Halloween Photos

Timothy decided even though he was Scooby Doo last year he wanted to be Scooby again. Emily was a pirate at the last minute. She thought she was too old for trick or treating until I mentioned she wouldn't get any candy. They both had fun and got way too much candy!!! Now we are only a few days away from Thanksgiving and where has the time gone? Christmas is coming!!

The day before Labor Day

I am so glad we went to the rides yesterday. Today was a Labor Day washout and even the parade was cancelled. Timothy and Emily rode the rides yesterday and had lots of fun. In the end we had to stop because Emily had rode too many, too fast and was feeling sick!! We have had a soaked Labor day staying at home.

But I don't need a nap

Timothy is at an age where he doesn't think he needs a nap anymore. I told him today that we were going to take a nap. Of course he said "Why Mommy?" and my response was because we are tired. He told me he wasn't tired and I said " Well my body is telling me I am tired". We drove a little further and while walking in the front door Timothy says to me "Mommy, my body is telling me I don't need a nap". First, I laughed and then I said "Well Timmy, My head is telling you yes we do". I finally got the little rascal down for a nap and 5 minutes later the home phone rang and woke him up. Oh well, he was recharged and ready to go again. Thank you God for a healthy and very active child!!!

Home in the Mountains of NC

Wow, this summer has been hotter than any summer I can remember here in Western North Carolina. There were at least 16 days over 90 degrees this month. Most people usually associate cooler weather with the mountains and it is just not the case this summer. We put a small pool up in the yard for the kids to play in. They have had fun doing lots of things this summer. Emily knows the summer is getting away from us and back to school is around the corner. She will be going into the 7th grade this year. Timothy is going to be in the more at four preschool program at Saint John's. He would just as soon stay home with me than go to school but it really is good for him. He is such a Mama's boy and I am loving it. How could I not be? I love being a Mom to the kids. God has given me two special kids. I am blessed. So, we will enjoy these last few weeks of summer and the hot weather. Hope everyone else enjoys it too!!!

Getting back to life and family

I have only talked about adoption on this blog in a mostly positive way. I have mentioned the word disruption a few times and most in the adoption community know what it means. Sometimes the words disruption and dissolution are used interchangeably but I usually use the word disruption. Disruption is a term used for stopping the adoption process before it is finalized and dissolution is a term for legally undoing the adoption process after it is finalized. Disruption is considered a bad word in adoption and I, personally never thought it could happen to us. As all of my friends and family may know we adopted for a second time last April and our lives have not been the same since. We disrupted the little girl we adopted after having her for 5 months. We knew when we first met her it was not a good match, but felt we had to try and make things work. She had more needs than we were told of and our family never bonded with her. Our extended family did not see things the way we did and our relationships have been forever changed. It is funny to me how people think they have a right to have an opinion in your life and want to make decisions solely based on what they want. Sometimes hard decisions have to be made in life and my husband and I had to make some hard decisions. Most importantly through everything we have done from adoption to disruption we have learned to listen to what we know within ourselves and not cave to what others are saying. Adoption is not a journey for some folks and disruption is never the path intended but God found a way to use us in his plan and I am thankful. I look at the photos of our family before and after our second adoption and think, "What happened"? The emotional toll has been hard on us and our kids but I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I pray God will use our experience to help others. I would say to anyone who knows someone having trouble after adoption to not judge the situation or the family. You honestly never know until you have walked in their shoes. If it can happen to us, it can happen to anybody. Sometimes love is not enough, sometimes those hard life decisions are not popular with anybody but they still have to be made. The most important thing that I know from our experience is that life is short, too short to care about what people think and the other thing is that God will only give you as much as you can handle. We have emerged a more loving and understanding family. I thought when I lost my first child at 9 days due to prematurity that I could never hurt that way again but it made me feel a deep empathy for others who lost children. Now, I have a deep understanding of an adoption gone wrong and feel such empathy for others having issues. If God will allow I want to be there for others as much as possible and share our story as unpopular as the topic is. I am hoping Scott and I can teach our children to be understanding and caring people through our lives. We have so much fun together and life goes so quickly, we can't just hit pause. We are so blessed and happy with our family and want to share with everyone!!!

Here comes Santa Claus in July

We visited the Santa's Land theme park in Cherokee NC today. Wow, was it hot. The older kids were good sports about the kiddie rids and Santa. Timothy and Victoria were glad to see Santa a little early!!

My son the comedian

I love my son very much and I love his sense of humor. He usually laughs so hard he falls right over. I am not sure where he found this old swimming cap but it is so funny. I know anything that gets a rise out of us is something he will run with. He really got a rise with this hat!!! Emily just keeps shaking her head. You are only little once, so why not enjoy it?

Starting over

We have been told we cannot adopt from China again because of the disruption and so we will have to do a domestic adoption if we choose to adopt again. All the rejection and judgement hurt us but we don't feel like we are ready to give up our dream just yet.

My boy can do anything!!!

For those of you who didn't know amputees could run, jump, hop, swim and just about everything else normal I can think of .... Look at my Boy Timothy..... He can do it all!!!

snow for Christmas

We got snow on Christmas and it just kept coming. It is still hanging around here. Snow, snow, go away!!!

Baby shower for Timothy

This was our son Timothy's first introduction to most of our family. He was still so Tiny then.

how it all began continued

As I said before we thought we wanted to adopt from China and thought we would have a happy, healthy baby girl within at least a year. No problem, right? So we waited and waited and saw the wait times grow and grow. In the meantime we discussed what special needs we might consider. Looking at the photos of children waiting just about broke my heart and at times did make me cry. I kept looking at our then agencies special needs list and in January of 2008 came upon a little boy that made my heart do a leap. His name was Chu Xin Shun, and they called him Shun Shun. He was about 9 months old when we started looking at him and had a special need of limb deformity. Basically, from what we could tell in the photo he was missing most of both of his feet. For some reason (probably God) this didn't scare me, I was smitten with this child. I showed his photo to my husband and didn't say anything, just waited for a response. To my delight he felt the same pull I did, that this was the child we had been waiting for. So after calling our agency and jumping through all the hoops they wanted we submitted LOI for Xin Shun and on Feb. 14,2008 we got Preapproval for him. What a wonderful Valentine's Day that was. Me, my husband Scott and our daughter Emily had all fallen in love with this little boy a world away in Xuzhou, China and already felt a strong connection to him. That was just the beginning of a wonderful ride.

The first photo we saw of him

We fell in love with him the minute we saw him. Those eyes, we just knew he was our son. Thank you God, you are good!!!

How it all began........

In the fall of 2005 my husband and I heard of a young couple that was thinking of putting their unborn baby up for adoption. I had a daughter by a previous marriage and my husband thought that was enough for us but little did I know, the adoption bug was about to bite. After finding out this couple would keep their baby we both woke up one day and said, "I still want a baby". After looking at fostering, domestic and all sorts of routes to parenthood we decided to look at internation adoption. We signed on with an agency that said the wait was about 6 months and might even be shorter. Our dossier was logged in Oct. 16,2006. Then the wait began. https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=874ZRB5AP7PU8

Waiting for PA

I haven't put a lot out there yet because I am still afraid we could be turned down. We have been waiting since last week for our PA for a little boy from our son Timothy's SWI and are hoping to hear good news soon. The wait is hard but I am praying God prepare our family for whatever the news is. This little boy has a need similiar to Timothy's and we feel we could provide him a great loving family but it is in the Lord's hands. We just want him to find his forever family and are still hoping it is our family. God is Good, all the time!!!!

fundraising

We are hoping to start a fund to help with the orphanage donation. Chipin.com has an event fundraiser for just this sort of thing. You can pay with your paypal account. Hopefully, I can research this and get one started for our little guy.

Christmas spirit

Timothy and Emily Christmas 2010

She is the apple of her brother's eye, can't you tell? She is so good with him and he loves her very much.

Our first son Timothy

This little angel is our son Timothy. He is our 2nd child, first son and first adopted child. He is absolutely wonderful and we adopted him in 2008 from China.