HOME!

We are HOME with our two precious new treasures. Thank you everyone that supported and prayed for us. We are so blessed!

Why are we doing this? A really honest post.

I get asked this a lot. The "Why did you decide to adopt this child?", or a "Why child with special needs?". And then I get the whole "You are such a special person!", "I could never do that", and "You are a saint!" comments that leave me uncomfortable. Let me just get this out of the way. I am NOT a saint. I do not have it all together. Somedays I'm a mess. Actually I'm a mess most of the time.

I am not a special person because I love my kids. Here is a tidbit you may not expect... I am not a 'kid person'. That is my hubby! He is totally the one with the calling for working with kids. Do I think kids are cute? sure. Do I enjoy holding babies? Ya, after I get my bearings back.. after all it has been a while. But in the day to day run ins with other people's kids I just feel awkward. When I was a kid you could ask anyone what my plans were in life and it was NOT having kids. Haha, God must have been laughing at that I am sure. So why am I telling you this? Because I LOVE *MY* kids. Really love them to pieces and feel blessed by every one of them. And that includes both my homegrown and adopted kiddos. If you are not sure if you can love "someone else's kid" well, you don't have to worry, because they aren't someone else's kid. They are YOURS. Birth does not make them yours. It's caring for them like a parent that does.

Why are we doing this? Because our eyes were opened to the need, and we are able. We did not just wake up one morning and think "I think we should adopt a bunch of kids with special needs!". I mean.. that's not comfortable.. that's not easy... it costs a lot of money too! In fact I could say there were probably plenty of reasons why we shouldn't do it. But God sets the lonely in families and the Holy Spirit is a wonderful nag. Those seeds that were planted over a decade ago started with just adopting. We could not have more biological children and while all of our homegrown kids were preemies, none had any real complications of it. We had 'dodged that bullet', why would we now go and adopt a child that had not been so lucky? We wanted a healthy "normal" kid. One that probably looked a bit like us, and was very young. But ok what about minor things.. like an extra finger, or a birthmark, or crossed eyes. And maybe we could adopt a toddler, instead of a newborn. But ok those kids with Down Syndrome are really cute too. OK so maybe we could handle a few things. We have some local families with kids with Down Syndrome, it might be ok. At least 2 years passed (I told you this was not a sudden decision). But not Cerebral Palsy, or things like that. I didn't know how to take care of a kid like that. All of the adaptations, the wheelchairs and walkers. Then I started researching more and more about the realities of international adoption, and the kids that desperately needed families but were least likely to be chosen for the same reasons we had in the beginning. This is when I found our son.

We started the process not long after that with some pretty lofty expectations of what we thought he could accomplish once he got some therapy. You know, maybe if we got him home fast enough, he could be pretty "normal". When we met him my heart was broken. He was just so sick looking and frail and thin and vacant. The future I had hoped for him (and us) seemed to turn on it's head. He could hardly move. He had no ability to smile because his facial muscles had not done it in so long that his face was too tight. But we also knew there was no way we could leave him there. If he had been born to us, with a unexpected diagnosis, would we have turned away? No. So we continued on, trusting that God would give us strength for that journey.

I am not going to lie. I did not feel an instant connection. I faked it till I felt it. It took months. Yes I loved him, but he still felt like someone else's kid for a few months. I think it was around the 5 month mark that I really started to feel like he was mine, and not some strange kid we were just taking care of. Be prepared for that. It's NORMAL. Pregnancy is a process and so is Adoption. It's not a one time event. Eventually I kept forgetting that I did not give birth to him. It's a very odd feeling trying to remember the details of a birth you were not there for!

Our son changed in the year and a half we knew him, but not in ways we had planned (because you know you can just plan that sort of thing right?). He was happy. He was a beacon of light and laughter (and yes there were plenty of frustrating moments too). He grew 6" and gained 10lbs. He had a smile that could light up the dark. He was able to stand with support.

But he changed me far more. WE were blessed beyond measure. I realized that it wasn't our job to plan. It was God's. My "No Kids", my "Not Cerebral Palsy", "Not Death", (and now) "Not Hydrocephalus or non-verbal". Yes it's hard. Yes a lot of it just sucks, but it's so worth it. These kids have no other options. Many are malnourished, sick, understimulated, lacking in proper medical care, and to have a family step up for them would be life changing on so many levels. But it's life changing for families too.

"I’ve seen you cringe just a little when someone says your child is lucky to have you. Because you know with all your being it is the other way around."

We started our next adoption, and I said "no hydrocephalus", "no non-verbal".. they were hard and scary, and we had already been through so much. We originally set out to adopt a little boy with Down Syndrome (like last time), and ended up with a son with Hydrocephalus and a daughter with developmental delays and neither are verbal at this time. God didn't ask us to say yes to a diagnosis. He asked us to say yes to our children.

It's way easier to say no until you look them in the eyes. These are real kids, not a diagnosis! How could we say no?

Our kids are blessed blessings. We are HONORED that God chose us for them. I hope he will continue to bless and expand our family but it's not our call. I don't know where we are headed. It is our job to say "Yes Lord". To just trust him. To allow ourselves to not have to know everything, because you can't. We just love our kids however they need us to love them, and from wherever they are from. I don't think we are special or a saint for doing that. That's what parents do. Yes our day to day may have some differences, but I think there may be more differences in our taste in movies, or food, than there is because of our special kids. We eat food, sometimes unhealthy food. We stay up too late, and don't really want to get out of bed on Sunday mornings sometimes. We go to the zoo, to the fair, and to the park. We play games and enjoy our pets. We enjoy gathering with others so feel free to invite us to play dates and game nights.

We are just a normal family. There is a good chance that you can do this too. Take a stroll and see what happens. Say yes, or at least ask God to show you where he can use you.

We passed court! They are ours!

Last week the judge ruled in our favor and our sweet "Little's" are officially ours!  Our house is a buzz of activity as we get the last preparations done for bring them home in a few weeks. We can't wait! Thank you for helping us get to this point! We could not have done it without your support and prayers.

For anyone new to the process, here is a quick run down of our timeline:

Commitment papers filed mid April 2015
Second child commitment papers filed August 2015
Homestudy update finished and i800a applied for August 2015
I800A approval granted and dossier mailed to adopting country September 2015
Dossier submitted to government beginning of October 2015
Official referral given end of October 2015
First trip Nov/Dec 2015
i800/Article 5 Dec 2015/Jan 2016
Court mid Feb 2016
Home March/April 2016

FULLY FUNDED!

YAY! Unless we get some unexpected costs in addition to our budget, we are funded! THANK YOU!!!

Less than $600 to go!

We have been blessed with several sweet gifts to our FSP and now only have $590 left to raise! Our fully funded number on our FSP is $6608.

http://reecesrainbow.org/91944/sponsorkroll-2

We should hear in just another week or two about our court date we hope, and a month after court or so we will travel to pick up the kids!

And if you could, would you pray for our family over the next few days? We have some hard anniversaries coming up. Thank you!

Getting close!!

We have $2753.41 left to raise to be fully funded (as long as airfares are not crazy expensive!) thanks to some sweet gifts to our FSP and given personally. Our i800s have been approved and we are waiting for the visa interview and article 5, which should happen very soon. Then we get resubmitted and wait for court, then pick up. Preparations around the house are starting up now. We miss them so much and cannot wait to have them home. Thank you for your support!

Christmas Blessings!

I won't lie. This Christmas season has been such a huge mess of emotions for me. It's been a hard season of missing our son, and also now of missing our two across the oceans. We have gotten word though that Sabrina had a sweet Christmas celebration and then got some gifts and such along with all of the rest of the kids in her orphanage. I am hoping that Kurt also has had something special and that he is doing well also.

Today we got our provisional approval on our i800. So we are just waiting for one more thing before our dossier gets resubmitted to the government in their country and then we will get a judge assigned to us and a court date! Some of the assignments and court dates have been VERY fast lately so we are hopeful that this wait will be not too long before we can bring them home. Getting the approval letter today, precisely the day I had hoped it would arrive, was a wonderful gift.

Also wonderful and quite a surprise was that our FSP on Reece's Rainbow has grown quite a bit in the last few days! I am SO thankful for every donation, no matter how big or small, but the fact that it grew so quickly just about has me on the edge of tears. Thank you. We are only about $3300 away from being fully funded.

God Bless you!

Beautiful

We were blessed to be able to spend a week with each of our new children recently and oh are they precious. How good God is to bless us. Sabrina is spunky and opinionated but so sweet and beautiful. She is very smart and learned how to play with several of the new toys we brought for her. She has trouble with some of her fine motor skills as far as grabbing things, but she was able to grab and hold onto the Oball we brought. It will be great to get her home and started with some OT stuff and let her explore her world at last! She is very strong and fast at moving. She's not quite crawling on hands and knees yet but is so close. She will crawl on her elbows and knees and then get up on hands and knees when she stops. She is such a joy. She's in good physical condition and wears a 3t (at nearly 3 yrs old).

Our little guy is just a few months younger but quite a bit smaller. He only wears an 18 months, and was pretty thin. He's a happy guy and you can tell that the nannies love him, but he has had such a rough start to life that he just cannot thrive in an orphanage setting. He is absolutely beautiful and has a quiet but mischievous personality. His giggle is infectious.

We can't share the super precious photos we have from our trip, but they are darling. Thank you to everyone that has helped get us this far. We have just $4550 left to raise which means I'll be back to work here shortly in my studio so we can knock that out!

Tis the season to be busy!

Holiday preparations are nearly upon us, and I am working on some fun craft ideas that would make great gifts! I hope to open our Christmas Shop the second week of December. Stay tuned! I may be able to post a little preview soon.

Quilts!

I have started my fall/winter sewing fest out with making quilts and blankets to sell (and a couple to keep). Here are just a few of them. If you'd like to see what is currently available: Click Here

31"x36" flannel safari quilt

27x36 flannel and minky 

18"x25" Taggy lovey blankets

Super soft pink minky & flannel quilted blanket

More in progress! (lots more coming including pinks)

We have also been chosen as one of this month's 5/5/5 families! For those that don't know, the 5/5/5 for Families program works like this: They pick 5 families for the month. Everyone encourages others to donate just $5 to the fund and the money is split between. So one donation helps 5 adopting families. BONUS you can set it up to automatically donate to this fund each month. Set it and forget it and by the end of one year you will have helped *60* families! It may not be a big amount but many hands make light work, as they say, and it all adds up. The last several months have totaled over $3,000 to split between the 5 families! You can donate a larger amount than $5 if you wish as well, or do a one time donation. Each family that is chosen then tries to send in a $5 per month donation for the next 6 months. We have been donating to the fund for almost a year now I think and it's great! The month ends for us on December 5th. http://reecesrainbow.org/555families

Auction totals!

Our handmade item auction did very well and brought in over $1550 in bids and additional donations! The last few payments should arrive Monday  as people get back to their computers. The Vanchura family will get $775 towards their adoption of "Nugget" and we get the same twoards our adoption of Kurt & Sabrina.

Thank you everyone that helped by donating, bidding, and sharing!

Last day to bid! Travel update!!

Today is the last day for our handmade online auction! I cannot wait to get the totals and send the Vanchura family their half towards their matching grant when everything is paid for.

Now for some other exciting news... The normal timeline between being submitted to the country's government and travel for trip #1 has been about 2 months. Recently this has been shortened by quite a bit. The latest several families have been given verbal approval, written 2 weeks later, and travel dates for TWO WEEKS later! ACK! It's wonderful and makes me nervous all at once. smile emoticon It's possible we could still travel in MID-NOVEMBER if our dossier is accepted next week!

Also we have applied for a grant and they meet at the end of the month to decide who gets grants and how much. If our travel happens in November, our big chunk of agency fees ($6500) will be due in December and that is a hard month to fundraise/sell artwork. So if you could please pray that we would get a grant, that would be great. Thank you!

Fundraiser wrap-ups & Submission!

This week our yard sale will likely finish up due to the increasing wind and the ever increasing likelihood of our tent turning into a very large kite. I may most some of the items into the porch and try to sell them online. We will see what is left after it ends on Saturday. I am praying it's all gone and there is nothing left to do!

Our online handmade item auction also ends this week! We have some items still without bids, but I think things will pick up towards the closing date. At least that is what I am hoping. The auction proceeds are being split 50/50 with the Vanchura family!

All of our dossier is in country now and should be submitted this week! That means we should have written referral  & travel dates in about 3 weeks and updated medicals and such shortly after that. We should travel in roughly 2 months. Two months from now will be mid-December, which is a hard time to travel. Flight costs are higher so we had to raise our travel estimates as well. And we found out that we owe a little more on our agency fees than we thought, so our total estimate has gone up about $1250. That's not really the direction you hope it will go! But we will make it work. God has his plan and we are trusting his timing in all of it.

Since we have 2 fundraisers wrapping up at the end of the week, I am hoping to get back to my studio work next week and then have some art pieces to auction off shortly after that. We have around $7500 left to raise (not counting the new fees I had to add to our estimate, we will deal with that if need be). Most of that is agency fees that are due as soon as we get home from trip #1. I have set up a YouCaring page for anyone that would like to help us raise the money for those fees.

I am hopeful that by the end of October we will be a bit closer to having this all raised! Thank you for your help!!

USCIS APROVAL!! And less than $10,000 to go!

We got our USCIS approval today! It will be notarized, apostilled and then on it's way to our children's country so that our dossier can be submitted. This is the last piece we needed! We should be submitted in early October and travel to meet them 2 months later.

We have had a lot going on and are making slow process on getting the garage sale up, but here are some other things going on right now to help us raise the funds we need:

Handmade with love auction - Runs Oct 1 - 16th and features hand made personally crafted & artist made items that have been generously donated, purchased, or made by us. We are still seeking donations of items for this. Fifty percent will go to the Vanchura Family for Nugget!

Art sales through my studio - I have been working on model horses and have also been selling some lovely glazed pieces that I sculpted and a friend cast and finished. It's been so wonderful having the support of my art clients and friends.

"Surround them with Love" heart sale  - This may  get revised again but $5 gets your name on a heart in a frame that will surround each of the kiddos' pictures ($10 for one in each). A wonderful reminder for them and us for years to come that there were so many people working to get them home. A stark contrast to sitting in an orphanage without a family! Donate here: http://reecesrainbow.org/91944/sponsorkroll-2 and forward your receipt to me.

T-shirts - https://www.booster.com/walkingacrosstheocean
Half of the proceeds from these shirts will be going to the Vanchura family adopting Nugget! They need funds fast for a medical expedite. Please consider a t-shirt or donating to them directly - http://reecesrainbow.org/87854/sponsorvanchura-2

Yard sale time!

We got our USCIS Fingerprinting appointment letters and will be trying to get those done this week, plus a couple of papers apostilled to mail off. We should be submitted to our country's government somewhere around the beginning of October I think.

This week also starts our month (or more) long yard sale to raise money for our adoption. I will be working on artwork/quilting/crafts etc while sitting at the sale during slow times, but we hope to keep busy and raise a decent chunk. It's going to be HUGE as we have several families donating stuff they no longer need due to moves and such. Furniture, kitchen stuff, artwork, home decor, clothing, toys, kids stuff, sports equipment, homeschool books, etc!

We also applied to a grant organization and are working on applying to a few more.

We still need to raise a lot of money in a short amount of time, but God is bigger than this, and I know He will make it happen.

Still moving along!

We got approval on our commitment of "Sabrina" from her country today and our check was cashed at USCIS so we should be getting our fingerprint letter in a couple of weeks. We also paid another large chunk of our program fees today. So now we are working on the funds we need to raise. We need enough for Trip #1 at the least (which is about $4000) by Nov/Dec.

Here is a list of our newest fundraiser! Check out our Fundraising Page on FB for the full list and
share-able posts!

Another special fundraiser called "Show the love". Donate $10 or more to our Reece's Rainbow grant and you get the name of your choosing on 2 wooden hearts that will go in a picture frame to surround our sweet babies with love! Forward your receipt to EMail and lmk the name you'd like on them. It can be your name, family name, or even the name of a friend or loved one (in their honor or memory). This fundraiser will be ongoing until the frames are filled or they are home. See our blog or this page for updates and details. http://reecesrainbow.org/91944/sponsorkroll-2

Thank you!

Handmade Item Fundraising Auction

We are currently looking for items that are handmade to put in our auction for October. These can be things you made or that were made by someone else as long as they are in good condition. Some ideas would be crafts, paintings, sewn items, hair clips, artwork, quilts or blankets, jewelry, ornaments, games, etc! Even something sweet the kids made for us! If you are willing to donate an item please Email Me a picture, short description, your etsy/fb page/website link (if you have one), and suggested price.

We hope to run the auction through the month of October.
Thank you!!

Progress!! And new coloring pages!

Finally we have our approved home study in hand! And our dossier is nearly complete so we should have that finished up quickly. We are pretty much just waiting for our USCIS approval. Finally getting some progress that we have been fighting for!

And to celebrate, we have new coloring pages available! They are 5 sheets in a PDF file for $10. You can print them at home or for the cost of shipping I can print you a few on some heavier printing paper.

I have some more designs coming up for fall/winter but I'd like to sell the last 3 boxes of assortment #1 and the 30 or so singles that are left. So visit my Etsy shop!

Our second kiddo!!

We have had our commitment accepted by her country and have added this sweet girl to our adoption. We are so excited. I cannot wait to have them both home!!

Isn't she precious? 

God is so good. He never ceases to amaze me how he cares and the amount of perfect love & mercy he shows to us. He is the one who restores. She already has 3 totes of clothing , hair bows, barefoot sandals, and headbands ready and waiting. I will soon start on each of their "baby" quilts. 

The news that our paperwork was accepted came while we were at the Reece's Rainbow Reunion this past week. What a wonderful time to be surrounded by others that were almost as excited as we were. 

Color-Me Cards!

One of the ways we are trying to raise adoption funds is through the sale of my new line of cards. These are designed to color by either the giver or recipient! Coloring has been found to be very therapeutic by many studies, especially for adults, and who doesn't like to get a lovely card?

Lovely boxed sets ready for shipping on the right, and on the left are the singles in their plastic sleeves! 

These cards are all original designs drawn by myself and printed onto 5x7 greeting cards. They can be colored in pencil, crayon, or marker and used as gifts, art to display or send them uncolored and let the recipient color them! They are all blank inside and come with blank envelopes.

They come in premade Assortments of 10 for $25 (See above picture), custom assortments (you pick any 10 cards) for $30, or as singles for $4 each. Shipping is $6 for one set, $8 for 2-5, and $1 for singles (shipped free with a box set)

(To see all available designs: http://tinyurl.com/colormecards)

To purchase: Email at chookhenge@gmail.com for your total then donate the amount here: http://reecesrainbow.org/91944/sponsorkroll-2 and forward your receipt to me at the above email address!

Check out my Etsy Shop as well!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/Chookhenge