Some people

I guess I just need to vent. I am so tired of people saying rude comments about people who adopt several children. I get them from people at work and all sorts of other who knows what to call them. Yes when we started out our journey several years ago we wanted to grow a family. We struggled through infertility but knew whether children happened biologically or not I always wanted to adopt one child from China. I was not sure at the time why this was on my heart but of course I knew it was God's way of saying you are open to adoption so who cares if you don't have a biological connection to a child. Anyway yes Lennah came to be because we wanted to parent a baby desperately. I didn't think so much about the plight of orphans at the time because our goal was parenting.
It wasn't until Delylah that it changed and became more than parenting. Reading her story that a woman thousands of miles away could not keep her because of dire poverty. I am not sure if she knew that the orphanage that Delylah would go to had dirt type floors, dirty bottles piled up in a basin, or that she would suffer through a diaper rash so bad that she screamed when she was changed. She probably just wanted her baby safe and fed. I can't imagine what she struggled with making that heart wrenching decision. I also cannot imagine what Delylah endured her first few months with people running an orphanage on such little resources and I am thankful that she won't remember the pain she was in when she got a diaper change.
For us our goals for our family changed. We added 3 more at one time. Children who grew up with little hope. Yes even here in America there are children are struggling with abuse, neglect, and numerous other issues. I also cannot truly envision what it was like for our older 3 growing up with littl guidance, little nourishment, and little emotional support on a daily basis. Hopefully they will heal and be able to fully love themselves and not feel less than loveable because someone else could not love them the right way when they were little.
Again our goals for our family changed and here comes another child. I guess my vent begins here. We do what our hearts lead us to. Some of us are led in different directions than others and that is ok. When asked about donating to one cause today that I supported already this year monetarily I received some rude comments.
So here is a close transcipt of my conversation

Me- Do I still owe money on my pledge for your cause?

Co-worker- No I checked but you can still put that check towards it.

Me- I replied that I gave my pladge for XXX amount of dollars. Right now we are strapping the belt for the adoption ( Again I gave a fair amount of money over several months to their benefit).

Co-worker- why do you keep adopting kids.

Me- when there aren't 147 million orphans in the world.

Co-worker- you can't save them all.

Me- No I can't but I know there will be one less.

People need to champion for their causes and without support cancer research, orphans, battered women and numerous other vital organizations would fail to exist and humanity would suffer.But to me you need to give where you feel led. I pledged a specific amount to that charity because I know on a montly basis we support a few that we feel led by God to give to. I was just angered by his comment and it was not the first one I received at work. I am also amazed because today's comment and another one I received several weeks ago were from Christians. I am a proud Christian but comments like this give us a bad rap. God tells us to support the orphans and widows. We are doing what he commanded. You might not have to support it financially because of course it is not where someone feels led but on an emotional level, as a fellow Christian, you should be supportive because it is what God tells us to do.
Sorry I just felt the need to vent.

Just Waiting

Well we have a lot of waiting taking place right now. We have to wait to get pre-approval from China on the little one. Hopefully it won't take too long but because we asked for a medical update it may take a bit longer. So our agency told us to be patient. Definitely hard to do once you have a photo that already has your heart. Our little girl does have a limb issue and her right arm does not work properly. We just want to make sure that she is doing ok since her medical report was several months old.
We are also waiting on a trip to Ohio. I am going to be taking the big kids for a visit to their grandmother next week. It is definitely a worrisome time because who knows how they will feel about coming back. I can only imagine how hard it is to be away from them for a while; going back for awhile and then have to leave them again. Hopefully they will be ok. While I am in Ohio the little ones and myself will be visiting our friends the Sereikas. We have missed them deeply and have not seen them in quite sometime so it will be a wonderful reunion.
Lastly we are waiting for the end of the school year. Hooray. Only 39 more school days. Of course I am super excited because I too am home for summer break.
Lennah also had some fun this weekend at Zubin's birthday party. Unfortunately Delylah was sick and couldn't go but Lennah had a blast at catch air. It is a definitely a fun place for the little ones and will have to be a place we hit up again.

Yeah! We are putting in a letter of intent

Today we received a profile on a little girl and we accepted her. We will be putting in a letter of intent to be her family. Yeah! We are so excited. She is so beautiful and looks so much like Lennah when she was a baby it is uncanny. It was as if she was meant to be ours. It is going to take a while to bring her home since we now have to move our butts on getting our paperwork done but we knew it was the right decision.She is 15 months old and in inner Mongolia in the city of Hohhot. We have already fallen in love. She is so adorable but now we need to come to an agreement on a name. Hopefully we will decide soon. I cannot wait to post a photo apparently I am not supposed to until we receive PA so hopefully photos will be here soon.

Fundraiser

As everyone knows we have officially started the process to adopt little Paulsen #6 from China. Each adoption we have completed comes with incurred costs and sometimes they are a large expense. So we have decided to fund raise to help off set some of the expense. So please check out our store at www.adoptionbug.com/babypaulsen and check out our shirts that we are selling. Every little bit helps and they shirts are super cool.

Officially Accepted

Yesterday I received an awesome email. Our application was officially accepted by the new agency and so our journey officially began. We still have a lot to do before we can get everything done and over to China. Before we can even finish our homestudy we still need the big kids all finished up; which thankfully is not far away at all. We are meeting with our lawyer next week and then they file the papers with the court. Hopefully our county will get us a court date within 4-6 weeks. I know for Delylah's readoption we waited 8 weeks; which of course would stink because we cannot finalize our homestudy for our China doption without the big kids finalization. Well all is in God's hands anyway and he knows who our daughter will be. Yes we are asking for another girl. It will be crazy with another girl in the house but we are excited. Now if we could agree on some names that would be good. The kids have their opinions, daddy has his, and I just like too many names to pick just one.

Application in

We have been busy with everything on the homefront but yesterday we officially mailed in our application. We kicked around several agencies and it just drove me nuts trying to decide. I spoke with quite a few and had it narrowed down but we made a choice and hopefully it was the right one for us. We also sent in our stuff to start the homestudy. We can't conclude the homestudy until the big kids are officially signed and sealed which is still a few weeks away but we are all ready to go. I figure even with that hold up we should hopefully have a dossier in China within 6 months. YEAH we are making headway.

Decisions Decisions

We are still waiting for our final court date for the big kiddos. While I am passing time I have been searching and looking over agencies to begin our China journey left and right. Wow looking at all of them could be so frustrating. Who does what, who will work with us with 5 kids already, who does not charge outrageous agency fees? Finally it seems that we are settling on an agency we are being drawn towards. Now we just need to have the big kids finished up so we can start the paper chase. Hopefully Paulding County won't fail us once our lawyer files the petition and we will have a quick court date for Heather, Logan, and Zach.
It is hard to believe that I am now truly getting excited about a new child because I was really taken back by Keith's desire for another child when he approached me with it. I know I always had a desire for another opportunity to raise another baby but I figured we were pretty full with 5 and was ruling the idea out in my mind. It is crazy how in such a short time we have managed to become a family of 2 to a family of 7 and then heading into becoming a family of 8. God works in mysterious ways. Geesh who would think when you think your opportunity to become a parent may not exist and then you are just flooded with the opportunity. I am blessed beyond belief.

Are We Done Yet?

Mallorie, Lennah, Delylah, & Elana- A girls night

Happy Birthday Girls

Yes it has been a month and a half almost since my last post. I even missed posting on Delylah's birthday. It is so hard to believe my baby is 4 now. She has grown so much and becoming such a big kid. Gosh she says the funniest big kids things. You just have to love her. I also missed posting for the girls joint birthday party and Lennah's first sleep over so I am tremendouly behing.

The big kiddos are all doing well. We have Logan's birthday this month and his first sleep away trip with the science club at school. He is super excited. It is always great to watch the big kids get to do a lot of firsts that they never had the opportunity to do before.

But I am writing on another note we have decided to go for another baby. Yes it sounds crazy number 6 and no I was not planning on this until Keith brought it up. Yep it was his initial prompting that is leading us to this. But we have officially decided on adopting from China through their special needs program. We are still looking and comparing apples to apples when it comes to agencies. We are not in a rush so we do not have a child chosen already because we believe God will lead us when the time is right. But yes number 6.

Christmas

Keith & I before his company Christmas party

Nanny & Big Ba with the kids before Christmas eve service

Our little dancer Delylah

Zach at Church singing

Happy 5th Birthday Lennah

Wow it has been a busy time around here. November was pretty simple and just a good old typical Thanksgiving but once December came we were in full swing Christmas mode. It was also Lennah's birthday on the 1st of December. Wow I still cannot believe that she is now 5. I hate that my little girl has grown up so fast. It seems like time is flying by. We only had a small cake with my parents since we are doing the joint birthday party in another week for both girls.

The kids had several Christmas parties; which kept us busy in December. The best parties are the ones that mommy and daddy get to attend and I was fortunate enough to be at Delylah's balled Christmas party. The little girls did a little performance for us; which of course was adorable. Logan and Heather got to attend Logan's karate class Christmas sleepover party; which was a first sleepover for both of them. That party also took place on my birthday so my mom watched the 3 youngest so Keith and I could finally have a night out that was so ever deserved. Zach also had a singing performance with all the kids in children's church. This was so out of his comfort zone but he got up the nerve to go up on stage to do it. We were super proud of him for going out there to do it.

Christmas has already come and gone and it really was a memorable holiday. I just wish it would have been a white christmas like last year. The kids had an awesome Christmas. Everyone got everything on their list; which we really did want to give the older kids a great Christmas and the little ones of course got everything they asked for as well. Logan got his ever so coveted new laptop, Heather and Ipod, Zach a 3ds, Delylah got her Kanani American girl doll, and Lennah got her bitty baby. It was wonderful to see the look on all their faces. Mommy was also super happy with her new kindle fire. So all the way around we had an awesome Christmas.

We do need some prayers for some friends and family right now. We have a family member whose baby was born with some problems and is having surgery this week. I am keeping them in prayers for their little girl and we also have a friend who has cancer. So far her outlook is very good but I am sure they are having a difficult time with this right now. I am just asking for prayers to go out to these people right now.

October

Time flies when you are having fun and boy did we have a fun and busy October. I think we had something going on every weekend but the kids certainly had a blast. To start we went ahead and made a trip up to Ellijay and took the kids to an Apple Orchard. I think this may have been one of our best family outings yet. The kids loved getting to pick apples and I think they all had a blast shooting apples. I think the wait took longer than it did for each each of the kids to shoot their whole bucket of apples but they seemed to have a really fun time.They also had some really cool animals and we all loved chasing around the turkeys they had on the farm. I think this may become one of our new fall traditions with the kids.

We also took another day to head on down to the pumpkin patch. We always hit up the same pumpkin patch yearly but this year it was a first with all the kids. The kids all picked their pumpkins and all wanted face paintings and whole nine.

Another big day we had was Heather's birthday. It is hard to believe that I can actually say I have a 14 year old. Wow that makes me feel old. She was really great about actually sharing time on her birthday with our friends from adoption option. We had a blast at Donna's house and it made us happy that Heather said it was the best birthday she had ever had. I was actually worried about her not wanting to visit with friends on her birthday but she was actually super excited about it. Of course that was not the end of her birthday celebration because the next say we had my parents over to give her a family birthday cake. She loved all her gifts. Heather mentioned that she never had a robe before and that was one of the gifts we had gotten her and she absolutely thought it was the best gift ever.

WOW! the fun in October was still not over and the following weekend we had a fall festival in our neighborhood. It was actually really nice to have the kids meet more of the kids that live in the neighborhood. Logan met a girl in the neighborhood that he has now become smitten with. For the last 2 weeks all we have heard about has been Sarah.

We also had a party at Logan's karate school which was another fun night out for the kids. They got to play some cool games and just have fun with other kids. It really is nice seeing the kids finally start socializing more with kids their own age and finally taking the initiative to seek out friends.

This past weekend we also hit up the local trick or treat village at paulding meadows park. They had some really cool games this year and of course the kids got a ridiculous amount of candy.

Oh and before I forget Logan also moved up to a yellow belt this month. I think it was a huge boost for his confidence which he really needed. I don't think we have ever seen him gain so much confidence. Overall it was a great month. Now I am just getting ready for the christmas season. Yeah my favorite time of the year.