Adoption week - Fawnda's Adoption Story

I always knew that I would probably adopt someday.  Well, at least since I was a teen girl who had issues with her monthly cycle. I was told at age 14 that I would probably have difficulty getting pregnant some day, but not to worry about it until I was older. My sister and I would joke about how I would some day have quads because I would probably have to use fertility drugs.

Fast forward to college and I am dating the man of of my dreams. It was kind of  a tough conversation to have when we started to get serious and were talking marriage and family.  Lucky for me he was open to adoption too. We ended up getting married and decided to wait a few years to have kids. We had some large college loans we wanted to pay off and be settled for a bit first.

Once we started trying we knew there would be issues. So, it wasn't long before we got referred to an infertility specialist.  I am not going to go into detail of my infertility testing and procedures, but let's just say it was a year of doctors knowing way too much about our sex life, lots of poking in places you don't want to be poked, and some bad side effects from fertility drugs. As we moved through each stage our chances of conceiving got less and less.  The more infertility stuff we did the more we felt hopeless.

We decided that we had had enough of trying to conceive and were ready to start a family. We did not need to be pregnant- we needed to have children. We started to research different adoption agencies and different adoption programs. The more steps we took toward adoption the more excited we got and felt that we had HOPE!

Education is really important to us so we tried to get as much of it as we could about all the adoption programs so that we would know the best fit for us. We decided on international adoption right away. We both love to travel and we know we couldn't handle the unpredictability of domestic adoption. We finally decided on the Korea program because, at that time, the kids were still under the age of 1 when they came home and it was a stable, predictable, program.

Adoption requires a lot of trust in God. There are a lot of factors you cannot control. And waiting to get matched with a child is really hard. The whole adoption process was an exercise of faith for us and really made our relationship with God stronger then ever. We had no choice but to trust that God would match us with our child... the one he created for our family!  Psalms 139 took on a whole new meaning to us.  Knowing that God was knitting our baby in another women's womb, that He knew how many hairs were on his head, that He was with that baby even though we could not be was such a comfort to us.

It is not a secret that adoption is not cheap!  It comes with all sorts of adoption fees.  This also was an exercise in faith.  It was amazing how God provided for us each step of the way.  Just when we would need some money my husband would get almost that exact amount in a bonus from work, or our tax return would be about the same amount we needed.  It was truly amazing to see the money show up in just the nick of time.  

I will never forget when we got our call to tell us that we had a referral (a referral is when you are matched with a child). It was so exciting hearing about the child. They emailed us all the information about the baby which included the medical records and little family history. We were told not to look at the pictures until we had decided that we were going to accept this referral. We are rule followers so, we did just that. Once we knew that we were going to accept this referral we opened the photos file.

It was crazy waiting for the photos to load! We were just hoping the baby would be cute! As the pictures loaded line by line down the screen we watch with anticipation... and of course he was SO CUTE... I mean adorable!  honestly- what Korean baby isn't, right?!  Now we just had to wait for some more paperwork to get done so that we could bring him home!  The Korean and US governments had to get all the right documents together for us to travel to bring our baby home.

It was so exciting sharing the pictures with our family and friends, planning our baby's nursery,  buying him clothes.  Our families and friends threw us showers. We had lots to do but still ached to be with our son!

I can also remember getting the call to travel... I was at school teaching my first hour class when the call came into my classroom. I picked up the phone thinking it was the office calling for a student and it was one of the social workers. She asked "Are you ready to go and get your child?"  YES! All teaching stopped that day!  I called my hubby, my mom, and my long term sub! I told my students that it was going to be my last day because we were going to Korea to get our baby!

The trip to Korea was, of course, amazing.  It was so exciting and scary getting on the plane to Korea knowing that when we came home we would be parents.  We got custody of our son the morning that we left Korea to come home (we had meetings with our son and foster mom, but we didn't get to keep him until we were traveling home).  Then began our bonding experience.  We had over a 24 hour trip home, which included a 1 hour van ride,  14 hour flight, another 5 hour flight, and lots of waiting to get through customs.  We came home Nov. 5th 2008.

1. Our "Before" picture at the airport leaving for Korea

2. Fawnda's first time holding Kyan at our first meeting.

3. At our Second meeting Kyan fell asleep on Fawnda

4. Jason's first time holding Kyan at our first meeting.

5. Our first family shot.

6. On the plane ride home. 

We were so happy to be home and starting our family.  1 year later we started the process again to adopt a girl.  We were told at that time, lots of things in the Korea program had changed and that the wait times to bring a child home was much longer.   They told us that it would probably 2 years before we could bring a little girl home.  That was much longer then our son, but we trusted in God's timing and said OK.  And then we prayed that God would speed up the timing so that we would bring a daughter home... and speed it up He did!

3 months later we got a phone call telling us we had a referral... ummmm- isn't this much sooner then we were told?  Yes!  And then we traveled to go and get her 9 weeks later!   The total time between we were approved to when we brought her home was 6 months.  It was CRAZY fast and such a whirlwind I don't remember much of it! :)  But, I do remember that our Second trip to Korea was equally amazing and it was such a blessing to bring our little girl home.   We came home Dec 23rd, 2010 - just in time for Christmas! 
 1. Our First meeting with Nyah at her Foster Family's home
2. Lots of crying the first day that we had her.
3. Finally crashed after all the crying.
4. Happy with daddy
5. Waiting at the Seoul Airport for our LONG trip home (it took over 25 hours total)
6. At home with mom and brother!

In 2013, 2 1/2 years later, God surprised us again with a 3rd child.  This time I was pregnant!  What?!? Our 3rd son was born April 8th, 2013.

We are so blessed by our children   We know that God created each of them to be a part of our family.  It is crazy all the similarities we have with the personalities of our kids,  that I know that God selected us to be their parents!

Adoption Week: One way we celebrate adoption (Gotcha day!)

Adoption week continues!  We have more posts to share with you so we are going to keep going this week too! 

Every year on the date that we got custody of our adopted children we celebrate their "Gotcha day" (ya know- because it was the day that we got-ya!).  It is different than their birthdays because it is a celebration of the day they became part of our family.

We adopted our kids from Korea so, they were a little bit older when they came home. My son's Gotcha Day is Nov 5th (almost 9 months after his birthday) and our daughter's is Dec 22 (8 months after her birthday). Since their Gotcha days are not near their birthdays, it makes sense to us to celebrate it at a different time.

Here is how we celebrate:

We don't do gifts.  We do lots of gifts for their birthdays so they don't need more gifts.  This is a family celebration day.

So far we have gone to a Korean restaurant on every Gotcha Day. Our kids love "Korea Food" (what they call the restaurant that we go to), and so do we, so it is an easy and fun way to celebrate their heritage. Since our kids are 3 and 5 we still pick the restaurant but I think as they get older we will let them choose where they want to eat. It might not end up being Korean and that is OK, it is about being a family!

Our Daughter, Nyah's,  First Gotcha Day @ Mirror of Korea

Our son, Kyan's, 3rd Gotch Day @ Mirror of Korea

Before we go to bed that night we tell the story of their journey home. We start back at the beginning - How they started out growing in their Korea mommy's tummy, how we wanted a baby so bad, how we had to do lots of paper work to get them,  how their Korean foster mom took care of them while we were waiting for them to come home.

We have photo books of our trips to Korea and we look at the books and talk about our first visits with them and how they acted.  We tell them how they acted on the air plane ride home. We show them the pictures of when they were crying because they missed their foster moms. We tell them about how much we loved them from the start!  My 5-year-old is just starting to get-it and ask some questions. We answer them as honestly as we can (age appropriately too).

Our son's book:

  Made using Snapfish

Our daughter's book:

Made using Paper Catorie

Our kids seriously love these photo books and look at them often.   

And that is it.  Just a day of being together as a family and reminiscing of when they came home to us.   We don't make it too extravagant but we do make it important.  And I think that is the key.

How do you celebrate adoption at your home?

Adoption Week: Red Thread Wall Art

***This is a craft I have shown on this blog before but had to share it with you for adoption week!***

Yesterday I shared some of our favorite adoption themed childerns books.
One of them is The Red Thread and this craft is inspired by this book!

"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break." -Chinese proverb

 Many of you know that we adopted 2 of our children from South Korea.  We believe that we were connected with them even before we met them.  The Red Threads were pulling on our hearts brings us together!  

Here is what you will need:

2 canvases

Scrap fabric

Craft Paint

Red embroidery thread and needle

Felt (not pictured)

ScotchBlue Edge Lock Painter's tape.

Here is how you can make it:

1. Paint your canvas your base color.

2. Around the sides of your canvas mark off 1 inch marks.  My tape was 1 inch thick so that is why I used 1 inch marks... if your tape is wider you can use wider marks.

3. Use you marks to tape off your stipes.  I wanted a Chevron look to mine so I put my tape at a slant.  

The ScotchBlue Edge Lock Tape is Magic!  Seriously... I did not need to touch up any of my stripes. I wanted to test this tape out to see if it could live up to the hype... and it can.

I reversed the slant on the other canvas to get the chevron shape.

4. Paint your stripes with your other color. 

 I wanted a distressed look so I did a thin layer with lots of brush strokes. 

5. While the paint is STILL WET, take off the tape.  The ScotchBlue Edge Lock works WONDERFUL for this project.  The lines were crisp!  This tape made this project so much easier!

Look at those beautiful stripes!

6. I used my Silhouette to cut out the shapes of the map.  First I ironed on the clean cut interface to the back side of the fabric.  I used the trace feature to make the map shapes and cut them out the fit on to the canvas. 

7. Cut out heart shapes out of red felt and hot glue in the location of the city.

8. Lightly draw a line for the thread to follow.  I made mine with some loops.  It is hard to see my pencil marks so I tried to point them out to you.

9. Thread your needle and sew on the line you drew.  I thought that it was going to be harder then it was.  The needle went through the canvas and paint very well.  When I got to the edge I wrapped the thread around the side and hot glued it to the back to hold it in place. 

All done!

Make some for yourself or this would make an AWESOME gift for some one who is adopting internationally!

***Disclosure:  I was supplied with ScotchBlue Edge Lock Painter's tape for free.  However my opinions are 100% honest***

Adoption Week - Children's books

We have a lot of children's books with the adoption theme in our house.   We have found that some adoption themed books are better than others.  Some books focus on the kids being angry about being adopted.  Although some adopted children do struggle with that,  at this time my kids don't, and I like to keep a positive attitude about adoption.
(For example one book we have is about a little girl who gets mad that she is adopted and starts to ruin and break some of her parents things.  I don't want my kids to get any ideas that they have to be mad about being adopted and then break my things.) 

These books are some of our very favorites!  Most of our books lean more toward international adoption since that is what we did.  I thought I'd share some of the ones we really like.  They would make a great gift for a friend or family member who has adopted children.

A Blessing from Above

Mama Roo is praying for a baby to love and care for and she is blessed with a baby bird.

Over The Moon

It is the story or one couple who adopts a baby girl from South America.

The Red Thread

A Chinese proverbs says "An invisible, unbreakable red thread connects all who are destined to be together"  The story follows a King and Queen who have a pain in their heart caused by a red thread that is pulling on them.  They have to take a long journey to find out what or who is on the other end.

A Mother for Choco

Choco needs a mom but he cannot find one who looks just like him.  He talks to Ms. Bear who shows him that a mom doesn't have to look like him to be his mom.

Guji Guji

Guji Guji is a crocodile that is raised by a family of ducks.  Some mean crocodiles try to tell him he is like them and threatens his family.  But Guji Guji is the hero in the end.  

Through Moon and Stars and Night Skies
A little boy tells his story of how he came home to his mom and dad from a far away country. 

I Love You Like Crazy Cakes

A story of a mom who adopted a little girl from China.

My Family is Forever

An Asian girl is adopted and she tells about her family.  She tells the story through an upbeat positive perspective.

Do you have any favorite adoption books?  Leave them in the comments below!

Adoption Week - A birthmom's story

Please welcome Shayla to our blog,  She a birthmom who is sharing her story with us today.  We are so honored to have her.  She does not have a blog, but she has an amazing story to tell!

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I am a birthmom.  I am a mom.  I am a wife, a sister, a daughter and a friend.  I am a child of God.   It’s taken many (many) years but I’ve developed a pretty strong sense of self.  When I was a child, I was thrown into the world of sexual abuse and fatherlessness.  As a teenager I had no idea who I was.  I learned all the wrong things from all the wrong people and tried to define myself by those misgivings.  Is it any surprise that I ended up pregnant my senior year in high school? 

That is definitely not the way I imagined spending my senior year.  I was supposed to work on homecoming floats, and shop for prom dresses.  I was supposed to get caught sneaking out of the house to meet up w/friends at midnight.  Instead I was living with my boyfriend (which meant taking care of a house) working full time, going to school full time and trying to schedule doctor appointments in between it all.   The few times I was able to do “normal” senior-year stuff, I was treated as a bit of an oddity.  Everyone was nice, but all my conversations revolved around the pregnancy.  Everyone was (naturally) curious, asking a lot of questions I didn’t have answers to.  This became my new identity.  I’m a teenage a mom - I am a statistic.

It was my mother that first brought up the idea of adoption.  Since my only knowledge on the subject was firmly rooted in Hallmark specials about worst-case scenarios, I wasn’t thrilled.  And by “not thrilled” I mean I did a lot of yelling and stormed out (give me a break, I was a very hormonal 17 year old).  But the idea was enticing.  I could actually go to college and become something, and my child could have a stable, loving, 2-parent home.   My mother brought up the subject a few more times and I finally agreed to a meeting so she’d stop bothering me.  The counselor at Bethany Christian services explained our options - closed adoption, semi-open, and open adoption.  She explained that we could pick the parents of our child, and that we could have a say in how much information we did or didn’t receive after this child was born.  I knew as she was talking that this was the best thing for everyone involved, that my boyfriend and I had no business trying to raise a child.  It would take several months though before we could truly make the decision.  I can’t begin to explain all the emotions we went through to finally get there.  I could write a book on those few months alone.  Once the decision was made we felt confident about it.  Over the course of the next month we had several more meetings at Bethany and picked out a family.  Ever want to feel like you’re playing God?   Try looking through a pile of families and picking one to be your unborn child’s parents.   Goodness.

We chose open adoption and the next few months were spent developing a strong bond w/our daughter’s parents that continues today.  Her mom was in the delivery room w/us, and we had a baby dedication ceremony at the hospital before my boyfriend and I left.  

 Empty handed.

I’m not going to lie, my arms literally cramped for the next few nights because I didn’t have a baby to hold.  At the time, the law stated we had 10 days to change our minds - no questions asked.  I changed my mind 1000 times a day.   Those were the longest 10 days of my life.

Eventually life got back to normal.  I had graduated, given birth, and was living back home with my mom like every other 18 year old.  I applied to exactly 1 college, got in and started that following January.  It wasn’t easy, but I got on with my life and (many, many stories later) graduated college.   My daughter and her parents came to my graduation.   That was awesome. 

While in college I was able to get several years of free counseling.  As a Counseling major a few sessions were required, I just needed more than most J  This was the first time I started to figured out exactly who I was.  That this person wasn’t defined by abuse, fatherlessness, or even the birth of a child.  I was, first and foremost, a child of God.  I didn’t really know what that meant.   All I knew was that I was more than a product of my environment, and that was as good of a start as I could hope for.   After college though I fell away from God and fell into the I-don’t-want-to-think-about-my-pain- trap.  Years later I finally surfaced, and was desperate to put this pain in my rear-view mirror.  I did some serious soul searching, got back in church and finally decided once and for all that I wouldn’t let my childhood define me.  I’ve had to grapple with some pretty hard truths in my life.  Though none of them trump the fact that I’m a child of God, and that “all things work together for good to those that love the Lord, and who are called according to his purpose”. (Romans 8:27-29)  I have seen this promise play out time and time again.

Over the past few years I’ve gotten married, had a son, and began developing a relationship with my (now teenage) daughter.  Through it all God has taught me so much about sacrifice, love and humility.  I don’t have it all figured out, but I do know that over the next 20 years or so that I’ll be raising children, God will never leave my side.  He’ll continue to show me exactly who he designed me to be.  I’m a mom.  I’m a birthmom.  I’m a friend.  I’m a child of God.

Adoption Week - Maralee's story- an adoptive mom

Please welcome Maralee to our blog!  She has a great blog, A Musing Maralee, where she blogs about parenting, foster care, adoption and much more!  She has a heart for God and caring for children.   She has been gracious enough to share her amazing story with us today!
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"But don't you want to have kids of your own?"

This was the most common question we heard when my husband and I started sharing the news that we were pursing adoption.  The sweet people who wanted answers to this question generally didn't know about the infertility diagnosis and heartache we had already been through before we started filling out the paperwork and shipping money off to an agency.  They just saw two young, healthy, happy people who they wanted to experience the thrill of having children "of their own".  If people did know about our fertility issues, they wanted to know if we'd tried everything we could before resorting to the adoption option.  In this miraculous age of test tube babies and fertility drugs and surrogacy options, why would we be so quick to decide we didn't want kids of our "own"?

We tried to respond to this question with a false bravado- this child WOULD be our own!  We wanted to adopt!  Why spend money on fertility treatments that might not work, when there was a child that needed us?  But deep in our hearts we had some of the same fears as our friends and family who wondered if we could really love a child that we didn't create.

Thankfully for us, we had spent the last couple years doing that exact thing as houseparents at a children's home.  We had come to love many of our kids as though they had been born to us.  We were passionate about their wellbeing and invested in seeing them feel healed from their past hurts and confident they could make their futures better.  We knew we could love those boys, but we had never been entrusted with the sole parental role in their life.  Would that be different?

Our questions were answered and our lives changed on a hot September afternoon two years after we began the adoption journey.  We had arrived in Liberia the day before and today we were to be shown around the country a little.  Tomorrow would be the day we would meet our baby for the first time.  So on our way to the orphanage office building (a separate location from the orphanage itself) the director of our agency was on the phone.  We couldn't hear what she was saying, but she leaned back to us and said, "Is it George?  You're here for Georgie, right?"  and then leaned back up into her seat.  I was pretty overwhelmed just taking in the sites around us and constantly thinking about meeting our baby the next day, so I didn't pay much attention to what she was doing.  We stopped at the orphanage office where we were shown the area where birthmothers would sit and have the adoption process explained to them.  We were introduced to the team who had worked on our child's paperwork.  Then we were brought back to the director's office and we talked about the plans for future humanitarian work the agency was working towards in Liberia.  And then the orphanage director excused herself from the room for a minute.  She returned holding a baby boy I had only known in photographs.  But somehow had known in my heart as long as I have been alive.

The director asked me if I recognized this baby.  How could I not know the face I had been praying for for six months.  Through paperwork hold-ups and immigration appointments gone wrong and frightening phone calls about hospitalization for malaria, this face had haunted my dreams.  His pictures were on the fridge, tucked in my Bible, and framed on my dresser.  And so the first words I said to my son were, "I know you!" because I did.  I held him at arms length- all ten pounds of his skinny frame on a ten month-old body.  I studied him.  I wanted to take it all in.  And as he started to get a little anxious about this lady who was dangling him away from all that was familiar, the orphanage director said, "He's saying, 'hold me, Ma!'."  I clutched him to my chest and felt him relax.  I cried.  I cried so much to be holding this dream in my arms.  I couldn't believe we could take him home and I think some days as I see his lean brown six year-old body beating me in a race up the street, I'm dumbstruck all over again that I get to be his mom.  When he wraps me up for a hug or begs for one more story or tells me I'm the best mom ever because I'm making meatloaf, I'm reminded again of how blessed I am that THIS child is my own.

I know biological children bond husbands and wives together.  But I remember a day when I realized if I hadn't married my husband, if we hadn't been infertile, if we didn't pursue adoption, if Liberia wasn't the country we choose, maybe I wouldn't be Josh's mom.  It's hard for me to imagine a life that doesn't include Josh.  I imagine that maybe I would have had a lingering sadness I couldn't explain if he hadn't come into my life.  While he was created in another woman's body (a woman we love and value greatly), I believe God made me to be his mother.

Through the adoptions of two more children (both through the foster care system) and then the surprise birth of our biological child in 2011, there is one thing I've learned:  All these children are "my own".  My love for the son that grew in my body isn't any greater than the love I have for my children through adoption.  Pregnancy didn't make me more of a woman or more of a mother.  Birth did not increase my ability to love or my understanding of sacrifice.  Adoption is not a better or worse way to become a mother, it is just different.  In the same way my children are beautifully different from me.  My Josh's athleticism and his easy expression of his emotions (he did NOT get that from this German Mennonite!).  My son Daniel's Native American skin (so light in the winter and SO dark in the summer, but never a burn) and love of all things animal.  My daughter Bethany's dancing heart that keeps her body always moving and her soul so visible through her expressions.  I did not make these children, but I'm blessed to call them "my own" and to share their joys (as much as I can) with the families they came from.

photo by Rebecca Tredway Photography

Adoption isn't an easy road, but the beauty is easy to see.  I thank God for the infertility that lead us down the road to a different kind of family, but one that is uniquely "our own".  

Maralee Bradley is a mother of four kids ages 6 and under.  Three were adopted (one internationally from Liberia, two through foster care) and our fourth baby was a biological surprise.  Prior to becoming parents Maralee and her husband were houseparents at a children’s home and had the privilege of helping to raise 17 boys during their five year tenure.  She's passionate about caring for kids, foster parenting and adoption, making her husband a fairly decent dinner every night, staying on top of the laundry, watching ridiculous documentaries and doing everything she does for God’s glory.  Maralee can be heard across Nebraska on "A Mother's Heart for God" which airs on My Bridge Radio and whatever won't fit in 90 seconds ends up on her blog amusingmaralee.com 

Adoption Week- Jeannine's Adoption Story

When I was 15 I went on a week-long “mission trip” with my youth group to a slum town in Mexico. One day we visited an orphanage. Since we don’t have orphanages in the US, this was a shocking and life-changing experience for me. I had always loved children and the fact that these beautiful, precious little creatures had no parents to raise them broke my heart, and I never really recovered. I spent several years feeling that someday I wanted to be an orphanage worker (I don’t know the official word for that). Then one day I was home on Christmas break during my freshman year of college. I was praying about this particular topic. I don’t remember the words of the prayer, but it had to do with going to another country and working in an orphanage. I wanted to give love and care to children who didn’t have a family. I wanted to be that family. I was young and starry eyed at the time, thinking it sounded awfully romantic to travel to a foreign country and work in an orphanage full of unwanted kids - to fill a void in the lives of children who lacked so much, including love.
I don’t hear specific messages from God in my head very often. This is one of maybe two times in my life, before and since, that this has happened. I know it’s looked on as crazy by many to say “God spoke to me,” but I believe that He did in that moment, because what I thought was not at all in line with where my thought train was going, and it was so out of the blue and something I had never considered. What He said was, “Maybe the orphanage will come to you.” The word “maybe” was not a “maybe, maybe not,” kind of maybe, it was the maybe that means, “Did you ever think about that? How about thinking about your dreams and desires in a little bit different context.”  I was like if a child said “I really really really really want to go swimming for my birthday,” and the parent says, “well, maybe, we can go to Disney World instead!” Because Disney World is so much better. It was that kind of “Maybe.”
I had no idea at the time what that would mean for me, but I held on to that word, and I knew with all my heart that God would bring it to fruition. I envisioned somebody dropping babies on my doorstep; I envisioned running a “home for children” - kind of like an orphanage, but more modern and community oriented. I figured adoption was somewhere in my future, but didn’t know how it would come about. Fast forward another thirteen years - college, moving out of state for my first job after college, another job, marriage, step parenting, home ownership, and two biological daughters later.
I met my husband at a church that I was invited to by a mutual friend. It wasn’t a set up, it just worked out. There was another couple at the church who had been foster parents for years, and had adopted 5 kids from foster care (and 3 more since then!). It was never in my mind to be a foster parent, but the more we got to know this family, it just seemed like something we wanted to do. We started fostering in 2008 when our youngest daughter was about two. In April of 2009 we were placed with a baby boy. We picked him up from the hospital when he was just four days old. Five months later, we got a call for another 4-day-old baby boy, and for some crazy reason I said yes. I have to admit that if I could see the difficulty ahead of me in the next couple years, I probably would have said no. But I didn’t have much time to think about it, and I couldn’t get a hold of my husband at work, so I said a quick frantic prayer, and the answer I felt in my heart was, “This is what you’re here for. This is why you are foster parents.” So I said yes.
In December 2011, eighteen years after a seed was planted in my heart, and fifteen years after receiving a specific, if somewhat ambiguous, word from God, our two adoptions were finalized. FIFTEEN YEARS! If that’s not a lesson in God’s timing, I don’t know what is.
So here we are, raising our 5 amazing children. There was a time I thought I wanted 8 or 10 kids. Now that we have 5 I realize that I am a human with limitations, and five kids is my limit. And I’m ok with that. There have been ups and downs, as there are for everyone. Having two babies five months apart has been more challenging than I could have ever imagined, and in ways I never dreamed. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to most people, but I wouldn’t change it either. I know it’s been part of God’s plan for all of us all along.
{Story originally published on Jeannine's blog, Eubanks Eutopia}

Adoption week postponed! Sorry!!

Sorry to have to postpone our adoption week but we want to do our best job and right now I am just not ready to host it! So I am going to give myself a couple more weeks to do it justice!  I just want it to be AWESOME!

Adoption Week is coming soon to F & J!

We are getting ready for new series here on F&J and I so excited about it!  If you have read our About page you know that both Jeannine and I have adopted children   It is something that we are both passionate about and want to share our stories with you all.

During the week of June 23 -29 we will share our stories and other's inspiring stories with you along with adoption themed crafts/ gifts/ books and other fun things!

Chances are you know some one who has adopted so this is for everyone!  

Make sure to join us for the awesome week!