Happy 17th Alyssa!

Today is our daughter Alyssa's 17th birthday.  Our family is so thankful to have her, it is hard to imagine a better person or one who seems more blessed by God than her.  She is ridiculously beautiful both inside and out, talented at anything she does, and has a strength to her that drives her to success at anything she does.  She is also probably one of the most special people you will ever meet and has a heart of gold.  It is truly a blessing that God chose us to get to be her parents!

When it came to our adoption, it was a family decision to do it, not just us parents dictating that our 3 kids were going to get some siblings.  I still remember when we discussed it, their answer was "It's about time!".  We took that as a yes :)  All of our kids were just as integral in bringing Kayleigh and Michael home we us or any of the many adults who were involved!  They worked just as hard at fundraising, encouragement, and to this day have been incredibly selfless, always thinking of others before themselves. 

Alyssa was amazing on our trip overseas!  She apparently has the gene for picking up foreign languages and learned Ukranian at an amazing rate.  Kayleigh has gravitated to her since the moment they met in June 2011 when we hosted her for 5 weeks during the summer, I call them our "twins separated by geography".  She has been Kayleigh's anchor in her new life.  We owe so much of Kayleigh's success in becoming one of us to Alyssa's generous, loving heart.  We are blessed to have her :)

11

Today is the 11 month anniversary of our family returning to Texas from our 47 day adoption adventure in Ukraine!  The kids are very wonderful and continue to do amazing.  Life as normal today :)

Happy Happy Easter Easter

Today is Easter here in America.  Last year we were in Ukraine during the Easter holiday for both our countries.  The Ukrainian Easter date was a week off from the American Easter date, so we got to celebrate Easter twice!  Through the off chance meetings and connections while we were there, we ended up with a church family for our stay in Zhytomr so we got to do the whole Easter thing while we were 6,902 miles away from home, and had a wonderful day with our church family that is now on the other side of the world this year.

We still talk about our 47 day journey last year to bring K & M home and although the adoption process can have its stressful points, there were a lot of great memories from the trip.  It's funny how you can travel to the other side of the world and in a matter of weeks God provided us with all that we would need materially to complete our adoption, a church family and friends.  We still keep in touch with them and follow the weather (it is cold and buried in snow over there, so I'm not minding 81 degrees here in Texas today....).

While we didn't always understand the words being spoken (our translators were awesome but there is only so much they could capture and pass along....) but the heart for God that they had was awesome, and it showed in the way they lived their lives.  We were in a world that seemed totally different (different language, alphabet, currency, metric.....) and still cared for and welcomed.  Hopefully everyone will feel that way when they walk into a church or spend time with a Christian today.  It's not the talk, it's the walk.

Super Dylan

Today is Dylan's 15th birthday.  It's hard to believe he's getting that old (he certainly is getting tall!).  When we looked into adoption the doors opened for us to host Kayleigh, and as she had a younger brother in Michael, we ended up being blessed with two new awesome kids into our family.  We had gotten to know Kayleigh from the hosting trip but didn't meet Michael until we arrived at the orphanage in Zhytomr a year ago (hard to believe it's been that long!).

We still laugh about when we met Michael.  As usual they had to send kids to go find him as he was always out in the woods around the orphanage.  When he came into the office he ended up standing next to Dylan and everyone kinda just stopped talking and started looking.  It was uncanny, they looked like real brothers!  In the year that we've known and had Michael, it has been awesome to see what has literally been a total transformation.  What started as a quiet boy who kept to himself and never smiled has become a strong, confident and happy boy.  He is very warm and outgoing, excels in sports and has a really good group of friends.  He has really been a huge blessing to our family.

I credit Dylan for a lot of this.  When you have kids and adopt, it's not just you adopting or taking on the responsibility for parenting your new kids, it falls on the whole family.  Dylan has been the best big brother in the world with Michael, took him under his wing as a brother from day one, and has truly helped him become one of us.  He really embraced having a brother (he always had wanted one....) and that big brother / little brother relationship has really meant the world to Michael's emergence.

We know that Michael have 2 older brothers back in Ukraine but know so little about them.  We pray that they are well and hope that they will know in their hearts that their younger brother is in a family where he is cherised, loved and cared for, and has a big brother here to watch over him.  He couldn't be in better hands!

Peas In A Pod

Last night our family went out to get some dinner (sans Bekah who was working....).  We hit Fazoli's in San Marcos, because 1) Alyssa is off from dance for a couple nights with a minor dance boo boo and therefore had a Tuesday night off, and 2) with their Tuesday night deals we can feed a family of seven for $20, and 3) we love the food. 

Jodi and I are sitting at a table next to the table with the four kids.  It was so awesome to watch them together.  Acting all silly and laughing non-stop, making faces and acting all goofy, staring contests, etc etc.  They are so happy together.  Our family was awesome to begin with, and just fuller of awesomeness now.

It still blows my mind (frequently....) that they have been here less than 10 months, and yet seemed totally transformed by a new family, new world and new life.  God is truly amazing:)

Circles of Influence

Probably some of the best advice we got while preparing to adopt was, in the beginning with the newly enlarged family, to keep it simple and small.  That is, keep their world small and at time and experience go by and they get more settled, start adding pieces to their life.  I think this is especially good advice with older kids since they've already lived a life of sorts, and in some ways it's kinda like rebooting the computer to a whole new, well, everything!

The experience within our family went and has continued to go incredibly well.  If you didn't know they were adopted, you wouldn't know.  They just fit in.  It sounds crazy at time, but it's like we found the other 2 kids that were ours, but like 6000 miles away (well, 6092 to be precise....).  They look like us in appearance, act like us (yeah, even the bad sense of humor....) and have blended in like a ninja.

Probably the best outside our home influences have been their activities.  All of our kids do something to keep active, it's one of those things we've always promoted and supported.  For Kayleigh, she started taking dance classes where Alyssa had started dance the year before.  It has been such an incredibly supportive and welcoming environment for her, and they have gone way out of their way to make her feel at home.  For Michael, he started taking tae kwon do classes with Dylan and I.  We have had the pleasure of watching a scared loner of a little boy transform into a happy and confident teenager, have a bunch of friends to hang out with, and we see him growing in maturity and self assurance every day. 

It's been a great ride so far and we're still in the early stages but have enjoyed it so much.  I love getting to be a proud parent of the Fab 5.  To greet them in the morning with a big hug and tell them I love them.  To chase them around the house (they love playing tag....), watching Kayleigh at dance class (big embarrassed smiles when I watch and we are always making faces at each other....), watching Michael spar at class (he's an excellent fighter with awesome kicks....), and tucking them in at night (or mostly saying good night as I hit the rack at a reasonable hour, being a working man....).  Mostly the big hugs :)

It's A Marathon, Not A Sprint!

Tomorrow very early in the morning I will get up and go to run my first marathon.  It's been one of those things I've always wanted to do and the time came where I was in good enough shape, had been running enough to just extend training up to (hopefully) this level, and go for it!  It's my first so my only real expectations are to finish, and not come in last place :)

Adoption is very much the same way.  There are months or years of work before you actually go to make it happen.  You don't know what to expect.  There are so many things that can go wrong in the process that can delay or derail your adoption.  It can be painful at times.  But in the end, when you cross the finish line, I've heard there is a feeling of accomplishment and exhilaration. 

We had talked about adopting for many years and the time came when we were ready to go for it.  There were times when things could have gone wrong but didn't (we were in excellent hands :)  The waiting was the hardest part (and for ours it was certainly NOT the longest it took by far compared to others...).  There were stressful times but in the end, it was so totally worth it.

I still remember the feeling of being in the plane as it started rolling away from the gates in Kyiv on May 9th, 2012, with our 5 children on board.  It was such an amazing feeling of excitement and thankfulness that God had allowed so many things to go right, for all of the support we had received, and that Kayleigh and Michael were now ours.  They've been the best finish line medals of any race we've run :)

Dads and Daughters

Last night I took the girls to the Daddy Daughter dance, which has become an annual excursion for the girls and I.  I think this was our 5th time.  It is always fun to look at the pictures from each year and see how much they've changed from year to year.  Each year I find that they've gotten taller and more beautiful!  This year had the extra special addition of having Kayleigh and her first dance.  She and her brother have been with our family for 9 months now and she has really blossomed into a beautiful young lady. 

While I don't think anyone would understand the workings of the world that led to her being an orphan, I am so glad to God chose me to get to be her daddy.  Having a dad is really a pretty big deal to a girl.  As we danced last night I would watch the other dads and daughters dancing (mostly to avoid stepping on all the bare toes!....) and across the board it was the same observation:  daughters clinging tightly to their dads, wanting to be loved and treasured. 

I dance with each girl individually for dances, and then of course the embarrassing dances to the fast songs (the Squiggle dance I created was a big hit..... ;)  and then the family dance at the end (3 daughters stacked up ... :)  It was so awesome to be able to hold Kayleigh tight and dance with her and tell her I love her.  I'm looking at the photo from last night and if you didn't know she wasn't our biological daughter, you'd never guess it.  She looks like us, jokes like us.  Because she is one of us :)

Two Weeks

OK, so I've been lazy and it's been like two weeks since I last blogged!  Hey, busy living the life with the Fab 5!  I'm gone during the weekdays and 4 of the 5 weekday evenings out either with the boys at karate class, or on "dance mom" duty bringing Alyssa or Kayleigh home from dance.  Wednesday night is our one quiet night family weeknight, depending on whether Bekah is working, or any mix of our kids go to a church youth group that night.  I'm doing a lot of running in preparation for my first marathon in February.  Kids are going through their schooling, Kayleigh & Michael are both continuing to progress very well in their english, and Alyssa has started learning Russian (I'm going to as well but haven't gotten off the ground yet...).   It's nice to have those moments when you pause and take a look, and life seems rather normal after all the time that was spent in the adoption process.

We continue to enjoy our larger family and still bask in the amazement of how good God is.  We so truly enjoy how well the post-adoption life has gone and how well K & M have become a natural part of our family.  Any issues we've had have been minor, and usually far more attributable to the simple fact that they are just normal teenagers.  It is very natural to hold them and tell them we love them, to hang out and watch a movie or play games, have tickle and tag wars, or chat with them.  We still know very little of their background, and presume that there has to be not good stuff there, otherwise they wouldn't have ended up in an orphanage in the first place.  We continue to just pour on the love, so that the time comes when the layers of the onions begin to peel away, they will know they are in a safe and loving home with a family that cares so deeply for them.

My Dad Says Hi

Today had one of those really cool post-adoption moments.  For our adoption of two orphans who were older in age when we got them (15 and 13) there are always those questions of the small yet important nature to be addressed.  One of those questions of course is what do you have your new children call you?  Because Kayleigh & Michael were older and hadn't been in a family for awhile, we decided to let it roll with what they were comfortable with, which has typically been Chris & Jodi.  We though about the Mom & Dad thing but in the end our decision was to let them grow into the intimacy that is family, rather than try to manufacture it with titles (this naturally was our call on our two kids, not a judgment for anyone else, every family and adoptee is different....). 

I got home from running errands today and Michael was playing XBox with his bestie Gabe, so I told him to tell his friend hello.  He says "my dad says hello!".  It was the first time he has referred to me as Dad rather than Chris.  I though that was pretty extra cool :)  Well, probably more like extraordinarily cool....  We continue to work them into our lives and it all seems normal now and we love having them as our children.  Doesn't really sound weird to say I have 5 kids now.

It's been over 8 months now since they arrived in America and it continues to be one of those awesome stories you don't hear enough, which is one of the reasons I keep the blog chugging along.  The media is johnny on the spot with the negative stories but don't celebrate all of the great stories of orphans who were spared a wasted (or worse....) life, to a life full of promise and potential.  Neither of them talks much (none for Michael) of their past so we know as trust grows that there will undoubtedly be things that surface that are buried deep, but we continue each to day ensure they know this is their family and home.  Forever.