Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!

We have had a busy couple of weeks so I am going to put a few things together in one post.  

First, we had company!!!  I love when my sister and her family come for a visit!  We always have so much fun.  Her girls attended their first parade (other than the Disney Parades, but there is no candy there).  They were all about that candy!  It was so funny to watch their excitement as the candy came at them.  

The kids had a great time celebrating the 4th of July!  They also did a lot of swimming, some crafts, a little fishing, and we all went to see Despicable Me 2.  That was a great movie!

Lots of fun times with the cousins!  We miss them already.  

We have also celebrated our little Miss Kaitlyn's 9th birthday!  Nine years old already!!!  I can't believe it!  She is growing up on me!  She had a pool party with an ice cream sundae. We were so lucky to have a beautiful day!  The sundae bar was a huge hit and a big mess!  We also attended Pizza Fun Night at the Flip Zone.  Kaitlyn invited a few friends and her little brother.  It was a fun night.  She had a pretty good day.  

 The yummy sundae toppings! 

We also had a trip to the Martinsville Ag Fair.  That is a good time every summer.  Lots of rides, good food, and the barnyard scramble!  Kian caught a little duck.  He had a blast.  

The first half of July has been busy busy!  I'll try to do better at keeping up with things on here but don't count on it!  :)

FAQ's

Jason made our big news Facebook official last week.  I have been getting some questions so I thought I would put some information on here.  

Why Adopt? 

That's a big one!  I think the reason for that is different for each of us.  I have always wanted to adopt.  I can remember when we first decided to try having a baby, I had said I would be totally up for adopting.  I have always wanted to provide a family for a child in need of one.  We had no difficulty having our own children, but the thought of adopting never left my mind or my heart.  I really thought after having Kian, Jason would never agree to more.  He did though!  We have three children of our own and there are sooooo many children out there that need families, I thought why have more when we could provide a loving family and home for one of those children.  Jason thought about it and said, OK, look into it.  I have a very dear friend or two that have adopted, so I immediately talked with them, called some agencies, and passed along the information I had gathered.  I tend to jump into things with both feet and little thought so thank goodness Jason is the thinker!  It about killed me waiting for his answer but after a lot of thought he agreed that we could make this happen.  His reasons for adopting are different than mine but I will let him talk about that.  

Why Ethiopia?

We had originally thought and planned to adopt from China.  After speaking with a couple of different agencies, we decided China was just not going to work for us.  The wait time for China is approximately 7 years!  That was way too long!  Our children will be grown up by then.  The other options that we felt would work for our family were a few African countries and Bulgaria.  I have a friend that has two handsome little boys from Ethiopia, so I called her up again!  I got a lot of information from her.  I talked to the agency we had decided to go with and got more informaiton on each country.  I did some of my own research online.  First of all, Ethiopia just felt right.  One thing I told myself from the beginning was to listen to my gut, follow my heart.  It was leading me to Ethiopia. The information I was finding about Bulgaria scared me a little.  It was also very comforting to know somebody that had been to Ethiopia.  There were also soooo many reason why we should go there:

*  Ethiopia is ranked as one of the four poorest countries

*  1 in 10 children die before their first birthday (can you imagine?)

*  1 in 6 children die before the age of 6

*  Malnutrition is the underlying cause of more than half of all deaths

*  Dr. to child ration is 1 to 24,000

*  Only about 50% of children attend school

*  Ethiopia has on of the largest populations of orphans:  13% have lost one or both parents ( this   represents an estimated 4.6 million children)

Those were just a few of the facts I found as I was researching our options.  They were enough!  

Every day the 75 million people of Ethiopia face famine and disease. While nearly every Ethiopian feels the impact, the 4.3 million orphans are the most vulnerable. 

How long does it take?

You can view our timeline off to the side, but we started the end of December.  We ended making some agency changes, so we actually began our home study process and paperwork in  February.  That takes on average 4-6 months to complete.  We have completed our Dossier and did it in 4 months.  I was on top of things!  We are now on the waiting list and have been told to expect a 12 month wait for our referral.  At that time we will receive photos and information on our child.  We will either accept or deny the referral.  We will then wait 2-4 months for our court date.  We will travel to meet our child(ren) and attend to court.  At that time, the child will be legally ours.  We will then come home and wait another 1-2 months for our embassy appointment.  We can then travel back to Ethiopia, obtain our child's documentation and come home!  From referral to homecoming is estimated to take 5-6 months. We are hoping that we will be a family 6 or 7 by Christmas of 2014.  It is all estimates though.  Things could happen faster or they could take longer.  

Do we know what we are getting?

Yes we do!  We have been approved to adopt a child of either sex between 0-4 years of age.  We (right now) are on the list for a little girl age 0-2 and a little boy age 2-4.  We can change that at any time as long as we stay within our approved age range.  We are really hoping to get siblings.  

Those are the questions we are being asked most frequently.  I don't mind the questions at all.  I'm so excited, I really just love when somebody asks me about it so I can talk about it!  

I am going to leave with some beautiful photos that were taken by Stacey Clack Photography on her recent trip to Ethiopia.  She sold the prints as a way to raise some money to help with travel expenses.  I just love them all!

#63

#63

Just received a very exciting email....our dossier has been received by our agency and is being mailed to Ethiopia tomorrow!!!!  Yippee!!!!  We are #63 on the wait list.  We are expecting a 12 month wait for our referral.  That's way too long, but we will make it!  I'm glad the paper chase is over and I can breath a little bit easier for a while.  Now the waiting game begins!  I have a lot to do to get ready for our new baby or babies so I will keep busy with that.  

Creepy Critters

Every summer our local library puts on a summer program for the kids to encourage reading.  When you return four books, you can get a prize!  They also try to have some type of activity for the kids to do on Wednesdays.  This last through the month of June.  Anyway.....Yesterday the had a program called Animal Tales.  It was very good!  They brought their Creepy Critter program with them.  He showed the kids hissing cockroaches, a scorpion, a rat, a tarantula, a rat snake, and a huge python.  He shared a lot of information with the kids as well.  With each critter he showed, he asked for volunteers.  Of course, Kaitlyn raised her hand.  She was picked first.  He had her and another little boy close their eyes.  He asked what is the insect that the most common?  The kids answered cockroaches, ladybugs, gnats.  He asked what is the bug most people don't like the most?  Then in Kaitlyn's hand he placed a huge hissing cockroach!  She did not like that at all!!!!  It was so funny.  She now says she will never volunteer again!  She will!  

LOL!  And she has it!  She did not hold it very long!

Imagine this great big thing in Kait's little hand!  YUCK!

Aden tried to volunteer to help hold the Python but he was not picked.  He was disappointed.  He has a small obsession with snakes.  I'm a terribly mean mother and will not allow a snake in my house!  He would love to have one though.  

I'm so glad that our library has these things for the kids in the summer.  It is a great program.  We can't wait to go next week!

Paper chase is OVER!!!!

We are DONE!!!  We are finally DONE!  We received our I-171H form on May 20th.  Yesterday, we made the trip to Springfield to have our documents state sealed.  Of course, we couldn't do it without a little bit of stress!  Our notary's stamp included her middle initial and her signature did not.  We ended up having to go to the Lincoln Library to retype the two documents and then to the Circuit Clerk's office to have them notarized.  We got it done though!  Just a little bit of stress for me!  LOL  I was a nervous wreck.  We drove home from Springfield, went straight to the bank to get our money order, and sent our dossier off to the Assistant Stork!  We are officially finished with the paper chase part of our adoption journey.  I am so thankful!  It was not anything too difficult, but it stressed me out!!!  I'm glad to have it all done.  Waiting is not going to be easy.  I am so ready and anxious to get our new daughter and maybe son too.  At least, I can wait in peace!  No more dreams about notaries and documents and Dr. appointments. 

Fingerprinting

We received our fingerprinting appointment last week.  It was set for May 14th at 9:00 am in Indianapolis.  We decided to take a chance and go for a walk in.  We went to Indy Wednesday May 1st and they let us in!  We were fingerprinted a whole 14 days early!  That is fantastic.  Want to hear a funny story about that?!  Well, its funny now but at the  moment it was kind of scary!  I told Jason as we were getting out of the car that I was only taking my ID and appt. form in with me.  It says on the form not to bring in phones, radios, pagers, etc.  We had to go to the Office of Homeland Security.  It is a big government office.  Anyway,  he just went in like normal.  We get up to the 4th floor and had to empty our pockets.  I, of course, left everything in the car.  Jason, on the other hand, emptied his pockets.  The lady immediately yelled, "Get that out of this building now!"  Jason and I looked at each like what?!  He had a small knife in his pocket.  She yelled it again.  He started to toss it in the trashcan.  She yelled again, "No, out of this building!"  He did as she said and took it back out to the car.  When he came back in she said, "I'm sorry, but I did not want to see what you had.  I did not want to cuff you in front of your son."  Wow!  We went to prove we are not criminals and Jason about became one!  Oh my!!!!  It was quite an experience which we are laughing about now.  That will be something to tell our child someday.  LOL!  We are now just waiting to receive our I 171 H form.  We will then make a trip to Springfield to have the Great  Seal put on our documents.  Our dossier will then be ready to be sent to the Assistant Stork, US embassy, our agency, and then off to Ethiopia!!!!  We will officially be on the waiting list soon!  

More news.....we got our monthly update this week.  There were 15 referrals in April!  That is a lot!!!!! They had told us the average is 1-4 referrals per month.  They have a possible 15 referrals coming up that they know of!  This is amazing!  Right now the waiting list has 43 families ahead of us.  Our wait is still estimated to be around 12 months.  It has been so exciting to see all the families receiving referrals and a couple that have met their children.  There should be several families traveling in the next month.  I love seeing and hearing all about their trips and their beautiful children. 

It's been a long week!!!!

Last week was a long week!  I started off thinking I had a great week ahead with very little I needed to do.  Boy was I wrong!  Sunday night, my sweet little Kian fell off his bike and broke his little arm.  "It was all Daddy's fault because he was talking to me", he says!  Now he thinks his bike needs a seatbelt too.  He is something else!  Sunday night ended with a trip to the ER.  Yep, a broken arm.  A supra condylar fracture to be exact.  They put his arm in a splint and sent us home.  Now a trip the Orthopedic surgeon first thing in the morning.

This is his huge splint Sunday night!

Monday morning we met with Dr. Sandercock, his surgeon.  The took some new X-rays and decided that the best thing to do would be to put him under and try to manipulate the bone back into place with the possibility of inserting pins.  Kian was scheduled the first surgery of the day on Wednesday.  That was an early morning!  

His new cast!  He loved the blue!

Wednesday morning went very well.  The Dr. was able to push the bone back into place and cast it with no pins!  Yay!!!!  I think the worst part about the whole thing were the horrible baby pajamas Kian had to wear.  He threw a huge fit b/c he had to wear those things.  

Not liking these pj's!

Sleeping peacefully after surgery.

Kian is getting along very well now.  He was pretty moody the first few days, but has not had any pain meds since Saturday.  The cast is annoying and has made him quite clumsy.  It is very heavy!  He still complains about the itching but not too often.  The Dr. thinks he will just need wear the cast for 3 weeks!  We were super happy about that!  It will be swimming time soon and he would not like it if he couldn't jump in!  Back to the Dr. tomorrow for another check up.  He's hoping for a new cast.  The hospital only had white and he wants a green one now, so he can have a Hulk arm.