Merry Christmas from Haiti

We received a bunch of pictures of the kids celebrating Christmas - what a wonderful present for us!

Paperwork progress: We have gathered all our paperwork together, taken two trips over to St. Paul to get everything authenticated and state seals on all of it, and sent it all over to the translator. We are just waiting to get it back so it can be sent off to the Haitian consulate in Chicago next. Hopefully we are on the homestretch with the paperwork now.

Any day we should be getting access to a website that will be updated (approximately monthly) with pictures and info on the kids so we can keep up with what is going on with them and share it with you.

a sister and brother

We are excited to introduce you to Saraphina and Olivier - the children we are adopting from Haiti. Saraphina will be 3 in February and Olivier turned 1 in August - they are biological siblings.

The adoption process moves very sloooooow in Haiti and it will most likely be 18 months until we will be able to bring them home. Two trips are required but we are welcome to visit as often as we would like or are able.

We have a long road ahead of us but know that our God provides everything we need and will sustain all 5 of us until we can be together.

it's been 4 years...

...no, not since our last post. It's been 4 years since Jacob joined our family, rocked our world and stole our hearts. What an amazing little boy and what an adventure it has been. We celebrated Jacob's birthday earlier this month with John taking the day off and spending time as a family - Jacob's favorite thing. Happy Birthday Jacob!

Evolution vs Creation according to a 3 year old

There is a particular show on PBS that we don't allow Jacob to watch because there is a lot of evolution talk in it. This typically isn't even an issue since the show is on at nap time. One day I was letting Jacob watch a little TV before nap and lost track of time. I heard the theme song come on for this show and came in to turn it off. It's a very catchy little song and Jacob was quite upset I shut it off. I told him that we don't watch that show and he asked why. I wasn't really thinking and told him that there was too much evolution talk so of course he asked what evolution was - I really should have seen that one coming. I had no idea what to say and remember saying a quick prayer asking God to give me something that my 3 year old could understand. Quite honestly I have no idea what I told him but a couple of weeks later I was on the phone trying to take care of some adoption stuff and didn't notice the show come on again. Jacob ran in and said "Mom, mom, we don't watch this show, remember, remember" He then stretched his arms open as wide as they go and clapped a big loud clap and yelled "BOOM" and said "a big accident and they don't believe God made the world." Yep - that will work for a while. It was so funny that typing this story doesn't do it justice so I got it on video. He is pretty animated in the video and adds that "but we know that God did make the world". Hope you enjoy!

A quick update

We have finished our homestudy visits and walk-through of our house! Our social worker now has to write up the homestudy and then we review it, as well as, her supervisor and the director of the agency. We are still waiting on two reference letters but there is only so much prompting we can do there - hopefully they will come in this week so we can complete the homestudy.
We are also nearing the end of the paperwork with only a few more things that I should be able to get sent off in the next couple of days. The last thing we need to do is our profile book which seems like a daunting task looming but I know that I am procrastinating because this will be quite a struggle to keep my perfectionism under control. We have started gathering pictures so hopefully we can start to make some headway on this - as soon as this is complete they can actually start showing us to birthparents.
After that we wait and pray knowing that God's plan and timing are perfect - and almost never look the same as mine :-)

The Pledge of Allegiance

One day while we were in the car Jacob suddenly said the entire pledge of allegiance - we were stunned. This isn't something we have worked on, we just say it once a week in AWANAS. We think it is so cute so we thought we would share:

a long overdue update

I have to admit that I have been avoiding posting this update. It isn't that we aren't excited with the new direction God is taking our adoption journey but I think that I am still trying to wrap my head around a lot of the changes and some new decisions we need to make. I was also surprised by how "upset" I was when Liberia closed - it's not that we always had our hearts set on that particular country but I hadn't realized that I had really created a picture (fuzzy at it may have been since we didn't know ages or genders) in my head of what our family was going to look like and needed to let go of that and even "morn" that loss.
Anyway, after a lot of prayer we have decided not to wait for Liberia to re-open but instead we will be pursuing a domestic adoption. We are open to any racial/ethnic background so we will most likely be adopting an African American child since this is where the greatest need is. Our agency actually works with an agency out of North Carolina to place African American children so it is also very likely we will adopt from there. Most likely we will be adopting a newborn but occasionally they do have twins, older infants or siblings available. We have been told that this process could move very quickly since the agency in North Carolina currently does not have any families available to take African American children. We have also been told to anticipate one match falling through which means that the birthmother changes her mind and decides to parent. Some families have no referral fall through and occasionally there will be a family that has 2 referrals fall through so they feel it is best to prepare everyone for that possibility.
There are a lot of things we need to figure out now that we didn't have to with an international adoption - what type of relationship we are open to with the birth mother and family, what medical and psychological conditions of the birthparents we are willing to consider and putting together a picture book of our family for the birthparents to look through to pick us. If you know me well you know that I am far more comfortable gathering mounds of official paperwork together to send to another country for an adoption verses putting together a cute picture book about us.
We are really excited about the new path we are on with the domestic adoption and the need that is out there. We are very excited that most likely this means that Jacob will be able to come with us to get his new sibling(s). We are also excited that hopefully the wait will be short.
Well this post seems like it is getting pretty long so I will stop now but we appreciate all the support and prayers being sent our way!

Waffle Art

Jacob was eating his waffle this morning and suddenly yelled "Mom, mom, look at my waffle, it looks just like Noah's ark." Sure enough it did look like Noah's ark - too funny. He is now asking for a 2nd waffle and I am wondering if he is going to try to chew/shape it into an animal for the the ark :-) I love his creativity!

The five senses

Here is a story that has nothing to do with adoption but gives you a peek into the type of conversations that go on at our house...

Jacob and I were reading a book about the body (he has been very interested in bones, skin, muscles, etc... lately) and there was a page on the five senses. Here is how the conversation went:
Me "What is that?" (pointing to an eye)
Jacob "an eye"
Me "What do you do with your eyes?"
Jacob "see"
Me "what is that?" (pointing to an ear)
Jacob "an ear"
Me "What do you do with your ears?"
Jacob "listen" (can you tell what we have been working on a lot lately??)
Me "What is that?" (pointing to a nose)
Jacob "a nose"
Me "What do you do with your nose?"
Jacob "pick it" (can you tell what we have been unsuccessfully working on lately??)

I do have to admit, it was hard not to laugh!

No sisters!

We have been having another ongoing discussion around here that always starts with Jacob informing me that he doesn't like girls. He is very adamant about this and absolutely sure he wants a brother and definitely not a sister. When I tell him that God made everyone, even girls, and we like everyone he is not at all convinced and tells me they are yucky. I point out that I am a girl and he says he likes me, then I point out the other girls he likes (grandmas, aunts, cousins) he always proceeds to change the topic at that point.

Last night we were rocking for a few minutes before bed and out of the blue he folded his hands (we had already prayed for the night) and closed his eyes and said "Jesus, please give me a brother and not a girl, please a brother and I will take really good care of him, Amen."

It should be interesting to see how this ends up turning out...

Siblings vs. Pets

I have decided to take a little break from focusing on our current situation and thought I would share a funny discussion that has been going on with Jacob regarding the adoption.

A month or so ago we were on our way to the post office to mail some paperwork for the adoption. We started to talk about "brothers and sisters" and I asked him if he thought we were going to get 2 brothers or 2 sisters or 1 brother and 1 sister. He thought for a few seconds and said "how about 2 pandas?". I told him "no, we are not getting 2 pandas". He replied "well how about 2 monkeys?". I informed him that we were not getting two monkeys and that he was enough monkey for us :-)

Just last week we were returning from a play-date at a friend's house and when I asked him how it went he told me about how he and his friend were building something and his friend's little brother kept taking the pieces. I told him that the little brother was just starting to learn how to play with other kids and he needed to help him learn and that when he was a big brother he was going to have to help his "brothers and sisters" learn how to play. In all his three year old seriousness he said "Mom, I'm not going to get brothers and sisters, I am going to get a dog." I told him we were not getting a dog and we were getting brothers and sisters. In all the drama he could muster up he says "I don't want brothers and sisters - I reeeeeeeaaaaaallllly want a dog - Mom can I Pleeeeeaaaaasssssseeeee have a dog?" We then had a discussion about how siblings and pets are not an either or option. He thought about it and said "I know, let's get both!"

to adopt from Liberia or not to adopt from Liberia - that is the question

We received a call from our social worker late this afternoon to let us know that Liberia has closed international adoptions. They are hoping to reopen the adoption process in 2-3 months but who knows - I wonder if that is what Guatemala said back when they closed. Anyway, we need to make a choice whether we are going to wait for Liberia to open, choose another country or pursue a domestic adoption. The good and bad thing at this point is that we have a lot of options.

Please pray that we would continue to seek God's plan for this journey he has our family on and that he would clearly reveal the path he would like us to take.

home study, fingerprinting and paperwork

I am not sure how much detail people are interested in but since a few of you want to know everything I will try to be somewhat detailed for them and for the rest of you feel free to skim or skip the less "exciting" stuff.

We were contacted by the social worker assigned to us for our home study. We will have three visits over a six week period so we should be done at the end of February or 1st week of March.

We are getting fingerprinted tomorrow for the background checks and I was relieved to hear that the E.P. police do it in their lobby although for some reason it still makes me feel a little like a criminal!

We also need to have a health form filled out by a doctor on each of us. The good news is that since Jacob recently had his 3 yr check up they will just fill out the form for us without him having to go in again which means not having to pay another co-pay - you have to like that! Too bad we can't schedule a joint appointment for the two of us and only pay one co-pay. I guess I am really frugal!

Besides that just need to gather up some certified birth certificates and a wedding certificate. So far it really hasn't been too bad which make me a bit worried that the worst of the paperwork is to come - hopefully not though.

God Provides!

As our first large payment came due we received a call from someone (who wishes to remain anonymous) who had some money to donate and after praying felt led to donate to our adoption fund (and they didn't even know it was tax deductible for them at the time). The amount they had to donate covered all but $23 of our first payment! I love that God often provides in unexpected ways!

Now to wait and see what he has in store for a vehicle that holds three car seats!!