It doesn't get old...

seeing these children become part of a family!

Eva is no longer an orphan!!!!

This family is celebrating their new daughter today!!

My emotions are a mess right now with a travel date and the reality that one day this will be our happy day! Can't wait!

TRAVEL DATE!!!!!!

WE GOT OUR TRAVEL DATE TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WE HAVE OUR SDA (state department of adoption) APPOINTMENT MAY 17 SO WE WILL BE LEAVING MAY 14!!!!!!!!!!

I AM CRYING, SHAKING, SMILING, YOU NAME IT!!!!!!!

So, this is how the process will work. We will go to our SDA appointment in the capital on May 17. At this appointment we will hopefully learn more about her family and we will see her file and maybe some baby pictures. Then we will get our "official" referral for her, which we can't pick up until the next day. Once we pick up the referral we will travel overnight by train across the country to her region and HOPEFULLY get to see her/meet her before the weekend because you can't visit the orphanage on the weekends. So we will actually be in country for about a week before we get to meet her.

So now we get to find flights and start getting ready!!!! YAHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Kareen we are coming in ONE month baby girl!!!!!!!

The empty bed

Last week we got the rooms situated for Kareen to have a bed in Bree's room. As I went in to kiss the girls goodnight, which is always my favorite part of the night...there is something so exquisite about watching a little one sleep. I first saw this in Kyra and Adrie's room....And next door in Bree's room was this......
the empty bed....
Seeing Bree sleeping so peacefully and all cozy in her bed always melts my heart and then to look over and see the empty bed, it just made this whole thing a lot more real.
This bed is waiting for Kareen. It is waiting for a real little girl, not just a picture on my computer. This little girl will finally have her own bed, in a room with her very own sister, and will be able to be tucked into those covers by a mom and dad who love her.
Soon, very soon , this bed will not be empty.

****progress report: we HOPE to hear an appointment/travel date later this week. We are praying it comes this week!!!!!*****

The 10,000 follower challenge

For those who don't know about Patricia Heaton's awesome challenge she instigated last week for Reece's Rainbow.....here is the Fox news.com story on it. It has been so awesome to see how someone can use their status and position for good! We are all grateful to Patricia Heaton for stepping in and not only donating money but raising awareness of the needs of these children, and the needs of all children with down syndrome.

'The Middle' Star Patricia Heaton Takes to Twitter to Raise Awareness for Adoption Charity

By Allison McGevna

Published April 03, 2011

| FoxNews.com

Actress Patricia Heaton (Reuters)

Television star Patricia Heaton says her involvement with a new charity that aids in the adoption of children with disabilities has been some of her most meaningful work to date.

The former “Everybody Loves Raymond” actress, who now appears on the successful sitcom “The Middle” volunteered to donate $1 for every person who follows charitable ministry Reece’s Rainbow on Twitter up to $10,000 in an effort to raise awareness for the organization’s work.

“ I found out about Reece’s Rainbow online after doing some research on the trouble that children who suffer from Down Syndrome face in being adopted domestically and especially internationally, where many countries institutionalize these children,” Heaton told FOX411. “I just started crying immediately, it was so upsetting to learn about the challenges these children face.”

“The idea that a child could be institutionalized when there are people here willing to adopt them but maybe don’t have the financial means was so upsetting,” she added. “With travel, lawyers and more, it can cost upwards of $30,000.”

“I felt it was a problem I could have some impact on,” she said. “ I had just hit 10,000 followers on Twitter and I said, ‘what better what to commemorate this little milestone but to try to help get this organization some recognition on Twitter. So I said I would donate a dollar for every new follower.”

“As a parent myself, you think about all the ills of social media, but this technology is amazing when you see what it can do to impact a cause like this,” Heaton said.

Heaton added that her goal for using Twitter was to help raise awareness for the organization, which also helps children who are HIV positive and those with special needs.

“A lot of people said, ‘Why don’t you just donate the money?’ Well I wrote a check to the organization the first day we discussed this initiative. But this is a great way to help raise awareness. If just one person makes the decision to learn more about the ministry and adopt a child with Down Syndrome, that’s a life that has just been saved.”

“We want to de-stigmatize Down Syndrome,” she added. “I work in an industry where so much emphasis is placed on how you look or the type of things you have done. That kind of shallow value system has become part of our culture. We have to be a part of changing that way of thinking.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/04/03/patricia-heaton-middle-charity-raise-awareness-adoption-children-special-needs/#ixzz1InbQrDjt

Yard Sale for Kareen

We had our yard sale for Kareen the past 2 saturdays. This was the first idea my girls had to raise money for the adoption when they learned that is what we were doing. So they have been going through their toys and clothes for months collecting things to donate to the yard sale and they were SO excited about it. I was super stressed trying to get everything ready the week before the yard sale because Kris was out of town all week (and really isn't around this time of year anyway, even when he is in town....10 days until we get him back) but friends and family stepped in and we pulled it off.
My friend Julie K. showed up with dinner and banners and we spent the evening making banners and signs and pricing the garage full of items.


We even figured out how to rig up this double sided banner and attached it to pieces of wood. Kris would have been so proud of us utilizing his tools!

The girls had been making bookmarks (which I am sick that I never took a picture of...I haave some video of them but no pictures). They were each hand drawn pictures of kareen and Adrie. and then Kyra joined in and they added homemade fans to their inventory. So they made this cute sign and sold their bookmarks, fans and drinks. They wanted to have a lemonade stand but it was REALLY cold so they sold canned pop instead...a little less help needed to do that!

They had their own cash box and were SO excited that they sold ALL their fans and bookmarks and made $100 for Kareen.

This was the girls cage when we had the bunkbeds that we were selling sitting in our living room the day before.

My cute friend Anna put together a fabulous bake sale to go with the yard sale and some of the neighbor boys had fun helping man the booth!
Bree found a big box to keep her entertained with the ipad!
When their was slow traffic the neighbor boys, Jaxon and Casey, wrote their own sign and went to the main road to wave it around. It said "yard sale...help adopt Kareen" So cute!

Kris had to work all day so his family and mine came to help!
Kris' dad enjoying the view of the yard sale! (Thanks Marie for all the furniture donations!! They were a HUGE help!!!!)
Some of my girls who I couldn't have done this without...or anything for that matter.

Me, Anna, Julie D., Julie K., and Jodi
Some of my family helpers...Chaly, me , mom, Lida and Bret

Once again we were overwhelmed by the love and support of others! The girls old librarian made a special trip to the sale just to buy their bookmarks and then donated more than the bookmarks cost, as did another friend/neighbor. Another neighbor was so touched and excited to help that she "hired" my girls to come organize doll clothes and make things for her classroom at school (and they HAD to eat treats while there) and she paid them $20 for Kareen and a few dollars for each of them. Another friend volunteered to organize a 5-K if we need.....it just keeps going and it never ceases to amaze us and touch us deeply. I remember when we were contemplating starting this journey and Lisa told me our lives would be forever changed for the better if we did, and we continue to see that be true!

We did really well the first sat. and brought in around $700 but still had quite a bit of stuff so we decided to do it the next sat too. It was actually kindof a neat experience because the second sat turned out to be a "pay it forward" sale. We had slower traffic and we were able to help out a few different families who came by. We met one lady who was here from New Zealand for our church's general conference and we loved talking to her and felt impressed to offer her to fill a garbage bag of clothes to take with her. She lit up and was SO appreciative! She loves to come here and get Old Navy clothes and we had SO many of them from there so she was in heaven! Another family came who were originally from Mexico and we started letting their daughter choose toys and things and they were also SO appreciative. It was fun to be able to pay it forward a little! So we gave away more that second day than we made but it was a good experience!

SUBMITTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's NO APRIL FOOL'S............We just found out we WERE SUBMITTED!!!!!!!!!! This means that she is ok, and that she is available for us and that in 4-5 weeks we will be MEETING our GIRL!!!!!!!!!!! I can hardly type because I am so shaky with emotions! I am Smiling, cheering, crying.......you name it!!!!!!!!!!!!

So the government now has our dossier and has pulled Kareen's file to "hold" her with our file!!!!!!

You know how it feels when you are sitting in a reception room, anxiously awaiting something important? And it's unclear just how long you will have to wait? You console yourself by saying "just 5 more minutes" again and again-you just have to break the wait up because otherwise despair creeps over you.

Even the little ones know. Kareen has been waiting for 4 years now to have a mom and dad and family......

Waiting. She has no way of knowing, that she's already been found by her family.

Hang on baby girl, we are coming!!!!!! And you will get your happy ending soon!!!!!!!!!!!

Twists and Turns

This adoption journey is full of ups and downs.

I feel like I have yet another "family" through Reece's Rainbow and the stories of these families all hit home with me right now.

In the past week so much has happened in the Reece's Rainbow family.

The Fillmores are on their way HOME with their little girl Anya after almost a year of waiting!

The Davis family had a shocking twist of events as they were told they were denied the right to bring their son Kirill home. This news was shocking and heartbreaking to all of us, And yet through this tragedy miracles are coming about.....things are looking hopeful and they are appealing......and prayers are being heard. The facebook and blogging world has spread this story like wildfire and in doing so has reached a hollywood star, Patricia Heaton, (Everybody loves Raymond and The Middle) who is now advocating for these kids and donated $10,000 to Reece's Rainbow today!!!! Through her, Sean Hannity is also now a follower of Reece's Rainbow as well!

The Burman family took their new daughter Carrington, out of the orphanage and to their horror, found that she had been literally fighting for her life. This is what they had seen everytime they had visited her...a child who appeared healthy in her layers of clothing. (It is VERY common to layer the children there, even indoors so it didn't appear strange)

and this is what they found when they got her home to their apartment in EE and undressed her.

They immediately rushed her to the ER upon arrival in the U.S. and she is now getting the medical attention and the love from a family that she so DESPERATELY needed!

She is 3 1/2 years old and was 11 pounds when they brought her home! If this family had been even days later in getting to her, she would not have made it!

Masha's family arrived in EE this week to find out that she had been transferred days before to the institution and so they are now scrambling to change the paperwork needed and get to her at the institution. She is barely 4 like Kareen.

Needless to say, this journey is full of unknowns and twists and turns and I find myself getting SO worried about my girl on the other side of the world. I worry about all the unknowns and what ifs and I feel so helpless! Then I have to remind myself that the Lord is in charge and the greatest gift I have through this journey right now is prayer!

I can pray for Kareen!

I can pray for these other children and families!

I can pray for peace and comfort!

Thank goodness for prayer to see me through this emotional rollercoaster and to protect my girl when I can not!