Caroline is 7 today!

Celebrating my oldest birthday today! Where did the 7 years go. We had her favorite breakfast, pancakes, opened presents and last night I was up decorating the kitchen with snowflakes and lights. We will be having a snowflake party tomorrow with 5 girls from school and church. Will post pics tomorrow night if I can.

Ask yourself " Why Wouldn't I adopt?" from Reece's Rainbow

Found this on a fellow bloggers site, thanks Aime. A good question to ask oneself, especially when others are asking you why you are adopting. We felt called to increase our family, why not give a child a home that doesn't have one. Especially a child from another country who has less than we do. As a Christian this is what we are called to do, care for the orphans, love our neighbor, witness to others and be obedient to our God. Investing in a life of a child, sharing the good news with them, loving them as God first loved us. I can't wait to bring our son home, until then I am serving Him the best way I know how, holding babies in the NICU and serving in my church, being a wife and mother, teaching my biological children about the love and faithfulness of our God.

Reality check, I am not perfect but God will complete his work in my life and sanctify me as I grow as a godly woman. Yes I need work on many areas in my life, and with God's grace and forgiveness, the help of the Holy Spirit there is still hope for me yet! Enjoy this great testimony.

Warning about Pakistan adoptions

http://allysjourney.blogspot.com/

http://nrbfamily.blogspot.com/

Go to the above adoption blogs and learn about the child trafficking in Pakistan, please don't adopt from there until they get a handle on things. Children are either being sold or stolen and then sold to adoption agencies. The US Embassy has been on top of things, identifying false documentation but agencies are still sending families to this country. A number of families have returned home without their children and loss of money. Two agency involved have been Lighthouse and Adoption Ark.

Grant money

Today we applied for two grants, we should find out within 120 days whether we will receive any monetary gifts for our adoption. Today is also the day that 9,600 hits have been made to our blog. I have noticed a lot of hits from France, Australia, UK, Italy, Sweden and the USA. I am guessing the USA is friends and family. Friends we have made along the adoption journey who are also adopting. We are still patiently waiting, but it is very hard. Are there any healthy referrals out there, anyone?

We have been praying and watching what is going on in Haiti and especially feel terrible for the orphans that are living outside of their orphanages without food and the children who have become orphans because of the earthquake disaster last week. Unbelievable that they had another earthquake today!! It is so frustrating that many of us have donated to the relief effort, yet many still haven't received food or medical attention because the stuff can't get into them. My prayer is that during this difficult time many will come to know the Lord and see him working through the people who are his hands and feet. I also pray for the families who are waiting for their children to come to the USA and are being delayed because of this horrible event.

I pray for you my son, I pray that God is surrounding you with his angels, that you feel his love and peace. That you are comforted when in need and that you are physically and spiritually safe. I miss you and wish you were home with us snuggling under the blanket reading books with us. The girls have loved our new electric blankets and want to read in my bed at night after dinner before they go to bed. It has been so fun, but makes me realize we should have gotten a king size bed instead of a queen.

James 1:2-4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Info if you are adopting from Ukraine

I received this email, because we were originally adopting from the Ukraine, so I am part of this listserve. This is one of the reasons we are not with the Ukraine program, they are forever changing their requirements. So for those of you who are adopting from Ukraine talk to your agency about this new information;

Dear Members of Adoption Community interested in Ukraine:

We would like to inform you about the new paperwork requirement for the

adoption dossiers submitted to the State Department for Adoptions and
Protection of the Rights of the Child (SDAPRC) on or after February 1st,
2010.
All foreign adoptive parents will be required to add the following documents
to their adoption dossiers:
1) Three copies of both parentsb passports (instead of one),
accompanied by Certified English translation. No apostille is required for
copies
of passports.

2) Notarized statement, signed by both parents, authorizing the
SDAPRC to request the clearances for them through the Ukrainian law
enforcement
agencies and Interpol. This statement should bear a Hague Apostille and
be accompanied by a certified English translation. There is no special
form or sample of this statement currently available, so it will be accepted
in any form.

All adoption dossiers submitted on or after February 1st, 2010 must
include these two additional documents. The families whose dossiers have
already
been accepted and registered are not required to submit these new items.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any additional questions.
Sincerely,
Adoption Unit/Immigrant Visa Section
Consular Section
American Embassy
Kyiv, Ukraine
Tel: 38-044-4904422
Fax: 38-044-490-4570
Kyivadoptions@state.gov

Next Step 8k

Well I finally graduated from the couch to 5k program, even though I am not running it in 30 minutes I am moving on to the gateway to 8k program. I love interval training and even though I want to run a 5k in 30 minutes I figured training for a 8k will increase my stamina which can only help me run a 5k faster right, well we will find out in May. The 8k program is 10 weeks long. At the moment I have a terrible head cold, which for me usually means sinus infections and chest cold=asthma. If I am still able to breath, my plan is to start the 8k program Monday.

On the adoption front, I emailed our caseworker and asked if she had received any info from the MOJ about dossiers and healthy children on the registery, she hadn't heard back anything yet but will be speaking with our Bulgarian agency Monday to find out this information. It is so hard waiting, trying to plan life. DH wants to go to a conference in November, my mom wants to go on a family vacation (we have never done this with them, usually just visit them for Christmas), my cousin (who lives in Australia) would like to do Disney with us and his son, school is another issue do we homeschool Cathryn next year or put her in Kindergarden so I will have some one on one time with our son when he gets home. See what I mean? I know in the book of Matthew God tells us not to worry about tomorrow for today has its own worries, yet it is nice to be able to plan ahead especially when you only have certain amount of vacation days etc. I keep telling hubby we need to just figure that we will travel this summer and get our son Christmas or New Year. I feel like we have been saying this for the last couple of years. We missed Disney last year with Chris' family because we need the vacation days 'incase' we travelled last year! But we will be going to Disney this year in February with them, looking forward to the warmer weather!

In the next few weeks we have some more families travelling to see their children for the first time, they are special needs. Very exciting and can't wait to follow their journey. I know when we finally get the referral I will scream from our roof top, do a dance and probably lose it. I am already listening and researching what to do when you get a referral. I have a site of an international doctor and know that you are supposed to look at head circumference, weight growth and height growth. Any information or advice about referrals will be greatly appreciated. So enough babbeling, tonight I will try and download some pictures from Christmas.

Matthew 6:34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

One year

We have been registered one year today with the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria. We were originally told we would most likely receive a referral by 12 months. Then once our paperwork was submitted we were told 12-18 months for a boy. I know it is all God's timing when we receive a referral for our son, and I am praying we will be traveling this summer sometime to see him for the first time, but back in my mind I am thinking....will it more than likely be 24 months of waiting. I know that this is what they are saying for girls under 3, 24 month wait, but honestly our agencies really don't know when we will receive a referral. I believe 2008 is when dossiers started increasing, as many agencies in America reopened their Bulgarian programs. So if this is true, and they just started looking at 2008 dossiers doesn't this mean we will have a while to receive a referral if our dossier was registered in January 2009? We have until November and then our paperwork expires, so we will have to make the decision as to whether we will renew, pay mo' money and update our homestudy...again! And yes, don't forget the fingerprints for homeland security!

5k Training

Today I graduated from the couch to 5k program. I ran my 30 minutes and with the 7 minutes warm up walk it took me to 3.1 miles which is a 5k. Now I will be redoing the program to increase my speed from 5.1 to 6 on the treadmill and hopefully at the end of February I will be running a 5k in 30 minutes without the 7 min warm up included.

It is really a great program for non runners, I couldn't even run 1 min in the beginning and it isn't like i was a couch potato. I have been doing a cardio class since September when I started this program in November. My mom, friend and hubby are now starting the program. My mom has done week 1! So that is the update of my 5k program, maybe this time next year I will be running a 10K, now that would be amazing! On another note;

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! We had a wonderful new years eve with friends over at our home. We ate a ton and played some fun games. The next day the family stayed in their pj's, watched the parade on t.v., took down the Christmas tree and ornaments, played some board games the kids got for Christmas and ate appetizers. We all agreed it was a great way to relax and should do again next year. The girls couldn't believe that they were allowed to stay in their jammies. My favorite part was eating shrimp, spinach dip, veggies, hummus, chips, pigs in a blanket and just hanging out at home with no where to go. A new family tradition for sure. Wishing you all an awesome 2010 and hopefully we will be bringing some kiddos home from Bulgaria.