :-)
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
A special song for parents of special needs kids
This is a beautiful song! Enjoy!
"Your Child' by Jennifer Shaw - A song celebrating every life
"Your Child' by Jennifer Shaw - A song celebrating every life
Monday, February 4, 2013
Milka Chocolate Anyone???
Some of you may remember from our trips to Ukraine that I LOVE Milka chocolate! Believe it or not, I'm really not a big fan of chocolate. I'll caramel instead any day. But Milka is different - oh so yummy - the best chocolate in the world says my Ukrainian friend, Max, and I agree!
My dear husband just returned from a 3-week trip to Russia for work. I am SO glad to have him home. (He got in almost 8 hours late last night and had every imaginable type of delay possible, but he made it. Thank you Lord!) Anyway, he picked up some Milka for me to donate to the Hidden Treasures auction. (Hidden Treasures auction runs every other month to support a family adopting from Pleven, Bulgaria. It's lots of fun!) So, if you are craving some chocolate - some really, really good chocolate, hop on over to the blog site and put your bid in. It's super easy and just follow the directions here.
Here is the first collection. Pat was told the chocolate w/ the baby on the label is the best Russian chocolate, made in Moscow. I haven't tried it yet.
Here is the second collection. All Milka...yum...
Hope to "see" you over there!
My dear husband just returned from a 3-week trip to Russia for work. I am SO glad to have him home. (He got in almost 8 hours late last night and had every imaginable type of delay possible, but he made it. Thank you Lord!) Anyway, he picked up some Milka for me to donate to the Hidden Treasures auction. (Hidden Treasures auction runs every other month to support a family adopting from Pleven, Bulgaria. It's lots of fun!) So, if you are craving some chocolate - some really, really good chocolate, hop on over to the blog site and put your bid in. It's super easy and just follow the directions here.
Here is the first collection. Pat was told the chocolate w/ the baby on the label is the best Russian chocolate, made in Moscow. I haven't tried it yet.
Here is the second collection. All Milka...yum...
Hope to "see" you over there!
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