If you think we are crazy for doing this...

...then click here and read my friend Laura's blog entry on May 30th.

 

"If it seems that we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. Whatever we do, it is because Christ's love controls us"
2 Corinthians 5:13-14a (NLT)

Trip to the cabins...

For those of you unfamiliar with our cabins, we have a set of log cabins up in the Northwoods. They are actually part of a former U.S. Forest Service Ranger station. Through an amazing series of God-ordained events we acquired these via an online government auction. Sometime I'll blog about that whole story but for now, take a look at our Memorial weekend fun!

Annie's Birthday! (part 1)

Annie turns 4 at the cabins!

"tiny smile"

"big smile"

"Yeah, it's my birthday, and I know it."

(cake decorating courtesy of Daniel, Samuel and Anne)

Cheez-Its and a movie...

Little Bear...
Franklin...
Barney...
Veggie Tales (aka "Bob")...
Busy Town...
Five Little Ladybugs...
Sesame Street...
Signing Time...

Just a few of my favorites.

-Annie

Adoption Update

I realize it's about time I finally came up with some kind of update....now that I have laid out a bit of our history, here is where we are at....

We began the infamous International Adoption paperwork chase the middle of December. So, in the last 4 1/2, action- packed months, we have been...

-madly racing around trying to get the right forms filled out,
-waiting forever for them to be returned,
-running madly around once again getting more forms notarized and then waiting again,
-getting fingerprints done (several times),
-finding out that neither of us have a criminal record (whew),
-being declared free of numerous infectious diseases (whew again),
-getting more forms notarized..then more waiting,
-acquainting ourselves well with the post office personnel and mail carriers,
-completing our homestudy,
-throw in a bunch of phone calling, some made in panic pleas for help to public officials,
-add a ton of emails,
-then more waiting,
-then more notarizing,
-and finally, apostilling everything that even resembled a notary and (drum roll please)...

"Voila"....we finally had the "Dossier" - the bundle of magical papers which encompasses our entire life history, purpose and direction of our family for this adoption.

So, we now have a complete Dossier - it is in the hands of our adoption agency and will soon be in our country.

Now, what do we do?..............Any guesses?..............Why yes, of course we wait! :)

We hope our paperwork will be reviewed by officials in June. If that occurs, then we "wait" again for a travel date, which could happen in a short amount of time or not...Maybe we'll get to wait again! In short, if I could answer the question that of course everyone wants to know (including myself), is, "When will we travel?" Well, we hope within a few months. I wish we were leaving tomorrow. (accept of course for the fact that I have nothing ready and I would definitely be in an incredible panic and I most certainly wouldn't be sitting her yaking about waiting)

Actually, in regards to timing, I have felt the Lord challenging me again and again to trust Him for His perfect clock in all of this. He keeps asking me if I believe He will get us to our children exactly when we need to be there. So, I am trying to be patient and look at His calendar and not mine. I guess, after all, He can look at all of this through the eyes of eternity.

So, for now, we wait...stay tuned for more adoption developments! In the meantime, hang out with us and get to know our family a bit! (as soon as my very busy, significant other shows me how to download pictures from our camera, I will try to liven up the blog a bit...)

Ever have one of those days?…

...when you suddenly realize that your life has changed forever? Maybe it happens in a second...maybe a day...maybe longer. Somehow, we've found ourselves smack in the middle of one of those!

Eight months ago... I had never heard of Reeces Rainbow. Adoption was not on our radar screen at all. I did not know that children with Down Syndrome in the Eastern European countries are sent to mental institutions at the age of 4. And I knew of no one that had adopted a child with Down Syndrome.

But, even back then...the change was starting, little did I know. It all started out so innocently, but the Lord knew exactly what He was doing...

One night, when my friend Laura was over she showed me one of her friends' blogs. She said you have to see my friend Jill's blog. She and her husband have several children - both biological and adopted. Three of their girls have Down Syndrome - one is biological and 2 are adopted. Laura knew it would be encouraging to me to see another family who homeschool a child with Down Syndrome. (for anyone new to our life, our little Annie is our biological 3 yr. old, chromosomally enhanced bundle of joy... and stubborness...and affection...and independence... and personality...and the list goes on) So, anyway I kept going back to Jills' blog. I was just amazed that someone would actually adopt that many children with Down Syndrome! I just couldn't imagine it.

Now Jill also had a link on her blog to the Reeces Rainbow Christmas Angel Tree Project. They had a page full of beautiful little orphan children with Down Syndrome from all over the world. At the bottom of that page there was a picture of a little girl...the first time I saw her, I gasped, at least in my mind. She could have been Annie's twin sister! I could not get over the resemblance. Well, it didn't take long to decide that this was the little girl we would sponsor. So, my older 3 boys and I pooled some money together and donated it to her adoption fund. Then we started praying for her to find a forever family.

Now, mind you, adoption was not on my mind yet at all...But, obviously it was certainly on the Lord's mind. For, as the weeks progressed, I found myself going back again and again to that picture of a little girl I didn't know, living in an orphanage half-way around the world. The boys and I prayed for her fervently to be adopted. Every time I looked at her, my heart pulled. I imagined my sweet, little, innocent Annie languishing in a mental institution and my heart began to break for this little girl...named Norah.

I'm not sure when or how it happened but all of a sudden I started picturing Norah in our family...I envisioned her living in our house, playing with Annie and our boys, sitting with us at the table, crawling up the steps beside Annie to go up to their room to play...At first I was sort of startled by these thoughts. But, I began praying, asking the Lord for confirmation and guidance. If this was from Him, he needed to make it very clear to me and give me a verse to base all of my thoughts and dreams on. He did. One day in my quiet time He very clearly gave me Romans 11:29, "For God's gifts and His call are irrevocable." I talked to my friend Laura again, (who, by the way, recently adopted the most handsome little baby you've ever seen), about everything I was thinking and praying - wondering if I was crazy to be thinking all this. Of course, she said absolutely not and prayed me on...

So, I told the Lord if this was definitely from Him, then He was going to have to make it clear to my husband too. I guess it was Thanksgiving and we were driving to our in-laws for the holiday. I very hesitantly brought it up to my dear hubby. Obviously, the Lord had been working on his heart too! He didn't hesitate and said he thought we should pursue it! He said something like, we could just talk about our faith, talk about how we love Jesus, talk about serving Jesus or we could just live it out! I am definitely married to the most amazing man.

The Gift...

I have to say that one of the most memorable parts of this journey was when we got to tell our older boys that Norah had found a forever family. We had prayed for her so often to find a family and they were so excited to have that news. We told them, "You know the family that is going to adopt Norah!" They excitedly listed all their guesses. We said, "No, it's us! We are going to be her family!" They were so surprised and of course I was crying be then. They asked all sorts of questions, like what her real name was and what we would call her and where would she sleep, etc...

A couple weeks before Christmas we received some devastating news...After some further checking on Norah's situation, it was thought that this little girl the Lord had borne in our hearts was now, not available for adoption. I was crushed and cried out to the Lord. Why would He ask us to make this leap of faith and then leave us hanging? A period of several weeks of waiting ensued...during this time I asked the Lord again to give me specific scripture to help me sort out all that was happening.

It was time to decorate the tree. Every year I buy the children a little ornament to put on the tree. (I used to buy those cute little Hallmark ornaments, but at $10 or $15 a kid, with 5 kids, that adds up pretty quickly! Sorry Hallmark, now I go to Target or Wal-mart and by the multipack of ornaments for $6.99. Last year was Scooby Doo, one year was Batman, etc...) Anyway, this year was just little christmas momentos, wreaths, angels, etc... I let all the children pick an ornament to put on the tree. There was one left...it was a tiny little package, a christmas gift. I thought about putting it on the tree with Norah's name on it but I was just too afraid. I knew that next year when I unpacked the Christmas stuff it would be too painful to look at it so I put it back in the box. But then, all day long, it was like the Lord kept telling me over and over again, "Go put that ornament on the tree!" I kept ignoring Him. Real smart, huh. Finally, though, I relented and marched in there and hung up that little gift on the tree and cried.

Well, that night, the Lord and I were having it out in my bedroom closet. I was crying out to Him and reading some scripture. I don't remember how it happened but He led me to Isaiah 45:1-3. I kept reading over verse 3, "I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places."- it jumped off the page to me. And then it was just like He said to me, "Karen, Norah is my gift to you this Christmas!" Well, I wish I could say I went to bed that night full of faith and hope. But, actually, I was full of fear and maybe a little hope that wasn't there before. But, at least I think He was planting a seed of faith in me by that verse.

Well, Christmas came and we still had no word on the status of our little girl across the world. And to top it off, we all had the stomach flu - the worst kind. My parents came up for the holiday. They got a motel room, never came over(at our insistence) for fear of the dreaded plague, spent 2 days going out to restaurants and Wal-mart. We exchanged gifts via grocery bags, outside the front door and then they went home. So, Christmas day came and after opening gifts between bouts of nausea, the phone rang. It was the director of our adoption agency. She was so excited, she had wonderful news...our little girl was indeed available after all and we could proceed with our adoption! There had been some confusion at the orphanage between her and another child. So, the Lord was right on time with delivering our Christmas "gift"to us!


In case you hadn't noticed, that verse has become the bedrock of our adoption. As the months progress and potential pitfalls attempt to discourage us, we come back to that promise again and again.