Making room

Now that all the paperwork is done it's time to finish up prep here at home for baby brother while we anxiously await travel news. 

We have cleared out the office and turned it into a room for baby brother 

I often sit in the chair and imagine what he is going to look like , what he will act like, what his smile looks like, or what his laugh might sound like 

His first gift was this bear from a family who donated to his adoption and gave this along with their donation . And every time I see it in his bed I think of all the amazing people who have so generously given for this little boy.  

People who we pray may feel of our extreme gratitude for their love and support. 

This room is just missing one thing

A special little boy who will soon have a place to call his very own 

A place where he will be safe and loved 

Your adventures are just about to start little one, and we can hardly wait to see what your life has in store . 

Submitted !!!!!!

Our papers /dossier was submitted to the government today!!!!!!!!! I found out at 1:30 am this morning from the Ukraine facilitator and then at 4:30 am was woken up to a text from our US facilitator telling me we were submitted and that it was apparently expedited which apparently means a faster travel date 😳👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 so any day after today we could hear a travel date!!! Eeekkkkk!!!!!!

Bree's Birthday Challenge for baby brother

9 years ago today on a cold snowy February morning, the blueprints for our life changed with the birth of our special breezy girl.

Those first few moments were raw and full of emotions as we steered our ideas of perfection in a new direction.

Bree, when you were born there were no Facebook advocacy groups or instagram friends to calm our fears of this unknown journey we were starting, there was just you.

You and your almond shaped eyes full of wisdom and love beyond our comprehension.

After you were born they whisked you away and I didn't get to see you again for 20 hours. I was left with concern and fear, worries and doubts of what this new path with an extra chromosome might mean for us all. When I finally was able to see you I walked into the nursery and came to your bedside and as I reached into that oxygen bubble you were under, you wrapped your tiny, perfect little hand around my finger and I knew that you were here to do something big with your life,
I knew that whatever challenges came our way because of you having down syndrome it would be ok, because you would make them ok. You quickly calmed our fears and turned our emotions into gratitude for this precious gift we were given. And at that moment our lives changed for the better, because of you.

Bree, Because of you......



















this little girl's fate was changed
 she left orphanage walls and entered a home

Because of you, this little girl has a life and a family, and a best friend in you.


Bree, Because of you,

this little boy will soon be picked up and loved forever.

Because of you,

 You and your sister are taking us all by the hand again and leading us to your baby brother.

 9 years ago we had no idea the path your little life would start for us.

We did not know then that you were going to be a guardian angel to not just one, but two of our children in the years to come.

Bree's path has connected with many other lives over the years and we put together a special birthday tribute video to celebrate Bree and some of the lives that she's touched.
As we are getting so close to traveling to meet our little boy and are still a little short on funds, we are asking you all to join with us in a special birthday challenge today. In honor of Bree's 9th birthday we are challenging everyone to donate $9 to baby brothers adoption fund. We are so so thankful to each and every person who has helped us so far and we are getting close to being able to bring him home where he is meant to be thanks to the help and generosity of so many wonderful people.

Please watch and share!!!

 

What better way to celebrate this girl who is the epitome of all that is simple and good in life , then to help bring her baby brother home?

Because if she was not born into our family 9 years ago, we would not be on this path now.

Thank you Bree for rewriting our story when you came into this world and for continuing to add new chapters to our book that we would have left out,



making a new special edition of our story that was so much better then the one we would have written.

"Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God"-Corrie ten Boone-

Dossier is complete !

On Saturday we got our "golden ticket " in the mail! The official approval from the US government, our final piece of our dossier!!!!!!!!! 

We got it notarized yesterday and I made my final trip to the capital this morning to get the final apostille !!

The sun was even shining today for the first time in weeks! And it just added to my excitement as I came upon the capital at the top of the hill. 

It's a good day baby brother! Baby boy Your final paperwork is on its way!

Left the capital and headed to fed ex to send this precious cargo across the sea ! 

Where the facilitation team is ready and waiting for it. The final pieces to the months of paperwork chasing are in this envelope. 

Paperwork that will allow us to get to our boy is now on its way!! 

So now what?

Now we wait for a travel date! Eeek!!! 

Once the finished dossier documents arrive in his country, the team finishes translating them all and submits them to the government there. For Noah's age group they only submit on Thursdays so we are hoping it can be submitted next Thursday. But that will depend on when it arrives and how long it takes to get it ready for submission . Then the government assigns us an appointment to arrive in his country. An appointment to obtain his files and accept his referral That appointment is our travel date !! 

Agghhhhhh!!!!! It's getting close!!!!

He will grant sufficient strength when you take a leap of faith

Last spring while we were discussing the idea of adoption again, and specifically the other little boy, baby "B", at that time, I listened to this talk from Elder Larry Gibson about fatherhood. He talked about how we should develop a clear vision of our eternal destiny, particularly the one that Heavenly Father wants us to achieve—and we should Let our eternal destiny drive all of our decisions. Regardless of how difficult those decisions may be, Father will sustain us."

Elder Gibson then shared a story that really spoke to my heart. 

He and his sons had been on a strenuous difficult hike spanning 50 miles in one day, and when they came home exhausted the son said to the dad, "Dad, that was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life and I will never, ever do it again......he paused and then said ....unless my son wants me to"

Adopting Mia was one of the most difficult things we ever did, also one of the most rewarding by far, but difficult non the less. And when I heard these words, that day last spring,  "unless my son wants me to" I sat at my computer and sobbed, like ugly cry sobbing!  I immediately felt like we had a son that needed us to do this again, regardless of how hard it was. At that time, I of course thought Baby "B" was that son , but now I realize he was an important part of another little boy's story, and this other little boy, 

is part of our eternal destiny. 

Today I had what you might call an adoption meltdown, where I cried and doubted and wondered how this was all really going to logistically work out? How were we really going to manage the travel and everything else needed to get this little boy home. This morning we learned that there is a good chance that the time frame we were anticipating for time in his country will be longer then we thought , could potentially be double what we were anticipating, meaning we will either have to leave our children home here much longer, or split up, or make 2-3 trips back and forth, or some combination of all of these scenarios. We are still waiting for our US immigration approval so we still don't know a specific timeframe to even try and plan on. My hope would be that the US approval comes within a week and we can somehow travel in March, (both so I can hold my boy asap and so i could be back with him in my arms for my baby brothers wedding at the end of April) but sadly it may not happen that way, we just don't know at this point. But when we do travel it seems there is a good chance it is going to be a longer process then we had hoped. So naturally I have been upset about it today, feeling like it just seems so far away, and could be even further then I was hoping, and the reality of being torn between my family here and my boy over there, trying to figure out how to come up with more funds if we have to travel back and forth more, realizing that Kris and I will most likely have to split up some of the time, has all put a toll on my emotions today, and as I became overwhelmed playing out all the possible scenarios, I texted Kris and said "how are we going to make this work?" and his response was this "I know you want us to be able to be there together and for the timing to all work out, and if there is a way for that to happen that would be great but we also have to remember the this whole thing has only come together because of the hand of the Lord and it will continue that way. If that means we can spend more time there then that is how it is going to happen, if that means that I have to make multiple trips then so be it. At the end of the day the important thing is that we get him here, the logistics behind how that happens will work themselves out in the end."

The stress and anxiety I had been feeling all day was immediately replaced with peace, 

there is no other explanation for our course being changed to find this little boy at this time, other then the Lord guiding it. 

 I cried as I felt a little of my Heavenly Father wrapping his arms around me saying "this is hard, but your son needs you to do this", 

and then the image of these deep, dark eyes on this heavenly little boy came flooding to my mind .....

"He will grant sufficient strength when you take a leap of faith"