Happy and Sad

We celebrated Kellin's birthday yesterday with a birthday supper and cake with a "3" candle on it.  We sang happy birthday.  I was happy - happy to celebrate Kellin's birth and his survival through orphanages and foster care over the past three years.  But through it all, I was sad too.  Sad that we were celebrating in comfort, with good food and cake, and Kellin was likely sitting in his crib.  Alone.  With no idea that it was his birthday.  And no idea that he has a family who loves him very, very much.  I was close to tears more than once yesterday.  Next year on August 29th, what a celebration it will be!

On a happier note, we learned yesterday that our dossier has been translated and is being reviewed.  One tiny step closer!

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Kellin,
Happy birthday to you!

We love you, Kellin, and wish we could celebrate your special day with you!

To our blog readers: one final plea to please consider donating $3 (or more) to our adoption fund in honor of this special day.  Thank you!

One more picture of Kellin that you may not have seen

Two Days Until Kellin Turns Three!

Day 16 of LOA wait!  That means we are, oh, maybe a fourth of the way (or perhaps a little bit more) through our wait for our acceptance from China.

I often tell my kids that they are my "favorite six-year-old" or the "best nine-year-old in the whole world," but since Kellin is currently two, the same age as Pooh (our youngest), I had made the comment to Pooh that he was the "best (insert his name) in the whole world."  Apparently, he gave this some thought and then informed me, "When Kellin turn three, you call me the best two-year-old."  His reasoning was impressive - and awfully cute!  :)

Kellin turns three in TWO DAYS!  Is there anyone out there who would still be willing to donate $3 in honor of this very important day in our son's life?  I still have MANY origami cranes and swans I would love to mail out to you as a thank you for sharing in Kellin's birthday celebration.  Just leave a comment (address or personal info will not be posted) or message me on Facebook. Thanks!

Sad Day Yesterday

We attend a wonderful church and have been members there for over 9 years.  We joined the church when our oldest was just a baby, which happened to be just after a new pastor had started there.  That pastor ended up becoming a good friend; she baptized all three of our children and has been one of our biggest supporters during this adoption process.  However, yesterday was her last day as our pastor.  She is moving on to a new calling, and while it was a beautiful service, it was very emotional, and many were in tears as she said farewell.  She will be greatly missed!  She told us that one of her regrets was that she will not be there to meet and baptize our new son when he arrives home with us.  And then she led the congregation in singing happy birthday to Kellin.  It was an overwhelmingly emotional moment.

Kellin's third birthday is now just four days away!  On Friday, he turns three years old - his last birthday without a family.  We are asking that you consider donating $3 to our adoption fund, in honor of his birthday.  Since I originally made this request, we have had two donations and would love to have a few more by Friday.  I truly feel that this gift goes beyond being just money; it is a celebration of our son's right to be alive, cherished, loved, and worthy.  We are celebrating his life!

We have many items left over from our garage sale, including tons of infant/toddler clothes for boys and girls in most sizes from 0-3 months up to 4T, many children's books and toys, a baby walker, an exersaucer, and many other miscellaneous items.  If you are local and would be interested in purchasing in any of these things, please let me know.  I'd be happy to share pictures of the items we have available.

Random Thoughts

Yesterday Tigger and Pooh decided to turn the closet in our spare bedroom into a cave and pretend they were bears.  Can't you just picture Kellin crawling in there with them?

We just spent the morning cleaning the house.  The kids are working hard on learning to do chores willingly and with a cheerful attitude.  Rabbit and Tigger each have their own chore list to complete on "cleaning morning" (usually Saturday), and they did a great job today of finishing their work without crying, whining, complaining, etc.  It also makes the job go MUCH faster!  Rabbit is amazing - she cleans the downstairs bathroom, sweeps some of the floors, vacuums stairs, and helps her brothers with their beds.  She is such a mature and helpful nine-year-old!  Pooh follows the other two around and helps with picking up toys and carrying the empty bags as Tigger works on emptying all the small garbages around the house. 

It is only six more days until Kellin's birthday.  Please consider donating $3 (or more) to our adoption fund.  Although it may seem silly to celebrate his birthday without him, we feel that this is an opportunity for us to celebrate Kellin's existence.  His BIRTHDAY - the day he was born (or the closest they could estimate - he was about three days old when found) is a day to celebrate!  Although August 29th, 2011 didn't seem to be a special day to us at the time, little did we know our precious son was born that day on the other side of the world!  Please help us to celebrate our little guy.  Our sponsorship page on Reece's Rainbow only needs $72.57 to get us to an even $2000 (that's 25 people donating $3).  Remember, if you donate, leave a comment here or message me on Facebook and I will mail you one of the origami swans or cranes (let me know if you have a preference of which bird and what color).  Six days - let's see if we can do it!

Mommy Moment and Birthday Wishes

A couple nights ago, I woke up to the sound of my six-year-old son crying in the bathroom.  I went to see what was wrong and discovered that he had woken up with that horrible heavy breathing, barky cough, croupy thing that makes it painful to breathe and cough (parents, you all know what I mean, right?).  So I turned on the shower and filled the bathroom with steam, and then he and I sat together on the floor breathing steam until his tears were gone and his breathing was easier.  He looked up at me and said, "I love you, Mommy."  Awww.  This was a mommy moment.  :)  But after I got him tucked back into bed (on the floor of our bedroom, since he still wasn't feeling great), all I could feel was sadness for Kellin.  Sadness that he probably doesn't have anyone to comfort him when he wakes up sick or scared, no one to hold him until he feels better.  And sadness for myself, that I can't do those things for him.  I can't wait to have those "mommy moments" with my new son!

Our precious Kellin turns three years old on August 29th.  Hopefully it will be his last birthday without a family!  Although we can't celebrate with him this year, we still want to celebrate him.  In honor of his birthday, we are asking if you would be willing to donate $3 (or more) to our adoption account.  Just follow the link at the top of our blog, or mail a check to RR (indicate on the check that it is for us).  Anyone who donates at least $3 - I will mail you one of these origami swans or cranes, made for us by a friend at church.  We have many of them in all different colors, so let me know your preference if you have one. Please comment below or send me a message on Facebook to let me know that you have donated so I can send you one.  Thanks!!

Origami crane

Origami swan

GARAGE SALE!!

Going to keep this short as I'm on my phone. The garage sale was a huge success! We had a pretty steady stream of people the whole time. At times it was insanely busy.

It ended up raising just shy of $2000!

A huge thanks to everyone that helped set up, run it, and take down. I would list but I'm sure I would forget somebody.

Truly another great example of what can happen when people pull together for a good cause!

Closer Yet Farther

Our funds raised continues to climb!

You may have noticed that our goal has also gone up.  When we started the process, all the information we found said $30000 was a realistic top end for the cost of an adoption.  As we are adding up our expenses so far with the recent estimates for travel costs in China, and other fees we know are still to come, we see this will be short.  Kathleen polled people online and found that the process is running closer to $35000.  We felt we needed to adjust our fundraising goal upwards especially given that now it is expected that 3 weeks will be required in China rather than 2.

We are not discouraged.  We still are confident that this amount is within our grasp as we continue to get so much support from so many people out there.

LID

We got word today that we are LID!  This means our dossier has been officially registered in China.  We can officially start counting the days to our Letter of Acceptance (LOA)!  Realistically, we can probably hope to receive this sometime in October, or possibly November.

Weird Feeling in the House

The house is feeling empty tonight.  I dropped off Rabbit at camp this afternoon.  This will be her first camp experience, and in fact, she has only been away from me a handful of nights in her whole life before.  We are fortunate to have found this camp, which is only for children with diabetes, and therefore there are many staff and they are all highly trained.  But it feels so strange not to have Rabbit around here.  Generally speaking, having a child with diabetes is not really that big of a deal.  Checking blood sugars and counting carbs are part of our routine around here and we hardly think about it most of the time.  However, when she's not here, all of a sudden I realize certain things.  For example, I made pizza for supper - half pepperoni and half cheese.  Only after it was done, I noticed that the pepperoni side was bigger than the cheese.  No big deal, right?  Just cut the pepperoni slices bigger than the cheese.  Only if Rabbit was here, I would have needed to make sure all the pieces were the same size, so they had the same number of carbs.  Or after I put Tigger and Pooh to bed and came downstairs, which is when I usually help Rabbit do her last blood sugar check before heading to bed, and she wasn't here.  It just feels weird.

DTC

For those of you who don't know what DTC stands for, it is DOSSIER TO CHINA!  In other words, our dossier (the thick packet of paperwork that includes every detail of our lives) is IN CHINA.  Today!  This also means we have been moved from the "Compiling Dossier" page on Reece's Rainbow to the "Almost There" page.  Although it will still be several months before we travel to pick up Kellin, this is another huge step forward.  At this point, we are waiting for China to issue our Letter of Acceptance (LOA), which will likely take 2-3 months.  After that, there is some more paperwork, and then travel comes 2-3 months after that.

I first saw Kellin's profile on April 14th so it has been less than 4 months since we started this process.  Although this seems like it's taken too long, we've actually managed to do this in a shorter-than-average time, thanks to all those who have been helping us along the way, especially our wonderful adoption agency and our Facebook community!

Our fundraising is coming amazingly well!  We are continually overwhelmed and blessed by all the people who are supporting us in our journey, including many we've never met.  Take a second to look at our thermometer.  That's right; we are only about $4000 from being fully funded!  This is of course according to our best estimate - but it is possible we will need a little more now that there is a good chance travel will include three weeks in-country instead of two.  It seems impossible that we have come so far in three months.

Our big garage sale fundraiser is coming up on August 15-16.  We have TONS of items, donated by many friends, co-workers, family, and church members!  If you are in the area, please come by; I'm pretty sure that everyone can find something that they "need."

This is a picture of Kellin at around 18 months of age.  This was taken shortly after he was moved from his foster care home back to the orphanage.  I think you can see the pain and confusion on his little face.  :(

Successful Book Sale!

This afternoon was our book sale fundraiser, put on by the bookstore that my sister and brother-in-law own.  Although there wasn't a huge turn-out, there was a steady stream of people, and we raised $425!  Thanks to my sister and brother-in-law for hosting this sale, and thanks to everyone who stopped by to support us!  We are $425 closer to BRINGING OUR SON HOME!!!!  We love you, Kellin!!