Buckeye Breakfast

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Every year our church hosts a Buckeye Breakfast. It's a special event for father's and kids to come and hear Ohio State players share their faith. It is always awesome but this year even more so. The crowd was a little smaller and Adam and the boys were able to sit close, get lots of pictures and their jerseys signed. I haven't done a smile box in awhile so I put one together for the pics. Notice that the tooth fairy has continued to be very busy. If Zane and Carson don't start growing teeth instead of losing them we will have to invest in partials:) GO BUCKEYES !

Bambi

Celebrating Carnival in Haiti

This week there is little to report on the progress of our adoption file. Our agency has informed us that due to Haiti celebrating Carnival there has been very little movement on adoption files. The good news is that the orphanage says the children are fine and there are no reports of illness:) To learn more about Carnival click on this link....http://www.heritagekonpa.com/Haiti%20archives/Haiti%20carinival.htm

We have also been informed that our homestudy agency will be closing at the end of April and have been working on transferring our files to another agency within our state. This will be our second transfer. The last homestudy agency closed all of it's out of state branches to get ahead with the economy.It looks like the economy has taken it's toll on this last homestudy agency as well. We are keeping our fingers crossed with this one:) These are tough times for everyone. I am grateful they were able to complete our homestudy update and submit it to Haiti before they began to close their doors. That gives us a little breathing room for now.

Bye for now, Bambi

ADOPTED

One of the things I am thankful for on this adoption journey is the time it has given me to reflect on my own adoption into God's family. I remember my " gotcha date", Or forever family day",if you will. It was 1992 and I was an angry and alone teenager, up in my bedroom lost and desperate for anyone to help me. But I was not alone. I remember recalling the bible verse in Revelations "I stand and the door and knock....". and at that moment I made a decision to invite Christ into my life to clear up the mess around me. In an instant I was adopted into a new family. The family of God. Being in the adoption process has given me a deeper understanding of how much God loves us in order to have created a way for us to be adopted into his family. A new appreciation of the sacrifice he made to make that possible.

God offers to adopt us all. He doesn't have a specific gender or age preference, health checklist , country preference or limits on number of children that can be in the home. He will take us right now as we are, where ever we are . No waiting lists.He can provide for us all( and perfectly ).No home study requirements,dossiers to complete, salary requirements,back round checks or medicals needed.Our adoption is final the moment we accept the offer. We are given an eternal birth inheritance like no other.He has plans and hopes and dreams for us just like it states in Jeremiah 29:11"I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord".The ultimate PAP(potential adoptive parent) !

God has THE perfect adoption system going on.(us, not so much:)2 things I have thought of though are this...(1) God still gives us a choice. He does not take away our freewill in his adoption. Or stiff-arm us into anything. And (2) It comes at a price. God has paid this price by giving up his own son Jesus.I can't imagine as crazy and emotional and everything in between that this adoption journey can be , the sacrifice God had to make by giving up his own child to make my adoption possible.

There is no better way of describing God's love for us than through the picture of adoption. I can't imagine a better way to serve and show God's love to others than by the act of adopting. I am grateful to be on this journey:)and I am grateful to be adopted.
Bambi

Mom Song William Tell (With Lyrics Captions)

Happy Friday Everyone! This mom is singing my song. For those who haven't seen this it is hilarious. For those that have ,it is still hilarious. Time for the weekend.......Zane and Zoe were invited to sleep overs. Grandma is taking Carson out and mom and dad are going to see a movie rated no lower than PG13 :)
LOL,
Bambi

The Name Game

Vania

As many of you know ,one of the first and hardest duties as a parent is to choose a name for the child. It is never easy and if you are me , you are looking high and low for that perfect name. With Zane and Zoe it was a little easier. They were our favorite boy and girl names ( that we could agree on :) Everyone thought for sure we would name Carson Zachary to keep up with the z names.But no, literally the night before he was born we decided on Carson just on a whim. We have always liked unusual names. Names we don't hear a lot. Of course there are those names you cross off because of so and so .Names you cross off because you don't want people calling them whatever for short. Names you pick because they run in the family or names that begin with all the same letter. You name it we all have our own process of finding the perfect name. And amazingly enough they all seem to fit the person ( on most ocassions:)

Anyway ... we thought when the next referral came we would pick a "C" name. You know to round things out. We contemplated forever and just didn't have that perfect "C" name. Then we got the referral for Vania. There was no doubt we loved her name. Beautiful, short and unusual. Our name criteria had already been met.Whew! I was looking up the meaning today on some baby name sites and found out that it's Hebrew and means God's gracious gift.How perfect is that! We have also been trying to figure out pronuciations and so far I think it is pronounced VAN-EE-UH. I think we will call her Vi for short(a cute nickname, another criteria must).That's all for now.
Bambi

Meet our Valentine

Vania Anne


It is with great joy that we announce the referral of Vania Anne . Vania is a year old and was recently brought into the Hope for Little Angels of Haiti Orphanage by her birth mother. Vania is her Haitian name and we have added Anne for her middle name. We are excited to learn more about her and as we do we will pass that information along. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. It is a great day!
Bambi and Adam

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day

Hope everyone is having a great day with your loved ones ! Today we are trying something new and taking the kids to glow putt. It is a miniature indoor golf place where you putt putt under the electric glow of neon lights. Then our annual tradition is to have our "fancy " dinner ( which is fancy because we let the kids set the table and use wine glasses for their drinks:) and Adam makes sweet and sour chicken , his specialty. We have made a decision on a referral and are busting at the seems to share, but waiting for some confirmation from the O before posting or giving any details! It will be a long weekend. Can't wait to share our news!
Bambi

Tooth Fairy

Carson lost his first top front tooth yesterday. He hasbeen working on getting that tooth loose all week. Dad has been out of town on a buisness trip and Carson had been waiting for Adam to do the extraction. I don't know how Adam was elected for the job but he is the resident tooth puller:) So, last night he finally had success. And of course I always seem to be the unprepared tooth fairy scraping together what I can to gently slide under their pillow.( I'm glad he can't quite read yet)But all is well and he is happy and toothless.
Bambi:)

A Quick Update

Okay.. we received some pictures today of a couple little girls who are available for adoption.We need your prayers as we gather information and try to reach a decision.This is tough stuff! Pray that God would lead our hearts and minds one way or the other and that we would have peace with whichever decision we make.I thought I might be able to put down the chips, hershey kisses and lay off the coffee once we had a pictures, but looks like I 'm going to have to break them back out:)
Bambi

Another Fish

Zane & Zoe 2007
Carson 2009


And Carson makes three! Three swimmers that is for the summer swim team. With the thawing out of ice and snow and the mild spring like weather this week, it has given me the fever for summer. One of the things we enjoy most is summer swim team. Zane and Zoe have been swimming on the team for a few years and Carson will be joining the ranks this year. In order to qualify for swim team you must be able to swim the length of the pool. Carson has been working hard taking swimming lessons and can now officially swim across the pool:) Yea! We have another fish in the family! Bring on summer.
Bambi

Anxious

• We are really anxious to hear word of a referral from our agency. So I've decided to post something just to post and try to stop checking my e-mail for the next two minutes! Anyway, my mom gave me this comic awhile ago and I thought I would share it with you before it finds its way from the front of my fridge to the pile of forgotten rubbish that has fallen under the fridge:) Can anyone relate to this scene? It makes me laugh everytime I pass the fridge.
• Bambi
  

To Fly Again

This is a great book that I started reading this week. The author Gracia Burnham , and her husband Martin spent a year as hostages in the Philippine jungle. The book reflects on their experiences in the jungle , coming home and the insight and wisdom God has given her along the way. Max Lucado states "A training manual for anyone seeking to fly above discouraging circumstances."As she says, God points out that "Here on Earth you will have many trials and sorrows"( John 16:33) Not may or might or could or possibly.It's guaranteed. But also God goes right on to say" But take heart for I have overcome the world."Gracia says The trouble is guaranteed . But so is the peace." experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7) There is so much more in the book that is truly inspirational for anyone going through difficult and uncontrollable circumstances.

On another note, our agency has arrived back from Haiti safe and sound ! The trip coordinators are working on separating the many photos they have taken of the children and then will pass them along to Chareyl. Hopefully then we will be able to look at photos of children who are available for adoption. Please pray God would guide our hearts through this process.

Bambi:)