The Malefyt Family

WE'VE MOVED

2010-05-17T21:20:00.001-07:00

We've moved over to wordpress.
You can follow us at: malefytfamily.wordpress.com

More firsts!

2010-05-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

Olive's had more firsts this week...
She climbed all the way up the stairs multiple times! (12 stairs!)
and she walked with a walker on the treadmill in PT today.
She was positioned where she didn't have to hold weight, and the therapist did most of the leg moving - but she started to get the hang of it at times.
She walked the whole 8 minutes with out fussing too.

Olive's growing!

2010-05-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

Olive had her last ped apt until next year! She’s 33.5 inches and 23.5 pounds now!

Olive plays!

2010-05-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

Olive made another developmental milestone today...
She would mimic me by holding a teddy bear and 'loving' on it by patting it and rubbing it.
She also let me feed her a few small bites of chocolate ice cream from a spoon!
The majority of it drooled down her face, but she let me try!

Family Pictures

2010-04-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

We finally got family pictures taken... we've only been home nearly 3 months!
We were so blessed when my girlfriend Jen offered to take them for us.
The kids spent most of the time fussing, crying, and being frustrated.
It's a wonder that she was able to get ANY pictures at all.

Breakfast Feasting...

2010-04-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

The other day, we enjoyed breakfast for dinner.

And the kids and I termed it 'breakfast feasting' that night...

I enjoy making breakfast food for dinner every once and a while because it allows the kids to help in a safe way... as opposed to say, grilling.

So, we had a feast of huge proportions and snuggled down for the night with very full bellies.

The Girls' Birthdays

2010-04-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

The girls had their birthday party this weekend.
Evelyn didn't get much of a smash cake experience last year, but she wasn't having it this year either.
Olive wasn't sure exactly what was going on, and this was her first birthday celebration, so she was equally confused and thrilled.
She swiped anyone with in reach with her cake-covered hands.
Evelyn had had enough as soon as she was swiped.
Olive got extremely messy, and ended up having a bath in the sink right then and there.
They were both spoiled with gifts, and Ethan even got a big wheel too!
Olive met her Great Grandparents for the first time too.
It was a nice weekend.

Time out.

2010-04-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

Olive got her first time out recently...

She was put on this time out for repeatedly biting a cord after many attempts to distract and redirect her.

Doesn't she make time out cute?

Olive's first IEP.

2010-04-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

Olive's IEP was way longer than I anticipated - but it was good.

She is starting home services this friday.

She'll get 1 hour of one-on-one every week until this fall... when she will go to an adaptive classroom for preschool! She'll be there every day for about 2.5 hours a day.

I can't hardly believe it!

Olive's climbing!

2010-04-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

Olive climbed up the stairs today!
She got brave, and climbed up two steps with out my noticing at first.
But, after I redirected her, she went straight back to the steps, and did it again!
Only this time she went up 3/4th's of the way!
And she went back for more, and went all the way up!

Hair cuts...

2010-04-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

The girls' hair was getting out of control.

So, they both got hair cuts today.

Olive has little bangs now, and Evelyn's baby hair is pretty much all chopped off now.

To my surprise Evelyn's curls came back when I cut her hair.

Doesn't time fly?

2010-04-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

My kids are growing too fast!
Ethan is 3 and going to preschool this fall!
Evelyn is TWO today, and Olive just turned 4!
It's the hubbs birthday today too.
He's taking a well earned birthday nap, and has birthday lasagna (thanks to my mom ) in the refrigerator for dinner.

Date with Mommy

2010-04-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

Evelyn and I went on a date for lunch, and ran some errands.
She was such a doll and a pleasure to be with today.

Olive's pulling up..

2010-04-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

Olive's started to pull up on the edge of the coffee table... she's not cruising yet, but she's standing!

Ethan has it too..

2010-04-07T11:50:00.000-07:00

It's official... Ethan has pink eye too.
But, good news is that Olive's only lasted a few days and Evelyn's is almost better after 2 days, so hopefully Ethan's won't last long either.

In other news...
Olive is starting to stand for about a minute at a time when she's able to lean her back against my legs. She's mostly balancing on her own - and is totally carrying all her weight!

Evelyn woke up with Pink Eye

2010-04-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

4th Birthday at the ENT

2010-04-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

It's Olive's birthday today. FOUR YEARS OLD! We're celebrating in a couple weeks though...
So we spent the morning at the ENT office. She has completely flat reading - suggesting the hearing loss is legit.
They're putting her on an antibiotic that they likely didn't have in Serbia to see if it helps. If not - we'll be doing tubes.

First Birthday Celebration

2010-04-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

The Girls and Karl had a little birthday celebration at my grandparent's house this weekend.
And Olive had more firsts.
Her first time having someone sing Happy Birthday to her and her first Easter experience.
She was very confused, but she seemed to enjoy it.
She met her Pappy, Mammer, Aunt Jaime, Uncle Joe, and Uncle Brandon for the first time.
Her Pappy enjoyed styling her hair.

This was the first Easter that Evelyn and Ethan could really understand and enjoy.
They had a blast!
It was like a mini-Christmas.
I didn't expect for them to get so spoiled!

Sisterhood...

2010-03-31T18:27:00.000-07:00

Can you tell that Olive and her sister have a special bond?
Every day at some point, Olive and Evelyn will spend time cuddling and rolling around on the floor.

Evelyn likes to treat Olive as if she is her baby, and is a very good ‘mama’ to her... and luckily Olive tolerates it pretty well.

Olive is at 21.1 lbs now! That’s 6 weeks since we were in the hospital at 16lbs. and 5lbs of weight!
You can just see that she’s getting so much bigger, and stronger..

Olive will start all of her therapies in the next couple weeks as soon as insurance comes through, and will have a hearing test again with an ENT to determine if she really has the suspected hearing loss her first test suggests.

We’re all doing pretty well over here - and I’ll have some more pictures to put up soon!

Not real happy...

2010-03-26T19:43:00.000-07:00

We just got news that Karl is getting pushed out of his current position in to a second shift position.
When we have two of the kids starting preschool this fall - we will have hardly any time as a whole family.
I feel it's unfair and that one of the other employees with no young children should have been moved, not him.
It'll be completely unacceptable when all three kids are in school full time....

Shocking...

2010-03-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

The house is so dry that as the kids 'hide' under their blanket, I can hear all the shocks their giving each other... lol

Hearing...

2010-03-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

So here's the scoop on Olive's hearing evaluation.
The test suggests that she has fluid built up and mild to moderate hearing loss because of it.
We're going to a peds ENT to verify the suspicion, and he thinks that tubes will be in our future.
She tested again around 10 months for her last physical therapy evaluation... and we are most likely going to start doing some home services this spring.
Hopefully we'll get her in to an adaptive classroom for preschool this fall for at least a year.
And in other good news - you can't see her ribs when she lays down anymore!
And she's moved up to size 12 pants already!

Discipleship

2010-03-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

I take a little bit different of an approach when it comes to discipleship with my children.
One way that I'm different than most parents is that I don't force them to pray at certain times, or certain ways, or even force them to participate in prayer if they don't want to...
I want my kids to have an authentic faith of their choosing, not just do things because that's what they were taught to do.
Having said that, Ethan has been praying on his own, and asking us to pray with him with out any prompting.
I have to say it's an amazing feeling to know that your child is acknowledging and reaching out to his creator on his own accord, in his own way, on his own time.

Karl and iron Man

2010-03-21T19:33:00.000-07:00

Great news!

2010-03-19T19:31:00.000-07:00

We've been home for five weeks today!

And I'm STILL catching up and trying to get in to a routine!

The real question is.... will I ever?

I got some great news yesterday though.

The Same & Ellie Fund received a $5,000 donation the weekend we shared with our church!

That's exactly the amount of our grant!

God is good!

Two weeks gone by already?

2010-03-19T18:20:00.000-07:00

It’s much harder to get online than I anticipated.
We have a very busy house right now.
I do think that it will get significantly less busy and chaotic as we all settle in to our new routines, officially catch up on everything, and have all of the initial evaluations and paperwork for Olive done.
Maybe I’m delusional - but that’s what I’m hoping for!

As you can see from above, Olive really enjoys her splashing time! It’s a tight squeeze to get three toddlers in a bath - but they all seem to really enjoy it! Olive’s goal is to get as much water out of the tub as possible. lol. But she REALLY hates having her hair washed and rinsed.... she’ll get use to it sooner or later though ;)

Olive has had 5 evaluations since she left the hospital a couple weeks ago - and everyone seems to agree she is functioning roughly around the age of a 9-10 month old. She has what’s called an even profile, meaning that she’s functioning around the same level in all areas of development. She is gaining skills very quickly though - and I think with in a month - she will be functioning around 12/13 months... because right now she’s gaining about 2 weeks for every 1 weeks times. Praise God! She has also gained right around 5 lbs since she left the hospital too! She is about 21 lbs now! We were very excited about that.

Karl and I were asked to speak in front of our church last Sunday about our adoption and the fundraiser we were doing for FOP’s Sam & Ellie Fund.
We hesitantly said yes, because I am NOT comfortable with speaking in front of an audience... but Karl agreed to talk for me, which took a load off of my shoulders.

Until he became very sick the day before!
I had about 3 hours to prepare to speak - which was definitely not enough time to mentally prepare anything for me! We tried to call around to see if anyone else could take over for us, because he was too sick, and I was just plain too nervous - but apparently God wanted me up there. Because we couldn’t reach anyone.

So, I ended up speaking at all three services, and I was so nervous that each and every one came out completely different.

During the Saturday night service (which is a little more laid back) we tried to bring the kids up with us, and it ended up being quite comical (or disastrous, however you want to look at it). Olive kept signing for the pastor to pick her up, and Evelyn (who was on my lap) kept saying “I want down”, and Ethan refused to leave his seat in the pews. Then once we were up there... started yelling “dad...DAAAD. Dad. DAaaaad...” and on and on... which stressed me out, and I totally fumbled everything I wanted to say.
The Sunday services weren’t half as bad, but I still kept leaving parts out due to being nervous and feeling pressed for time....
But apparently it wasn’t as awful as I imagined it to be, because we did get a lot of encouragement after every service, and God must have used us in some way - because donations were coming in for our flower fundraiser!
Someone even pledged $5,000! How amazing!
God is good!

This next week we have her hearing test, and her last PT evaluation for the public schools. We have ped appointments for the other two buggars, and we’re going to be applying for Olive’s social security number. We’re volunteering for our church’s flower fundraiser again this weekend, and I’m hoping to put my house back together (as we rearranged this past week) too. Looks like it’s going be another busy one!

Oh, and we got an EXCELLENT deal on a used car, so we have two cars now, Olive has been put on medicaid, and her parasite tests for her yucky diapers came back ok :) God is good!

She's growing!

2010-03-16T19:27:00.000-07:00

Olive has gained almost 3.5 pounds in the last 2.5 weeks!

We have been told she's anywhere from 9 to 10.5 months in her development since she's been home from the hospital.

She's gained a whole 6 weeks development in about 4 weeks! Yay!

Everyone seems to think that she is going to keep progressing quickly.

We've had PT, OT, Speech & Feeding Evaluations and have our hearing test to do next.

We'll also possibly have another PT evaluation at a different place too.

Now we're just waiting for insurance to come through!

We're requesting home services from the school system too, despite her age.

Oh, and she also got her certificate of citizenship yesterday!

And I made our new networking card:

Caricatures...

2010-03-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

We had our caricatures done on a whim the other day...
We went to the mall to play at the play place, and there was a craft fair.
We thought it'd be a fun way to celebrate our new family of 5.

A glimpse...

2010-03-11T19:20:00.000-08:00

So, let's share a glimpse in to my day right now...

Evelyn is walking around with my bra on over her pajamas (she put it on!),

Ethan is laying down on my lap going, "mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy...",

and Olive is waving to me from the floor, while she grinds her teeth with no pants on and double diapered because she's been pooping through EVERYTHING!

While I figure out scheduling for her appointments and all the things that need to be done...

Love it!

And Karl says, "...well at least the day is normal." haha

1 month from Gotcha Day!

2010-03-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

I can’t believe that it has been 1 month since we brought our little princess home to our apartment in Europe!
Oh my, does time fly!

Olive had her first of many therapy evaluations.
We are so blessed to live only 20 minutes away from an excellent children’s hospital who has wonderful out patient therapy service - and they even valet your car for free!
Olive tolerated the evaluation MUCH better than I had thought she would.
We were suggested to do joint compressions every 2 hours, to encourage her to rise up to her knees as often as we can while correcting her wide gate, and just try to keep her mobile.
They are going to try hip huggers, and a some sort of sensory vest next time.
We have her PT,OT, & Speech evals at the local public school provided service, Ken-O-Sha this coming monday and we have her OT & Speech/Feeding evals the following monday.
We sold our second vehicle to help finance her adoption a while ago, and so it’s definitely tough getting to all of the appointments with one car - I’m so thankful that my dad has been helping out a lot! And also very thankful that we have WONDERFUL friends that have been brining us meals every other day since we’ve been home from the hospital.
It’s such a HUGE blessing to not have to worry about what’s for dinner after such a long day.
I am sure that soon it will just feel routine to take care of all three kiddos, keep up with the house, have dinner on the table, and keep up with all the paperwork and appointments... but it’s quite tiring for right now.
Adding a second car is definitely going to help.

Olive has been having a lot of yucky diapers and some reflux issues with her thickened pediasure - does anyone have any suggestions? It was just fine to start - but it’s just started to be a problem this week...
I will hopefully get some direction from speech and feeding next week - but was hoping to figure something out before then..

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful week!
I sure had a blessed day when I came home to a clean house from hubby!
God is good!

Settling Down a bit...

2010-03-02T18:16:00.000-08:00

Things are starting to get more in to a routine around here - but there doesn’t ever seem to be enough time to really get caught up fully!
Olive had her follow up appointment from the hospitalization the other day, and the Doc said that she is just fine - and just needs to gain some weight.
She gained the 2lbs that she lost while in the hospital, and is back at 18lbs. He said she needs to hit about the 25lb mark before we can stop worrying about her gaining more weight.
We have her PT Evaluation this Thursday at DeVos Children’s Out Patient Center. They said that they would submit it to our insurance and hope for the best. So, we’re really hoping they’ll cover it.
Unfortunately our insurance is changing in April to a high-deductible plan, so we’re seeing other ways to insure her - to make sure that she is able to get all the best services that she needs.

She is definitely starting to show preference for us, and wanting to enjoy her siblings.
She is starting to seem much more comfortable and happy with her new routine.
She really enjoys cuddling and always wants to be held and entertained... which is a good thing.

She’s definitely going to be stubborn. She already shows signs of being stubborn at the therapy sessions she’s already had, and when I try and encourage her to crawl, sit up straight, or bear weight on her legs. She is just like her mama and doesn’t want to do things just because she’s told ;)

We love her, and I am so thankful to God that he brought her in to our family.

Sleep and Clean is hard...

2010-03-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

So, I'm convinced that I will never really catch up on the house.

We've been home for about two weeks now - and it still looks as messy as it ever did!

I swear, for every mess cleaned up, two are made.

Today, I shamelessly employed Ethan's help cleaning in the kitchen in return for puppy show.

In this case, I am pro child-labor! (kidding.)

Sleep is also very hard to come by.

With Karl to my right snoring away, and Olive to my left grinding away... it's hard to actually get in to a good sleep pattern.

I am *this close* to getting some ear plugs.

Hospital Updates from Facebook

2010-02-28T18:12:00.000-08:00

I was really awful at keeping up with journaling - so I am posting my facebook statuses from after we got home...

Feb 12:
We're home! :) Does anyone have any Old Navy brand 6-12m shirts or sweaters we might be able to borrow? They seem to be the ONLY thing that fits her strange proportions.

Feb 13:
My body still wants to be on EE time. I couldn't barely get my body to keep sleeping after about 3AM (even though I had only slept about 10 hours in the last 3 days) which was 9AM in EE.

I LOVE having a child that takes naps and sleeps 11 hours at night!

Feb 14:
If you could pray with us that Olive will take a bottle and use the bathroom after her second nap of the day - it would be much appreciated!

We having to take olive to Grand Rapids Area Pediatric Evening Service for dehydration and no wet or soiled diapers - please pray with us that this wont be too scary for her and that she will be ok. thanks!

So we were on our way out of the door after the kids got up from their late nap, and Olive pooped! She only took about 4 ounces since - but I'll take it! We aren't going to take her in to the after care center tonight as long as she stays happy and alert.

Feb 15:
Olive is on her way to an urgent ped apt with Karl because she is severely constipated. We thought we were good after last night - but now that she got all her gas out last night, you can feel that she has a serious issue through her belly - you can nearly SEE the issue. She is slipping in and out of their weird daze/half sleep, and I think it's due to dehydration. If you could pray with us - that'd be great!

Karl is convinced that Olive is just extremely stressed out and over stimulated. So we are going to let her nap as long as she needs - she's going on about an hour and a half now. And when she gets up we will see if she will eat.. if not we may be going to the ER tonight.

I think it's a combination of a lot of things, the flight, the complete change in her food and schedule, the over stimulation of all the visitors, the vaccinations, and pokes at the doctors.. etc. I'm not so concerned about why it's happening, more that the dehydration doesn't get too bad. unfortunately there's not much we can do about most of the stuff anymore - just try and give her a quiet couple of days.

Our doctor called - she said that Olive's blood sugar is extremely and dangerously low and that we need to take her to the ER right now, and put sugar under her tongue. She said she doesn't know why - it could be a metabolic issue. But we'll find out more when they run tests on her there. The pediatrician sounded panicked. Which has me feeling panicked. Please pray for us!

Her sugar was 17. Now it is 35. They are going to check her again in a while. She was extremely upset and is sleeping now.

phone is going to die. sugars are coming up. were at 50. she's awake and actually looks alive. contact me in Karl’s phone and look for updates in his Facebook.

I am on wifi at the hospital now. She is SO cranky, and SO tired, and SO hating every one right now :( Her sugars dropped significantly again - and they don't know why. She has been getting glucose in her IV so they shouldn't have dropped. That points to something metabolic unless it was just a fluke.

Olive has another blood draw in about 20 minutes.. praying it comes back normal!

she is at 52 still... waiting for the nurse to find out what’s next

they are upping her dextrose level to 10% to see if she responds to that.. its appropriate and not unreasonable since she is not eating anything still.
They have a TON of labs they are going to run in the morning, and still waiting for results for some tonight.
It's still possible that it is just stress related. We'll get a echocardiogram tomorrow, along with a speech therapist to help with the eating issue, we'll also be seeing an endocrinologist too. They're going to be drawing blood every 2 hours for glucose testing. please pray for her - as she is already not tolerating it well now.

as soon as I finally get her to sleep after her last sugar - someone calls the wrong number at 2 in the morning! And then proceeds to try and explain to me who they're trying to get ahold of and get that number from me.... i try and tell her it's a patient room and she needs to call the nurses station. She then asks me to give her that number... haha. I don't know it's 2AM and now I have a screaming baby on me! Olive's last blood sugar was 89 - just above acceptable.

this blood sugar was 109. She hasn't hardly slept at all yet. I am SO exhausted, and would give ANYTHING for an hour of good sleep right now. I asked if they could give her something to help her sleep... she didn't think so. here's to hoping.

that would be a no :( but we have added a GI consult tomorrow to our laundry list of things to do.

Feb 16:
Her sugars are responding well so far, she has been at 178 and 151. I'm hoping when they test her again in about 20 minutes that it's not going down again. She didn't sleep more than a few minutes per hour last night - and neither did I. Every time she would settle enough to get tired, they'd come back again and get her worked up.

This morning she had a horrible phlebotomist. I wish they would learn to listen to the mothers. I told him the vein he was going to try collapsed last night - and I didn't think he'd be able to get enough from it (needed min 14cc) - and of course after 5cc it collapsed. He then proceeded to dig around to find the vein next to it. Mean while Olive is literally shaking involuntarily and has a HUGE BM from the pain. At one point she looked like she wasn't there any more - which really scared me. He pulled out and I asked him to get a topical spray for the next one, because he was going in RIGHT next to the vein he just collapsed... and he wouldn't. I was fuming. What do you know - that one didn't work either. (listen to the mothers!). So then he proceeded to go in her hand. She got so worked up and upset it wasn't even right - she was looking right through me, something wasn't right. It was awful. After that, I swaddled her and thank God she went to sleep.

Her pediatrician came in and said that no one seems to be able to come to agreement on what it could be. No one feels confident in one thing over another - but they're still leaning towards something metabolic because her sugars stayed so low for so low even with treatment. All labs are coming back clean right now -but they ordered a whole lot more this morning. I am praying that now that she's finally A SLEEP, and she had the BM, that maybe she will take a bottle when she wakes up....
Doc said we'll be here at least 2-3 days, and quite possibly longer.
Please pray for me to be able to handle all this - I am NOT good with needles and seeing my kids in pain.
And please pray for Karl who has to still go to work during all of this even though he wasn't nothing more than to be here with us.
And please pray for our kids that they won't get too upset that after just getting their mom and dad back, we're gone again.

Olive's blood sugar is back to 83. JUST above 'ok'. But the nurse didn't seem thrilled that in 3 hours she went from 151 to 83 still getting the same amount of sugar...

Olive's sugar went back up to 108 - which is perfect. Thank you for praying! Here's hoping she stays there for next time!

She ate about 4 ounces with out protesting! And her sugars have been ok for now. The plan is to treat her for Ketonic Hypoglycemia unless labs come back different tomorrow.

We'll have to take her blood sugar frequently, have strict feeding schedules, and treat her according to her blood levels. If she refuses to eat, she will quickly go ketonic again -and we'll be back in the hospital for fluids. So, here's hoping she decides she's going to eat again and not pull any more eating strikes anytime soon. She's actually giggling with Karl and seems to be in much better spirits. Hopefully we'll only be here a few more days. Unfortunately from thrashing all night long and all day today when they were drawing from her - she has dreaded about six dreads on the back of her head :(

Feb 17:
We have had a VERY busy day today. Olive had an ECHO today - and they found out her heart is worse than what we were expected. She has and ASD like we thought, but it WILL need to be repaired. She also has a PDA, but it's not going to need to be fixed. They will try and repair the ASD with a patch, with a process that's not super invasive (not open heart) and would only require a day or two in the hospital. The doctor who saw her said he's done TONS of them, and it's not a scary process. If the ASD continues to grow with her, and it's not able to be fixed by a patch when they schedule her (she needs to grow) - then she will have to have open heart. We hope that won't be the case.
We also got her medical report and it had different information than we were told. She was admitted at 18 months and not 8 months old. Also she was born with inter-cranial hemorrhages and swallowed meconium, and was septic. She also has an issue with her brain, being Asymmetric lateral ventricles,right 9mm,left 5 mm in the frontal horns. Which is Chinese to me - so a Doc will hopefully fill us in soon.
She is eating now and took 9oz tonight, and her sugars are staying level. So, if she continues to eat well, we might be able to go home tomorrow or the next day :)

olive took 10oz!

She is starting to be happier!

Feb 18:
Olive is going to get a Sedated MRI if they are able to fit her in to check for a brain abnormality that was documented but not followed up on in Serbia. If they can get her in, we'll go home tomorrow. If they can't - we'll have to do it outpatient in a couple weeks, and we'll go home tonight (assuming she eats well)

Olive is showing signs of being stressed today. She hasn't stopped grinding, biting her fingers, and pulling on her hair since she woke up. I think what ever tolerance she had for all of this is GONE. I am asking the RN if we can just plan on deferring the MRI.

Well unfortunately they're not going to push off the MRI. It'll be done tomorrow sometime. She's an add on - so I'm hoping sooner than later. As long as she does well they'll let her go home once she's recovered.

I have an amazing husband. He took work off tomorrow so I could go home and see my kids and sleep at home. I didn't even hint or ask!

Feb 19:
they keep failing at getting an IV even with a nicu nurse. I am starting to get upset. if they don't get it figured out soon I'm calling it off

I ended up telling them that they could not try again until they put her under the gas. Everyone said that she has the hardest veins. But its still not fair to put her through that. She's having the MRI now. Hoping to hear she's doing well and ready for us to see her in the next half hour.

she is doing well and we should be able to go back in about a half hour.

She's back in the room with us. She's eating. And I am praying they will send us home in the morning, and not bug her too much tonight. She's had enough - and I've certainly had enough of seeing her stressed out.

Olive has eaten 21oz since about 4:30pm! Not bad!! We'll find out the MRI readings tomorrow and will hopefully be going home in the afternoon.

Feb 20:
Doc Hoffman came in and said to let her go home!!!!!

Olive learned her 4th sign - she is now signing Daddy, Eat, More, and Up with consistency! She is going to be drinking Pediasure all the time - so if anyone has any left over that's still good, we'd be happy to take it! Or if you have coupons - we'd love those as well! We're waiting for daddy to show up, and we'll be heading home! Yay!

olive is one HAPPY girl now that she is home! And we are SO thankful for everyone's support. Truly!

Just poked Olive for the first time for sugars. Not bad at all. The needles that we are using are so tiny, she barely flinched. Whew!

Feb 22:
I am officially on my first day's duty home alone with all the monsters. Things are going well.. having foster kids helped prepare us for life with 3. And taking care of the kids is not a big deal at all - but keeping up with their messes is! Re-training them that mom and dad don't take the whining and persistent bugging is going to be a challenge too..

Meant to update that today Olive's ped. secretary said that the MRI came back, and "it won't require further medical treatment". Not sure the details yet - but that's good!

I kid you not - Ethan said to me today "Can you go to ******* and get me a brother?" He is very very proud to have 2 sisters. He tells everyone he knows. But, he has been talking A LOT about a foster boy we had about a year ago, and asking if He can have a brother too. lol. I think it'll be a bit before we start talking about adding another - but I think Karl and I both know that we'd like to add another angel with DS to our family sometime, and perhaps it will be a boy!

She's a stubborn one!

2010-02-24T19:04:00.000-08:00

I have an incredibly stubborn little girl in the crib next to me, who is doing EVERYTHING she can to sleep right on top of me.

I just may give up!

Who can refuse such sweet efforts, even if it means giving up more of my precious sleep.

In other news, we're finding out that she is wearing mostly 6-9 clothing, and size 1.5 shoes.

I didn't know it was possible for a nearly 4 year old to be so small!

Olive's persistent..

2010-02-24T10:56:00.000-08:00

I have an incredibly stubborn little girl in the crib next to me who is doing EVERYTHING she can to sleep on top of me.... I just may give up.
Who can refuse such a sweet efforts, even if it means giving up more of my precious sleep.
We're finding out that she wears mostly 6-9 month clothing and size 1.5-2 shoes!
How is it possible for a near 4 year old to stay so small!

The last couple days...

2010-02-23T19:03:00.000-08:00

I have been going to bed to the sounds of snorting and grinding on one side of me, and snoring on the other....

And I wonder why I'm still tired in the morning!

I'm glad I've been checking Olive's sugar before bed.

Tonight it dropped below acceptable and she needed a bottle right away.

I guess she needs to eat RIGHT before she goes to bed.

A brother...

2010-02-23T19:00:00.000-08:00

I kid you not - Ethan said to me today, "Can you go to Serbia and get me a brother?"

He is very proud to have two sisters, he tells everyone he knows.

But, he has been talking A LOT about a little foster boy we had about a year ago, and asking if he can have a brother too.

I think it'll be a bit before we start talking about having another though.

But, I think Karl and I both know that we'd like to add another angel with Down syndrome to our family sometime - and perhaps it'll be a boy!

So sorry!

2010-02-22T18:44:00.000-08:00

I am so sorry for leaving everyone hanging!

We had Olive in the hospital all week - and we are just starting to catch up enough to get our heads on straight over here.

I meant to have been blogging - but it's just been too busy!

Hopefully soon!

Olive is doing well now - and I will update soon :)

Bonding...

2010-02-17T19:10:00.000-08:00

Olive is starting to show some signs of bonding with her siblings this morning...

She is trying to cuddle them on the bed.

We're leaving!

2010-02-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

We are leaving at 4:20 AM from the apartment to go to the airport.

Talk about EARLY!

But, I am SO glad to be getting home.

We have 4 hour lay overs for each one - so hopefully we won't have to rush like crazy people like we did before.

But, I am concerned about Olive on the flights, and during that holding time for the lay overs.

Her patience for waiting rooms has gotten shorter and shorter every time we've taken her out - so hopefully she won't view the airplane as one big annoying waiting room in her mind.

We're praying that everything will go smoothly, and that before we know it - the traveling will be nothing but a memory!

Welcome home party!

2010-02-10T04:18:00.000-08:00

email savingolive@me.com if you'd like our address :)

Not able to leave...

2010-02-08T23:19:00.000-08:00

I am so bummed - we're not going to be able to leave until Thursday.

There were flights out on Wednesday, but they were very limited, and they would have cost us about $360 more to leave (minimum). Not really possible.

The kids are at home with RSV, and I can not wait to get to them.

Ethan has been crying and overly sensitive, and Evelyn is not interested in seeing us on the computer much - so I miss her very much.

We are going to be doing the medical exam this morning, and then some legal documents at the lawyers after that - and then we have our embassy interview.

I am praying it all goes smoothly.

I'm praying that we'll be able to find a quick (cheaper) flight out than Friday afternoon, because I am so ready to come home - and I can't barely stand to be away from the kids and my house and family an extra hour longer than what's needed to get our adoption done (which will probably be this afternoon!) I'm also praying that Olive will travel well.

She's and antsy girl that does not like to be still for very long. I am not sure how she'll handle the flight.

Praying to leave Wednesday!

2010-02-08T05:19:00.000-08:00

Karl is going to get the passport with Jasmina right now, and we have our physical exam for Olive tomorrow morning at 9:15. I have been trying to get ahold of the Embassy worker to set up our appointment with them around 11:15 - but haven't gotten through to him yet. Praying that we do soon! If he can get her Visa back to us same day (he said he was pretty sure he could) then we are going to plan on leaving Wednesday! Yay!

I AM SO READY TO SEE MY KIDS!

This weekend was a wonderful time of bonding with Olive.

Karl and I were talking - and we can both honestly say (and no, not just to put on a good face) that she already feels like our daughter to us through and through.

My heart melts and aches for her when she starts to pout, and I feel just the same about her as I did for my other kids shortly after their births. Her slobber and goobs don't even bother me ;)

I prayed, and prayed, and prayed some more that God would allow my heart to be filled with maternal love for her regardless to what ever issues she may come with - and He has been so good to us!

He has shown us His favor through out this entire adoption - and we are so grateful and hope that you will see HIS Glory and Power in our story. Because none of it was done on our own strength.

Most of all I pray that you will see that if WE can do it - anyone can, with His help.

Honestly, we have a modest income, we are young, we don't have 'all our ducks in a row' (I wish!), we didn't always have much support in our decision, we have young children, and no special credentials to make us superb adoptive parents - and yet we've done it. And we've enjoyed it!

I pray that people will see the GREAT need for orphan care and adoption - and that people will step outside of their comfort zone and do something to further the Kingdom and provide for 'the least of these'.

I hope God will use our story to move people to change the life of 'one more' orphan at a time.

And I pray we get home soon!

Amen!

Today is 2 weeks :)

2010-02-06T04:13:00.000-08:00

Today is our two week anniversary of being in Serbia...
We have only known Olive for 12 days, but she already feels like my daughter.
It's pretty neat. I think she likes us too.

Today is SUPER windy outside, 30 something mph winds - so we're staying in.
Olive seems like she's worked out a bit of her anxiety about being in the apartment yesterday, lots of lovely teeth grinding, snorting, and sticking her had down her mouth.
Today she's doing much better - but it's been pretty low key.

She still grinds when she's bored though...
She gets upset when you don't pay attention to her, or if you try and leave her in the room by herself even for a few minutes.
I think she will REALLY enjoy having siblings - she shows a lot of interest and excitement when she sees other kids.

We weighed her today, and she is 18lbs. She was last measured at about 31" ... She is the length of an average 18 month old, and the weight of a 7 month old. I knew she was long and skinny, but it's strange to see it in those terms.

Oh, and one more thing - she is the FARTIEST baby ever!

We're praying for us that Olive's grinding, and over-stim behaviors won't bother us. We've been just fine so far, but hope to continue to be. And obviously, one step better would be for her to cope well, and not need them.

Now here to the pictures:

Playing on the floor the first night 'home'

This picture is a little hard to look at, because she's so tiny. But I wanted a picture to have reference of where we all started together- and to celebrate her chubbs when she gets them!

First shower :)

Pretty girl

Giving TaTa a RARE kiss

She still loves to slap daddy's head

Signing to be picked up...

Being silly on the couch..

Video :)

2010-02-05T05:44:00.000-08:00

From the first night here :)

Olive is making emotional leaps and bounds!
She has learned how to cry when she misses one of us, or doesn't like what we're doing.
It's the saddest face I've EVER seen.
She also has learned that if she likes something, she should smile, laugh, or ask for more.
One thing she still hasn't gotten, is to cry when she is hurt.
She gave her self a bonk on the head this morning on the hard wood floors, and even I would have cried from it.
But, no response from her at all.
I'm confident she will learn that soon too.

She has been eating pretty well.
She refuses to eat if it's not pretty warm though.
We learned that the hard way, after we wasted two bottles. :)
We're going to take her out the first time as ours!
We are going to get an early dinner, and do some exploring.
We haven't had time to do that yet.
We have been too busy to do much of anything so far - but this weekend will be a wonderful time to catch up!

Karl got pooped on this morning! lol.
Olive pooped for the first time for us, and she has newborn poop in every way. And just like newborn poop - it leaked out of the top and sides of her diaper. Ohhhhh the days of having a 'baby' again! We did find out that size 4 diapers are HUGE on her. They looked ok until the poop. When I folded the diaper to be the right size - and she definitely wears a size 1, or 2.
We brought cloth diapers for her too - but those are most certainly too big. Maybe if we super, duper, super stuff them.

Olive got extremely mad at me this morning... I brushed her teeth, put her in the shower with me, and then cleaned her ears. She was pretty good while it was going on - even giggling in the shower. But when it was all said and done, she was way over stimulated, and cried when I looked at her... it took a nap and some cuddles to get her to 'forgive' me. But she's all smiles again.

She's here with us!

2010-02-04T12:15:00.000-08:00

Today was a LOOOONNNNGGGGG day!
We had the ceremony, and did a ton of running around and waiting in different offices to get the paperwork done.
We were 'this close' to not being able to bring her home with us tonight - but thank God I pushed a little, and our facilitator let us bring her home!
She had A GREAT start and did very well.

She seemed like she was making herself right at home.
But this evening as things wound down, and we tried to get her ready for bed - the teeth grinding started.
It's obviously related to anxiety, and hopefully it won't be a major continuing issue.
We tried laying with her to put her down, but she wasn't having it.

We learned tonight that she need to fall asleep by herself.
We will slowly try and adjust her to accepting more snuggles during bed time.

But didn't want to push it her first night.

There is A TON to catch up on.

Things have just been so busy, and I make a mental note to be sure to blog about this or that - and then forget!
I need to start writing it down.

So here are some things that come to mind:

There is a very nice restaurant behind the orphanage. It's a diamond in the rough. Jasmina can point you to it from her office window. It's literally up some steps, turn left, go down a few steps, and there it is. It doesn't even look like a restaurant. But it is, and it's so reasonably priced, and has wonderful wait staff and food.

Also, if you wanted to stay in the apartment we're in - which is very nice now that they figured out what was going on with the crazy electricity - let me know. I can give you the personal contact information instead of the agency contact information you'll find on line. It will save you 35% because you won't have to pay the booking fee. It's a GREAT location. We absolutely love it. And I would say it's worth the few extra bucks/night to be in this spot. You're about a 2 mile, easy walk to the orphanage, and if you don't want to walk - there are two taxi hubs with in a few blocks, and it's only about 210 dinar for the ride (about 3 bucks).

As far as sleeping arrangements and driving with your new little one - forget about what you're use to. Plan on bringing a play-yard if you don't want them sleeping in bed with you, or in an adult bed. Personally we're having Olive sleep in bed with us if she'll tolerate it, for bonding. Mind you she's developmentally like an infant...
As far as the car rides - it's not against the law to not wear your seat belt, and if you're riding in a taxi with a kid, they don't have car seats - and that's just the way it is. We have rode in the car quite a few times with Olive now with out any child restraints - it feels very weird (and is probably not safe at all) but that's just how it's done.

We got the tour of the orphanage yesterday. It broke my heart. There are some nurses who REALLY love the children, and don't do the job for the money (if there even is any to be made). They are wonderful, and you can see it in the children's faces. But there are also some not so loving nurses, and you can most definitely see that in the children as well. There is SO much to say, and so many emotions. But, it's so hard to get it out in words.
I guess I saw what you'd expect to see from an orphanage with very little funding, not a lot of outside aid, in a country that doesn't accept children with special needs, and who allow the children to be in their cribs for the the first few years of their lives for 20+ hours a day...
It is survival of the fittest, and if you learn to crawl, eat, and walk early - or have a nurse take you under her wing - you'll do FAIR at best. If not - you'll spend the next several years in a crib 90% of the time with little or no stimulation.

Bottom line - I feel the church needs to step up and take some responsibility for the situation.
I'm not saying that EVERYONE is called to adopt.
But, how many times do you as a church stop and pray over them? or advocate for them? or give monetary aid? or send missionaries to help? or send gifts for the children? or do ANYTHING really?
It's not right that forgiveness is mentioned approximately 50 times in the bible - and preachers spend weeks and weeks of every year preaching on it.
And strangers, widows, and orphans are mentioned 60 something times, and you're lucky to have a sermon dedicated to them once a year. It's awful.
It seems to me that God thinks they are pretty important to mention them THAT many times, and they're not mentioned lightly - but as a church we just don't seem to get it.
It's not right...

Alright - so off my soap box now.

Back to Olive.
She has been such a trooper. She is going to fit right in with our family.

She is so incredibly tiny - much smaller than we thought!
You can literally see every bone in her chest and every vertebrae in her back.
She is SO skinny, it's kind of scary.
Any advice on fattening her up the right was, fast!?
She is in 9 months clothing right now at 3 years 7 months.
She is incredibly long, and insanely skinny. She could probably wear 24 month clothing for the length to fit her right - but they would be humongous on her.
The shoes we brought for her were size 5, and they are most certainly WAY too big. I am guessing a 3 or 3.5.
The hat and gloves we brought for her were a 12-24 months, and those are definitely way too big too. I'm again guessing probably 9-12 months.

Our process right now is that she is officially ours as of today!

YAY! GOD IS SO GOOD!
We have to get her Passport on Monday (which her social worker should bring to Belgrade from Ruma) and we are hoping to get her medical exam that day too.

If not, it will be Tuesday (meaning we would probably leave Wednesday)
If we're able to do that, we will call our Embassy worker, and schedule our appointment for Tuesday. He said he would try to get us the Visa the same day. If he's able to we MIGHT be able to leave Tuesday. (praying!)
If not, then it would be Wednesday again.

Our kids are sick at home - and it makes me so homesick!
Evelyn has her first ear infections ever, and to top it off she has a double ear infection with an upper respiratory infection.
And Ethan has an ear ache in one of his ears, and a low grade fever.
They're on anti-biotics for the first time, and Ethan is having a little reaction to it.
Oh, how it kills me to not be there with them right now!
I am ITCHING to get back to them.

When we skyped with the kids, they seemed to receive Olive well.
Evelyn kept calling her 'my my baaabbbyyyyy' - that's a good sign!

Hopefully she feels the same when we get home!
And Ethan totally recognized her and seemed very excited to finally see her with us!
Olive was more concerned with pressing the buttons on the computer, but I think she will love them too.

Olive is stunned at being in a car!

The mittens we bought her are HUGE! lol. She was very interested in watching out the window. She didn't act excited, but more concerned. But, today (two days after) she giggled the whole time she was in the car.

This is Olive's favorite past time in mommy's lap. She likes to pull my hair out of my ponytails.. and in general just make a huge knot of my hair.

Loveeeeeeeee.

Day 11 coming to a close...

2010-02-02T10:48:00.000-08:00

My brain is a little mushy right now because I have a headache and it's been a long day...
Today we got word that we aren't going to be able to have our ceremony until Thursday morning.
I was REALLY hoping for Wednesday -but no such luck.
That means that we are likely to not be able to leave until Wednesday afternoon, and considering it costs $150 bucks to reissue tickets, I'm not sure what we'll do.
Right now I'm feeling like I would give anything to go home a few days early though - so hopefully things will go exceptionally smooth and fast from here on out - and we can leave early.

Today was a stressful day for everyone.
We brought the gifts to the orphanage in the morning, and tried to has out a potential schedule with Jasmina and the center social workers, and for the rest of the time we're here.
By the time we got all that sorted out, it was about 20 minutes to lunch time and so Jasmina asked us to wait for the tour until tomorrow.
We would have been able to do it this afternoon -but we had to take Olive's Visa pictures.
So tomorrow morning at 10:30 we are going to get to meet all the kids - and I double checked with her that she will allow me to take pictures of all the kids - and she said yes.

Olive did pretty well WHILE we were traveling and getting her pictures taken - but she definitely showed signs of being stressed out and over stimulated later. When we got back to the orphanage to finish our visit for the evening, she started shoving her hands down in her mouth, and even started teeth grinding. We had never heard that before - so we really knew she was stressed. We had a very quiet and un-stimulating rest of the visit - and she seemed MUCH better by the time we sent her back to her room for the night. Hopefully she will sleep it off, and be back to her peachy self tomorrow.

Here they are!

2010-01-31T10:27:00.000-08:00

This is Olive starting to repeat 'ma' for "more" - she has to be extremely motivated and in the right mood, but she will do it!

Karl realized that if he would blow on Olive's face - she would have the newborn reflex. lol

Olive learns that it's fun to dance with her daddy :)

Karl and Olive make a game of taking her socks off. She is really starting to open up and giggle now.

Tickle fun :)

This is what Olive does when she sees us now :)

I don't know why I always end up behind the camera! I promise I spend just as much time with her as Karl does!

Our visit went really well tonight. There was actually a couple visiting their son who they allow to live at the institution.
My can NOT wrap around it. They were so good with him, it was obvious that they loved him and that they know how to be good parents - but yet they still leave him there and only visit occasionally. What's even more sad is that it obviously disturbs the little boy and confuses him. He has MANY institutional behaviors even when they are playing with him actively.
Anyway - we had to share the single visitation room (aka storage room) and so it was a little strange.
But she was very giggly and VERY happy to see us - because we had to miss our morning visit due to touristy things that our facilitator planned for us. And we were VERY happy to see her too.

We got to skype for a bit with the kids this afternoon - and Evelyn seemed in much better spirits, which helped me to have a better day.

It's very cold here, and I am running out of steam. I am going to try and get to bed early tonight and catch up.

Tomorrow we will find out if the minister signs, if not - hopefully on Tuesday. We will have a much better idea of our timeline left here once he signs. We have to have our court date, and then we have to do the passport and the visa and the paperwork, interviews, and medical exams that go with that. It will likely take 3 or 4 (at most) business days after the ceremony to get all of that done.
If we were to have our ceremony on Wednesday (praying!) we could potentially leave Monday afternoon if everything went quickly and perfectly. It's more likely that we are to leave on Tuesday or Wednesday. Depending on the cost to change our flights, and the time line will depend on how early, if at all we will be able to leave.

We will see!

Too tired

2010-01-30T13:12:00.000-08:00

I keep promising updates and video - but I am just TOO TIRED! soon, promise (again!) :)

Tonight I'm a little emotionally spent to blog.
We had to leave Olive with nurses that just couldn't care less tonight, and seeing my baby girl (Evelyn) at home sick and crying has made me very sad.
She lost the sparkle and excitement in her face when she saw us this evening on skype, she just looked sick, sad, and home-sick. And I have to say I am feeling the same too.
We've never left our kids longer than a weekend - and now that all the excitement and adrenaline has gone, I'm just plain ready to bring Olive home, and snuggle my kids.

A little less detail..

2010-01-29T23:47:00.000-08:00

It is killer trying to keep up with everything - all the exhausting walking (about 8 miles a day!), spending 6-7 hours in the storage room, and then having just enough time to skype with the kids in the afternoon, check emails and load videos (which takes forever!)... to go to bed and do it again the next day.
I will hopefully be able to catch up when we have Olive in the apartment, and we have more down time.

A few things I did want to blog about for other families thinking about coming here:
1. bring little rolls of toilet paper with you every where you go. Usually there isn't any in the bathroom by the 'visitation room'.
2. The kids are double diapered, so when you first meet your bubs - they will look like they have the biggest butt in the world - but it's just two massive diapers.
3. There are a pack of dogs, and a white misfit dog that you will see occasionally by the orphanage - I wouldn't pet them, but they are friendly. And the white patchy dog could use some hand outs... because the pack of dogs chase him off every time he finds food. He'll take it - but you have to be very quiet about it - otherwise you alert the pack, and they chase him off before he can eat it.
4. Consider the idea of leaving this place better than when you came to it. If you're a Christian family, it's a great opportunity to SHOW Christ's love. (I wouldn't talk about it outright, they might take offense if you don't have that relationship first) Bring and extra $20 and exchange it for small dinar bills or coins, and give them to the many poor people digging through trash cans and begging in the streets. Be on the look out for little old ladies that need help walking down the street hills... buy a loaf of bread and tie it to the side of a garbage can (that's the tradition here, and how they feed their homeless and needy, there are no homeless shelters or half way houses for them). Bring a few bucks to buy some dog treats, or to buy bread (very cheap) for the stray dogs...
and PLEASE bring gifts for the orphanage, and the staff! They could really use it! They could use mobiles for the cribs, and things that can attach to the cribs for the kids to play with. They have a bucket in every room of floor toys -but they don't put them in the cribs. There are a few cribs in each room that have something attached to the crib - but they could definitely use more! When you see some of these children laying in their cribs 20 hours a day doing NOTHING (and some of them just crying and crying, and rocking, and hitting themselves) you will understand why not going out to eat for a month to save money for crib toys is SO important in their lives.
Even if you're not going to be coming here, you can always seek someone that is - and send money with them to buy them here :) It would make a huge difference.

We are off to our first weekend visit - we're showing a little late because I just couldn't get up this morning.
I WILL upload those videos and pictures, and respond to emails soon - we're just so tight on time :)

Day 5

2010-01-29T03:02:00.000-08:00

This morning we got a late start (by about 10 minutes or so) and Olive had lunch a little early... so it was a shorter visit today.
Olive was most definitely excited to see us this morning. She did not want to wait to get her diaper changed before she came to us.
But, it was a blessing for little 'Millica' (spelling, I have no clue) - because she was out on the floor crawling and came to the door by me.

She is an adorable little blonde, that is probably in 18-24 months clothing.
I probably am not suppose to - but I was a little bold, and bent down in the door way and played with her.
She was STARVING for attention, and giggled the most adorable little goose honk when I would tickle her.
She wanted me to pick her up so badly, but I didn't want to get in trouble.
The nurses don't know English - so I was afraid to get yelled at in Serbian and have no idea what they were saying.
They don't seem to like us even looking in the rooms.
But, I tickled her for a few minutes, and I would rub and hold her hands, and her face - and she LOVED it.
She would make SUCH a wonderful affectionate little bug of a daughter for someone - but her parents haven't released their rights.
I have been making comments to Jasmina about how lovely she is, and telling her that an American family would love to snatch her up.
Today I think she started to get the hint, and she said that her parents haven't contacted about her in a year or two, and that she might contact her center, and see what could be done.
I am PRAYING that is true - because she NEEDS a family. She is NOT happy being in her crib by herself.
She spends a lot of the day crying out for attention - but is extremely happy when she gets it.
If she were available, and we had the money - I would come back for her in a heart beat.
I am going to see if Jasmina will let me take a picture of her, and tell her I bet we could find a family if she were exposed.

Jasmina said that the paperwork is going well, the ministry has the paperwork, and she expects them to give it to the Minister's cabinet on Monday - and hopefully he will sign on Monday or Tuesday.

If that is the case, we will go the next day or so (likely wednesday or thursday) to Roma, Serbia for the adoption ceremony. Because Olive is the first international adoption from Roma, they want Olive to come with. So she will get ready to be checked out on Wednesday or Thursday morning to go to court with us - and she will not ever have to go back!
I can not wait for the day!

We are all getting a little stir crazy in the storage room that we play in. It's pretty small, and its delightful the first day or two, tolerable the third and forth day, and now I'm starting to dread being cooped up in it.

I've been trying to get my eye on "Lisette" - but she's in a room the opposite way of Olive's and the nurses she's had recently are not the nicer ones... I also want to get a peek at the newborn sounding baby that we have heard crying every day. If she/he isn't newborn, they sure are little!

I have some video and pictures I have to load - but we're going to have lunch first...

Day 4

2010-01-28T05:34:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm going to start with some info from day 3 anyway...
Dogs and cats are like raccoons in the states (if they weren't nocturnal).
They are always hanging out by trash cans, and running in the ally.
Yesterday there was a medium sized black dog that followed us in the ally way on our way home after our PM visit..
He came right up to us and started rubbing his head on our hands and legs...
So I pet him, not thinking anything of it. He seemed pretty friendly..
Well come to find out he was OVERLY friendly.
This little guy wasn't interested in the food we offered him, but he was most definitely interested in our lovin's.
When I would try to stop petting him, he would growl at me and the hair on his back would go up!
Who would have guessed!?
He followed us a few blocks, and finally we out walked him... but it was so strange!
I've never been afraid to NOT pet a dog. lol

The visits are getting much more routine now.
She expects us to come get her from her room, and is starting to get sad when we leave her.
We bought some new toys for her this afternoon for our evening visit because she was getting bored with the same ones.
We're going to rotate them every other day now.
We brought new born toys -but I think she needs the next stage up. So that's what we got and we will see how she reacts to them today.
Her stamina for crawling is getting better and she is able and willing to go about 5-6 feet now instead of a maximum of 4.
We spent our morning visit dancing again, which she really likes...
and we saw her little belly and legs because she had a sleeper on that we unbuttoned and looked.
She is SO tiny, and is covered in pox marks from when she had chicken pox in the summer.
But she is SO cute!

I had to get a new pair of boot today, because my suede boots would soak through every time, and give me FROZEN feet.
Note to families that might be traveling here soon: if it's going to be raining or snowing - bring or buy leather or rubber boots!
There is no escaping puddles and deep snow when you walk!
You can buy really nice boots here for $15-$40 - so if you're tight on space, just buy them here :)
Same with formula and baby bottles, they're the same price, or actually usually about 1/2 the price here. So save your space :)

Remembering is harder than you'd think!

2010-01-27T11:44:00.000-08:00

Every day here feels SO long! It's so hard to remember everything that we've done.
This morning, I didn't get off to a good start - we didn't realize that we had to have a switch turned on for hot water - so I couldn't take a shower.
I had to go to our visit looking absolutely gross and frustrated because our second converter fried.

It was 22 degrees out, and snowing pretty hard - so we took a cab this morning. From our apartment it's about $3.10 if you hale one down.

Our morning visit went very well. She wasn't so much excited to see us, but more seemed like she expected us. I suppose that's good.

She felt a little warm this morning, so I'm not sure she was feeling well.
But after about a half hour of cuddles she was pleased as punch again.
We were naughty last night - and during our evening visit we took off her pants and tights to see her little feet...

And oh my Lord - this child is SKIN AND BONE! She is so incredibly tiny on her lower half - I'd be surprised if she has any muscle on her little legs. It's no wonder why she refuses to bear weight on them.

We brought the camera this morning and got some more video.

She knows the 'more' sign, and uses it when SHE wants to.

She is just like our Evelyn - she'll do it when and how she wants it. Stubborn like her mama.

She also is starting to say her first word! 'ma' for 'more'!

And gave her daddy a big kiss on the lips today!

As if she wasn't making enough progress in just 3 days - she learned to be ticklish today!
She hated it at first, but with enough showing, she started to like it!

And even better - Jasmina wrote our report to the officials a day earlier than scheduled! yay!

After our morning visit we went back to the apartment and had lunch, and took it pretty easy until we headed back for our evening visit.

We walked that time - and my boots sure aren't water proof!

Olive was definitely happy to see us this evening - and tonight's visit was great.
She was much more relaxed with us, and instead of liking us for the fact that we make her day more enjoyable - she actually started showing some signs of preferring us, and enjoyed our affection.

Karl danced with her tonight (in a funny bouncy way) and she was giggling her head off!

She is REALLY coming a LONG way in just 3 days!

My understanding is that Jasmina is going to give her report to the ministry tomorrow morning, and then they have to write their report - and get the minister to sign it in agreement that we are the best option for Olive, and we can adopt her.

Then they have to tell the people in Roma, and arrange a court date.
Once we have court, we can take Olive from the orphanage and have about a week left of paperwork to get done to get her ready to leave Serbia and come in to the states.

Things are going well so far and we hope you'll pray with us that we will be able to get home 'early'!

Now for what you want to see:

This last one is where Karl realized that Olive still has the newborn reflex of gasping when you blow on her face... it was too funny

What a long day!

2010-01-26T11:18:00.000-08:00

Today was a blur - so I'm just going to give a quick run down so I can head to bed.

I am pooped!

Okay, so we got up early, walked to the orphanage in the freeezing cold.

got Olive from her room and again she was happy to see us.

We played for a little while - and then we went to the main office on the main floor of the orphanage - where we were invited to watch a Serbian Orthodox Religious ritual for the holiday, Saint Sava.

It was very interesting to see, and I wish our camera batteries weren't dead - so we could have taken some video.

We got to see little Srecko there - and he was such a doll! He was giggly, and goofy, and had such a good spirit about him.

After that we went back to the room, where we proceeded to play throw and drop everything over and over and over and over and over - for hours.

Olive got a kick out of it. Mommy and Daddy got a little bored with it.

But it was a pleasure to just be with her.

She decided that she liked to take a pacifier, and a while after that decided that the Eucerine lotion bottle we brought to put on her face and hands was the best thing on earth.

She even started to sign 'more' for it!

She didn't put it down (unless it was to throw it down in play very occasionally) for hours.

She seemed a little over stimmed this morning, so we had a nice and quiet visit, fed her her lunch (which she loves to eat!) and then headed out.

After we left the orphanage we decided to take a cab back to the apartment to save time, we came in, dropped off the baby garb, and went out to the market. We bought some eggs, pickled spicy pepper sauce, dried cranberries, some smoked 'cheese from cow' (apparently there is no other type here. lol), hamburger, and what we think might be bacon... then we went to the apoteka (drug store) to get a baby bottle & some banana flavored rice cereal. When we went to a indoor market (grocery store) to buy some hamburger buns, butter, juice and frozen green beans. And get this - we got all of that for about $15.00!

By the time we got back, unloaded, and reloaded baby stuff - it was time to go back to the orphanage.

Our second visit was much more lively.

Olive was very excited to see us - and she was much more comfortable with us this time.

We fed her snack right away, and the girl loves to eat!

She played the pick it up, and then drop it game for forever again ;)

Towards the end, she enjoyed getting cuddles and kisses and nibbles from us.

Before, she would tolerate it - but she actually started to enjoy it.

We learned that she could crawl today. But, she can only make it a few feet before she gets to tired.

She was crawling on her elbows for a little while before we got here, but today she started to crawl on her hands and knees! :)

Other than the pick it up and throw it game, we did 'Pat-a-Cake' - and she LOVED it! She was giggling up a storm!

We fed her dinner, and she was tired, so we gave her back to her favorite nursey to go to sleep.

That particular nurse is so good with the kids - there is a little blind boy in the room next to Olive (a room which she also takes care of) that she will put on loud music for, and dance around with him. It is SO stinkin' cute. You can tell she actually likes the children, and enjoys her job.

After the visit was over, we picked up dinner (pizza and some eggroll tasting pastry) for only $3.00!

We came home, we ate, we updated, and now we are off to bed!

What a glorious day!

2010-01-25T10:34:00.000-08:00

Our morning started off early..

Karl and I got up plenty ahead of time because I planned to send him to get me a voltage converter so I could use my hair straightener... but the place didn't carry it.

So, we got ready, and I made some french toast... but didn't have any syrup. oops.

We walked to St. Sava and met Jasmina in the front, and walked to the ministry building for our appointment, where we met Jasna (our lawyer and translator), Olive's psychologist, Olive's social worker from Roma, Olive's psychologist from Roma - who is also her guardian, and all the ministry team.

We all sat around a table, and introduced ourselves and went through all the formalities.

I was super nervous beforehand, and wasn't sure what I would say if they asked any 'hard' questions.

But everyone was SUPER nice, and supportive, and courteous.

We learned a lot about Olive's family - that she is from Roma heritage (a minority that's often discriminated against in Serbia) and her mother was a gypsy. Olive's mother had mental health issues, and wasn't stable. She had four other children, and she and all her children were 'illegitimate' making it near impossible to build a family tree or medical background.

Olive's mother relinquished all of her other children shortly after birth because she wasn't able to take care of them, and the social workers aren't sure where they were - there wasn't accurate paperwork because her mother moved around a lot.

Olive's mother wanted to take care of Olive - she did not want to give her up - even with her disability.

She lived in a gypsy village, and her neighbors and friends tried to help her raise Olive the best they could. They were very poor, so at some point she had to move to make ends meet - and moved to a near by village. She stayed there for some months and tried to do her best to stay alive and well... but some of her neighbors had to call child protective services when they went in and saw that both Olive and her mother were both doing very very poorly.

Olive was so sick and undernourished that she had to go to the hospital to be brought back to health.

From there, they decided to put her in a temporary foster home while they evaluated the mother - they couldn't find a foster home willing to take her - and the mother didn't seem interested in getting her back. So they decided that it was best to put her in the 'child care institution' aka the orphanage.

She was admitted at 18 months old, and the father on her birth certificate was said to not be her natural father according to her mother - and she wasn't able to tell them who was. The man on the birth certificate died, and her mother's rights were terminated.

Unfortunately Olive's biological mother wasn't well enough mentally to understand the adoption process, and so she wasn't included.

We were told about Olive's development so far - and her psychologist said that before she was completely unresponsive, and showed no interest in toys, caregivers, or anything.

But in the last few months she has started to enjoy toys, and bonded to one of her nurses. (Answered prayer!)

She said that Olive use to just lay there and put her hand so far down her throat she swears she'd be able to touch her stomach.

But in the last few months she has grown in every way - developmentally, socially, and physically. (Answered prayer!)

We were told the whole process and everything that needs to be done - and it's going to be a very busy couple of weeks.

This week our main priority is to visit with her twice a day for long visits so that way they can be supervised, and Jasmina can write her report stating that she feels we will be a good match for Olive.

She will then forward it to the social center, and they will have to write their report that they feel we would be a good match.

They will then send those reports to the ministry team - and they will write up a report that says they agree with the other reports, and that they give their consent for us to adopt her.

Then they have to give that report to the minister, and he has to sign it in consent to us adopting her.

While that's happening, we have to get her passport photos arranged, and start getting the court date set up for her adoption ceremony.

After her ceremony (likely next friday or early the following week) we will be able to take Olive from the orphanage, and she is officially ours. That's when we have to get all the paperwork in order for her to actually leave the country with us.

We're praying that everything goes smoothly!

After the ministry appointment we headed to the orphanage to meet Olive.

Everyone chatted a bit in the lobby - and then we went in this totally old school elevator up to her floor.

We weren't sure what to expect at all - they showed us to her room, and immediately I wanted to walk in and grab her. But they wouldn't allow us in the room with our shoes on.

Olive was slumped over in her walker, sleeping and her nurse shook her awake a bit and scooted her towards us... she looked at us, and started grunting excitedly and reached up for us. I SWEAR she knew us. She was excited that we were there! And we both totally believe that it was God's fulfillment of our prayers!

Also, she has a nurse that she LOVES! And who loves her.

And that is an answer to our prayers. And we got to meet her. Olive completely lit up when she came in the room.

Olive is completely in love with her daddy.

She loves anything he does.

She loves to slap his bald head! lol

She doesn't seem to like his beard though.

They played and played and played, and she would just giggle, and giggle at him.

Her favorite toy was the beads :)

After a long, long play time - she started to get tired.

So we rocked and cuddled for a long time.

At the very end, she started screaming this horrific scream.

They told us it was because she was either tired or hungry - and insisted on bringing her back to her crib.

She laid in her crib for about a half hour just screaming and crying - and it seriously put me in so much stress. I wanted so badly to tell them to stop torturing my poor baby and let me comfort or feed her! But, they were doing the best that they knew to do...

When we were going to leave, Jasmina let us poke our heads in to the different rooms that were on Olive's hallway... and on our way out we poked our head in her room to see how she was doing. She stopped crying as soon as she saw us and get this - she signed "more"!

We were practicing signing "more" the whole time today - and she remembered and asked for more of us!!!

Right as we were going to walk out - her nurse signaled to us that she fell asleep...

We are so head over heals in love with her already!

I can't wait to go back tomorrow!

After we left the orphanage we got 'bourick' (no idea how to spell it) - and it was SO tasty. We had to walk about a half hour home in the FREEEEEEZING cold before we could enjoy it though. But you can't beat 3 pieces of meat/pastries for $2.75! and they sure were yummy!

Shortly after that, our landlord Ivan (super nice guy!) took us to the police station to register that we were here. He showed us a really nice looking bakery that I think we'll try in the morning. We have ran out of food in the apartment, and haven't had time to make it to the market. Hopefully tomorrow. Like I said before, our apartment is so excellently placed that everything is with in 2 miles!

And now that I have spewed WAY too much information out! Here is what you really want to see:

We have met her!

2010-01-25T07:35:00.000-08:00

We are SO in love.

She is such a doll!

We have to go register with the police with a guy that doesn't have time to do it other than now - so we will update bigger later :)

Pictures from the walk

2010-01-24T14:55:00.000-08:00

This is the view outside our window at night... so beautiful!

This is what the street signs look like. We took a picture to remember what street to turn on when we go to the ministry tomorrow :)

This is St. Sava - beautiful!

Another one of the churches
You can see the mother and other people standing in front of the church waiting for the Service to get out so they can ask for money..

We didn't take more pictures because it was so cold out, and our fingers were freezing.

Cheap eats...

2010-01-24T08:01:00.000-08:00

We're staying at a really nice apartment, where the US Embassy workers live, and just down the road there is a 'fast food' place that we wanted to try...

So we walked that way to find out they're closed...

So, we go to the electronics place a few blocks down to get a current converter... and they're closed...

So we just opt to come back home and stop at the small little store that is literally on the corner to pick up some things for dinner.

They didn't have what we were looking for (butter or meat or cheese for our pasta) but they did have a huge loaf of bread, a local beer, and a 'diplomat' cake (like DQ's ice cream cake)... which we got ALL of that for about $2.75 USD!

The place we're staying is a little more expensive than all the other places you'll find - but the location is awesome and there are a ton of little places to shop and eat, and exchange money with in a few blocks.

We're really enjoying it.

We have our appointment at 11am tomorrow and meet Olive at 1!!!

A long walk..

2010-01-24T04:22:00.000-08:00

We walked our buns off today!

Jasmina met us at our apartment 10:30am and we walked until now - 1:37pm

We walked ALL OVER the place.

We saw all the churches, markets, stores, restaurants, and sites.

It was so much fun.

We got a bag of the best home baked salted almonds from the open market to munch on while we walked and she told us what to expect during our process.

She said that she will try and get us home faster - but that sometimes it just can't happen.

(and no I didn't ask or bring it up)

A lot of it depends on how quickly other people get their part done.

She told us a little about Olive.

Jasmina confirmed for us that our prayers have been working for Olive! She said a few months ago something changed in her for no reason - and she started connecting with people, and smiling and growing! Obviously she didn't know that she was confirming our prayers were answered -but it was pretty cool!

She said that they took her to the endocrinologist recently to see why she was so small - and they said nothing is wrong with her hormonally.

And get this - she's sitting now!

Jasmina said she use to just lay there with her hand down her throat, and wouldn't connect with anyone.

But she has a nurse that has bonded with her (we had been praying for that!) and she has started to open up! She sits now, and she is getting chunkier, and she is smiling, and connecting now! She'll even give you a dirty look if she doesn't like what you're doing!

Belgrade is a nice place - it has a TON of history, and character - but it's a shame that it seems like all the buildings are just falling apart.

There was a little girl that came up to us in front of one of the churches that was asking Jasmina to ask us for money.

Jasmina told her to go by her mother (who was also begging) and the little girl said so snottily (but totally cute) 'no, i don't want to' and then turned to us and asked if we have money. (Obviously Jasmina translated it for us) I wanted so badly to give her some money but we only had 1,000 dinar bills on us (which is 1/2 our daily food expenditure) and Jasmina said she doesn't like begging. We have some change at home, and some smaller bills, so we put them in our pocket incase we run in to them again. Her mom had another little kid, and a brand new baby wrapped to her stomach.

It's very religious here, but I don't think that many people really know or love Jesus.

It's sad.

There are so many poor children, and old women, and stray animals that are begging to survive and I wish I could give them all money and hugs and help in some way.

Belgrade could really use some missionary families and church plants.

All in all - it's been a great day so far.

We're both totally pooped.

And we're both REALLY excited for tomorrow!

Early Rising..

2010-01-23T21:05:00.000-08:00

Our voltage converter fried. The computer is running off of battery until we can get a new one. It's about 6AM here. I went to bed around 10PM and can't sleep any more. I'm hoping to call our landlord around 8-9 to see if we can't get a converter quickly! Heard a cat screeching for about 15 minutes this morning! We are going to be a lot of walking in the freeeeezing cold today - praying that my tired body can make it!

LATER: our computer cord will convert the volts for us! yay!

We're here!

2010-01-23T09:33:00.000-08:00

We are here! We had some major issues finding our gate at O’Hare. Four people sent us to four different places, and thankfully the last knew what she was doing and we JUST made our flight. We were sweating head to toe from running all over the place, back and forth, with all our things in tow.

The flight here was VERY long... and we tried to sleep - but didn’t get much. I haven’t gotten more than 8-10 hours of sleep since I woke up Thursday. I’m actually feeling a little wobbly and strange as I write this... a sure sign that I need to get to bed. If you plan to travel to Serbia or across seas... pay for the extra leg room! I don't know what the extra would be, but I'm sure it'd be worth it!

We were really thankful to get off of the very crowded long flight to Germany, and get on our last plane ride to Belgrade. Luckily it wasn't all that long, and the flight attendants were really nice.

One thing that was really cool is that we got to fly over the Alps. They were so beautiful!

When we got here, our facilitator picked us up from the airport, and drove us to our apartment. She helped to get us set up here, and then took off until tomorrow.

Our apartment ‘guy’ Ivan (Igor) was very nice and helpful and showed us to the money exchange place and to the market to buy some food.

We got some fresh bread, baby gouda cheese, pasta, and sauce, and some jam for the leftover bread all for about $20USD. It fed us dinner today, and hopefully will feed us through tomorrow too.

It’s an adventure so far! We’ve never traveled before so it’s a little bit nerve wrecking - but it’s still fun.

Drivers here are CRAZY! and I wouldn't be surprised if I don't get hit by one while walking while I'm here. lol

The apartment we're in is BEAUTIFUL! It's really nice - but I'm surprised at how run down the surrounding buildings are... kind of sad really.

And the power keeps going out... : /

I wish I had an idea of what every was saying. It's quite strange to sit in a room full of people who are all yapping away about you - and you have NO idea what they're talking about. Hopefully not bad things!

I also wish that I had a better bearing on the dinar/euro/dollar conversion - I know what they are - but it's really hard to make decisions on the fly when you're trying to stick to a budget in a crowded market - especially when you're not even positive what you're buying! LOL.

I've already had to ask about 5 people if they spoke English to get help. haha. You'll have better luck with the nice looking young women than anyone else for that.

It was great being able to talk to the kids tonight on Skype. I miss them already!

Karl couldn’t take it anymore, and is crashed on the couch.

I still have to unpack us, double check through our money situation, and put clothes out for tomorrow after I clean up after dinner’s mess.

I’m having a cup of tea, and after all that, it's hopefully a warm shower, and I will be OUT! I am SO tired!

I can’t wait to meet Olive on Monday!

2010-01-21T20:38:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the day that we leave on a incredibly long international flight as the first step towards actually meeting our daughter.

WE ARE SO READY!

Well, not literally - there are still things to do tomorrow.

But, we are so anxious to get there!

I have a feeling that Saturday and Sunday waiting to meet Olive will feel very long... but in God’s perfect timing!

We are so thankful for all of the people who are going out of their way to help us, and for all of the people who have gone out of their way to help us get to where we are.

We are really blessed, and we are very thankful!

My darling Evelyn

2010-01-17T19:15:00.000-08:00

Let me preface with the fact that she is just being a goof for reactions...

Tonight before bed, I decided to practice using and uploading a video from a camera my girlfriend Jen loaned to us for while we're in Serbia....

Evelyn and I were practicing saying the words she knows, and she started going in to this goofy little devil girl mode she does sometimes...

She has three voices, her normal perky chipmunk voice, whispering, and devil girl.

This is a video of her slipping in and out of devil girl while practicing her words...

it was too funny....

As far as adoption related news - we are 90% packed.

We have to do some rearranging and adding of things we bought today (travel soap, etc)..

We still have to figure out how we're going to handle either carrying our money, or pulling it out of the bank there, etc. We're going to go in to our bank and talk to them on Tuesday.

There is still a lot I'd like to do around the house - and we're running out of time.

I was going full steam for a while there, but I'm definitely losing it.

Hopefully with a good nights rest tonight, I'll be able to be back at it tomorrow....

The kids haven't been sleeping at night - so prayers for that would be lovely!

4.5 days! 7.5 days until we meet our little girl!

I wonder....

2010-01-12T20:18:00.000-08:00

There is a beautiful poem written by Chris & Mary Malone (http://www.themalonefamily.us) that's often posted by Reece's Rainbow families 10 days before traveling... let's say it's an emerging tradition - and we are so grateful to be apart of it!

"I wonder...when it was 10 days before I met God and He adopted me, was HE this excited?

I wonder if His stomach did flips and He got tears in His eyes when He thought about holding me for the first time.

I wonder if His heart ached when He thought about my life without Him as my Daddy.

I wonder if it grieved Him to know that I was living as an orphan and had no hope of a future without Him.

I wonder if He was as okay with paying my ransom as I am with paying our girl's.

I wonder if, for Him, there was no cost too high, no sacrifice too great.

I wonder..."

Evelyn's baby...

2010-01-11T10:40:00.000-08:00

Evelyn decided that these flushable cloth diaper liners were her baby for the afternoon...

Just 12 days!

2010-01-10T19:58:00.000-08:00

I can not believe that we only have 12 days until we leave.
Every time I take something off of my to-do list I add like three more!
At this rate we'll never be ready to go!
Obviously, realistically all we'd HAVE to do is pack our clothes and gifts and go -- but you know what I mean!
I'm most definitely nesting, and have SO many things I'd like to do before we leave, knowing there won't be much time when we get her home.

Just 12 days until we leave, and 14 days until we meet our beautiful little girl.

Birthday Partying.

2010-01-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful 3rd birthday party for Ethan this afternoon. Simple, and wonderful.
It's too bad I forgot to bring my camera.

Crossing them off...

2010-01-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

It feels good to get things crossed off of my huge white board ‘to-do’ list.

There is a lot to be done before we leave to get Olive.
We bought matching outfits for the girls to wear during our open house.

We’re planning on having an open invitation ‘meet and greet Olive’ type thing on February 14th if all goes as planned.

I’ll make an official announcement as soon as we’ve got all the details ironed out.

We also got Olive’s crib set up, and put the sheets and blankets on. That felt wonderful - as it is really starting to feel like she’s coming home soon with her crib up, and clothes hanging about.

I made an appointment for a phone conference with her pediatrician for medicine for the long flight home, and made an appointment for me with my doctor’s for medicine for my long flight there! I’m hoping to sleep :)

We have bought clothing and shoes for all the other children in the orphanage, booked our plane tickets, sent in our registration form for our apartment, and down loaded skype.

I made a little book for Olive to look at while we’re there, and I’m nearly finished with a book for the kids to look at while we’re gone. (Love mypublisher!)

There are other little things that we’ve done too - but it’s quite late at night and my brain is really slowing.

And Evelyn hasn’t been sleeping through the night - and insists on laying on top of either Karl or I. So we're praying for good sleep, piece of mind, trust in God that all the little details will work themselves out!

Oh, and our boy turns 3 tomorrow! I am so proud of my wonderfully handsome and pleasant little man. We love him so much!

Big boy!

2010-01-08T10:34:00.000-08:00

EHTAN WENT POOP ON THE POTTY! POOPY PARTY TONIGHT! PIZZA, POPCORN, CAKE, AND MOVIE WITH FRIENDS. Thank you Lord Jesus, please let him continue to poop on the toilet and not in is pants or diaper!

My boy is three today.

2010-01-06T10:33:00.000-08:00

I said to Ethan this morning, "happy birthday! you're three!" when he first walked in to my room. He said, "I don't want to be three!". Me, "what do you want to be?" Ethan, "Just two". I proceeded to sing happy birthday to him, and he said, "I don't want to hear it". LOL wonder who he got that from....

Shopping done!

2010-01-03T19:26:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that we are leaving in 19 days!
It feels surreal. But I am very excited.
We got our shopping done today.
I am very happy with our deal seeking - and got a lot of bang for our bucks!
We even came up $80 under budget for gifts, and every one should be pleased (we hope!)

Tonight I groomed Ceazer, our big dog. I still need to do his nails though.
And I made a photo book for Olive to look at and learn who her siblings and grandparents are.
I'm also going to make a small photo book of signs that we plan on using with her.
Partially for her, but mainly for us to remember them! lol.
But, it will be useful I think.

It feels good to check things of the old 'to-do' list and know we're getting close!

We got lucky!

2010-01-02T19:31:00.000-08:00

We got lucky with deals today! Both Target and Meijer had sales on all of their toddler clothing - and we raked in huge amounts of clothes for the money we budgeted to spend for gifts for the children on Olive's floor.
We got 18 pairs of socks,
6 pairs of shoes,
4 pairs of tights,
22 tops, both long sleeved t-shirts and sweatshirts
14 pairs of pants...

ALL FOR $180! That's an average of $2.80/piece! God is good!

Family Picture Fun

2010-01-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

It had been WAY too long since we took pictures of the kids and us.
So last night we had a little family picture fun.
The kids love running back and forth and rolling all over the white background.

She's a big girl now!

2010-01-02T10:31:00.000-08:00

Evelyn slept in her 'big girl bed' for the first time last night.
I anticipate that there may be a few falls before she realizes that there isn't a wall to hold her in anymore... but hopefully the carpet will pad her a bit.
I can't believe she's already in to her 'big girl bed'... I feel like I just had her a few months ago.

Shopping...

2010-01-01T19:32:00.000-08:00

I get to go shopping for little kid shoes tomorrow.
Our facilitator said that they always need shoes in size 17/18 European size, which if I'm understanding correctly would be a size 1.5 to 2.5 kids shoes.
I also plan to get gifts for the ministry officials 3 women, and 2 men - I'm not quite sure what we'll get them yet... But we'll figure something out.

Only 3 weeks to go :)

Christmas

2009-12-25T18:40:00.000-08:00

Christmas was a great weekend - spent in 3 towns, with 3 different parts of our families, in two different states, under 30 hours. With kids nearly 3 and 20 months - it's a long weekend.
It was fun - and we got a ton of wonderful gifts (and the usual few odd gifts that make you go hmmm) and were really blessed.
It was a lot easier and a lot harder to not have Olive around than I expected.
It was in one way easier, because had she been home - this might have just been too much for her.
So, in some way - it was probably better that she wasn't put through so much chaos just days after getting home to her new family and life.

But, in others ways, it was harder for me than I expected.
I found my mind wondering off frequently wishing she was here with us, thinking about how she might have been reacting, and wishing she was opening gifts beside our two other kids.
I kept thinking about how she has missed so much in her little life already - and how I really wanted her there to meet her aunts and uncles from out of town. And how she won't meet any of her great grandparents or extended family until the spring now.

I kept wondering about how she looked as a baby, and thinking about if her (birth) momma did anything special for Christmas or holidays before she gave her to the orphanage...

It makes me sad she's missed out on so much.
But, I am so happy that we are just 4 weeks from bringing her home.
I am praying that it is a very fast, and very productive four weeks for us.
I am praying that the 3 weeks we're in Serbia are very pleasant and that our children will do fine with out us...
I am thanking God in advance for the day that "this" is all over, and we can get to being a family.

One of the most special gifts we got this Christmas was a picture of Olive from our facilitator :)
It was SO thoughtful for her to send us one, and I am so thankful.
Olive is getting SO big. I can actually see her growing in every picture, getting a little chubbier and showing more life in every subsequent one...
Especially this one

I've said it before - but it's bittersweet.
Bitter - because we're missing it, and every new picture I get means that she's still not here with us. But, sweet because we can see that she is doing okay. And she is growing, and she is 'in there'. I can't wait to love on her.

Derek Loux - Redemption (excerpt)

2009-12-23T19:03:00.000-08:00

A fellow adoptive dad, Derek died due to a car accident this week.
What he wrote during the adoption of his sons was too beautiful not to share...

"Renee' and I are sitting in the office of a telephone company in Novograd Valenski, Ukraine, using wireless internet. We are in the middle of adopting three special needs boys from an orphanage here. Two of the boys have Down Syndrome. Roman is high functioning, energetic and happy. Dimitri has serious mental retardation, failure to thrive, and though he is five years old, he is the size of a 1 year old. He has sores on his face, a distinct smell of death on him, and yells out if we try to do anything with him other than hold him...
Two days ago we drove for hours into the Ukrainian countryside to the village where Dimitri was born. We met with officials there and signed papers and answered their questions. We also went and saw Dimitri's house. The day had been long...
...I was thinking, "Man, adopting this little boy has been so much work. This is exhausting, expensive, uncomfortable,… and it doesn't feel very rewarding right now." What am I doing in some little Soviet car in the dark, in the middle of rural Ukraine in frozen December, as the driver dodges cats and potholes? What if Dimitri doesn't improve at all? What if we get "nothing" out of this?
Ahhh, there it was; that dark, fallen, unreedemed, selfish human love, rooted in the tree of the knowledge of "good and evil". The love the Greeks called "erao" love. The love where we treat someone as precious and treasured for what we can get out of it. This is unlike "agapeo" love, the God kind of love that treats someone as treasured and precious for their good, not for my good. It's when I love a person in order to meet their needs, having no expectation of them meeting any of my needs. At a whole new level, God is working His kind of love into my weak heart, and He's using little Dimitri to do it.
On the drive home that night, the Lord whispered in my ear, "This is Redemption. Derek, do you know how far I travelled to get you and bring you back? I had to be separated from my Son, in order to get you, just like you are separated from your children in order to get these boys. Do you know how expensive it was for Me to purchase you? It cost me everything. Do you know how broken, sick, damaged, twisted, dirty, smelly, and hopeless you were? And at the end of it all, you had nothing to give me or add to me. I did it for you. I emptied myself and became nothing so that you could have it all. This is redemption. My friends, adoption is redemption. It's costly, exhausting, expensive, and outrageous. Buying back lives costs so much. When God set out to redeem us, it killed Him. And when He redeems us, we can't even really appreciate or comprehend it, just like Dimitri will never comprehend or fully appreciate what is about to happen to him,… but … he will live in the fruit of it. As his Daddy, I will never expect him to understand all of this or even to thank me. I just want to watch him live in the benefits of my love and experience the joys of being an heir in my family. This is how our heavenly "Papa" feels towards us. Today, settle your busy heart down and rest in the benefits of redemption. Enjoy the fruits of His goodness, and stop trying to "pay Him back". You'll never get close you goofy little kid."

The list never ends ;)

2009-12-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

It seems like no matter how many hurdles we jump - they just keep comin'!
I am so thrilled that we are fully funded.
But, now I'm wondering how do we go about getting those funds released...
Our matching grant though Lifesong for Orphans releases funds for qualified adoption expenses, and I believe that we have to give them a receipt first.
Problems is that we have $4,400 in grant money with them, and I don't believe we have that many receipts! Eek.
It seems that the majority of our expenses don't occur until we're in country.
And the expenses we do have before we travel are for things like gifts.... hmm...

And I know it seems like the budget for gifts is exuberant.
But they're not optional.
We did receive an updated list of what to make sure we bring from our facilitator - and there are a TON of gifts for different people on there...

WE ARE FUNDED!!!!

2009-12-22T20:33:00.000-08:00

We have had a WONDERFUL day in the way of adoption progress!
We are booking our flights tomorrow to leave the 22nd of January!
We will hopefully be meeting Olive the 25th!
And we are fully funded!
I am SOOOOO ecstatic!

We have been so blessed!

2009-12-14T17:59:00.000-08:00

We were SO blessed the past couple of weeks.
Sarah, adopting Nadja, has spoiled us with little updates about Olive and pictures a couple times!

We have gotten new pictures again today! And she is SO beautiful!

I didn't know that I could fall so in love with a child with out ever meeting them.

To bring, or not to bring?

2009-12-14T09:20:00.000-08:00

I am in a serious internal debate on wether or not we should bring our kids with us...

Later...

Our facilitator seems to strongly suggest that we leave the kids at home.
I obviously greatly respect her input - and we are taking her opinion under serious consideration.
It's looking like we are going to try and make arrangements to leave them at home.
It is a stressful process according to our facilitator for both her, and us - and we want to make things as easy and smooth as possible for all of us.

Later...

We have been able to make arrangements for the kids to stay back with my parents.
I am very sad to not bring them with - but with so many people advising against it - and our facilitator strongly suggesting that we not bring them due to H1N1 - we are going to opt to leave them home.

First sledding adventure...

2009-12-10T10:10:00.000-08:00

My parents have a pretty good size hill on the side of their house (which happens to be next door to us)...
And so we decided the kids were big enough to try and sled for the first time.
It went pretty well.
Ethan went two times, and then was too scared afterwards.
And Evelyn went quite a few times... until she fell in the snow on her face..
She then proceeded to warm up at grandma's house, and eat... her favorite thing to do!

Some days are up and some are down..

2009-12-09T08:32:00.000-08:00

I am having sort of a down day.
Probably because I'm exhausted from painting a dining room table, sealing it, and painting our dining room all by myself in 24 hours!
Talk about nesting. LOL.
And not to mention we're just shy of hitting the 9 month mark - and I'm feeling that 'ready to be done' feeling I felt with both my pregnancies.

But, I'm going to combat my longing with gratitude.

I am SO thankful people who have chosen to support the Kingdom and our daughter with their finances and prayers.
We are SO thankful for the people who have given us encouragement.
We are SO especially thankful to Shelley, our coordinator, and Jasmina, our facilitator - who put in many, many hours and a lot of patience and work to make our adoption happen.
And thankful to God for his provision for our lives.

OH and for Sarah and Jon who have so gracefully included us in their adoption trip by thinking of us and giving us little tid-bits about Olive through out the week. It means SO much to know little bits about her day while we're waiting.

Funding Progress :)

2009-12-08T14:50:00.000-08:00

We now have a good amount of our funding done due to the wonderful matching grant with Life Song for Orphans and Families of Promise Orphan and Adoption Ministry!

We have less than $2,000 to go! and with the matching grant - that's only $900!!!

(of course this is all an estimate as we won't be sure on the costs until we get a date, and confirm apartments, and flights, etc.)

HER PAPERWORK IS DONE!!!!

2009-12-08T04:51:00.000-08:00

I admit I have been a total spaz about checking my email every hour or so starting around 2AM our time (8AM Olives time) for the last few weeks - praying that I would wake up to a miracle.

Well this morning I got a very good email!

Olive's paperwork is done - and she's free and clear for adoption!

All we have left is to wait for a date!

Thank you LORD!

This made me laugh today

2009-12-07T14:18:00.000-08:00

Olive had a friend in her crib with her this morning. Little M and Olive were together. Of course they weren't interacting but they were together. In fact, M's feet were on Olive's head and Olive looked at me like "get me outta here"

From Sarah, adopting Nadja

She is soooo her mother's child. I HATE feet, and am not too much a 'touchy' person. I would be thinking the same thing... LOL.

7-8 Weeks is just too long!

2009-12-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

Time is strange.
The 8 weeks before when we were hoping to travel (which would have been this week) went by so fast...
I remember feeling like every day was slipping by too quickly, and there was no way I'd be able to get everything I wanted to get done, done.
But, this past week has been going by like molasses...
I can't imagine 7 or 8 more weeks of this waiting!
Especially since this week has been better than most - getting little tid bits about Olive this week from Sarah...
7-8 weeks back to not knowing how she's doing, or what she's doing, or when we're leaving is going to be very hard...

Many thanks to Sarah! New pictures!

2009-12-04T08:28:00.000-08:00

We got the most precious picture we've ever received of Olive from Sarah (adopting Nadja) this morning.
Olive is actually showing emotion! And a smile at that!

It's so bitter sweet - because I want to be there.
I want to be the one snuggling my girl.
I wanted to be there to see her sit up for the first time.
But, I am so over joyed that she was snuggled today.
I am so blessed to know that she is "in there" and she does smile!
I am so thrilled that she is growing, and starting to achieve mile-stones.

My Growing Girl.

2009-12-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

I'm sad for Olive that it's been one year between the first pictures we got that were taken of her (around this time last year) and the newest ones we were blessed with recently.
You have to have "mama's eyes" to see all the differences I see, I'm sure.
But when I put the pictures side-by-side, you can really see she's losing some of that baby-look and she's put on a 1/2" and a couple pounds.
She still has a pretty distant look, which we've been praying over... I pray that when we get her home she'll light up like a christmas tree!

Feeling a little better today...

2009-11-27T09:12:00.000-08:00

Feeling a little better now that's I've vomited all that raw emotion out for over 24 hours. It was hard to put Olive's Christmas outfit on my other daughter for Thanksgiving. I bought it before I knew her measurements, and it would have been nearly too small should we have brought her home even now - so in 2-3 months time it surely wouldn't fit. I would have loved to preserve it as the first outfit bought for her - but I'm just too practical for that, and couldn't spend $15 for a dress to hang in a closet. Besides, it'll allow for me to buy her a new first special outfit later.

Anyhow, many of you might have perceived me of over-reacting, considering we WILL still be bringing her home - and at some point I'm sure I'll say "it was better this way" (or maybe I wont).... But the real reason I was knocked so far off my rocker was because I had such total and complete peace about traveling this year. I felt that God had reassured me over and over that if I would just believe in Him fully - she would be home before the holidays. Part of me is still praying for a miracle.

But, I felt like Joshua asking God to stop the sun from moving so they could have victory - and I felt total peace and confidence that He would. But, He didn't.

This was the first time that I really felt God had given me Word on something, and completely believed in Him to provide what I was asking for - and had confirmation in my spirit from other people affirming they felt the same. And it did not happen.

That has been hard for me to work through. Especially because we're not talking about praying in faith for a new minivan or for a job promotion. We're talking about my baby - who is half a world away from me - who I would do ANYTHING to bring home even just ONE SECOND earlier because I love her that much.

Exposing my inner wrestling

2009-11-25T11:34:00.000-08:00

Nothing like sharing your raw emotions with the 'world' and probably people you don't even know, right ;)
I wanted to share some stories friends have shared with me to try and be an encouragement.

"When I was in the hospital pregnant with my daughter (who I was told was going to die), the doctors came in and decided to induce me 5 weeks early (against my wishes) and I prayed to God, why was he letting this happen... she was too early, too small... needed to stay in and grow more. But then after they delivered her they found that her umbilical cord had wasted away and had she not been induced within the hour, she would have died! (They induced me trying to kill her... God had other plans... he allowed them to induce her trying to kill her, so that He could let her live and be known as a miracle in that hospital to all the doctors who thought she would die.) I saw this again when her heart surgery was scheduled for a certain day and then they called us on our way to the hospital and told us that it was canceled... I was so mad because it was going to be hard for us to re-plan for a later date and I felt like she needed the surgery right then. God had a plan... I later found out that the baby who was bumped into her place for surgery died during surgery (had the same heart defect as my daughter)... if she had been in surgery at her scheduled time, that would have been her.
I know none of this makes you feel better... just want to reassure you that He does have a plan!! "

"When I was in living in Israel I spoke with a friend of mine who had a newborn and a 3 year old. The three year old kept begging to be alone with the baby. The mom was nervous but let him be alone (with the monitor left on so She could listen) The three year old closed the door and she heard him say "Tell me about Jesus and the Angels...Im starting to forget" Olive is not alone..she has the hand of God on her right now. She is being entertained by angels. Im going to pray that she dreams about you while she sleeps so she will know your face."

"When I was living in Romania working in the childrens hospital on the Russian Border I met a family. The Vishki family. The father was a pastor who was arrested and thrown in Jail for ministering the Gospel. That left his wife alone with I think 5 children..Communist Romania post WW2. Long story short..for a long winter wolves would drop food off at her door. Gods provision!"

I'm not saying I'm rosey cheeked and grinning ear to ear now, but hearing testimonies of God's goodness is comforting and helps keep the tears at bay if only for a few minutes.

My prayin' baby

2009-11-25T10:06:00.000-08:00

Ethan just prayed privately before his meal (he's the only one eating an early dinner at the table by himself bc he's leaving for an over-night with my parents) and what I could understand was something about baby Olive and wren with down syndrome... too cute.

We will not travel this year :(

2009-11-25T09:01:00.000-08:00

I am a bit of a wreck today.
We have gotten word that the adoption officials will not be able (or willing?) to get everything done by the date needed to allow us to travel this year.
This means that we will not be able to travel until the end of January or February.
Normally even when my circumstances aren't what I like them to be - I can hold on to the truth that God sees the big picture and that His plan is much better than we could imagine.
But today, my faith is failing me.
I can't pull it together because I can't stop thinking...
She's going to spend 2.5-3 months sitting in her crib waiting for us.
She is going to spend 2.5-3 months exposed to deadly flu viruses.
She is going to spend 2.5-3 months exposed to the cold that comes with a harsh winter.
She is going to spend 2.5-3 months growing and all the special outfits we bought her will likely not fit.
She is going to spend 2.5-3 months learning new things that her momma and daddy won't be able to enjoy with her.
She is going to spend 2.5-3 months missing all the wonderful holiday traditions we were so excited to share with her.
She is going to spend 2.5-3 more months wondering if there is something better than 20 hours a day in a crib wasting away.
We are going to spend 2.5-3 more months pining for our daughter
We are going to spend 2.5-3 more months wondering what she is doing, if she is okay, and if someone is showing her any love and attention.
I am going to spend 2.5-3 more months missing part of my heart and wondering why God wouldn't have shown off and brought our daughter home.

I pray that God will graciously allow me to have a glimpse in to His ways so I can understand why we all have to suffer through the next 2.5-3 months, and that the Glory brought to him will be worth it in the end.

God, I know you're good. I know that your plan is better. I know that you see the big picture. But I can't see it right now, and I'm not feeling very confident that your plan is better. All I can think is of my daughter, and how she's going to have to wait what will feel like an eternity to her. I struggle knowing that you can do anything if it's your wish - and you're choosing to not make this happen. I feel like screaming and yelling at you in disgust that you would allow this, angry that you would make her wait... isn't 3.5 years enough!!! and I feel like falling at your feet exhausted and balling, begging for your mercy - and asking again for a miracle - because I just can't believe that this is your will. It was much easier to swallow knowing that we were going to be getting her soon. And thinking I understood your bigger picture, because our process would be faster, she's be home in the nick of time, and you would have shown off your Glory with another amazing miracle. And I truly believed that we would. But now I just sit here in disbelief and frustration weeping for my little girl. I don't understand....

Matching Grant Update

2009-11-24T19:32:00.000-08:00

We have been given $1,300 of our needed $2,500 towards our matching grant!
We have a need of $1,200 to be fully funded!!
(or at least in theory as our costs are estimates)

If you would like to come along side us and support our adoption please send a tax deductible check to:
Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford St.
Gridley, IL 61744
IN THE MEMO SECTION of the check: please include Malefyt #1021adoption
In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization.
This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor's suggested use.

Or via the 'donate' button on this blog.
Or our Family Sponsorship profile at http://reecesrainbow.com/familysponsorshipalmostthere.htm - we are near the bottomw :)

Thank you for investing in the Kingdom through prayer and finances — it will be an investment with an eternal return!
(Matt 6:20)

Possible progress

2009-11-24T15:14:00.000-08:00

Our facilitator is doing everything she can to get us to travel before the end of the year.
She's asking a lot of the adoption officials by asking them to finish approving our dossier, clearing Olive for International Adoption, and allowing us to be given a travel date.
We need some Divine intervention!

Praying this is the week.

2009-11-22T19:13:00.000-08:00

I'm praying that this is the week that we're told the day to be in Olive's country.
If it's not - my heart just might break.
Every morning we have a chance of hearing traveling news, it feels like a first time mom going to the ER with pains - not sure if it's going to be 'the day' or not. It's nerve wrecking sitting on the monitors and waiting for the nurse to tell you if it's your lucky day - or if you're to go home and wait again.
When it's day after day, it gets maddening.
But, I am learning a lesson.
And apparently I haven't learned it well before - because God continues to test me and refine me in it.
That lesson is believing in His goodness, and that He's going to take care of me in the best possible way, even when my circumstances aren't what I want them to be.
I am not doing perfectly this round, but my response time of 'giving it to God' and turning my thinking around is getting quicker.
And for this I am thankful.

We're praying that Olive's social worker will answer her phone - or give our facilitator a call back.
This is the only thing that stands between our little girl meeting her family or continuing to wait.

Not today

2009-11-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

We were told that our facilitator was not able to work today due to a death.
She plans on calling Olive's social worker tomorrow morning (around 2-4AM Michigan time!)
We're praying that Olive's social worker is at work - that she answers her phone - that she tells J that Olive's paperwork is ready to go - and that it's done correctly.
We're praying that Jasmina can push to get us a travel date soon (preferably tomorrow!) that will allow us to travel before the end of the year.

If this happens, H1N1 is a threat in Olive's region - and there will have to be accommodations to protect the children and workers.

This may mean very limited supervised visits, possibly at an off-campus location.

It may cut down on the time of our adoption process, or it may delay it all together.
We're praying that H1N1 will not impact our adoption in any negative manner, that the children and workers will be protected, and that we will have a wonderful experience while we're there, limited initial visits or not.

Not what I hoped to hear...

2009-11-17T19:37:00.000-08:00

We found out today that Olive's social worker has been out of the office, and won't be back to work until this Thursday.
So, until Thursday - there is nothing our facilitator can do to move us forward and get us a travel date.
We're praying she'll call bright and early Thursday morning, and that Olive's worker will relay that her paperwork is all done and ready to go. And that J will request a travel date for us Thursday or Friday.
Of course this is an unlikely scenario (when you're talking international adoption) - but God is big! And He's done a whole lot of these unlikely things for us so far.
We are praying that we will still travel in November, and at worst the first days of December.
Lord, please hear our prayers and give us our desires!

Olive had a cardiologist appointment scheduled for this past Friday.
I've asked if we might be able to know the results.

So, hopefully we'll hear some great news at the end of this week.

We got a little clarification :)

2009-11-16T08:09:00.000-08:00

We did hear today that our dossier was received, translated, and submitted successfully to the Ministry Officials in Olive's country.
Jasmina is going to be calling Olive's Center of Social Work to see if Olive's paperwork is ready for her to request a travel date for us.
I so wish that she could have called today.
But, tomorrow it is.
And I will try my best to sit here patiently and wait to see.

Still waiting for clarification..

2009-11-12T18:22:00.000-08:00

We're still waiting for clarification on wether or not we were submitted.
I'm feeling good about it.
But that doesn't always amount to much.
I did get my last wedding of the season edited, and I'm not taking on any more outside work other than the hats/scarves which I'll be going full blast on now.
My nesting urge is strong - so I'm excited to pull out our boxes of little girl clothes, and start packing some away for her. I'm going to start tomorrow.
I hope that we get a travel date so it's not in vain!