2014

2014

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Fall and a little more...

I know I promised I would be better about updating this blog, and I didn't do it! Summer has seem to come and went, and fall is quickly fading to winter.... We have had a busy few months but we wouldn't like it any other way.

This year the housing market took a huge swing and became crazy busy. Towards the middle of summer we began casually looking at houses online- which was a bad idea (or good one)! The houses were selling FAST, within days. Of course the house that we fell in love with had an offer on it when we called. The realtor promised to call us if anything changed and wouldn't you know about 10 days later the sale was sliding. I happened to be in Chicago at the time visiting an old college roommate when I got the call and Dan had to check out the house alone, and he sent me videos. We decided we loved the hardwood flooring, we loved that it had a fenced in backyard with an acre of land, we loved that it wasn't in a neighborhood, we loved the finish basement, we loved the price (Much cheaper).... pretty much we loved it! So we wrote an offer.... AHH... our house wasn't even on the market! We sort of just put the situation in Gods hands right in the beginning when we first saw the house online and trusted that if it was meant to be, it would work out. We never worried about selling our house, or if it was a bad decision. It always just felt right. So we closed on the house a few days after our 9th anniversary and moved in slowly. Towards the middle of September we got an offer on our house, and just recently closed about a week ago. God is good!

This summer we also hosted some chinese students- 4 different girls. We had 2 girls for a couple weeks toward the end of july, and 2 girls during the month of August. We learned alot from these experiences. We were blessed with our sweetheart from Japan, two days after the Chinese girls left in August. Mare (MA- Lay) has added so much laughter, smiles, and joy to our family. She is a complete DOLL and we feel so blessed to be her American family!

Alliot had his palate repair surgery the beginning of September. The recovery afterwards was rough- 3 weeks liquid diet, 3 weeks purees, soft foods, and then regular diet. We made it through and the doctor says the palate is healing well. :) During the recover process Alliot and I grew much closer. He even gave me a few kisses totally initiated by him. Talk about melting my heart.

Back when we got home from China we knew that we could reuse our paperwork if we were matched with a child within a year of adoption day. So we filled out a new checklist (identifying medical conditions we would be ok with). Our agency told us not to expect being able to take advantage of this because the wait for girls is about 18 months with their agency. So we viewed other waiting children profiles, and felt overwhelmed by starting over that we just didn't pursue anything. The friday after we got the official signed offer from the buyers of our house, we got a call from our agency. I was sort of in the middle of cleaning up dinner, and rushing out of the house to a friends. Dan was outside playing with the kids, and I was completely caught off guard. The agency worker gave me a brief overview of the profile, to which I didn't seem very interested in, and I said "well just send it to me, and we can take a look at it, and if nothing else maybe we can give you some feedback as to her status." She said ok, and sent me the file. It was a complete puzzle to me, she looked great, but there were some worrisome parts of the file. I then sent it to a doctor friend to get his opinion, to which he had the same thoughts. Then we sent it to a few adoptive momma friends with medical knowledge, and same thing. Finally we sent it to our pediatrician and he also concluded with the same comments. Everyone told us "She looks really great, and is developing well." So now Dan and I had to make a decision. My heart yearned for another girl, but I wasn't sure this was the one. Dan was content with our four but open to another. We wrestled with God so much on this issue, but when it came down to it we couldn't help but hear his voice. So I turned to Ann Voskamp, I just love her blog. The blog for the day was entitled, "Dear you... a letter for all the hard days..."  The letter opens like this, "

Dear you,
Dear Self and me and you and us,
Really, it’s all going to be okay.
You’re going to be okay." 
(a link to the blog if you want to read)
Over and over through out the letter she says "you're going to be okay." Dan and I talked a lot and prayed hard over this issue. 5 is a LOT of kids, our life is already crazy, we planned to spend the check from closing a little differently, etc etc etc. When it all came down to it, what we do in this life really isn't for us or about us at all. This is kingdom work, its tough, its crazy, but we are so blessed and taken care of. Every excuse I could dream up, He had an answer- no stress of putting together another dossier (a HUGE document that requires lots of steps and papers) because we could reuse our paperwork that we didn't think would be an option, repeatedly told "shes developing well," and the biggest concern- the MONEY. Nearly the exact dollar amount our first adoption cost, is nearly the exact amount we received a check for at the closing of our house. So we said YES one more time. Im leaning on HIS promises that this is all working out according to His will. Wanna know another cool fact... the same day we got our pre-approval for Alliot 1 year ago, is the same day we got our pre-approval for this little one!! :) The only detail we haven't figured out is travel. I know I can't leave the kids, so mostly likely Dan will travel alone however, my hope and prayer is that God would somehow provide the funds for the whole family to travel together (we do not have the money for that which would be around $10,000 extra). I would love for the kids to experience the country and culture of their siblings birth, and to share the joy as a family welcoming her into our arms. We are currently updating our homestudy, then we need homeland security to approve us, and then the documents travel to China for final review. We think travel will be April/May/June timeframe. 
So Im sure you are all wondering her details.... She is 19 Months old, born 2/19/13, She and Alliot will be nearly twins, and the same grade in school. Her name will be "Abrielle." I know with adoption many details are shared about their past, but this time since her "diagnosis" is not obvious, we are choosing to not share it. For her privacy mostly. Should things come up in the future we will do our best to share. She does not have any communicable disease, or chronic, terminal illness (to maybe ease your curious thoughts). We want you to get to know her as she may be, not with a diagnostic label.  
Today we celebrated Alliots 2 Birthday!! He was a happy guy, and loved the attention. He had a blast trick or treating last night too. We shared this big news with family today at his party. I will add pictures below!!! 
More updates soon.... 







Alliots "Cheese" face at his birthday party

Abrielle

our finished pumpkin carving. Design by Aviela

Alliots cake

Riding in the wheelbarrow to pick out our pumpkin

After bath smiles

Halloween- Anna, Elsa, Olaf, Golfer, and japanese girl :)