Saturday, March 21, 2015
Chase choir concert
So shortly after winter break Chase decided he would like to start doing choir. So twice a week he gets up earlier to be ready for the morning practice. This last week he had his first concert and he was so nervous. He kept fidgeting with his vest and looking around. He's not sure if he wants to continue it but just gotta say he looked so darn cute all dressed up!
Chase's 10th Birthday party
Chase wanted his party to be at the new trampoline park this year after visiting the park a few weeks ago and loved it. So we let him invite five boys and they had a blast! It was grand opening weekend which we did not know and it was a little busier than we would have liked it but it came with perks. Zoe got her face painted for free and they won prizes! We then went to papa's pizza to eat lunch and now the boys are all playing is chase's room.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Chase turns 10
How is it possible that my little boy turned 10 today? What do I remember about the day he was born? Well I remember I had a false alarm that morning. I woke Steve up with contractions that I thought were about five minutes apart. We checked into the hospital and after the doctor examined me determined that I wasn't in labor. How embarrassing is that? This was my third delivery and to be told NO your really not in labor go home. So we went home and the contractions were all day. They finally started getting worse in the evening and me as stubborn as I was didn't want to go back and be told the same thing again. So we waited until I couldn't take the pain anymore and headed on to the hospital. They determined that I truly was in labor this time and admitted me. I had the epidural about an hour later and was finally able to rest about an hour before it was time to push. It literally took just a couple pushes and he was out. Conor was present for the there birth, along with my mom and inlaws.
Chase was such a happy easy baby. He did everything early to my dismay, I wanted him to stay a baby. By six months he was crawling and before a year was walking. He is definitely a momma's boy and I love that about him! Still at age 10 he loves hugs and kisses from mom. I know that will end soon so I take all that I can. I'm so proud of the boy that he is!
Chase was such a happy easy baby. He did everything early to my dismay, I wanted him to stay a baby. By six months he was crawling and before a year was walking. He is definitely a momma's boy and I love that about him! Still at age 10 he loves hugs and kisses from mom. I know that will end soon so I take all that I can. I'm so proud of the boy that he is!
Sunday, March 15, 2015
The Story of Faith
So since we just recently publicly announced that we were adopting again many of you have asked how this came about. So I thought it would be a great story for a blog post. However I'm not the best writer so bare with me.
So the story begins early January. I (Jennifer ) had heard of others recently reusing their dossier.
What this means is that they use the same dossier (paperwork) that they used for their most recent adoption. China allows this but it needs to take place within a year from the placement of your other child. I started by checking in with our agency. Asked a few questions and was given a link to review about reusing. There were two things that I thought could be a problem. #1 Was that Holt didn't allow you to adopt out of Birth order, so the new child would have to be younger than Hope.
#2 The New child had to be labeled SF (Special Focus). SF children tend to be older children or children with more severe Special needs or have multiple Special needs.
So about a week after contacting Holt about reusing I decided to glance at their photolisting on their website. Just to see if there were any children that were under 2 and SF. I seen her right away.
What amazed me about her is that she looked familiar. The same familiarity I felt with Zoe and with Hope. She reminded me of my brother when he was little, in fact I thought she was a boy until I clicked on her picture to read more about her. She was just over 1 1/2, she was happy and healthy and she had dwarfism. While Dwarfism was not something we checked off on our initial medical checklist it was something we had always been open to. I sent Steve a screen shot of her picture and a " what do you think". I got the typical response from him that day " Are you crazy"! So I left it at that and waited until later that night to talk to him. We talked about the pros and cons of starting an adoption so soon. He agreed I could inquire about her file. I called one of the China program staff and talked to her for quite some time. I learned something amazing, She was from the same place as Hope. I told her that we were interested in seeing her file and she said she would check with our social worker and get back to me. I thought we would get it that day. I was wrong. I received an email from our social worker basically in shock, said she didn't know that we were considering adopting again so soon. I told her neither did we until then. She gave me a long list of things to check into before she would release the file to us. Meanwhile I was told that other families were reviewing her file.
So I worked through her list. I found out what everyday life is like from families that had adopted children with Dwarfism. I learned of all the possible medical conditions we could face, I also talked with a friend who has a form of skeletal dysplasia. It took a few days but we got all the information.
The next week we received her file. At this time we still thought there were other families also reviewing her file. We fell in love immediately. She was perfect in every way. However we had some big obstacles that we needed to figure out before we could make this happen. I called that day to let them know we were interested if no other families were going to pursue her. We were told then that we were the only family and that we had the long three day weekend to decide.
That Friday night we went out to dinner with my parents. We told them what we were contemplating. They were shocked and I think my mom ended up having a couple drinks during dinner. We still had not made a decision though and we would continue to go back and fourth all weekend. On Sunday we weren't any closer and the main hesitations were coming from my husband and without him fully on board this was not going to happen. So I put it all in his hands. He was going to make the final decision and as hard as it was going to be I was going to be fine either way. He knew how I felt and so the decision needed to be his. Monday the kids didn't have school and so I was home with them while Steve went to work. He sent me a text that said : MLK quote for the day is Faith is taking the first step even if you don't see the whole staircase. He was in and he said her name was going to be FAITH!
This was a miracle in it self that he came to the decision to adopt again and that he wanted to name her Faith. This is truly one of those moments where all the credit goes to God. I knew when I handed over the decision to him that this was bigger than us that God would need to be a part of this.
So here we are Stepping out in FAITH, to bring home our youngest daughter from China and complete our family! I can't wait to see what God has in store for us during this process, I've already made some new friends and have loved the LPA community. Thank you all for being so supportive of our family we couldn't have asked for better family, friends and community~!
So the story begins early January. I (Jennifer ) had heard of others recently reusing their dossier.
What this means is that they use the same dossier (paperwork) that they used for their most recent adoption. China allows this but it needs to take place within a year from the placement of your other child. I started by checking in with our agency. Asked a few questions and was given a link to review about reusing. There were two things that I thought could be a problem. #1 Was that Holt didn't allow you to adopt out of Birth order, so the new child would have to be younger than Hope.
#2 The New child had to be labeled SF (Special Focus). SF children tend to be older children or children with more severe Special needs or have multiple Special needs.
So about a week after contacting Holt about reusing I decided to glance at their photolisting on their website. Just to see if there were any children that were under 2 and SF. I seen her right away.
What amazed me about her is that she looked familiar. The same familiarity I felt with Zoe and with Hope. She reminded me of my brother when he was little, in fact I thought she was a boy until I clicked on her picture to read more about her. She was just over 1 1/2, she was happy and healthy and she had dwarfism. While Dwarfism was not something we checked off on our initial medical checklist it was something we had always been open to. I sent Steve a screen shot of her picture and a " what do you think". I got the typical response from him that day " Are you crazy"! So I left it at that and waited until later that night to talk to him. We talked about the pros and cons of starting an adoption so soon. He agreed I could inquire about her file. I called one of the China program staff and talked to her for quite some time. I learned something amazing, She was from the same place as Hope. I told her that we were interested in seeing her file and she said she would check with our social worker and get back to me. I thought we would get it that day. I was wrong. I received an email from our social worker basically in shock, said she didn't know that we were considering adopting again so soon. I told her neither did we until then. She gave me a long list of things to check into before she would release the file to us. Meanwhile I was told that other families were reviewing her file.
So I worked through her list. I found out what everyday life is like from families that had adopted children with Dwarfism. I learned of all the possible medical conditions we could face, I also talked with a friend who has a form of skeletal dysplasia. It took a few days but we got all the information.
The next week we received her file. At this time we still thought there were other families also reviewing her file. We fell in love immediately. She was perfect in every way. However we had some big obstacles that we needed to figure out before we could make this happen. I called that day to let them know we were interested if no other families were going to pursue her. We were told then that we were the only family and that we had the long three day weekend to decide.
That Friday night we went out to dinner with my parents. We told them what we were contemplating. They were shocked and I think my mom ended up having a couple drinks during dinner. We still had not made a decision though and we would continue to go back and fourth all weekend. On Sunday we weren't any closer and the main hesitations were coming from my husband and without him fully on board this was not going to happen. So I put it all in his hands. He was going to make the final decision and as hard as it was going to be I was going to be fine either way. He knew how I felt and so the decision needed to be his. Monday the kids didn't have school and so I was home with them while Steve went to work. He sent me a text that said : MLK quote for the day is Faith is taking the first step even if you don't see the whole staircase. He was in and he said her name was going to be FAITH!
This was a miracle in it self that he came to the decision to adopt again and that he wanted to name her Faith. This is truly one of those moments where all the credit goes to God. I knew when I handed over the decision to him that this was bigger than us that God would need to be a part of this.
So here we are Stepping out in FAITH, to bring home our youngest daughter from China and complete our family! I can't wait to see what God has in store for us during this process, I've already made some new friends and have loved the LPA community. Thank you all for being so supportive of our family we couldn't have asked for better family, friends and community~!
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Parker turn's 14
When our kids were little time seemed to stand still. We always thought they would be little and then we blinked. We moved to Corvallis fifteen years ago for my extern for school. I found out the day before I started extern that I was pregnant with Parker. Conor was just a little over 18 months at the time. Steve had graduated and was having a hard time finding a job. It wasn't until six months later he landed a job at the same company he still works for today. My pregnancy with Parker was easy, and I worked up until one week past due. As a student I didn't have much time off and I wanted to graduate on time that June. Parker came into this world one week late and on my mom's Birthday!
We were all amazed and really didn't think about him possibly being born on the same day. When he was born my mom said look he has my olive complexion and I really though she was crazy. But sure enough he does! I had two weeks off from school/work and then my mom and dad moved up to Corvallis to live by us. This made going back to work easier. Parker was a great easy baby.
As a toddler he had lots of energy. As a young boy he quickly learned he had a love for fishing and the outdoors. He's the quieter of the kids but when you find something he's interested in he doesn't stop talking. Next year he will be in highschool, that fact still amazes me. I can't wait to see what the future brings for him!
My three boys
visiting the fire station with grandma
We were all amazed and really didn't think about him possibly being born on the same day. When he was born my mom said look he has my olive complexion and I really though she was crazy. But sure enough he does! I had two weeks off from school/work and then my mom and dad moved up to Corvallis to live by us. This made going back to work easier. Parker was a great easy baby.
As a toddler he had lots of energy. As a young boy he quickly learned he had a love for fishing and the outdoors. He's the quieter of the kids but when you find something he's interested in he doesn't stop talking. Next year he will be in highschool, that fact still amazes me. I can't wait to see what the future brings for him!
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| 8th Birthday fishing cake |
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| Conor and Parker |
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| These two were always together when they were little |
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| Chubbiest baby ever |
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| Shayla and Parker |
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| My Hulk |
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| My three boys |
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| Parker at his first Basketball game |
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| Me and the boys, I was pregnant with Chase then |
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Circus
We were able to talk daddy into going to the circus this week. We got there a half an hour before it started and it was already packed. They had so many people that they had to lay down tarps for people to sit on. Hope really enjoyed seeing the tigers and elephants. She did have a bit of a hard time sitting for the whole thing. She was on my lap for the entire show so the pictures I got were very limited.
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| Eating cotton candy and getting some sticky hands |
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| Chase had one goal: to get some cotton candy |
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| Her new pose |
Four months
Yesterday was our four month anniversary of Hope's family day. She has changed so much over the last four months. Her personality has also blossomed. Four months ago we met a very scared little girl.
We seen her walk in with one of the orphanage staff and she was already crying. She had been taken from her foster family that morning. We wanted to meet her right away but stood back watching waiting for the okay.
Finally the lady nodded her head and we approached. The lady explained that we were mama and baba. Poor little thing just cried. Steve tried to give her food but she wouldn't swallow it.
We walked around and tried to get her to stop crying. pulling out all the toys and candy we brought.
We finally let the lady hold her again to calm her down. All she wanted to do was leave that building. When I was holding her she kept pointing to the elevator wanting to leave.
She calmed down as the lady talked to her in Chinese. Poor girl was so sweaty at that point and we had already removed several layers.
Then dad wanted to hold her and the crying started all over again
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That's until we got back to the room and then we got our first smiles and kisses   |
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