Logan's cupcakes

Logan found a recipe for turkey cupcakes in one of his magazines and asked if we could make them to take to Thanksgiving dinner. Well actually he asked if we could make them right away and I said we would make them on Thanksgiving!

Logan did most of the work by himself and he really did a great job! I had fun doing this little activity in the kitchen with him, we don't often get that time alone together doing something in the kitchen.

These were tasty cupcakes! Thanks Logan!

Ameritowne

Brayden's 6th class participated in Ameritowne this year. It was such a cool experience for them. I never got to do anything like this when I was in elementary and I think it was a great learning experience, but also really fun in the process. In the months leading up to Ameritowne, the kids spent time in class interviewing for different jobs, campaigning for jobs that would require election (judge and mayor), applying for business loans and learning how to balance their checkbook and not overdraw their account. The whole point of Ameritowne is learning about economics (supply/demand), running a profitable business and being responsible with your money.

Brayden wanted to be judge, so he spent several weeks making posters to hang around the school and preparing a speech to give to his classmates to convince them to vote for him. In the end, he won!!!  I'm so proud of him, I know that the reason his classmates elected him judge was because they knew he is fair and can be impartial. His desire to see everyone follow the rules came in very handy for this job!

Brayden's office at Ameritowne

Brayden being sworn in as judge

I got to chaperone this field trip and see Ameritowne in action. They don't allow parents to work in the same office as their kids, so I worked in the newspaper with some other kids from Brayden's class. That was an interesting and fun job as well, I'm glad I got to be there with Brayden and I'm so glad Brayden got to have this experience!

The last Christmas





This Christmas will be the last Christmas we will be waiting on our daughter to be home! This Christmas will be the last one where I feel my heart torn between two sides of the world, between wanting to be in two places at the same time! I am struggling this year with living in the moment and making memories with and for my children, and spending every moment wishing Kailin was here making the memories with us.

 

Since we started our adoption almost 3 years ago, we have gotten an ornament at Christmas to signify the adoption in some way. The first two years our ornaments were Africa-shaped and themed, but this year we got to do something different! We found this ornament on another person's adoption fundraiser website and immediately we knew this was perfect! She is waiting in China for us and we are waiting here for her! (Last Christmas, baby girl, next year you'll be home!)

 

 

I also have a sweet friend through our China adoption FB group who sent us these two Chinese ornaments and I love these too! Kailin was born in 2012, the year of the Dragon, so this one is perfect. And panda bears are huge in China (we might even get to visit a panda zoo), so that one is cool too!

 

I'm not trying to be melodramatic always talking about how much my heart is torn and how much I miss Kailin, but seriously, it's one of the most intense feelings I have felt in a long time! I can't really relate it to anything, even when I was pregnant and I wanted to hold my baby, in some way, I still was and I was still with my child and getting to know them while they were in my womb. My heart breaks for Kailin that she had to spend another Christmas alone (without a forever family), but I know it will be her last.

 

We have a CD with this song on it and I haven't listened to it much this year, for obvious reasons, but every time I do I just start crying. Can't wait till she's home!!

 



Lazy Sadie

We have had our new dog, Sadie, now for a year, so I guess she's not really our new dog anymore. When we first brought her home, she was so anxious and playful and such a puppy still, I was wondering when/if she would ever settle down into more of an adult dog.

Well, no worries on that front now! She has become settled and lazy to the max! She has her little sleeping routine and not much changes it: sleep in till 7, eat, play with the kids till they go to school, nap pretty much until they get home from school (anyone's bed is fair game), play with them outside, eat dinner, nap or play until bedtime and then sleep all night.

She has also claimed our bed to sleep on during the night, much to our dismay. We are still trying to change that, but there's not much we can do when she obediently goes to her mat when we go to bed, only to jump up on the bed once we've fallen asleep.

Sadie still loves chasing the tennis ball and playing with the kids in the backyard and going for runs with Chris, but the times when we are inside and not doing anything, she is one lazy puppy for sure! I'm glad she has learned to settle down a little and feels comfortable enough in our house to rest, because those first few weeks home I wasn't sure she ever would. She's been a great dog so far, despite some of her annoying quirks, she's a good fit for our family!

Our little wrestler

Preston had been begging to do football this past fall, but our rule is that they can't play football till they are in middle school. It's just not a very safe sport and it's not worth risking an injury when they are so young. So Chris thought maybe Preston would like wrestling instead and when he asked Preston about it, Preston was so excited!

We found a youth wrestling club at a high school nearby and signed him up. It has been going since late October and Preston has already wrestled in two tournaments. Although he is still a beginner, he has some natural talent it seems, and he is not afraid to be aggressive when necessary (or even when it's not necessary for that matter!), which is a good quality to have in wrestling. His coaches are impressed with his progress and comment to us almost weekly about how well they think he is doing for this being his first year.

His first tournament he was raring to go and I think a little nervous. But he did really good - he took 2nd place in his bracket! And he only lost to 1st place by 2 points in the last 5 seconds of the last period!

I didn't get any pictures at the second tournament, but Preston wrestled really good for how competitive a tournament it was. It was a national tournament and the competition was noticeably higher! He took 3rd place in that tournament and now he has two medals hanging around his neck! I'm excited to see where his wrestling "career" might take him in the years to come!

Dancing disappointment

This past year, Ashten has finally gotten to the age where she wants to be involved in more activities outside the home. She took a gymnastics class in the fall and then she really wanted to take dance. She LOVES dancing at home, anytime we are watching TV and a song comes on a commercial or we are listening to an upbeat song, you can be sure she is dancing! She is very rythmic in her dance, like a cheerleadering or gymnastics routine, but there is no doubt she loves dance.

So we signed her up for a ballet/tap combo class because that's all that's offered at this age during the day when it wouldn't conflict with and add another thing to our already busy after-school schedule. We bought the clothes and counted down the days till she would start class and then showed up the first day.

We sat there and waited for the teacher with a bunch of other little girls for about 15 minutes before someone came and told us that the teacher was unable to do the class and had cancelled it that morning. Ashten was crying and so sad! 

We told her we would have to wait till after Christmas to sign up for another class, but then when the schedule came out, there is nothing! So instead, starting in January, she will be doing gymnastics again. She is very excited to start doing a class again. But I will admit, the dancing clothes were pretty cute and I'll miss seeing her in them!

Tag Her Bag update - one month later

As you may remember, we are doing a Tag Her Bag fundraiser to help raise the last of the funds we need to travel and bring Kailin home. I just wanted to bring you guys an update as to where we are, a little over a month later.

To date, we have received donations of almost $1500! That's awesome! We said ANY amount and it's been kind of fun to see the random amounts we have received from people who have given so selflessly and generously towards our final adoption costs! We have also received a $2000 grant, which means in total, since our referral, we are almost $3500 closer to our meeting all our final fees and travel costs! If you don't feel like doing math, that means we have somewhere around $8-10K still to go, but we aren't worried. That's totally doable in God's economy and we have actually seen Him do it in our adoption process so far, multiple times!!!

I have tried to keep up with thanking everyone publicly on facebook who has gotten their name on the bag because I want people to know how much we value them and appreciate all they have done to help us! All these names, and the many more who have donated prior to this fundraiser, are just constant reminders of God's faithfulness to and love towards the orphan! He cares for Kailin and will see this adoption to it's completion and even beyond!

Star student

Logan got chosen to be the star student in his class the week before Thanksgiving. Being the star student has some privileges, like getting to lead the lines and run little errands for the teacher around school, but the most exciting part was getting to share about himself in front of the class. The teacher sent home 6 different sheets where Logan had to fill in blanks about himself and print pictures. It was a really fun exercise for him, he had a great time doing it.

At the beginning of that week, our computer crashed, so we were racing against the clock to get it back working in time to print pictures for Logan's assignment.  But thanks to my dad and his vast computer expertise and knowledge, it was back working just in time!

I'm so glad Logan got this opportunity to share about himself with his class. And it was special that we already had Kailin's referral and he was able to share about that! Logan is such a special kid, at school and especially in our family, I love assignments like these that help us to reflect on exactly what makes Logan so uniquely and wonderfully made!!

Matchy guys

Chris leaves for work by 6 am usually. He's such a hard worker and I really admire his dedication to his work. But that means that usually none of the kids are awake when he leaves and they don't see each other till they are home from school and work. 

This one particular day, Chris chose to wear this sweater, which is rare for him because he's not really a dressy sweater guy. And then.....Preston comes out of his room an hour later right after he woke up, after Chris was long gone, wearing the almost same sweater and jeans outfit! This is especially rare for Preston, he NEVER dresses up unless he has to. He's more of a sport shorts and t-shirt kind of kid!

When they got home, I just had to take a picture of these two handsome guys in their matching outfits!

PA!

I opened up my email early morning on November 22nd and we got our pre-approval!! When someone receives a referral for China, they have to write what is called a Letter of Intent (LOI) that basically states that they want to adopt the child and how they plan to raise them. That letter, along with a letter from the agency, is translated into Chinese and sent to China, where they either approve our family to move forward with the adoption or not. So, after submitting our LOI 2 long weeks before, we got our PA on November 21!

We are now sending this care package to Kailin and her foster family! I can't wait till she gets this stuff and maybe in some way will understand she has a forever family!!

We included a book that Chris and I recorded ourselves reading (Guess How Much I Love You) so that Kailin could hear our voices, a photo album with pictures of our family, our house and Sadie labeled in English and Chinese, a stuffed animal that we slept with for a few nights so it would smell like us and the Colorado II book is a gift for the foster family, a token from our state! There is no way for us to fully tell them just how grateful we are for the role they have played in Kailin's life, this is just a small token. We also included two disposable cameras and we are hoping the foster family will use them to take pictures of Kailin so we have a few more pictures from this time in her life. If not, it was still money well spent for the chance to maybe even get one picture!!

Now we are waiting for our Letter of Acceptance (LOA) which is the final approval from China that we can take custody of Kailin. This can take up to 3 months from referral because they have to translate our whole dossier into Chinese and then read through it and make a decision. After we receive the LOA, we will travel 3 months later! So, we are excited and hoping we get our LOA before late January/early February, really hoping by the end of December, but I think that's wishful thinking. I keep saying that I know we will travel at just the right time on God's calender, I just wish God's calender had us traveling next week!

Halloween 2014

This year I was so bad about taking pictures. I barely remembered as we were headed out the door to trick-or-treating, hence the poor quality photos.

This year we had a wizard, alien, pirate and ballerina. Ashten's was a last minute costume change as she was originally going to be Jasmine. Oh well, she has no shortage of dress-up clothes and I didn't pay for either costume, so fine by me!

Crazy hair day

For Spirit week at the boys' school, one day was crazy hair day and Preston went all out!

Ten tiny little rubber bands holding little ponytails of hair all over his head. That had to hurt since his hair is so short, but he was such a trooper! He wore them all day and then wanted to wear them that night and the next day too! Such a silly guy, Preston, your hair was definitely crazy!

The final stretch

We are planning to travel in the next 4-6 months to bring our daughter home! I can't believe after all this time, almost 3 years, I am typing that sentence!!

We still have some monies due, but we trust that God will provide every penny, just like He has up to this point.  Here is our latest fundraiser:

I'm so excited about this fundraiser, I have our suitcase and sharpie ready, so bring it on!! We have a couple of adoption friends who have also done this fundraiser with great success!! We are excited to fill our suitcase with names and wheel it through the airport!

Thank you to each and every person who has supported us and loved on us so far in this adoption journey, and thank you for helping in just another way through this fundraiser!

Campfires in the backyard

Last year Chris' parents bought a new fire pit when they were redoing their landscaping and gave us their old one. It was right at the end of fall, so we set it up in our backyard but never got a chance to use it because it got too cold and snowy.  This past spring, we had a big branch of our tree fall and Chris and the boys worked really hard to chop it up into firewood so we could enjoy our first campfire! Unfortunately, while they were chopping the wood, the bottom broke out of the fire pit. Logan, especially, was really bummed because he had been working the hardest to make sure we got to have a campfire!

Fast forward a few months and Chris' dad shows up at our door one afternoon with a brand new fire pit!! So wonderful and nice of him, he is so generous!!!  A few days later we enjoyed our first family campfire and it didn't disappoint!

Beautiful girl

Chris has an art to making the perfect s'more

Double fisted s'mores - the good life!

S'mores, lots of giggles and family time - I love it!!

The day we have been waiting for!

I can't believe I finally get to write this post - it's been so long and I was getting so, so worn in the wait! But our dream has finally come true!

WE GOT A REFERRAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

We got the call on Tuesday afternoon, November 4th, and officially accepted (after completing some necessary steps) on Friday, November 7th!

I so wish I could show you her sweet, adorable face, but until we officially take custody of her, I can't. Boo! :( But if you see us in person, we will gladly show off all her pictures to you - trust me, she is totally adorable!!!!!

We can also finally tell you her name! We are going to name her Kailin (prounounced Ky-lynn). We were going to use her given Chinese name as her middle name, but since her Chinese name is just one given by the orphanage and not by her birth mom, we are going to also give her a new middle name as well. I will let you know what it is when we agree on come up with one! It will have meaning and hopefully match the pattern of our other children and end in an "R". Kailin is 2 years old right now, so just about 2 1/2 years younger than Ashten!

Playing with phones already!

Want to hear a cool God story? Well one of them from this adoption at least? We can totally look back over the past over 2 1/2 years and see how God was leading us straight to this little girl. We have no doubts this is the girl God had for us all along! But one cool thing was back in May (May 13th to be exact) I attended an online webinar that the head of the AGCI China program did chronicling her latest visit to China and some of the children that she had seen. This next picture was in that webinar, and I was immediately drawn to this little girl!!!!

I emailed the case worker and inquired about her, but obviously since our dossier and home study weren't even close to being completed yet, she very cautiously reminded me that there is no guarantee on when certain children will become available or who will be the next eligible family on the list when they do! I understood all that, but still couldn't get this little girl out of my mind. Time passed and my hope grew dim, but I never forgot about her. Then on October 24th, our caseworker emailed me and said that this girl's paperwork should be posting "soon" (which can mean any number of things when dealing with a foreign government, the least of which is actually soon!) and were we still interested in her adoption? It took me all of about .37 seconds to email her back with an emphatic YES! And then my hope was revived and it was all I could think about. We still waited another week and a half before we were called with the official referral, the longest week and a half of my life!

I was sitting outside the boys' school like I normally do every afternoon waiting for them to get out. I had stopped thinking we would get the referral call that day because I figured since China is 15 hours ahead of us, any paperwork that had been completed the day before in China would be available first thing in the morning here in the US. So I wasn't even expecting a call when my phone rang at 3:27 with an Oregon number. I knew right away it was our case worker.As soon as I answered I could tell it was the call and I just started crying and celebrating!! I am not sure I even let her finish! (sound familiar, Chris?) We talked about this girl for a few minutes and then I right away called Chris and told him to hurry home as fast as he could. In the middle of my conversation with the case worker, the boys got out of school and Logan overheard my conversation, so he found out right away as well. I swore him to secrecy and he kept it!!

As soon as Chris got home, we locked ourselves in the office by the computer and looked at her pictures and medical report. I would say at first we were both kind of guarded, not wanting to get too attached. I think it was too late for me though, I just started crying again and hugging Chris, it just felt so right, I knew this was our little girl! After that we had to rush out to sports practices and it was killing me that I was so happy inside but I couldn't say anything to anyone! After sports practices and dinner, I emailed all of her referral info to an international pediatrician for review (one of the required parts to accepting a referral). By the time we got all the kids to bed that evening I would say we were both sure this girl was our daughter, despite any new information we might receive in the medical evaluation. I could barely sleep that night, I was so excited.

Wednesday evening we couldn't hold it in any longer and were just dying to tell our kids the good news. We decided to surprise the kids and go out to our favorite Chinese restaurant! After we got our food and sat down we told the kids that going out to eat wasn't the real surprise. Then we showed them all her pictures and they got so excited!!! After that we drove to my parent's house (under the guise of needing to pick up a check from them) and Chris' parent's house and told them the good news in person!! Even though we hadn't officially accepted the referral yet, we felt confident that this was our daughter and we couldn't wait to show her off!!!

Thursday evening, November 6th, we had a phone consultation with the international pediatrician and then we officially accepted her referral on Friday, November 7th!  I really don't even know the process from here on out, I would never let myself get familiar on it since it always seemed like such a distant dream. All I know is that we have gobs of more paperwork to do, more fees to pay, more fundraising to do and then we will be traveling in 4-6 months for a 2-week visit to China to bring her home! Get ready, we're coming Kailin!!!

Swim team

This fall Logan has been doing swim team. He really enjoys it, it's actually the first sport he has enjoyed playing. I am glad he has found something he loves to do! He is really doing well this season and he has improved a lot. He is seeing increased strength in his upper body too, which encourages him to work even harder!

Logan's swim team had a swim-a-thon to raise money for a camp for kids with cancer. Logan swam the entire hour, he didn't even use a kick board when they offered him one and said he could use one. He swam 30 laps! That's 2 laps shy of 1 mile! We are so proud of him!!