truly thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!  Today is one of my favorite days of the year not only because of the Thanksgiving Day parade or eating turkey and pie or possibly pulling out our Christmas tree later to decorate.  No, today is my favorite because we get to spend time with the people we love and say "thank you" to our Father God who gives every good and perfect gift (James 1:17).  We don't deserve even one good thing, and yet He takes great delight in giving abundantly! 

The Lord has given us an incredible church family here, and we are blessed to spend our Thanksgiving dinner with some of them.  A fun twist of events happened and we'll now be having dinner at our house... which could be convenient if their baby decides to make an appearance today!  Who knows what excitement may happen ?!?

Thanksgiving is a little sad for me too, because we haven't spent it together with our families since our first year of marriage, seven years ago. I'm tempted to just go sit in the corner and cry about it, but I know many of my friends feel the same. Today I will remember and be thankful for them instead of feeling sorry for myself! I am thankful for T and S who serve our great country in Iraq and will be returning very soon after months away from their precious families. I am thankful for C K and A who serve the Lord obediently in Mozambique and W and C who serve in Brazil. I am thankful for the little child who lives on the other side of our planet that we'll get to welcome home (not soon enough!), and I long for him or her to take up another seat at our table.

My friend D reminded me this week of when we bought our dining room table.  I have always wanted a huge dining table for our home, in hopes of many family dinners together around it.  I have many sweet memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners at my Gramps and Grams' house, with at least 15 people eating together.  I wanted to buy the biggest table I could get my hands on, so we saved and bought a table when we lived in Japan.  It comfortably seats 12 when it's extended but we've squeezed in a few more.  For those of you who know where the table was actually made, that is the exact country where our third child is right now. 

Just the thought of it makes me want to jump in a plane and go pick up our child for dinner tonight! 

Hope your day is filled with joy and thanksgiving.  Many blessings, angela

Some pictures from this morning:  the kids watching the Thanksgiving parade... if you haven't seen our FB photo album about our little fashionista, this is true Peanut form.

answered prayers and musical chairs

It's incredibly evident the Heavenly realms were involved in our meeting with the social worker (we'll call her B) yesterday. I certainly prayed enough about it, and the Lord was kind to answer beyond what I expected. To set the stage, I should first tell you that it was about 30 minutes past Buddy's naptime and Peanut was nearing hers. Usually about that time, Buddy starts tearfully telling us, "Nap. Nap. Paci!" It's usually downhill from there if we try to keep him up a minute longer. However, B shows up and the kids are silently playing in the the living room. Peanut even acts shy and won't say her name.

B takes a quick house tour with me to inspect our living conditions and where another child might fit into them, and then we go back to the kitchen table to begin our conversation with K. The next thing we know, the kiddos are parading around the house holding hands, and Buddy could not be more happy about it. Normally the thought of big sister dragging him around and telling him what to do makes him mad. B even said, "They are so cute. I can't believe how much they like each other!" Well, I couldn't lie to her, so I admitted that I was completely surprised too! Can't put on a completely happy face for B, can we?

Next thing we know they have disappeared upstairs and are playing for at least 10 minutes before I hear Buddy's yell that means "Don't take that from me!" K goes to check and comes back reporting they are playing "music chairs." He asked if everything was okay to which Buddy replies "No thank you" and closes the door. Great.

In the meantime, B asked questions about our parenting styles and how we arrived at them from the way we were parented. What virtues are important to our family. What K's work schedule is like on a normal day. Good question! I'd like to know that too. Do we have a family pet? Anyone who knows me, knows the answer. She asked about our firearms and fire extinguishers. Normal conversation for a social worker, I suppose. Maybe I'll try some of these out over Thanksgiving dinner...

(Okay, so maybe the whole house is against me on the pet issue, but Peanut makes do with what she has.)

Ty goes to bed for a nap, then Alannah walks up to the table and asks, "Can I do some worksheets?" Seriously? This couldn't get any more staged. B looks at me incredulously, I shrug and tell her our daughter likes to do worksheets. What else can I say? This is looking ridiculous.

So, it went well as a whole,and I hope she was able to get a clearer picture of what our home life is like. She's the one who will write up a story for our child's govt to tell them what living condtions our child will enter into when he or she arrives home to us.

Happy Thanksgiving! Blessings, angela

knee-deep.

Many of you were praying for our first homestudy meeting last Thursday. Thanks so much! I'll be honest. I was nervous like it was the first day of school. I was so happy to graduate from college, knowing I never had to have a first day of school again in my life. Although, now as I type this I'm wondering, could some of you seasoned moms tell me if it's just as bad when your kids start school?

So the meeting went great. It was mostly a time for our social worker to get to know us and hear a little about our lives. She is the person who will write up what kind of child we are capable of adopting so it's important for her to get to know the real us. However, it still makes me nervous again thinking that she will step in my front door tomorrow for our next meeting. This one is a time for her to see if our home is suitable for another child, talk with us about our parenting philosophies, and see us interact with Peanut and Buddy. Talk about pressure! I'm only taking a moment to write between getting dinner ready and cleaning my bathrooms.

Currently I feel knee-deep in papers. K and I have written up our autobiographies, filled out and had notarized form after form, and watched hours of parenting seminars while taking notes and then tests. Yes, there's a mountain of paperwork, but once we get through it all, I'm sure the months of waiting will be more difficult than what we're doing right now.

There's been questions about the children we are interested in. Once our contract arrives this week, we will be able to request more information about those children. Because we are interested in kids on the waiting list, we will be able to choose which child to bring home. If there were no waiting list, I suppose we would wait to be matched with a child meeting our qualifications, but thankfully we won't have to wait! Then after our homestudy is complete we will await the official referral for that specific child.

More to come once my house is ready for inspection! Blessings, angela

questions for the non-pregnant.

Today's topic: questions never asked of a pregnant lady but freely asked of an adoptive mom.


Why did you decide to adopt?
Can we see copies of all your financial statements?
What kinds of kids are you qualified to handle?
Do you have a fire escape plan?
How much do you weigh?


I'm not kidding about that last one, people. I have to have a physical in two weeks. However, I do remember a nurse scoldingly pointing out that I had gained five pounds in a week when I was pregnant with Peanut. I was well-aware I was quickly ballooning to grow a little person, and I also remember what I wanted to tell her back.


So back to the topic at hand. I find it slightly humorous that when adopting, people are allowed to ask all kinds of questions that you don't dream of asking a pregnant mom. No one asked me why I wanted to get pregnant. No one asked if we could afford it, they assumed we would make the budget work to cover diapers and such. No one asked what I was qualified to deal with as far as special needs, they just tried to scare me with all the possibilities of what could happen. I had no almost-stranger walk into my house and look for fire extinguishers. ...but I did have to step on a scale more often than comfortable.


This journey is taking me places I never dreamed of going, but it's good. I'm happy to open up my home and my heart and even all my accounts to see where it's going to take us. I know what's at the end... and he or she has a precious face.

fingerprints.

A huge part of the fun of adoption is all the paperwork. Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. Well, actually it's a lie. There are a lot of forms to fill out and questionnaires to write about my thoughts and feelings. I honestly thought it would be more arduous, though. We are trying to fly through it so we can get our homestudy completed because that means we'll get to go pick up our child sooner!

Today I had to get fingerprints done in order to get a full background check. As I looked my fingerprints on paper, I thought about our child currently living around the world. How soon until I will have more fingerprints to wipe off my windows?


It also brought to mind a song by Steven Curtis Chapman, who has adopted three precious daughters from China...


Never has there been and never again

Will there be another you

Fashioned by God's hand and perfectly planned

To be just who you are

And what He's been creating

Since the first beat of your heart

Is a living, breathing

Priceless work of art




And I can see the fingerprints of God

When I look at you

I can see the fingerprints of God

And I know it's true

You're a masterpiece that all creation

Quietly applauds

And you're covered with

The fingerprints of God

choices. not always a good thing.

Today it arrived. Not a child, unfortunately. K was out of the house when Mr. Mailman (I have a feeling he's going to make it into lots of my posts!) delivered it so I had to wait an hour to view it.

What is it?

A DVD containing video of all the waiting children in our country that we can adopt. K and I took a moment to pray before we watched the videos... thanking the Lord for even the chance to consider adoption and that He would either make one child stand out as completely "ours" or give us wisdom as we decide which child to choose.

I'll admit, it was a bit overwhelming to push play. I wondered if I would fall in love with each and every one of them. I didn't want to make light of the choice, seeing them as just another decision. Unfortunately for K, you can't check Consumer Reports on this one. (if you know my darling boy, you will think that's funny!) It was a bit gut wrenching to see all the beautiful faces and hear about their physical special needs, knowing that when we choose one, we still leave the rest behind. I committed in my heart to continue praying for their forever families to choose them, too. I cannot bear the thought of otherwise.



There wasn't just one child that stood out to us. In fact, there are five children we are going to ask questions about before making a decision. All of them have some kind of special need, ranging from minor to more. Tears well up in my eyes as I think about how precious each one of them is and that I can't bring them all home.

I also keep thinking about how when I gave birth to Peanut and Buddy, I got what I got. It seems unfair to be able to choose what I feel "qualified" to deal with in our adopted child. If my first two had been born with any number of needs, I would have immediately stepped up to the plate to care for them as best I could and sought help for the ways I couldn't. To be able to make a decision seems quite ridiculous to me. Lord, help me. Help us. Give us eyes to see what you want and give us hearts big enough to wrap around whatever awaits us at the end of this adoption process.

I'm working on a post to show off some things I've been making lately. Adoption costs will be a future post, but let's just say there are more little costs that keep popping up at almost every corner. I want to do a little to help with some of them by selling some items I'm hoping you will want for Christmas gifts!

Blessings, angela

questions

It is incredibly encouraging to see the outpouring of excitement after sharing our adoption news. Thank you for sharing in this time with us!

Many of you have lots of questions for us, and I would like to share some of the answers. Our adoption agency has rules about what I can share in a public forum, so I want to be so careful about that. Please feel free to leave any other questions in the comments section. I can always email you if I can't specifically answer you here.

Where are we adopting from? we've requested a specific Asian country - but not China due to medication I take. China has a ton of rules about adopting parents, including a body mass index requirement! There are many, many Chinese children awaiting adoption, but unfortunately, we won't be bringing one of them home.

How many are you adopting? What age? We have requested one child for this first adoption but hope to adopt more. We'd love to get a child younger than Buddy, but we will see what is in store for us as the process moves along.

Do your kids know about this? Well, we have talked about it with Peanut for a good while, and she has already decided we should name the child Africa or Karabee. She doesn't have a good grasp on it, but that's okay. I don't think she knew what was coming when Buddy arrived either!

How soon will you get a child? The best guess is about a year and a few months from now, but of course we will do everything in our control to get paperwork done quickly to speed anything up that can be sped up. From everything we know and have heard, adoption is for the flexible and the patient. I am not gifted in either area, so I'm expecting the Lord has some big growing for me to do. At least there is joy and great blessing at the end of the growing!

This is only the beginning. Next we'll be waiting for our contract to sign and then the dossier (big fancy word for HUGE packet of paperwork about us and our homestudy) that goes to our child's country. Then the long wait while the country processes us, then we get to fly to pick him or her up. Come quickly, sweet day!


Today I spent time on the phone trying to get my own questions answered. They seem to be endless. It's going to be worth all the work, but it's not a quick journey. Then I looked around our dinner table tonight and thought about what it will be like to have another seat filled by someone who will share our last name. I'm so ready to find out, but for now we wait.

Give me joy in the waiting, my Lord.

Blessings, angela

pull up a chair.

I guess it's time to begin the dreaded blog. As much as I'm addicted to reading many of your blogs, I never felt quite news-worthy enough to share at length. But now we're embarking on a journey called adoption. Gulp. It makes me a little nervous just thinking about it, much less stating it here in cyberspace. But our application just went out in the mail a few hours ago, when my sweet postman retrieved it, leaving a bunch of junkmail in its place.

The journey actually begins about seven years ago, during my first year of marriage to the most incredible man on the planet, K. There's been much in between now and then, but let's just say he went from "let's talk about that later" in 2002 to "how soon can we adopt?" in 2009. Maybe I can share more of how we got here at a later time, but for now I just wanted to say welcome to our blog and I am grateful you stopped in to hear about this exciting time for our family. Pull up a chair. We've always got room for one more at the table.

Blessings, Angela