Thursday, January 30, 2014

Gong Hey Fat Choy




Chinese New Year has already began around the globe in our children's home country where it is already January 31st. Our Family will be celebrating tomorrow as this mommy tries to cook(experiment) some traditional Chinese dishes. The kids have there Year of the Horse shirts that they will proudly where tomorrow sharing with all that their brother and sister are in China waiting. I am taking a trip today with baby to the Asian Market to pick up some ingredients and maybe just take a look around. I have a lot to learn. I read today that Red is a color of Good Luck today and should be worn, also that if this is your year (Horse) you are to wear red underwear all year, (I seriously read that too). We are so excited for this first Fundraiser to bring our 2 China Song Birds home! We are lovingly calling this Fundraiser "Light The Sky for Hope" Chinese Tradition has it that on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year is the Yuan Xiao festival, also called the Lantern Festival.

We will be selling Chinese Lanterns for $6, we will gladly write a name or short phrase on your lantern and our goal is to Light the Sky on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year which happens to be Feb. 14th (Valentines Day).

We have 77 more lanterns to sell. We ask that payments be made to our FSP page (http://reecesrainbow.org/71271/sponsorlee) This is a tax deductible donation. After you have made your donation, please forward your receipt to (fostermummy1@yahoo.com) and include the name or short message you would like added to your lantern. We have scheduled the Light the Sky for Feb. 14th, but because of the climate we live in (the Great NW) and its unpredictable rainy weather we may have to be flexible! This will happen though and we will take pictures and hopefully even video to share with all to see. The location of Light the Sky will be announced for those that would like to attend. (Just FYI it is schedule for at the Oregon Coast)

Here is a picture of our little man last year celebrating the Chinese New Year!! His luck is so changing this year. A family that he does not even know about is working hard to bring him home. He is wanted. He is a Son and a Brother, a Grandson, Great-Grandson and Nephew!!! We can not wait to meet you little man! Gong Hey Fat Choy!

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Not the Why, But the Who


My Bible Study this session has me focusing on the Wonders of God. Turning from the Why to the Who. I love this passage that was in my study this week, "God doesn't ask us to deny our grief, but to seek Him in the midst of grief. The invitation to awaken to the wonder of God's presence remains -- even in affliction, even in loss, even in the pain. As we begin to seek Him, our focus shifts from downward, to upward, and from inward to outward.' (Wonder Struck by Margaret Feinberg)

It is a normal reaction when faced with a traumatic or even tough situation to directly go to the Why. Why me? Why Lord were you not there? Why did you allow this to happen? etc. etc. I have been there many times. See that negative test picture above? I can not tell you how many of those I have seen. It became and obsessive point in my life, that often I would see that test and get angry. I did not understand. My whole life I wanted to be a mother. I dreamed of it. I assumed it would be an easy process. Boy was I wrong. God had a journey for me that at the time I am not sure I could have said I was ready for, I would have never agreed to go along if someone had asked me or told me the plan. No way, not for me. Over the last Ten and half years though I have been blessed more then I could have ever imagined. Who knew that infertility could be a blessing. Now I would not have called it a blessing when I was in the midst of it, Doctor appointments, temping, planned "Dates" with the hubby! Life felt unfair at that time, I was focusing on the Why.

"Instead of focusing on the Why's of our life circumstances, God calls our attention back to Him and reminds us of the Who that controls everything."(-Margaret Feinberg) The Who, was always there. Was waiting for me to look up from my black cloud I had created around me to realize He had never left. I was so inspired by a verse today that is why this blog came to be. Psalms 113:9 He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord.(NIV) Now I know now that this is true as I am one of these women the Lord has blessed! Once I opened my eyes to Gods Wonder, we were blessed with our first daughter through adoption. Pure Joy she added to our life.



We loved every moment with our newest daughter and soaked up everything new about being parents. We also knew we would love more children. We continued to try and add a biological child to our family. After time again I was sucked back into the Why. Everywhere I went there were pregnant people. Or friends who told me they had been trying for a month. Ugh. It all got annoying and I could not understand why God would allow my body to not work the way it should. We did find out there was a medical reason that could be causing the infertility so I had surgery to have the issue addressed. Then my body was put on break for some time (Doctors Orders). During this time again I got out of my cloud as and said whatever is meant to be Lord. We were planning a big move cross country and I had other things that I started focusing on. Guess what God is a God of Wonder. He chose that time to Bless us again. This time with that positive test. I was in Awe of his blessing. His miracle. A baby for me. I felt honored. Our second blessing joined our family 9mo later. A healthy, baby boy.


It was all to much! The joy runneth over. We continued down our path of life, still talking about adding to our family, but never working very hard at it. We had decided at this point to put in God's hands. Now I will honestly say if I felt the slight sign I could be pregnant again, and saw that Negative. There was disappointment, and yes sometimes I slipped back into the Why, and forgot to look at the Who. We over the years suffered a miscarriage and you can read about that in an earlier blog post. That post was a big turning point for me also.

Here I am 6 years down the road from when my son blessed our lives. Guess what? God unexpectedly blessed us with another daughter through adoption. We are getting ready to celebrate her 1 year in our home. She has added even more joy. Seriously. Each kid brings their own level of joy. It is amazing!


Now as I focus during this Bible Study on the Wonders of God, I get even more excited about our newest journey in life. As we add 2 more children to our family. I am one of the "happy mothers of children" in the Bible that is spoke of. I will Praise the Lord, because I know WHO is blessing me. I know WHO is providing it all. Try as hard as it is when you find yourself in a rough spot to stop the Why and focus on the Who. He never leaves you. He is right beside you the whole way through. Seek Him. He is waiting.

Just because I posted a picture of all my other children. I will post a picture only of our future son since we have our Pre-Approval from China to do so. As far as our newest daughter please pray for her paperwork to be finished quickly.

Friday, January 24, 2014

In the Midst


We are full swing in the adoption mode now. This coming weekend we have our social worker coming for her first visit. We have worked hard and she has all the paperwork she needs (minus 1 reference, you know who you are, lol). So we are cleaning and prepping and getting ready for the questions that will be asked of us during our interviews. I am so glad we are not new to this process. We have had way to many social workers in our home over the years doing foster care and our adoptions. I do not really stress it to much. I do not go pulling my refrigerator out to scrub behind it, or anything to extreme. I just make sure the house smells good and looks clean and safe. Having children in the home now you can only stress over it so much right. It would truly not be a true picture of our home of toys were not scattered here and there. We want our house to look like children live there, that they are enjoying their time and play. I will do my best though right before she shows up to get all the last scattered things put where they belong. It will take some planning and prep of maybe a snack time happening right at the same time so that the messy tornadoes, I mean lovely children keep things where they need to be for at least the 5 or 10 minutes while the worker walks in and looks around. First Impressions make a difference right!



Other then cleaning, with our first agency fees paid we have received this big, fun, intimidating packet! The Dossier Guide. A Dossier is:
Dos·si·er
ˈdôsēˌā,ˈdäs-/Submit
noun 1.a collection of documents about a particular person, event, or subject.
"we have a dossier on him"
synonyms:file, report, case history; More

Reading through it there is so much to do, but I know we need to take it one page at a time. A friend suggested putting each paper in a plastic protective sheet and keeping it all in a 3 ring binder, so that is what we did and it seems to be working great! We have already received some fun documents in the mail our certified marriage certificate and K.C.'s birth certificate! I still need to go down and order mine. I will do that in person since we live close and it will save me the long turn around time. We will slowly collect all these forms. papers and documents and eventually a lot of them will need to be notarized, Certified again and then Authenticated. All this takes time and money.

So that is where we are at. Right now the big thing for us is getting the Home Study done. We will continue to fundraise while we wait. We have our Light the Sky fundraiser going right now if you read a few blog posts down or check out our facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/CrazyLeeFarm2 ).
We are selling Chinese lanterns to light the sky on the last day of the Chinese New Year which happens to be Valentines Day. Dedicate it to someone special. $6 donated to our FSP ( http://reecesrainbow.org/71271/sponsorlee ). Then email me the receipt (fostermummy1@yahoo.com) with your message you would like on the lantern!! We have 95 more to sell. Please help us bring our children home. I keep having thoughts that we will recreate the lantern scene from the movie Tangled (minus the obvious warm weather they had)!

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Thankful Thursday!

Thankful for Family!


Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Light the Sky for Hope


With Chinese New Year Approaching on January 31st, we are excited to announce our very first Fundraiser to bring our 2 China Song Birds home! We will lovingly Call this Fundraiser "Light The Sky for Hope" Chinese Tradition has it that on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year is the Yuan Xiao festival, also called the Lantern Festival.

We will be selling Chinese Lanterns for $6, we will gladly write a name or short phrase on your lantern and our goal is to Light the Sky on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year which happens to be Feb. 14th (Valentines Day).

We have 100 lanterns to sell. We ask that payments be made to our FSP page (http://reecesrainbow.org/71271/sponsorlee) This is a tax deductible donation. After you have made your donation, please forward your receipt to (fostermummy1@yahoo.com) and include the name or short message you would like added to your lantern. We have scheduled the Light the Sky for Feb. 14th, but because of the climate we live in (the Great NW) and its unpredictable rainy weather we may have to be flexible! This will happen though and we will take pictures and hopefully even video to share with all to see. The location of Light the Sky will be announced for those that would like to attend. (Just FYI it is schedule for at the Oregon Coast)

China Here We Come!!!



We are adopting again and this time our children were born far away from us so we must work very hard and travel very far to get them. They have been waiting a very long time for us also. We did not know they were waiting for us, but now that we do we will do what we need to do as fast as we can to get to them. We received PA (Pre-Approval) from China for our newest son on Dec. 20th. This was a very special Birthday gift/Christmas gift to me! What could be better then hearing the words you have been pre-approved to adopt your son! Here he is folks, the cutest little man you have ever seen!


So cute right! We can just tell from this picture that he will fit right in with our spunky, happy crowd! Plus he must like the outdoors by his creative hat, so he will have a lot of nature here on the Farm to make creative clothing with, lol!

We are in the thick of paperwork, Fundraising and Home Study updates!! We would love for you all to follow along on our journey of adding 2 more children to our family. We can not wait until we can announce who our newest daughter will be when the time is right! I am not the best blogger, but I will try to keep everybody up to date on what is going on. I know I love reading other peoples adoption blogs, lol!!

We could use all the prayer and support anybody would like to offer. If you would like to donate and help us bring our children home we have a FSP set up on the ReecesRainbow.com website. http://reecesrainbow.org/71271/sponsorlee

Just for fun a side by side of the brothers!! Cause they are going to be soooo much fun together!!