Advent Calendars

Our Christmas season has been filled with an unlikely tradition. Every night, our boys ask for calendar time. I did not think they would enjoy it as much as they do. 

Our wonderful church offered 2 options for families to choose from. I was trying to decide if we would choose a family scratch off or the orphan care Advent calendar, when Aunt B showed up at our house with 4 scratch off calendars and 1 orphan care calendar.

Every night after dinner, we sit down at the table and spend time scratching. We take turns opening the doors on the orphan care calendar. Inside each door is a giving challenge to help us understand how blessed we are in America. Our kids all get to add some money to a recycled peanut butter jar. After Christmas, the money will be given to First Baptist Huntsville's new orphan care ministry. The fund is called "One Less".  One less orphan, one less broken heart, one less family worlds apart. Families in our church will be able to apply for funds to help cover adoption costs. Blessed church.

For example, last night, the challenge was to give $0.02 for each pair of shoes in our house. We had fun counting the shoes. What we learned is that our family has entirely too many shoes. 70. Our family has 70 pairs of shoes. So much of the world doesn't even have one pair of shoes. Who needs 70 pairs of shoes? That one cost us $1.40. Some other examples: we had to give money for every non-water drink we had that day... money if we had more than one pair of clothes... money if we had running water in our home... money for every window in our house... money for every person who has more than a 4th grade education...These are all things that most of our world doesn't have access to. 

Some nights our littlest two stand off over who is going to put the money in the jar first... The conversation last night went like this:

Little bit(daughter age 3): "Me no. Him first"

Bat boy (son age 5): "Me no... her first"

continue for 45 seconds.

Oldest in Polish: "Little bit, put your money in.. it is to help children with no families"

Be still my heart... this boy who has had a forever family for only 5 weeks is scolding his sister for wanting to keep the dime instead of putting it in the jar. 

This Christmas I have been drawn to the part of the story about Joseph. Joseph who adopted Jesus to be his son. Joseph is a new perspective for me as I look at Forever dad learning to parent our kids. He is incredible and the best partner to us. 

In less serious terms, our kids love Santa. They love seeing him. Our kids celebrate St. Nick's day on December 6th. Santa comes to our house to pick up their Christmas list and leaves little goodies in their stocking. Thankfully stores are not sold out of stocking stuffers at 10:00 PM on the night of December 5th. 

Last night, our oldest (still thinking of a blog name for him), wanted to dress up at St. Nick and have the littles sit in his lap. I had fun crafting a cotton ball beard and stuffing my trench on him. Little bit giggled and giggled. #2 dressed up as en elf in  the only green apperal we had: Forever Dad's green swim trunks. They are featured in the right hand side of this picture.

By the way: Little bit wants a baby for Christmas and not a baby doll. 

The Hanging of the Green

Tomorrow is the Hanging of the Green at First Baptist Church in Huntsville. I love this special church service as we prepare our sanctuary for the coming of Christ. 

Forever Dad must travel to Tennessee to clean out his dad's home. 

I will be taking the kids to church by myself.  I am taking them because I want attending church to be a routine that sets our week off on the right foot.

Our church has been the most incredible showing of love and support to our family.  So many of our church members have sacrificed to bring our kids home. They helped us in ways we don't even know. They have given us clothes, traded us cars, changed our light bulbs, taken care of our dog, prayed for us, given us money, advice and love. 

 I know that so many people feel part of our kids lives. They have prayed for them and loved them as long as we have. With all that said, tomorrow, my children will walk into a giant room of strangers. I can imagine their anxiety will be quite high. Physical touch also escalates them. 

Tomorrow, if you see us at church, please wave and give us a friendly smile. When we wave and smile back, know that we are offering our biggest hugs and hundreds of words of gratitude to you. Over time, as we all get more comfortable,  we will be happy to offer hugs and spend time talking.

Tomorrow, we may sneak out early. We want church to be a positive and lovely experience for everyone.

Merry Christmas from us to you.

Happy Thanksgiving

I want to apologize to all the adoptive moms out there who blog. When you came home with your precious children, I waited anxiously for you to update your blog. When you finally did, it wasn't nearly often or in depth enough for my liking. I am sorry I put those expectations on you. I now understand how unfair it was of me. I am way to busy (also read: tired) to blog well.

Forever Dad and I are doing well. Our kids are adjusting and starting to really enjoy being home. We are loving every one of them and the precious treasures that they are.

Today our family (minus Papaw who had to work) came to our house for lunch. We had a great time.

Happy Thanksgiving from our Forever Family, Grandmas, Aunts and Uncles and Keller.

American Soil

Yesterday, we were technically in America. We went to the U.S. Embassy twice. We went early in the morning because they only accept payment for Visas before noon. Then we left, walked to the passport office to get our kids' Polish passports, went to KFC to bum some WIFI so we could complete our DS-260s on each kid, then walked back to the Embassy.

I'd never been in an Embassy before, but it was all very official. The people were nice. The boys were upset that they didn't get to do their finger prints. Nathan did all the fingerprinting because the kids are all minors. 

We left and went to the Copernicus Science Center where we met up with another American adoptive family. They are from Jackson, Mississippi and are adopting 2 little boys. They are 3 weeks from traveling home.

Today, we have visas in hand. Here is the to do list:

1. Appeal Period ends
2. Get Official Adoption Decree from the court in Gorzow.
3. Get new birth certificates from the kids birth city.
4. Get new cards for the kids with their new names on it (Polish equivalent to the social security card.)
5. Get Polish passports for the kids
6. Get medical exam for the kids.
7. Fill out new visa paperwork for the kids (The form changed while we were in country, so we have to do it all again).
8. Go to the US Embassy to get visas
9. Travel home!

As you can see... we are on step 9.

We leave tomorrow. 
We fly out of Warsaw at 6:55 PM and then travel to Frankfurt, then Houston, then Birmingham. We will then drive from Birmingham to Huntsville. 

I am only 1 sleep from my kids being American citizens, seeing my family, friends and dog. 

Our Appeal Period Ends Today

If no one appeals our adoption by the close of business today, our adoption will be final. 

Final.

Finally.

Finally a Forever Family.

Here is a picture of the door to the courtroom where we became parents!

This has been the end/beginning of a long, tedious and wonderful journey. The days here are treasured but long. 

Last night, we sat in the floor with the two big boys and showed off our stupid human tricks. They can both roll their tongues and they have very flexible fingers. #1 can put his foot behind his head.

Today, we are going to the doctor for our U.S. Visa medical exam. The boys are a little nervous about it. The doctor has to draw blood on all the kids above the age of 5. Luckily little girl doesn't have to get blood drawn. Unfortunately, #2 passes out when he sees needles. This morning he asked if he could take ketchup to put in the vials instead of drawing blood. After a good laugh, we explained that the doctors would think he is a tomato and the United States would not let us adopt tomatoes.

Speaking of food, we have encountered some interesting foods here. Pizza is almost always served with ketchup, even at the restaurants. They eat ketchup on french toast and thought we were crazy when we asked for syrup. They found some jam for us. Peanut butter is hard to find, but Nutella is everywhere. My kids would be happy eating Nutella for every meal. They also eat about 10-15 bananas a day. I hope kids can't get potassium poisoning from too many bananas. 12/4 is only 3 bananas per kid but I have a sneaky suspicion that #2 eats most of them. I buy bananas daily.

Our apartment is on the top/5th floor of a building. The building is on top of a store, so we only have to run down several flights of stairs to get easy things like juice, bread and bananas. If we need to do a big run, we drive to the Tesco. That is one of my biggest stresses of the week because 4 kids in a grocery store is stressful enough, but when you have to use google translate on every item, it adds to the stress. On top of all that, I have kids asking for random things or just putting things in the cart. All of this is normal for parents, but being in a foreign country is just hard. 

The cute thing is when they want something, the kids say, "Mommy, yes money-money?"

We like to swim, but at the local pool, you have to wear a swim cap. Also, Daddy got in trouble for wearing western style swim trunks. The kind of swim trunks every man/boy in America wears. The lifeguard said his trunks were unsafe and the next time we come, he will have to wear a speedo!

This old building is in the middle of Warsaw and houses several things... 2 museums, a theatre and elevators to the top. The boys wanted to go to the top, but it was very expensive. We may go do that on our last day in Warsaw.  I have a feeling they will not like it, but they really want to go.

We are ready for America

Our kids realize we are just killing time here in Warsaw. They are so ready to go to America. They joke a lot about it. Every time they see an airplane, they say, "Going to America"? Or when they are planning the day, they often put "Go to America" somewhere between lunch and dinner.

Our daily schedule:

6:15: #3 wakes up.
7:00: #2 wakes up.
7-9: #1 and Little girl wake up.
9-11: Eat breakfast and prepare for the day. 
Mid morning-Mid afternoon: travel to the adventure place for the day. This often includes swimming, the park, Kolorado (a fabulous indoor play place), or somewhere downtown. We really loved the zoo and the boys were excited to see the stadium.
Snack and lunch are in there somewhere. Lunch is our big meal of the day.
Dinner and shower time are always an adventure.
8:00: Bedtime for the littles
9:00: Bedtime for the bigs and the parents

As you can tell, there is lots of downtime and the kids get bored. When they get bored, they start to aggravate each other.  We try to stay busy and limit the damage.

One of our favorite places is this crazy awesome park close by. It would not be allowed in America. There are too many hazards. Our kids love it. There is this tall rope contraption that you can climb up, lots of spinny things, a sand box, swings and even ping pong. We often spend 2-3 hours here.

That is our oldest at the top of the rope thing. He likes to race dad to the top.

This is a really fun picture of the kids at the airport waiting for grandpa to leave to go to America. We miss him. After Dad came back to Poland and Grandpa went to America, the kids asked if Mom was going to America and Babcia (Grandma) was coming to Poland. 
I think that is good logic, but alas, Babcia (pronounced: bob-cha) is staying in America and mom is staying in Poland.

Our appeal period ends on Wednesday, then our facilitator will pick our adoption decree on Thursday along with our new birth certificates. 

We are tentatively thinking we will be home at the end of next week... perhaps the 23rd, 24th, or 25th. 

Here is the checklist of things that need to be finished before we can travel:

1. Appeal Period ends
2. Get Official Adoption Decree from the court in Gorzow.
3. Get new birth certificates from the kids birth city.
4. Get new cards for the kids with their new names on it (Polish equivalent to the social security card.)
5. Get Polish passports for the kids
6. Get medical exam for the kids.
7. Fill out new visa paperwork for the kids (The form changed while we were in country, so we have to do it all again).
8. Go to the US Embassy to get visas
9. Travel home!

We are hoping we can get all that done in 7-9 days. We are limited by the business days, but luckily, there aren't any holidays during these few weeks.


We met an American family yesterday. They are also using Lifeline Adoption Agency and they are adopting 3 children. Their 3 new kids are being added to their original 4 biological kids. We played at their house and had a grand time. It was really wonderful to speak with some native English speakers and our kids could talk to their kids. Did I mention they are also from North Alabama? We can be friends in the states too! It felt like home when we walked in to see all the kids decked out in their Auburn gear. I guess game day is still game day no matter where you are.

We are off to another day. Maybe Old Town to see some historical sites... Maybe the park... Maybe a museum... Maybe swimming.

Say some prayers, I'm feeling a little under the weather and I'm rocking a fever blister with NO ABREVA! Who travels to another country, into the most stressful situation of their life with no Abreva? This girl.
Our awesome facilitator brought me some medicine for it... It is all written in Ukranian. This is trust.

Sending love from Warsaw.

We are a family

It has been a long process (and technically it isn't over yet), but the judge ordered the approval of our adoption at 12:15PM Poland time yesterday. In Poland there is a 21 day appeal period after the adoption decree is made for people to protest the adoption. Our judge was amazing enough to shorten that to 14 days. That means, in 14 days, everything is official official.

We showed up to the court and the foster mom was there with our Polish social worker. The social worker had visited with us 3 times during our bonding period. We also had an interpreter. She proved to be really good in the courtroom, but when we were having conversations outside the courtroom, she was pretty lousy. We had a great reunion with the foster parents. They are incredible people and they will remain in our hearts and family. We love them for loving our children so well for the last few years.

When it was our time to enter the court room, there was a prosecutor on the opposite side of the room, a head judge, and 2 lesser judges flanking her. There was also a court reporter to type the important things that were said. Side note: the court reporter typed every report with 2 fingers staring at the keyboard, but boy was she fast.

The main judge began by reading out the personal information of our kids, stating our intentions, and asking us to submit a motion to adopt the children.

She then began the formal questioning. She asked the foster mom to come to the podium and asked her if she and any objections to our adopting the kids. Then, the social worker stood and said that she had visited with us on several occations, that we were happy and the children were happy. She had no objections to our adoption.

Then it was Future Dad's turn to stand and answer questions. He did great! The judge asked him lots of questions, and some of them were hard. Some of the questions were regarding our ability to care for 4 children, nurture their emotional state and provide help if needed. She also asked him lots of questions about our communication with them, our desire to maintain contact with the foster family, and whether or not we would encourage the retaining of their Polish language and culture. She also asked how we had prepared our home and life for 4 kids. She asked him questions for about 30 minutes, then it was my turn.

I stood and answered questions for much less time, but my questions were a bit more personal. For example, she asked if I had fertility issues, and what my plan was for helping our children process the adoption.

When the questioning ended, she asked what we wanted to be our childrens' new names. Luckily, we had that written down for her to put in the document. Once the names had been typed into the document, we were asked to leave so the judge could draft a decree. About 20 minutes later, we were ushered back in for the reading of the document. She graciously waived 7 of the 21 day appeal period and began to read the official document. In order to waive 7 days, she could not write her reasoning in the document, so she read it orally to us. It was quite beautiful. She said her top reason for granting our adoption was that these children would now have a bigger hope.

That is what we have wanted all along, at the beginning of our process, before we knew we were adopting 4 children from Poland, we wanted to give some siblings a bigger hope. Hope for a family, a future and a faith that will last their entire lives.

A bigger hope.

She then went on to tell us many more kind things and finished with the words “Congratulations, you are now parents”

In much sadder news, 2 days before court, we got a phone call that Future Dad's dad passed away. He had been ill for some time, but his death was still unexpected. Future Dad's family was able to set the visitation and funeral for this weekend, so that he could be here for court.

The circle of life continues to turn. Future Dad is leaving Poland today to fly to Tennessee for the visitation and funeral, then return to Poland on Sunday.

We feel blessed that he was able to Skype with the grandkids and see pictures of them before he passed.

Before we came to Poland, we had chosen to give our second son his middle name. Now, Grandpa, Daddy and #2 all have the same middle name. It is such an honor to be able to continue his legacy in the life of our son.

The kids and I have a special blessing though: my dad is coming to stay with us for the week Dad is gone. His plane lands one hour after Future Dad's takes off.

Daddy is going to America and Papaw is coming to Poland. This is my dad's first international trip (if you don't count Canada) and it will be the first time he has ever used his passport. It is so fun. In fact, I think he is somewhere over the Atlantic right now.

We have made the decision to not post the names of our children on the public internet, but we did want to show our family photo.

Thank you to everyone for the prayers over the last year.

October 30, 2013... we are family.

November 13, 2013... appeal period ends. We are a forever family.

November 14-20ish... paper chasing and more documents.

After that...

we all come home.

Home as a family.

Home forever.

Forever family.

A bigger hope.