like father, like son

harper: "do you see my handsome eyes?"
me: "i do, those are handsome eyes!"
harper: "who do i look like?"
me: "you look like a handsome guy."
harper: "no, i look like jesus! and a little moses too."

not sure where moses came in, but if you gotta choose two guys to look like, jesus and moses are pretty solid picks! and for a kid who may always wonder who he looks like, it is nice to know that at 3 years old he already knows (at least in part) that he looks like jesus.

genesis 5:1 "when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God."

breathing into a paper bag and other fundraising excitement

i'm not sure what i expected, exactly, when we decided to try fundraising for this adoption. i couldn't even say what i was hoping for, or expecting, or even what i would have considered failure or success to look like. i just did not expect it to be this hard for me.

as it turns out... i am outrageously bad at this whole process. here are my reasons why:

1) i do not like asking for help.
2) i really do not like asking for money.
3) i hate personal rejection.
4) i can interpret almost anything as personal rejection. (this one may actually be a sickness, but i'll have to look into that further.)

based on these four things... doing a fundraiser is actually my personal nightmare. but, it's a little too late to change my mind, and a little too early to throw in the towel. so... we are selling shirts. and i am not handling it all that well.

i will say that the dress we are selling has had more than 650 views on our etsy site, and so many friends and family members have tried so hard to "spread the word" and elicit some sort of support. (i especially appreciate those that have tried verbally abusing people into purchasing something.) this makes me think that this can't be the worst decision we've ever made... that maybe it will prove to be a really effective fundraiser and we will be able to show our little one a list of every single person who helped us bring him/her home to our family.

until then, i am going to try really hard to meet the following goals:

1) do not live in a perpetual state of fundraiser-related anxiety.
2) trust the Lord to provide all the funds necessary to move forward with the home study, even if it is not through this fundraiser...
3) pray my way out of my personal rejection problem. (see #4 above.)
4) be patient. if more than 650 people looked at the cutest dress that ever lived... some of those people are going to buy it. (note to reader: if you view an item, but don't buy it... the seller may or may not interpret that as personal rejection. the seller is probably going to work on that, but in the meantime, viewer should consider purchasing the adorable dress, this would really help said seller to make some strides in his/her respective recovery.)

so there we are. i am in the stage of listing obstacles and goals. publicly. low point, for sure... but, i have vowed to keep people posted on this adoption journey and, unfortunately, the big update is that i am freaking out a little. that being said, i know that we are doing the right thing. adoption isn't for everyone, i get that, but for a baby who is born to some warrior of a women who loves her child with enough ferocity to give them the best chance at a good life... a family is a pretty basic gift we can offer. i know that despite all my hand-me-a-freakin-paper-bag moments... God is well pleased with our heart's desire to bring home one little baby who needs a family. and knowing that we are pleasing an all-powerful God, i've got to believe He is going to force some people to buy shirts from us.

answering the big question.

with our recent social media blitz promoting our adoption shirts, i have found myself answering a lot of questions in my mind that i assume people might be asking. one big question is this: if you already have 4 kids and can't afford the adoption fees... why would you adopt again?? some people have actually asked us that question to our faces, some have asked that question behind our backs, and some have asked themselves silently... i'm sure.

i understand the question... i really do.

i could get in to all the reasons we love having a big family, or how we have felt God tugging at our hearts, asking us to open our home to a child who needs one, and to trust that He will provide the funds to make it possible. i could explain why adoption is so expensive, and i could even break down our budget and spending, and explain why we don't have $15,000 just sitting around. but, i don't think that would really help anyone understand why we want to adopt again.

but, perhaps this will help.

today, harper came over to me, batting his long, curly eyelashes kinda slow, and said "(sigh) i just really love you." then he laid his head in my lap and sighed again, bigger this time. then he looked up at me with those huge dark eyes and said "i just can't believe you."

i laughed and said "i really can't believe you either, bud."

and he replied, "because i'm your wish come true?"

"yes, harper, you are."

so, maybe that explains why we want to adopt... yes, again. because since i was a little girl, i dreamed about harper. i dreamed and i wished for a child of my own, one that would not be born of my womb, but of my heart. i wished for that. adoption is the means through which our family has been made extraordinary and God is generous enough to call us into this process yet again. so whether we sell t-shirts or not, God will provide for this miracle of joining a "forever mama" with the babe of her heart.

pregnant on paper

so, it's probably obvious at this point that we started the adoption process again. my heart is so heavy for all things adoption: birthmothers, orphans, foster care, home visits, expensiveness, fundraising, profiles, speaking events, social workers, and on and on it goes...

it is exciting and scary to be back in the adoption game. the process this time around seems like it is going to be a long one. we simply cannot afford to move forward at this point (hence the mass social media blitz regarding our t-shirt and dress sales!) so, we are waiting on the lord to provide the funds we need to complete our home study. in order to proceed with this adoption, we need to raise nearly $7,000. and that is just for the home study. adoption is costly and we can't do it this time around without support. it is honestly my personal nightmare to ask for help from people, so my guess is that this experience will be very painful for me, but also growing.

last night i had an opportunity to speak at the sanctity of life celebration. it was an intense night to say the least... but a great time to share our heart for adoption. people always seem a little surprised that we are adopting even though we are able to have biological children. that is why i like the slogan on these t-shirts. adoption is the new pregnant. it's cute and catchy, but the real reason i love the phrase is because it reminds people that there is more than one way to grow a family, that adoption is just another way of birthing a child into your heart, life and family.

so, i think that adoption is, in fact, the new pregnant. at least it is for us. and i cannot wait to see what this journey will end up looking like for us. i plan to track any developments on this blog, so stay tuned! and thanks to my wonderful friends and family members who are being so helpful and supportive as we undergo this huge and exciting endeavor!

IMG00240-20110115-1623.jpg

Well, tonight is the night we are launching our etsy site to sell shirts, totes, and dresses to raise money for our next adoption. Tom and my bro-in-law jonathan are in the basement printing like wild. Here is a sneak peek at the totes drying on the line! They say "adoption is the new pregnant" and the shirts have the silhouettes of each of our kids across the bottom.

More info to come!

harpers goggles.jpg

We have been in Michigan for Christmas. The weather has been great for traveling: mild and clear as far as the roads go, but white and snowy enough to really feel like Christmas.

We packed up the kids gifts, and made the trek, first to Detroit to spend Christmas eve with my aunt Diane and my cousins, then to my hometown of Grand Haven. It was great to see my extended fam, but it was a short visit because we left that night to drive the last 3 hours to get to my mom's house so the kids could wake up there on Christmas morning.

We don't go wild with presents, but the kids really seemed to enjoy their new (or used) gifts they opened. They especially enjoyed a big box of glorious lady dresses that we called "pride and prejudice dress-ups." They are pretty hideous, with their huge lace collars and shoulder pads... But the girls think they are divine.

We spent the evening with my dad's side, and that ended up being an interesting evening, with Harper being sick and suddenly needing a breathing treatment from his nebulizer (which i left in his bedroom closet in New York.) I must say that it is very convenient to have an ER doc in the family when your son can't breathe after business hours on Christmas day. After one treatment, he was back to his crazy self and we ended up having a good Christmas with them.

After visiting my good friend Heather (who I haven't seen in nearly 3 years) we had our annual Cousmas party where all the cousins (and some of us grown-ups) had a dancing competition. Strangely, I got whooped by my brother-in-law Joe. This was unexpected for a number of reasons, which I shall list.

1) I am an excellent dancer, Janet Jackson would seriously ask me to tour with her if she only could see my moves. 2) Joe is a college football coach, and he looks the part, so not exactly a dancer's build. 3) While I am a natural, he looks like a gingerbread man when he dances.

Still, he beat me and the Wii game "Just Dance for kids" proved to provide great family fun for all ages. Just beware bc your competition make come down to the song "everybody dance now"and it is rigged, and the game appears to prefer movements that are jerky and gingerbready over expertly executed music video-style moves. I'm just saying...

We are wrapping our trip up with quite the grand finale, because while WE may not go overboard with gifts on Christmas, my mother, on the other hand, does... And her present for all the kids is a 3 day stay at Great Wolf Lodge. So, we are on our way now (another 3 hour drive north) to Traverse City, Michigan to GWL. As you can see from the picture, the kids are very excited. Harper has been wearing goggles since 8 o'clock this morning, despite the fact that we won't even arrive until 2:30pm.

@laracapuano