Christmas and Taiwan lesson

We are back home after a very busy Christmas. Elliana and Andy stayed healthy for the first time! Well, I think Andy still has an ear infection, but that is normal for him. Here are a two picture:
This is my sister and me with a few of our nieces and nephew:

Grandpa Bill with is grandsons:


Last night we had dinner with some good friends from bible study. Melvin's family is from Taiwan so his mother showed us how to cook some yummy food and shared about the culture. We made egg drop soup, pot-stickers, dumplings, and green onion and oil pancakes. we did not actually do all the cooking, we got a little carried away in her stories and forgot to cook. But we loved it all. We had a great time and learned a lot too. We can not wait to do it again!

Family

I love to be with family. I know that some family decide not to travel once they have kids so that way the kids get to spend Christmas Eve in their own bed and wake up Christmas day in their own home. Well, I love to see our families so we most likely always travel during the holidays. Despite the high stress of dividing time equally and trying to see everyone, I look forward to the parties and festivities.

The kids make the 4 hour drive pretty good and love to see their grandmas and papas. Elliana talks about it for the entire week and tries to pack repeatedly. This year I was able to hold off on her packing and then I forgot to pack more than one pjs. She usually only packs pajamas so she was greatly disappointed at first, but of course Grandmas was prepared and had extra for her. She is yet to take them off. She even wore them the Great-Grandma's birthday. Andy has loves to play with Papa and have him cuddle with him.

Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Step-dads

My parents divorced when I was very young. I have no memory of living with my birthfather. God, in His great lovingkindness, provided a godly man for my mom to marry. On June 13, 2987, Bill and my mom married. We, my full sisters and I, have always called Bill, Bill. There were several reasons for this, we still saw my dad occasionally, that is how we were introduced, and other simple things like that. But Bill is who raised me and taught me to be who I am today. He walked me down the aisle, as he did with all four of his married daughters. Bill was never given the opportunity to adopt us officially, but I see him as my dad and love him so much. Thank you, Bill, for all you do for me.

For those interested here is a run down on siblings:
Kelly- step (Bill)-five girls, one adopted from Zambia two years ago.
Tina- step (Bill)-four girls, one boy
Shannon- full-one girl, two boys
Amber- full
Erica- half (dad)
Steven- half (dad)
Sam- Step (dad)
Garrett- step (dad)

Since this computer is not that old, I do not have a good picture of everyone, I will take one over Christmas:)

blogs

Does anyone know what we are allowed and not allowed to say while blogging? I have wondered why some can post pictures of their babies and other have said they can not. I realize that some depends on the country, but I have seen both with Taiwan.
During our Adoption group's Christmas party someone mentioned that certain countries are very strick that nothing be published about the adoption until it is finalized or the country will close the adoption down and they will have to start over.

Agencies

There are so many agencies out there, how does one pick? Well, here is how we picked ACGI. When we first started looking, we were thinking our child was in China. We had attended a meeting with All God's Children, which we loved the meeting and the information was very helpful. Well, after a few weeks of looking at China, we decided Taiwan was a better fit. At the meeting, we were told there was a pilot program for Taiwan but it would not be open to us for a while. I found three agencies that work in Taiwan, currently. One was not accepting anyone new and the other two were just not helpful to us. I would ask questions and they either would never call back or acted like I was bothering them, very rude like. Since we would have to find someone else to do the homestudy, we contacted ACGI again to see if they could work with one of the agencies. With that, God opened up the door to be part of the pilot program with ACGI. I believe God was at work here, because it does not seem other people had the issues I had with the other agencies.

Sisters Weekend

This weekend two of my sisters and I are meeting up in LA for a sisters weekend. I am very excited, since we have never done this before. I will not have any kids with me, but Shannon will have Thaddeus. One reason we planned the trip was to support my younger sister whom had a pretty rough past couple of months. So I am hoping to show her lots of love and have a good time too.

Today was the last day of our Esther, Beth Moore study. I was facilitating, which it has been a long time since I led a bible study. It was great to be challenged and exciting to see the women grow. I was one of the youngest, feeling a little like Esther. Most of the group was around my grandmother's age. I loved their input and advice. I will miss see them each week.

A Mother's Prayer

Today I went to a Sip N' See, a time for sipping drinks and seeing the new babes, and a prayer was said for the liitle ones. It was so sweet and precious to see all the little ones that God blessed friends with this year. Here is the video of the prayer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re5EIUIXbhc

Sharing the baby

Elliana and Andy have started to play together a lot more lately. Mostly what Elliana wants, but also Andy's favorites, trains and balls. I got a picture of them sharing and playing baby doll, Elliana's favorite. She asked Andy if he wanted to hold her baby sister and tells him it is "me brother". Yes, she is a little confused, but she will get it down one day. Right after Andy holds the baby, she tells him the baby wants "mommy- me mommy, she sick." If you notice all the band-aids on the dolls head, she said she fell, a lot. This baby has many names too, Thaddeus, Lisa, Four, Cale- just to name a few. I am not sure we will ask her her input when we think about names for our newest one.

Sarah and Hagar

I was talking with my mother the other day and she shared what she was learning. God had promised a child to Abraham and Sarah and in earthly wisdom, they decided the timing for the promise to be fulfilled. God had His own timing. Because of their failure to trust God's timing, Hagar and Ishmael were hurt in the process. Yes, God worked it all out for His glory, but how much more of a blessing was missed by Abraham and Sarah. As we wait for God's timing in this adoption, I am convicted not to try to make it complete in my timing.

From the beginning

The first question people ask when they hear we are adopting is, "why". So I will start to share bits and pieces throughout the blog. God worked on our hearts separately before we even knew each other. I worked with orphans in the Ukraine for two summers and knew from the first time I saw a certain little boy that I would one day adopt a child. I will let Chris share his early desires of adoption later. Once we started dating and talked of family, we both said that we wanted to adopt. After we had Elliana we mentioned it again, but knew it wasn't the right time yet. After Andy was born, we both just started to move forward with talking to others about their journey and how to begin.
I have heard others say they could not love a child not biological as much. As horrible, but honest, as that is, I know WITHOUT A DOUBT, I have enough unconditional love for my adopted child and biological child. So has we wait to know our furture child, we pray.

Immigration

We just received our I-171H, meaning the US government has approved us to bring home an orphan from a foreign country. It is only good for 15 months so hopefully we will be home by then.

Test

This is a test. Hopefully I will actually blog soon.