Turn on your volume!

I've been considering adding a playlist to my blog, but just wasn't sure how to do it. This weekend I figured it out, and got it started, with some favorites. Several of the other blogs I follow have playlists, and they all have a link at the bottom that says something like make your own playlist. So I did it. Just had to set up an account, and find my music. Also, I set it up to shuffle, so it won't play the same song first every time. I'm still going to try to add more songs, so I (or you) could just leave the page up in the background and listen to my favorite songs for quite a while. Although, I already do that sometimes with online streaming from one of the local stations, as the stations don't come in very good at our house. Happy listening! :)

September Update Photos - part 2

Elijah's update photo was posted tonight. He's still looking like he's trying to figure out what the camera is - at least that's my hope - that he smiles a lot, but every time they bring out the camera his expression turns to a "hmmmm, wonder what that thing is!" Was hoping to see another smile, but there's always next month. He's got his hair cut now. They try to keep the boys' hair cut short - much easier to manage, I can imagine. I like it cut short though.

September Update Photos

The September update photos were posted today. They were still missing pictures from a few kids - Elijah was one of them - they said they'd post the others when they get them. I've posted below Josephine's new pictures.

We actually got the first one earlier this week, and the other three today. I wasn't sure it was her at first - felt like a bad mom, not knowing what my baby looks like! Jock said he knew for sure right away. I had to get out her picture from last month, and compare her features. Babies change so much from one month to the next, and that's definitely true of her. She looks so much more like a little girl! And that "I'm cute and I know it" smile is priceless!

Iowa State vs Iowa, Today, 12:30 CDT

Today we're watching the big in-state rivalry. Iowa is a 17-point favorite, but so far ISU is stopping the the Hawkeyes and getting some yardage on offense themselves. So far, they lead 12-0 with 4 field goals, at halftime. Time will tell if they can keep it up. Go Cyclones!

Update: Well, the Clones pulled off the upset. Things went quickly downhill in the third quarter (ISU Football's trademark, it seems), and it was soon 12-10. Then with 3 1/2 minutes left in the 4th quarter, Iowa scored a field goal to go up by 1. Then the Cyclones got down the field with a very long pass, stalled the clock, and then kicked a field goal with 5 seconds left. The Hawks had 1 second left to run back the kickoff, and got down to the 20 yard line, but got stopped to give Iowa State the win! It was a pretty exciting ending, for a game that was supposed to be a 17-point advantage in the other direction!

Hope you all are having a good afternoon! We've got bragging rights now, with friends and family that are Iowa fans - at least until basketball season. :)

Kaylen's new shoes!

The problem:

Well, so far we've had Kaylen just wear shoes with velcro. Well, the velcro usually wears out pretty quickly, as it gets so much junk stuck in it. I dig it out frequently, but after a while, it still won't stick - even after digging out the junk. So, last Tuesday on our shopping trip, we found some cute tennis shoes that have ties on them.

I told her she'd have to learn how to tie her shoes, and she laughed at me, saying she'd never be able to do that. My response was, "Do you know how old I was when I learned to tie my shoes?" She didn't, so I told her that I was 4. She didn't believe me until I told her I was telling the truth, that I learned when I was in preschool.

I remember the day clearly. It was the first day of school that year - my older brother and sister got to go, but I didn't. I complained to my mom, who thought a good response was to tell me that I couldn't go to kindergarten until I could tie my shoes by myself. So I sat right down on the entryway steps and taught myself how to do it that morning before lunch. I was so disappointed that she still wouldn't let me go - I think then she told me the real reason, that I couldn't go until I was old enough.

Anyway, Jock went out to mow the lawn this afternoon, and I taught Kaylen how to tie her shoes. She did really well. Then she was so excited to show Daddy that she forgot how to do it. She took a little break, and then showed him later when she stopped being so excited and silly.

The work:

Then after supper, before bed, I made her try again to make sure she didn't forget already - I told her she had to be able to tie them herself if she wanted to wear her new shoes to daycare tomorrow. The motivation worked well! She's a little slow, and the ties are pretty loose, she sometimes pulls the tails all the way through and loses her loops, but she's doing pretty good on the process! I wasn't sure if we'd be able to get it done today. I've said it before - she can do anything she puts her mind to!

The solution:

Adventureland

Friday night we stayed up late visiting with my sister and her friend, who stayed with us for the night before heading to Montreal, Canada for some sort of certification for their cosmetology and asthetics classes. After getting up at 4:15am to get them to the airport by 5:00am, I came back home and slept a few more hours. Thank goodness, because the rest of the day we'd planned to spend at Adventureland - our closest amusement park. We got discount tickets through the state's foster and adoptive parents' association. They go every year, but we weren't able to go last year.

We'd actually planned to get there around 10, when they opened, but didn't make it there until 11. That worked out just fine though. We first went on the Giant Skywheel (huge ferris wheel). Then the Gallion (pirate ship) - Kaylen just laughed hysterically the whole time - she thought it was so fun how it tickled her tummy. Then the tea cups. The Skywheel was pretty good, but from the Gallion and the tea cups, Jock and I were thinking we're getting too old for this! Maybe next time we'll have to invite our older neices and nephews to go on some of the spinning ones! We then calmed our stomachs down a bit, had a bite to eat, and then rode the sky glider to the back of the park.

Kaylen was tall enough to ride the Tornado - just over 42 inches! The look on her face was priceless! I didn't get a picture though :( She just looked horrified when we went down the first hill, then the next couple she was laughing again. Then there's a big curve before a couple more big hills, and she again had the horrified look before I started laughing and got her laughing again too. Afterwards, she said it was fun. I told her she looked pretty scared for part of it and she totally denied it - that girl will do anything she sets her mind to, and pretend she likes it if she thinks that's what's expected. No other kids got off scared, so she of course was fine.

We later found out Kaylen was tall enough to ride the Dragon - their upside-down roller coaster. I can't imagine what her reaction to that would have been - she probably would never have come back - although with her, you never know!

We played it pretty cool for the rest of the day - the tilt-a-whirl, the circus show, the octopus ride (with daddy-I can't handle the up and down spinning on this one!), the log ride (I convinced her that she and I should ride in the back so daddy would get soaked, and we'd just get sprinkled - and it worked), then we got a caricature of her as a princess (albeit a tired one! as it was after 5 by then and we were all a little ragged), rode the carousel (we convinced her that we didn't need to ride the train because she rode the train at the zoo earlier in the summer), got ice cream and Jock got his fudge fix, and left for McDonald's and then home.

When we got home, we stopped by to visit with our neighbors at our block party for a little while, until the bugs started coming out. It was nice to meet a few more of them, and put names and faces, children and parents, everyone and their houses together. Maybe they'll have another one in the spring, and we can go to the whole thing, and meet some more. Also, there are still several empty lots, and a couple homes still for sale, so I'm sure there'll be more to meet. After that we all pretty much collapsed. Today we're recovering (well the adults are)! Kaylen was still a bit tired, but the nap took care of that, and now she's waiting for me to help her learn how to tie the laces on her new tennis shoes so she can wear them this week.

Jock and Kaylen on the Giant Skywheel:

Kaylen and I on the Carousel:

The view of the park from atop the Giant Skywheel:

And, our tired princess:

School Picture Day Fall 2007

Today was Kaylen's fall school picture day. Now, for those of you that don't know me - this day is usually characterized by about two days running ragged shopping before-hand, trying to find Kaylen a fall dress to wear. This is no small feat, as Kaylen is not shaped like the average child - or at least not like the average clothing companies think the average child is shaped. Two-piece sets usually do not work, as she's usually one size on the bottom, and quite another on top. At the mall on Monday, we found a shirt (size 4T) that fit her perfectly - the size 4T skirt that matched fit by length but was too tight around her belly - same with the size 4 skirt - the size 5 skirt fit her belly (with the inside elastic sinches pulled tight), but was about 4 inches too long! Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!

Well, last night was our last chance, or else we would have been stuck with just her normal clothes she's been wearing the last two summers - yes, most of the clothes she wore last summer still fit her - I think in the last year she's lost a lot of her baby fat, and has grown up a bit too! Anyway, we did pretty good for our last chance outing. We found three outfits that all fit her. Two were more casual - skirts or pants (size 4) and a cute top (size 5), but the one we ended up with was a jumper and top(size 6 - go figure?!). I thought I would try to go slightly more casual for the fall picture this year, but changed my mind. She needed a new dress for winter anyway, and it will work with a long sleeve shirt and tights when it gets cooler out!

Then we had to find shoes - and let me tell you - finding shoes for a child who has a blister on each heel to begin with is not fun! We had to go to a different store, but it all worked out - we found some very cute ones that match the dress perfectly. By the time we were done shopping, we were both starving, so we went through the McDonald's drive-through on the way home - I even let her get a milk-shake because of the success we'd had, and good behavior throughout the whole ordeal. Then to home, a shower, quick trim of the bangs, blow-dry the hair so it didn't dry all kinky, and off to bed.

This morning Kaylen woke up a tad bit early (usually I have to wake her up about 10 minutes later than that) - I think she was excited knowing she'd be getting all dressed up. Got her all ready, and took a few pictures at home before we were off. Here's the final product - doesn't she look pretty!

Crawling, Measurements, & a Video

We got some more info about the children, and a short video of Elijah. (Thanks Carrie & Kathy!) I'm going to attempt to post the video clip below. Carrie shared that Elijah is crawling all over the place, and is very active. He also stands and she thinks he'll be walking in no time! That's so encouraging to hear, since in the pictures he seems almost bored - probably just waiting for that time they let him on the floor to explore! He must just be very mesmerized by the shiny cameras. Celena was sleeping and chilling out most of the time, since she's so little, but a physical therapist was working with the babies, getting them on their tummies as well.

Also, the team got measurements for all the babies and toddlers at the orphanage:
Celena - Head 15.25", Weight 10 lbs 12 oz., Length 24", 3-6 mos clothing
Ralph - Head 17", Weight 20 lbs 4 oz, Length 31", 12-18 mos clothing
Compared to US standards (the CDC has growth charts on their website), they are both tall for their age, but have low weights for their age. As you can imagine though, they're both very low on the weight-for-length percentiles. I'm doing some checking on what the differences are in percentiles between the US and Haiti though - I'm sure they're quite a bit different.

Elijah - mostly staring at the camera, but playing with a toy, and jumping just a little bit in the last half of the video:

Are we old enough?

A lot has happened this past week, and thought you'd all like to know a little bit of what has gone on...

A petition was written and signed by several families adopting from the same orphanage as us. The petition was a list of questions requested to be answered, and was sent to the board of directors of the organization. It was also posted to the Yahoo Groups that I follow, and since then we've all seen many days of heated discussion and lots of bickering and mud-slinging back and forth, that I have been careful to not become a part of. I feel that the purpose - or if not the purpose, definitely an unfortunate result - of the petition being posted publicly was to encite fear and anger in those of us that were unaware of what was going on. I must say it worked. We were unaware of the reasons behind the questions that were asked, but there were a few that really concerned us. I'm not going to go into too many details (so please don't ask me), except to explain to you what of these issues affects us and our adoption process.

When we started this adoption, we knew that different agencies, orphanages and facilitators have different criteria for families to meet to be eligible to adopt. Some of this criteria we fit, some of it we do not. Many adoption programs from many countries, including Haiti, have varying requirements, such as age, length of marriage, number of biological children, etc. The organization we're adopting through, all along has had their criteria posted on their website - married couples must be 28 years of age, and married for a minimum of 5 years. Even two years ago when we first started looking into adopting from Haiti, we contacted several agencies and facilitators about the fact that different agencies had posted different requirements. I remember at least three responding, all with different answers. One told us that they would not accept us into their program, and one told us that they wat it would be a gamble. Then we were assured - by our facilitator that we did fit the criteria. That made us feel much better about proceeding with them. I'm not sure I gave it as much thought as I am now, but I'm certain that I though - OK, it's Haiti - it's a third-world country with an unstable government - it probably depends on who you know...

Now, we know that Haiti's government has had laws in place, dating back to 1974, governing adoptions. These laws state that adoptive parents must be 35 years of age, but if married, one parent can be less than 35 years of age if they have been married for 10 years. It is now our understanding that, for many years, these adoption laws have been either not followed at all, or exceptions have been very easily afforded. We've been aware of the possibility that fertility problems that result in a couple not being able to have biological children was a very easy exception to obtain. We know many families that are either in the process, or have successfully brought their children home from Haiti, that do not fit within the criteria these laws. This, combined with our facilitator's requirements of 28 years of age and 5 years of marriage, we felt very comfortable moving forward with adopting from Haiti, and using this facilitator.

The question on the petition - and I don't have it in front of me right now - was if our facilitator was aware that IBESR (Haiti's government social services agency) is planning to again be enforcing the 1974 adoption law, starting this September. Now, I'm not sure how this enforcement will work, but the worst possible scenario(from our perspective) is that they will no longer be accepting any files into IBESR that do not strictlly meet this criteria - no exceptions. I do not know if this is what will happen, but we - along with many other families - are waiting for an answer. Remember: our current status in this adoption process is that we are waiting for our orphanage's processor to have the children's paperwork gathered (which could take a while longer) to be combined with ours so that it can enter IBESR.

We are of course praying that there will be a possibility for exceptions to be made, that would allow us to proceed with our adoption. We clearly do not fit the requirements of the 1974 law - we are currently 32 and 30, and have been married for 8 years - and are very concerned for the children, and for this entire adoption process. Please pray that we will have an answer soon, and that we can accept whatever news we receive. We are of course hoping that we will be allowed to bring Ralph and Celena home, but are troubled by the uncertainty of this. We are also praying for the many, many children that this enforcement would affect. I can't help but think how much longer a child would have to wait to be a part of a family that is able to love and provide for them, if so many families no longer qualify to adopt. Perhaps it is even a possibility to pray about, that the government would change the adoption laws. That to me seems an impossible feat to accomplish after 34 years in force, but I'm reminded that "With God, nothing is impossible." (reference) Please cover us with your prayers - all families involved, the children of Haiti, the agencies, orphanages and facilitators, and the Haiti government.

Fasting & Prayer

Today is Monday. It is a day that several adopting families have set aside each week for fasting and prayer. Some are fasting a meal or two, some fasting soda or caffeine, some are fasting television or computer use, and I’m sure there are many other variations. Wikipedia explains fasting in the Christian sense as “abstaining from satisfying hunger or thirst, and any other lustful needs that we may yearn for.” With fasting and increased prayer, “the idea is not to suffer, but to come closer to God, to realize one’s excesses, and to engage in almsgiving.”

Well, the idea here for us adopting parents is to humbly deny ones self of our excesses, in order that we might glorify God, and draw closer to Him in prayer. During this time, we are praying: for our children in Haiti – and all children in Haiti; for the birth parents, the difficult lives they live, and the difficult decisions that they have to make; for the orphanages and all those individuals that care for the children; for the adoption administrators, facilitators, and lawyers; for the government officials that work to approve adoptions; for the families waiting for their children to come home.

Isaiah 58 is about true fasting - doing it humbly, loosens the chains of injustice, unties the chords of the yoke, frees the oppressed, feeds the hungry, provides for the poor, and clothes the naked. "The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." (Isaiah 58:11).

It’s not easy to get started. I didn’t really know “how” to fast, but once I’d heard that there really are so many different things you can fast and different ways to do it, I prayed about what I should do to join the others. I started fasting on Mondays a few weeks ago, and have usually been doing a partial fast of breakfast and lunch. By partial fast, I mean that I am consuming only water and juices until late afternoon or early evening. I use my normal lunch break for prayer. I also say prayers frequently throughout the day, as I have moments to spare, and as my hunger and stomach-growling reminds me.

I really believe in God’s great power to see us through our struggles, and to provide for the people of Haiti, and to bring our children home. I have also drawn closer to God through this fasting, and am finding that I am becoming more reliant on His power and guidance. For, “with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26b).

Please pray about how you can be fasting and praying. Maybe you have something in your own life that you need to pray about, or maybe you can help out the cause of the orphans in Haiti. Even if you can’t fast, please keep us in your prayers. That is such a comfort to us.