This picture was taken by my friend Sarah. This is one of our Christmas pictures! I just ordered our Christmas cards last night so hopefully will have them out by next Monday. Sarah, is adopting from Russia and will hopefully be travelling soon. She does such a great job, this is a business for her. Another family recently returned from China with their daughter, Abigail. We got to meet her this past Sunday at church. She is 9 years old and already speaking some English. Can't believe it. She said hello Caroline to our daughter and then asked for her bible. Her mom is homeschooling her, and is starting by teaching her body parts in English, reading to her in English and mainly working on the English language. I can't imagine! I think bringing a toddler home to another culture, language and other post institutional issues would be hard enough. Did anyone see 20/20 on Friday about disrupted adoptions? What did you think? I have been reading a blog titles smilesandtrials and the family has 11 children. 6 are biological and 5 are adopted. 4 of the adopted children were adopted through disruptions and Christine, the author/mom, is such an encouragement to me. They are christian and she is such a great mom! Adoption takes Faith and relying on God, knowing He is sovereign and resting on Him. Have a good week.

NO OBJECTION LETTER IN THE MAIL

Well the snow has been falling all day! The girls are excited, they made a snow man with daddy at lunch time and last night he was pulling them around on the sled. I on the other hand think it is beautiful with the trees looking white, but it is soo cold. I had to run errands today and it was freezing.

So our news, we did get our letter apostilled, notarized and mailed off to Tree of Life. They should receive it by Wednesday the latest and then they will probably mail it Thursday to Bulgaria. Mail takes 8 days to get to Bulgaria so I am guesstimating that it should be there Dec 12.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and finally finished the leftovers on Sunday. Hope you all had a wonderful time with friends and family, thanking God for all our blessings.

We Got the Letter Today!!

As you can tell by the title we received our letter from the UK today! So happy! It came in a brown envelope with the words DO NOT BEND on the outide. What does our mail man do, he BENDS it to put in our mail box. He could have put it in the screen door, like he does with Chris' books. Oh well!

Anyway, Monday will be the big day, we will have it apostilled and mail it to our agency in Oregon. So Bulgaria should receive it the following Monday after that. What a great Christmas present.

I read today the book ' Adoption Parenting, Creating a Toolbox, Building Connections'. Recommend to all parents adopting. It has so much info on sleep issues, food, attachment, school, language, special needs issues, FAS, discipline, grief and loss, siblings, life books, transitions, challenges, support etc. A must get!
Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."

Children's Books/Reading for families

For those of you who are in the process of adoption or have adopted what are some recommendations you have for books?

For our son we have bought 3 books thus far: A Mother for Choco, Just Waiting for my Family, and Forever Fingerprints. I would highly recommend A Mother for Choco it is about a baby bird looking for his mom. He asks different animals if they are his mom, and they say no I am not like you. Then he comes to a bear and she asks what a mom does..hug, cook you meals etc and she says he can go home with her. When they get to her home she has 'adopted' other animals too and they all look different but are a family.
The 2nd book is actually written by a mom who adopted her son from Bulgaria and it talks about his experience, which I think is good to help our son talk about his experience in an orphanage.
Do you have any recommendations for children's books for adopted children as well as biological children to help them understand adoption?

My second question is do any of you have any recommendations for books for family members to read?

For our 'education' part of the adoption we read many books: Weaver's Craft (excellent), Attaching in Adoption - Deb Gray (excellent), Helping children cope with seperation and loss, Raising adopted Children, Eyes Wide Open, and I just ordered Parenting with Love and Logic.

Any recommendations would be appreciated thanks!
We are still waiting patiently for our letter from the UK and enjoying the white snow falling outside, and drinking hotchocolate in a cosy warm house. God is so good, we have so many blessings.

Got an email today about our letter

We received an email responding to our email Nov5. We were told that they (UK) sent our letter of "no objection" today, which means we should receive it in 10days time. I will let you know when we mail it off to our agency in Oregon. Then I will give a sigh of relief. Thank you to all of you who are following our journey and praying for us, we appreciate it.

Still No News

Nothing to report yet...it has been 8 business days thus far. Anyway just thought I would point out that the weather in Bulgaria is the same as Michigan. If you haven't scrolled down to the bottom of our blog you will find that there is a weather forecast for Bulgaria. I thought our friends and family would appreciate it this when we are actually in Bulgaria visiting our son.

Maybe this time next year? Chris doesn't think so. I believe so:) Whenever it is it will be God's perfect time and plan.
Psalm 18:30 As for God, his way is perfect, and the word of the Lord is flawless. He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.

Update on "letter of no objection"

England should have received our notarized letter last Wednesday, so I called them today to see when we could expect to receive our letter from them. The switchboard informed me that they have 15 days from the time they receive our letter to respond. So far it has been 3 workdays. We have 12 days to hear back (if something is wrong) and then 10 days on top of that for our letter to be mailed to us. If you look at that time line we will hopefully have our letter in 22 days, which takes us to the first week of December.

Keep praying please that we did everything correctly and won't have to redo anything and that we will get our letter promptly (God't timing of course). Thank you.