An Orphan Sunday Video

Here is a great video I just had to share. Brought tears to my eyes!



An Orphan Sunday Video

Family Fun

Such a cute M&M
Anyone else see the irony in this picture? :)
Caleb's face says it all- "My teacher is making me pose for this picture and I don't like it!"
Bubble fun with Grandma
She was trying to blow the bubbles and looked adorable- of course couldn't catch it on camera!

Caleb's school had a science fair last week. Caleb's class guessed which color occurred more often in a bag of M&M's and then counted them. Very scientific. There was an M&M costume available for the kids to try on. Caleb was not interested, but the younger two make very cute M&M's.

A local adoption group hosted an event at The Grand Rapids Children's Museum for adoptive families. I took the kids and met my parents, Jenn and Cardale there. We also saw some other friends there. I really appreciate the efforts put forth by groups to recognize adoptive families. At these type of events no one asks you if the kids are yours or not. :)

Latest happenings

Watching "Pororo" clips on You Tube
Shoes for Orphan Souls- 50 pairs of shoes and counting!

Orphan Sunday is done! I started planning/ working on Orphan Sunday this summer and I was really excited about it. I was also nervous that maybe people just won't care. I kept reminding myself that God is using me to get the message out, He is the one who will move people's hearts. Our church did a shoe drive with Shoes for Orphan Souls and we collected 50 pairs of shoes. As we packed the shoes I thought about how excited my kids are about a new pair of shoes and how happy an orphan somewhere will be to receive a pair of shoes. I wanted our church to participate in this shoe drive because it shows people that even little things can make a big impact. I also arranged for part of the MI Heart Gallery to be on display at our church. The Heart Gallery contains professionally done portraits of MI kids waiting to be adopted. Another orphan advocate shared with me the prayer cards she uses at her church. Each card contains the picture of a MI child waiting to be adopted and a little bio. On the back of the card are ways the sponsor can pray for the child. I had people sign up for a child so that I can let them know when the child is adopted. We all know prayer is powerful! During the service I shared about different ways to get involved in orphan care and some mission trip possibilities this summer. There is a 2 week mission trip to Romania that I would love for our family to go on sometime. It's a family friendly mission trip and you spend most of the time in hospitals holding babies and in the orphanages playing with kids. Most of the Romanian orphans will never be adopted and will grow up in the orphanage. The orphanage workers do their best, but these children need all the loving they can get. I would love to take our family to Romania this summer, but don't think that's going to happen. :) I'm really excited to see how God will move our church to love and serve orphans!

The first picture is of the kids watching Pororo, a Korean cartoon, on You Tube. All of them get excited to watch it and start dancing around the room to the songs. Pretty cute.

Caleb had his first serious offense at school. I won't go into all the details. However, tonight he wrote a note to Nate and I apologizing for misbehaving. He also wrote a note to everyone in the family saying he loved us. It was very cute. :)

I have been battling a sickness since about October 14. Basically an upper respiratory infection. I've had two rounds of antibiotics. I had to go back in today because of chest pain every time I coughed, sneezed, etc. I guess the lining of my lungs is inflamed so now I am on a round of steroids. My youngest two are both on antibiotics now too. I hope we all kick this bug soon!

Halloween

Ready to show the neighborhood some cuteness!
Isn't he the cutest bunny ever?!
Gotta love 'em

As I've mentioned in the past, we don't make a huge deal out of Halloween. We carve a pumpkin, but that is the extent of our decorations. We like the idea of letting kids dress up and pretend, so that is what we do. They aren't allowed to be scary, evil or gross things. We then trick-or-treat around the neighborhood. It is always fun to see the other neighborhood kids looking cute. Many of our neighbors don't pass out candy, but that is ok. The kids still come home with more candy then they need. :) Nate surprised us and got home from work in time for the costumes and trick-or-treating. I have also mentioned in the past that Caleb does not like to dress up. I imagine he will be a soccer player for the next several Halloweens. :) However, the other day he told me he wanted to dress up like a wolf next year. Either of the Grandma's want to tackle that job? I'm a little suspect though that he would actually wear the costume. :) Isaac wore a bunny costume that my Mom made when my siblings and I were kids. And Julia was a little Baby Bop. She rode in the stroller and quickly got excited when people started giving her candy. She is a little sugar addict like her Mama. :)

And the most exciting news, the outage is done!!! Nate is off for 4 days in a row- so nice. I am very proud of all of the work Nate did for the outage. I don't understand much of it, but I do know that he was entrusted with alot of responsibility and he rocked it. Now we go back to normal shift work until the next outage in 18 months. :)

Grandma!

Enjoying some time at the park

Playing Settlers with Dad
This is probably the cutest picture ever!
Using the "sunbrella" at Caleb's soccer game
A great week with Grandma!

Nate's Mom stayed with us for a little over a week. The day after she arrived, I went to Boston for the weekend. I then spent the rest of the week quite sick. Everyone knows that when Mom gets sick, the house falls apart- especially if Dad is working crazy hours too. :) But, Grandma was here and it was so helpful! I went grocery shopping and realized we were also getting laundry done and the house cleaned because Grandma was around. Such a treat! The kids enjoyed having Grandma's undivided attention. They read lots of books, did art projects and played outside. She also went on a field trip with Caleb's class. Mom and I went to a Steven Curtis Chapman concert. Steven's sons have a band called 'Caleb' that played some songs. Then Steven played some of his oldies and new songs. Steven's wife, Mary Beth, then spoke about their family's journey over the past two years after the death of their daughter. I actually heard her speech at the orphan conference I attended, but it was still moving. The Chapman family is a big supporter of adoption and orphan care. I ran into quite a few people I know from the local adoption community at the concert. It seems like Mom's visit flew by! Thank you again for coming, we all enjoyed your visit!

Hopefully the outage will finish up next week. We're all ready for that.

Robin's wedding

Beautiful Bride
Robin, Ricardo and her parents
Friends since high school!
Deb and me- I look a little sick :)

This past weekend I flew to Boston for my friend's wedding. I've known Robin since high school. I stayed with Deb and her family for the weekend and had fun hanging out. Traveling was not fun. I came down with a horrible cold a couple days before I left. I was coughing and sneezing all over the place, not pretty. I sounded so horrible that Amy's (Deb's sister) kids were afraid of me! I didn't spend alot of time with Robin because I didn't want to get her sick before her honeymoon. I did get out on the dance floor for awhile. It was a short weekend and most of it was in a fog. :)

Nate's Mom is visiting for a week so she watched the kids while I was gone. I am so thankful she is here. It has been a huge help what with me being sick and Nate working long hours. The kids are enjoying Grandma's visit too!

Zoo Day

Chicago skyline on a beautiful day
Aunt Steph and the kids

Soccer star Caleb

This past Thursday and Friday Caleb didn't have school. My sister and I took an impromptu trip to Chicago with the kids. We spent Wednesday night at my grandparent's house and then went to Lincoln Park Zoo on Thursday. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time! The zoo is free which is a nice bonus. You make up for it in parking, but that's ok. The zoo is quite large and has a good variety of animals. The kids really did awesome. My sister is moving to Denver in a couple weeks so we won't have too many more trips with Aunt Steph. I'm super proud of Steph and excited for her, but I'm also really sad. I'm going to miss having her nearby.

This weekend I visited my parents. My Dad had his surgery earlier in the week and it was successful! He is doing amazingly well. He has about a month recovery time, but he's able to get around and feels ok. Thank you for your prayers!

Caleb is playing soccer again this year. There have been some cold mornings at the soccer field this fall, but he has fun. Nate's power plant is in an outage again. They happen every 18 months when they shut the reactor down, refuel and fix as many things as possible in 4-6 weeks. He's working 4 days on, one day off. The days average about 13 hours. I'm thankful he's on days and not nights. We're all just making the best of it and waiting for November. :)

Funny little story about Julia. After Isaac used the bathroom today she started pulling on her pants and saying, "potty." I put her on the toilet and she didn't do anything, but still I was impressed. The boys had no interest in the toilet at 18 months. I'm not planning on potty training her anytime soon though. :)

Isaac is getting excited about the idea of going to school next year. He talks often about when he gets to go to preschool. When we visit my parents' church they have a program for Isaac's age group. He loves going to his own class and making a craft, having a teacher, etc. He was upset because I pulled him out of the program early so he missed some of the singing and couldn't take his craft home. The nerve of me! :)

Something else I've been thinking about recently. Through a Korean adoption forum I read about an American adoptive family getting to meet their child's birthmother in Korea. This hardly ever happens in international adoptions. As I read this Mom's opportunity to meet her child's birthmother I found myself feeling jealous. I used to think the nice thing about international adoptions was that you didn't have to interact with the birth family. My mind is changing though. I would love an opportunity to meet Julia's birthparents. I want a chance to get to know them. Which parts of her personality come from her birthparents? If I saw her birthmom, would I get a glimpse of what Julia will look like when she's older? I think Julia would also appreciate having more information about her birth family. I was thinking I would also be extremely nervous about meeting her birthparents. What would they think of me? Would they be happy she was in our family? So many interesting thoughts and questions.