With a lot of kids, comes a lot of activity...there is hardly ever a moment when there isn't something going on around here.
Saturday, Jacob had a track meet in Akron (not Ohio...) but mothernature had other plans. They got there, watched two of the girls run two events, and then the track meet was canceled due to snow. Yes, snow. Here we were sunburned from just a couple of days earlier, when we took the 6-12 grade to the Rockies game.
Monday, Jacob had his district baseball playoff game. Unfortunately, after being up on the other team, (our very big rivals) we lost. It was too bad, as we had just beat them Friday.
Today, both Jacob and Nathan had their league track meet in Sterling. Nathan placed 6th place in the 100 meter, and Jacob's relay team won. So Jacob has now qualified for state in his freshman year in track. (Can you tell I am proud of him?)
Tomorrow and Thursday, I think are quiet days, just track practice for Jacob and a couple of tests.
Friday, Leonard and I have to go to Denver to take some classes for our adoption. During our adoption of Kaycee, we were supposed to take 24 credits, as this is a requirement for the state of Colorado. However, honestly I forgot. So now that we are wanting to adopt again, we have to have our classes done before we can get our homestudy certified by the state. UUGGHH, oh well.
Our classes start at 5:30 Friday night, then there are two more classes Saturday - all day, while Jacob is running in his state track meet. UUGGHH!
Sunday, should be a "relaxing" day...church, youth, an anniversary party, Sunday night church for the adults.
Then, it all starts again...only this time, I will be lucky enough to be back in school. 9 credits for my masters...Behavior Analysis, Adaptive Technology, and Literacy for special needs students. Sounds fun...however, I am not sure when I will find the time to study...Any suggestions?
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
A very recent picture,...
I received a wonderful present today...it is a very recent picture of our newest addition, Noah. In addition to this, just seeing that he is healthy and happy was a gift in and of itself!
As I have stated before, Noah is currently part of the True Children's Home in Guangdong Province and is in foster care. Apparently, every quarter, the foster parents and children get together with all of the other parents and children and go do something really fun. Well this picture shows him playing on a car at a park with two of his friends...it is priceless... Can you tell which one is Noah? I will give you two hints...he is not the one on the left or the one on the right...:)
Getting this picture today makes me realize how precious our time with our children really is. How much we take for granted that we can get a picture of our kids whenever we want. We can hug and kiss them, tell them stories, laugh with them, take a walk with them, whenever we want. When all you have is a photo or two, and you never know when you will get them, you realize how precious they are.
Even though we are just starting this process again, and it seems to be dragging and not getting done, I know Noah is our son. He is the youngest member of our family. He is the one that will take the middle name of Leonard's great grandfather. He is the one that will share a bedroom with John. He is the one I worry about in school.
It is unexplainable, no words can do it justice...
Love Without Boundaries
LWB is a non profit organization which helps orphans in China who need medical attention. Most of these children are the ones who need life saving heart surgery.
LWB will be having their charity auction on Ebay starting 4-24 and ends 4-29. It is so important to get this word out...
I was contacted by them and donated two tutus and a pair of cupcake shoes to the auction. I really hope they are able to raise the money they are needing.
In addition, for those of you that shop on Amazon - if you would go through their website first to get to Amazon, they will receive proceeds from your purchases.
LWB will be having their charity auction on Ebay starting 4-24 and ends 4-29. It is so important to get this word out...
I was contacted by them and donated two tutus and a pair of cupcake shoes to the auction. I really hope they are able to raise the money they are needing.
In addition, for those of you that shop on Amazon - if you would go through their website first to get to Amazon, they will receive proceeds from your purchases.
Monday, April 14, 2008
A lot to fill you in on...
I have been gone for over a month. Wow, time flies...
Anyway, we have been going pretty much none stop since my last post. Jacob is playing baseball and running track, Nathan is running track, and Kylie, John and Kaycee have been sick off and on.
Leonard and I went to Las Vegas for a couple of days - really it was because he had convention for work, I just hung out by the pool and relaxed. It was really nice to get to be just the two of us. We have gone on many vacations, but there is always someone's child around. (For example, we have gone to Florida and California without our children, however, we had about 10 other kids with us for their senior trip.)
Anyway, it was nice, but Las Vegas is really not for me. I spent $6.00 and Leonard spent $1.00 in the nickel slots. Last of the big spenders, aren't we? But when you are trying to come up with about $16,000 in the next 10 months for an adoption, it is hard to spend money on something that doesn't usually give anything back.
Speaking of adoption: We wrote out our Letter of Intent (LOI) and have sent it to the agency. The letter states we understand that Noah has a special need, that he is not a "healthy" child, and that we still want to adopt him anyway. But the bad news is...China has recently changed their rules regarding adoptions - of which, none of them have affected us...except that we cannot send in our LOI yet as we are not close enough to being done with our dossier or our homestudy. Apparently, there is now a three month window in which the paperwork needs to be done in...just found that out today. YIKES! Three months...This really is impossible, as the homestudy needs to be completed in order for us to get our immigration paperwork completed. We have to apply for a time to get fingerprinted, first, but have to have the homestudy done - first. The homestudy will usually take about 3 months to be completed. Confused? It seems that if you are not familiar with international adoptions, it does get very complicated and crazy.
Here is a breakdown: (not mine...yet)
1. Our LOI is completed and in the hands of the agency.
2. The agency is going to hold the LOI to "buy us some time"
3. We are waiting to be matched with a social worker to do our homestudy.
4. The homestudy needs to be completed (three visits with the social worker)
5. The homestudy needs to be completed before we can apply for our I800a, immigration ok to be fingerprinted.
6. We then need to get fingerprinted and then wait to get those back.
7. In the meantime, we are gathering birth certificates, marriage certificates, doctor's notes, letters of employment, etc etc etc...Geesh, we just adopted less than a year ago, can't they just use some of that? Just kidding...
8. At which time, all of this paperwork needs to be notarized, certified and then authenticated, then it can all be translated and then sent to China. I will explain all of this in another post. I am a little tired right now...
Anyway, we have been going pretty much none stop since my last post. Jacob is playing baseball and running track, Nathan is running track, and Kylie, John and Kaycee have been sick off and on.
Leonard and I went to Las Vegas for a couple of days - really it was because he had convention for work, I just hung out by the pool and relaxed. It was really nice to get to be just the two of us. We have gone on many vacations, but there is always someone's child around. (For example, we have gone to Florida and California without our children, however, we had about 10 other kids with us for their senior trip.)
Anyway, it was nice, but Las Vegas is really not for me. I spent $6.00 and Leonard spent $1.00 in the nickel slots. Last of the big spenders, aren't we? But when you are trying to come up with about $16,000 in the next 10 months for an adoption, it is hard to spend money on something that doesn't usually give anything back.
Speaking of adoption: We wrote out our Letter of Intent (LOI) and have sent it to the agency. The letter states we understand that Noah has a special need, that he is not a "healthy" child, and that we still want to adopt him anyway. But the bad news is...China has recently changed their rules regarding adoptions - of which, none of them have affected us...except that we cannot send in our LOI yet as we are not close enough to being done with our dossier or our homestudy. Apparently, there is now a three month window in which the paperwork needs to be done in...just found that out today. YIKES! Three months...This really is impossible, as the homestudy needs to be completed in order for us to get our immigration paperwork completed. We have to apply for a time to get fingerprinted, first, but have to have the homestudy done - first. The homestudy will usually take about 3 months to be completed. Confused? It seems that if you are not familiar with international adoptions, it does get very complicated and crazy.
Here is a breakdown: (not mine...yet)
1. Our LOI is completed and in the hands of the agency.
2. The agency is going to hold the LOI to "buy us some time"
3. We are waiting to be matched with a social worker to do our homestudy.
4. The homestudy needs to be completed (three visits with the social worker)
5. The homestudy needs to be completed before we can apply for our I800a, immigration ok to be fingerprinted.
6. We then need to get fingerprinted and then wait to get those back.
7. In the meantime, we are gathering birth certificates, marriage certificates, doctor's notes, letters of employment, etc etc etc...Geesh, we just adopted less than a year ago, can't they just use some of that? Just kidding...
8. At which time, all of this paperwork needs to be notarized, certified and then authenticated, then it can all be translated and then sent to China. I will explain all of this in another post. I am a little tired right now...
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