T-shirts are in!

The t-shirts we are selling are in!  If you ordered one from us, you should be expecting to here from us within the next few days to figure out what the best way would be to get yours to you.  Other than the 5 for our family, we had 35 people order one.  Thanks to the very generous donation of the shirts from Bagy Jo Too we will make $700 from this fundraiser once all the money is collected!

The shirts came just in time for Kathleen's birthday.  Since this post will be going on top of Kathleen's earlier post, I just want to remind everyone that she has challenged everyone to donate 3, 4 or 34 dollars to our adoption fund for her 34th birthday (which is Monday).  Because of course what we all want most of all is Kellin home with us!

Birthday Bucks

My birthday is coming up!  One week from today, I will turn 34.  So who wants to help me celebrate by donating to our adoption fund?  Can you donate just $3, $4, or even $34 to help us bring our son home? Even small donations really add up to a huge difference!

In other news, we are headed to get our fingerprints done for our USCIS application on Wednesday.  One more step forward!

Funds Vs. Expenses

We just paid out the biggest chunk we have had to do so far for processing fees.  This has brought our expenses to date very close to our total adoption fund.  I just want to make it clear, the thermometer is not a pot of money sitting around, it included money that we have already spent.  We do have some money in our separated personal accounts waiting to be transferred over, but we are waiting to see how much it is going to take to fix our roof before doing so. 

If you are at all considering helping us out there are several ways you can do so:

• Donating to our fund on Reece's Rainbow - you can use the link on the banner to the right or mail a check to:
• Reece’s Rainbow
  PO Box 4024
  Gaithersburg, MD 20885 
• Make sure you indicate the check is for Kellin Kehoe if you do it this way.

•  A friend at our church is putting on a fundraiser for us. Food and Bingo!
• Epiphany Lutheran Church in Eagle Lake
• July 27th
• More Details to come!

• We will be holding another garage sale on August 15th and 16th again at Epiphany Lutheran Church in Eagle Lake. We have a lot of donated items to help us out. 

• If you live in the Grand Forks Area, Ferguson Books and Media is putting on a used book sale for us sometime this summer, more details to come.

• If you live in the Mankato Area, you can be sure to come out to the Pizza Ranch this fall for our fundraiser night - more details to be shared at a later date.

And again on our own we are cutting back our own spending on non-essentials like going out to eat, we have not gone out to a restaurant  since we started the process.  So at the end of each month whatever money we have left unspent goes into the adoption fund.  Also money that we make beyond our normal teaching contract is all going to the adoption fund as well.

We really appreciate all the help we have already received from family members, friends, and people we don't even know!  It is amazing the out-pouring of support that has been given to help us get Kellin home!

PAPERWORK!!

A big step forward in our adoption process today - we sent off our packet of dossier documents to our adoption agency!  This is a BIG stack of papers and photos that we have spent the last two months gathering and filling out (sometimes going through more than one draft to get the information right).  If we did everything right, this packet should contain everything we need for our dossier to China, except for the USCIS approval which is still in process.  In order to get that approval, we need to be fingerprinted (AGAIN) and we received our fingerprint appointment in the mail yesterday.  It is scheduled for next Wednesday.  Once that is done, we wait for our USCIS approval (which can take 1-2 months), and then our dossier is ready to go to China!

Just to give you an idea of the amount of paper we sent off today, here is a picture of the papers and pictures laid out on our dining room table.  Keep in mind that a couple of those papers are actually piles of papers, not single pieces.  Oh, and this picture doesn't even show the papers that the adoption agency already has (background checks, letters of reference, home study).

We also had the privilege of sending off a care package to Kellin this week.  We were able to send him a blanket and a toy, along with a letter and camera (with film) for his caregivers.  We hope that they will give the gifts to him, and that they will use the camera to take more pictures for us.

Storm Damage

The last thing you want when you are saving money for something that is really, really important.  An unexpected expense.  This evening while we were eating supper there was a bang and the sound of broken glass as we were heading downstairs to take shelter from the storm.  After the tornado warning was up, I came upstairs to survey the damage.  A busted skylight from a fallen limb.

Remembering to always look on the bright side of life I am focusing on what is really important.  First and foremost, everyone is ok!  I know unfortunately not everyone gets to come away from a storm able to say that.  Also, life has been filled with plenty of good unexpected events as well.  We have had individuals unexpectedly step up to help us in enormous ways.  We just received a few sizable donations that we were not expecting, one of which is not on the total yet because we are waiting for the check to be received by Reece's Rainbow.  We got our appointments to be fingerprinted for the USCIS that I wasn't expecting quite so soon.

And of course, every day I get the unexpected moments with my family and friends that make life so much fun. And as always, just can't wait for Kellin to be home to share in it with us.

Happy Father's Day!

I just woke up from the most amazing dream, and very appropriate for Father's Day.  Kellin came home!  Being a dream, of course, some important details were left out; like how he got here.  Also being a dream, it probably wasn't a realistic picture of what the first few days of having him home will be like.  But it was fun nonetheless.

After many years, I won't remember whose hand
 I am holding, and it won't matter.  I love them all.

In the dream he was walking (which probably won't be the case at first).  I took him around and together we explored the house.  He also played with his brothers.  We had a meal and I remember being concerned because it didn't seem like he ate very much.  We also went to a few different places.  I remember being at my work, and at a beach.

I guess as I sit to write down the details of the dream, a lot of them are fading away, and not fitting into a coherent picture.  The one thing I will not forget is the sense of happiness I had throughout.

I do love being a dad.  It is the most important part of who I am and what I do.  I feel that above all else it is my purpose.  Like a dream, there are a lot of events that will fade from memory with time.  The joy of seeing each of my children for the first time is not one of them.  The pride I feel as they learn new skills and accomplish their goals.  The love I feel through moments as simple as one wanting to sit down and read a book with me.

I am many things, but above all, I am a father.

Missing Our Son on the Other Side of the World

The deeper into the adoption process we get and the more we think of Kellin and plan for him to join our family, the more he is becoming our son in our hearts.  But having a son on the other side of the world is HARD.  I have had to realize that there is nothing, NOTHING I can do for him right now in a physical, tangible sense.  I can't hold him or hug him.  I can't fix him a snack.  I can't change his diaper.  I can't comfort him when he is hurt or upset.  I can't talk to him.  In fact, he doesn't even know that we exist.  He doesn't know he has a mommy, daddy, two brothers, and a sister that all love him very much.  Yes, we are working on paperwork and fundraising as fast as we can, but there are moments when all I want to do is hold him.  I especially find myself thinking of Kellin when I hold our youngest son, knowing that the two of them will be practically twins in age (Kellin is two months older), although Kellin only weighs half of what our youngest son weighs, and is about five inches shorter.

We are very fortunate to have the support of a huge network of family, friends, and church family.  We are blown away by the prayers, donations, and well-wishes we have received.  We wouldn't be able to make it through all of this without everyone's support.  And the toughest part is ahead.  We've only been working on this adoption for two months.  We probably have at least seven more months to go.  Right now, it looks endless.  Please continue to keep us all in your prayers, and especially pray that Kellin will remain safe and healthy (physically and emotionally) until we can get there.

In response to many questions about Kellin's name - Kellin is NOT our son's real name.  Kellin is his "public" name, assigned to him randomly as a name to be used online and for advocacy.  We do know his Chinese name but are not able to share it right now.  We are working on choosing a new name for our son and will share that with others at some point.

Planning a garage sale fundraiser for August!  Looking for donations of items to sell!

Learning New Habits

One thing everyone in our household is going to need to practice at for the addition of a blind family member, is not leaving things laying around!  We have gotten into a bad habit of letting certain areas of the house get cluttered.  For someone who can't see, having familiar locations of objects in the house is very important!

One of the original panels.

We have been focusing over the past week on changing this habit.  Everyone in the house is trying to be more aware of putting things back when they are done with them.  One of the problem areas that I decided needed to be addressed was Legos!  Our oldest boy loves playing with Legos.  They tend to get spread all around and they take a really long time to clean up.

The finished table top.

My solution was to get a special table for Legos.  Of course, we are trying to save money.  So buying one was out of the question.  I decided to make one.  With even wood being expensive, Kathleen remembered there was an old playhouse they were getting rid of at work.  So we drove out to her work and took apart the playhouse, and strapped two of the walls (seen in this picture) to the top of the car.  I wish I would have had a picture of that.

In place in the basement.

He has more Legos than we thought!

I spent the last day and a half taking the trim off the walls, cutting it down to size and reassembling it into the table.  I realized that my design wasn't the best for the method of putting them away, but since I have taken the pictures, I got rid of the bar so that there is a bigger gap to push the Legos through into the bin below.  Not the best craftmanship, but it will do the trick, and it has lots of character!  It will definitely get a lot of use over the years, as our youngest son has shown some interest in the Duplos.  Who knows, maybe Kellin will enjoy playing with them as well!

The project had two purposes really.  Helping to get our house ready for Kellin, and helping to pass a small part of the time waiting for him to come home.

Challenge

Our daughter's "Koins 4 Kellin" fundraiser has been a huge success!  Of the 40 or so containers she has handed out, she has received about 10 of them back so far (and we know many people are still working on filling theirs up), and has already brought in almost $250!  Wow!  It's amazing what one determined, creative, and awesome nine-year-old can do!  With the help of friends and an amazing church family, of course.

In light of her success, we thought perhaps we could expand on the idea a little bit.  For those who don't know, "Koins 4 Kellin" is very simple - just take one of our daughter's decorated containers, fill it up with spare change, and bring it back.  On average, when filled with just coins (no bills), a container can hold $10-15.

So the challenge is this: would anyone out there be willing to try "Koins 4 Kellin" in their church, neighborhood, or workplace?  If you live locally, our daughter would be happy to give you some of her containers to hand out.  If you live farther, would you be willing to hand out a few containers of your own, or place a larger container in a location where people could toss in a few coins?  Or pass around a coffee can for a "noisy offering" at your church?  The money can be donated by check to our account at Reece's Rainbow, or mailed to us directly.

Thanks, everyone!

First Day of Summer Vacation

Today was the first day that all of us have been done with school.  We made the most of it for sure.

The first thing we did was to set up the swimming pool in the backyard.  Which I actually had started yesterday, but I discovered a hole in it, so I had to patch it instead.  We didn't get to go swimming in it yet, but our two sons had a blast splashing in the water from the side later on.  Boy, did they get wet!

Later on, we headed to the library.  All of our children love books.  We signed up for the summer reading program for all of the kids.  They get a calendar to keep track of their minutes, and there are prizes for the end of the month.

After the library we headed off to a local city park to play and have a picnic.  It is such a nice park.  The kids had a blast climbing running around and looking at the animals.

When we got home our daughter headed off to play with a neighbor girl.  The youngest took a short nap.  After the nap the boys came out and we worked on planting our first small vegetable garden.  We don't really know what we are doing there, but we thought it would be fun to try it out.  The boys had a blast digging in the dirt!

We finished off the day with a family supper.  After that the boys and I wrestled around a bit until the youngest fell down and bumped his head.  As they say, it is only fun until somebody gets hurt!

It was pretty much a perfect day, the only thing that could have made it complete is if Kellin had been home with us!

Fiscally Responsible?

Some people may think it irresponsible to undertake such an expensive endeavor as adopting when you don't have the funds available.  Some also might think it wrong for people to fundraise for an adoption.

So why are we doing it?

Kathleen and I have always planned on adopting, and the plan included saving money, and originally was a little bit farther out.  The thing is, fate brought us to Kellin.  We found him on Reece's Rainbow and something said, this is our child.  We took a leap of faith and started the process.

We have great faith in God, in our community, in our friends and in our family.  We have faith in each other.

My heart is touched by the generosity of the people in our lives.  Even some people we are barely acquainted with have been coming to our aid.  And of course there are those out on the internet who are so touched by Kellin's story they want to help him as well.  I am constantly amazed by all of this.

And by donating, the focus is helping Kellin, helping him get a home.

I also want to make sure everyone is aware of what we are doing to raise the funds.  In order to save up as much money as possible:

• We stopped going out to eat (used to average 1-2 times a week, now we have not gone out since we started the process).
• Every extra thing we do for income is going towards the adoption - coaching, summer school...
• Reimbursements from our flex account are going toward the adoption.
• We used to pay ahead on our mortgage, we are scaling that back to the required payment to save money.
• Being much more careful with purchases.
• Even our son chose to give up a birthday present.

There are also things like home improvements, and family trips that we will not be doing this summer as a way to save.

We know we can find a way to make this work.  Your help makes it easier to get Kellin home.

Waiting

We are at the point now where we have finished most of the paperwork we can do right now.  We have a few miscellaneous things to gather for our dossier, but nothing like the intense, time-consuming forms we have been overwhelmed with over the past few weeks.  So now we are waiting . . . waiting for our FBI fingerprint appointment, waiting for passports to arrive, waiting to see how successful all our fundraisers will be, etc.

This is when it gets harder.  Even though the paperwork was tedious and frustrating, at least we were DOING something.  Something that gets us closer to bringing Kellin home.

As hard as the waiting is for us, I imagine it's worse for Kellin.  For those of you who don't know his whole story, here is is: Kellin was found abandoned in some weeds along a road as a newborn.  He was estimated to be about three days old at that time and was diagnosed with anophthalmia (no eyes, or eyes that did not fully develop).  He is blind.  He spent his first nine months or so in an orphanage before he was fortunate enough to be moved into the care of a wonderful foster care organization that specializes in caring for and teaching children with visual impairments.  I have been lucky enough to be able to exchange emails with someone who knew him during this time.  When he first arrived at the foster care home, he was described as sad and skinny, but during the nine months (or so) that he was able to stay there, he became happy and chubby, and he learned to sit, crawl, and began to walk (with help) and make sounds.

When he was around a year and a half old, he was suddenly moved back to the orphanage.  The description of him that was posted several months later described him as unhappy and not making any developmental progress.  Then when we committed to adopting him, we were able to request an update.  We received a very brief update that said he is not talking but can babble a bit.  He sits but doesn't stand or walk.  He is scared of things and doesn't like to be touched.  His hearing is good.  His weight was reported as about 18 pounds (our youngest son who is the same age as Kellin weighs about 35 pounds).  Even more alarming is that when he left the foster care home at 18 months old, he was reported to weigh about 20 pounds.  So . . . Kellin is not doing well in his orphanage.  And he is stuck there until we come.  He is waiting in much less comfort than we are.  As hard as it is for us, it is nothing compared to Kellin's wait.

So we are working as hard as we can to shorten his wait.  We are pushing through paperwork.  We are fundraising.

As always, your prayers, thoughts, advocacy, and financial support is much appreciated!  Donations continue to come in and we are so thankful for our wonderful support network.