I can't keep up!

I'm so behind with this blog. I know I've posted a lot of this stuff on facebook, but I want to make sure I get it on the blog so when I do my blog book all of the things going on in our life is included. I still haven't posted pics from when Aunt Emily visited a few weeks ago. Oh, well. I'm currently working on my blog book from '07 & '08. I'm combining it since it's cheaper to just add more pages than to have two books. I just finished my family scrapbook from 2006 on shutterfly.com. It's the second digital book I've done. The first one was our family scrapbook from 2005 and I love it. I've officially given up paper scrapbooking. I did Orin's 1st year baby book (which ended up being so large I had to split it into 2 books) as a typical scrapbook. I have about 10 more pages to add and then it will finally be done. I will be so happy to get rid of all of the paper and supplies that just take up room. So, once I finish my blog book I'm trying to decide if I'll start on Micaiah's 1st year baby book (which will be digital) or if I'll do our family album for 2007. I feel like I can't catch up. And soon enough I'll have have an adoption album I'll need to put together. The one thing I've got going for me is digital goes so much faster than paper scrapbooking. But not fast enough!

Here are a few recent pictures:

We walked in from a lovely evening getting ice cream with the kids to these! Ewwwww. I think they are baby spiders but people seem to think the look too big - why would there be so many though? I think a mama must have laid her nest in the wall or something. We've had our own little 'Charlotte' living right outside our door making us beautiful webs each morning so I'm thinking it is her. The apartment was fumigated a few months ago so some of them were already dead. But still, plenty crawling around for us to be grossed out by. We looked everywhere but we had no bug spray! We usually get critters with a napkin, Kleenex, shoe or something. I tried to think of the most toxic thing I could and came up with bleach. I just poured a big puddle of it all over them. It sort of worked. But we kept finding more and more so Damien ran out to get bug spray - which worked much better! :-)

Micaiah looked so cute with "mama banola bars" in both hands and yogurt all over his mouth/nose. Oh, and he looks SO much like Damien at 2!

We made rockets the other day. In case you were wondering, Orin picked it out. :-) He was trying to be very accurate and made sure to color the bottom part red because that's where the fire comes out during lift-off.

I love Caiah's chubby little hands with marker all over them.
Testing out the finished product.I got this shirt when I went shopping with Emily and tried on all of those fun dresses. It was on clearance for $12 so I figured it would be worth it for how much the kids would like it. And they didn't let me down. As soon as I got dressed in the morning Orin said excitedly, "Mom, look at your shirt, it's got the fish on it!" They LOVE Dr. Seuss.
Ok, this child is still obsessed with lemons. He eats them like they are candy. Whenever we go to a restaurant we'll ask for a bowl of lemons and he'll scarf them down. He decided to have a little fun with them this day.
Ice cream party at the library. The kids just hated it as you can see. ;-)
Hanging out at the big fountain with Edward. I swear, their favorite part is sitting and eating their Cheerios.

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Looking Back

So I've been working on my blog book (I'll write more about it soon hopefully). It's been fun to look at all of the old videos. I have all of these great videos posted and it's sad that I can't put them into the book. Since they are so cute and I just know you'd like to see them again I'll post a few here and there. Here a two of the boys just having fun together.

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"Is Your Grandpa In Heaven?"

We didn't have the best morning on Saturday. Orin had a little bit of an emotional breakdown. Saturday night he was punished from something he really wanted to do Sunday because he wouldn't stop playing in bed and go to sleep. So he wasn't happy. It's hard when we have a morning like this. I can sometimes allow Satan give me doubt in my parenting and worry creeps in instead of remembering that God is the head of this family and I have to trust him totally with my kids growth. So when we have conversations like the one we did at lunch, I am so encouraged. I can't remember everything exactly word for word, so I'm trying to relay it as closely as I can.

Orin: Mommy, who is your sister.
Me: Who do you think it is?
Orin: Aunt Emily.
Me: Yep. And I have 4 brothers! Can you imagine having 4 brothers? I know daddy can't imagine if you had 4 brothers!
Orin:Daddy, who is your grandma?
Damien: Gammie
This went on for a while. He knows these answers but sometimes he like to have the conversation for fun.
Orin: Daddy, who's your Grandpa?
Damien: Grandpa John. But you've never met him.
Me: Grandpa John died before you were born.
Orin: Is Grandpa John in heaven?
(Ok, this is when you sort of freeze and try to think of the best thing to say as quickly as possible. We don't know if Grandpa John is in heaven or not (only God knows) so we didn't think we could say yes to his question without any doubt. )
Me:Well, we don't know. If he loved Jesus then he is in heaven, but if not then he's not in heaven.
Orin: Will I go to heaven when I die?
Us: Well, if you love Jesus and worship him and pray to him and tell him you love him and want to serve him them you'll go to heaven.

I was still talking but he just started spontaneously praying: "Dear Jesus, I love you so much. Please let me love you and worship you and follow you. Please let me go to heaven. In Jesus name, Amen." (that's the gist of it. I wish I had it on video because his was so much sweeter.)

Orin: What's worship?
Us: Well, it's doing things like praying to Jesus and singing songs to him and being kind to people. Doing things like sharing with your brother, obeying mommy and daddy, telling other people about Jesus, helping people who don't have food or clothes or mommy's and daddy's.
Orin: I want to do those things so I can go to heaven. (Then he breaks out singing "1,2,3, Jesus Loves Me" - his favorite song from his preschool.)
Us: If we worship Jesus by doing those things we said before, then you will be truly happy. Even though it's hard sometimes, it will make us happier than anything else could.
Orin: You mean like a bomb going off in a swimming pool?
Us: Uh, sure, if that would make you very happy, then yes.
Orin: Daddy, what's a bomb?

LOL, so that was the end of the spiritual conversation. But it's so exciting that he's curious about God and wants to learn more. It's encouraging to us to know that hopefully a little of what we've been teaching him for so long is slowly sinking in and he's starting to understand it. It's so hard to explain salvation to kids in a way that they understand but is still meaningful and accurate.

Orin and Damien stayed in the kitchen talking for at least 20 minutes. Orin is obsessed with worry that our house will catch on fire. Damien was trying to convince him that it will probably never happen. Orin keeps asking questions like: "Did your house ever catch on fire, daddy?" and "What does it means when you say it will "never" happen?" and "What will happen to me if I catch on fire." He has totally gotten to the "question" stage. It's a lot of fun.

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Make War

II Corinthians 10:3-4 For though we live as human beings, we do not wage war according to human standards, for the weapons of our warfare are not human weapons, but are made powerful by God for tearing down strongholds.

Ephesians 6:11 Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. (and vs.13-18)

Our pastor just finished up a 4-part series on temptation. The gist was this: As Christians we are at war. The New Testament uses these terms many times. We are in a constant fight against our flesh, temptation, mediocrity, apathy, lack of growth, etc... Anything is possible with God - but our deepest struggles, our greatest temptations are most likely not going to disappear overnight. We have to fight, daily, hourly, even moment by moment to inch our way closer to Christ likeness. And it's not just a war within ourselves. We're to be on the offensive. We're bring light to the world to transform it. We're bringing the "fight" to the lost. We have to have the mind of a soldier - be willing to lay everything on the line to stand in the gap. "No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier." (II Timothy 2:4) We have to be singularly focused. To fight the good fight - we have to make war.

This artist, Tedashii, was at our church tonight. He did two songs. This video is what he did at the end of the service. It was a perfect way to wrap up the ideas the pastor was trying to get across. And whether or not you like this type of music, you can't helped but be moved by the truth of the message. Listen to the lyrics. God has given us power to overcome. "As it is written, 'For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." (Romans 8:36-37)

Oh, and you know that any song (especially in this genre) that begins with a recording of a John Piper message is going to be interesting. Damien said that if there was an award for "Best use of a John Piper sermon in a rap song" this one would definitely get it.

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Adoption in South Korea

I wrote a little about our take on International Adoption in general so now I want to write specifically about South Korea. Since we sort of stumbled (happily) onto the one agency in the US that can currently place children from SK in Texas (until then we didn't think it was an option), we didn't know a ton about Korean adoptions. It's been very interesting to learn more about it. Here are some things we've learned from different articles, blogs, and web sites. Hopefully it's all accurate or as close as it can be. I wanted to write some facts on Social Welfare Society (the Korean agency that our US agency works with) but their website has been down. I'll write specially about SWS when I can get to the site again.

Adoption in SK started in 1955 right after the Korean War. Many children were left as orphans because of the war and there were many "GI Babies" (fathered by US or other western soldiers) filling up the orphanages. A man from the US adopted 8 orphans and eventually founded Holt International Children's Services (currently one of the largest adoption agencies in the US).

Social stigma plays a huge role when it comes to domestic adoption in SK. Paternal family ties and blood lines are incredibly important. Because of this, domestic adoption is rare. Males are less likely to be adopted because inheritance and future blood lines come from them. Since Korean society is patriarchal, all lineage is tied to the man's family. When a woman gets married she inherits her husbands lineage. Adopting a daughter gives her a chance to have this when she marries. An adopted son would have no family name or register and would have a much harder time in society.

Because of the social stigma, Ninety-five percent of families who do adopt (although, like I said it's rare) choose babies less than a month old so that they can pass them off as their natural born offspring, overlooking older adoptable children.

Poverty and social stigma seem to be the two main reason women give their children up for adoption. Although in some ways, SK is somewhat similar to the US (such as technology and medical care), there are areas of the country where people live in extreme poverty and cannot afford to raise their children. As for the social stigma, a single young woman who is pregnant or has a baby outside of marriage can be shunned by her family, unable to get a job, denied from renting an apartment and ostracized by society. The government has very little to no social programs for unwed mothers who choose to raise their own children.

South Korea has one of the highest rates of abortion compared to other countries around the world.

And as far as the SK government's role in taking care of orphaned/abandoned children, child welfare remains one of the most underdeveloped areas in Korean society.

It's hard to determine numbers (the SK government isn't incredibly open about it), but Korea has almost 30,000 children in public orphanages. There are also an untold number in private institutions.

Although the majority of children adopted internationally from SK come to the US, children are adopted all around the world. Other countries who adopt are Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland and Germany.

As in most international adoptions, much of the cost goes to the Korean government & social welfare agencies. The money is used for medical care and necessities for those babies still waiting to be matched with families, orphanages, supporting the foster parents caring for the children, counseling and services for birthmothers and other social support.

As in many countries, parents who can't afford to care for their children will simply "drop them off" at an orphanage.

Because SK began allowing their children to be adopted internationally long before many other countries did, most children adopted into the US were from SK (from the '50's - 90's). However, the numbers have dropped dramatically in the past 10 years. Reasons for this is that the SK government is putting quotas on how many children can be adopted internationally, as well as the pushing for domestic adoption. In 2008, China, Guatemala, Russia, & Ethiopia had a larger number of children adopted into the US.

In an effort to increase domestic adoption, as of January 2007, children available for adoption must wait at least five months for a possible domestic placement before being considered for intercountry adoption. However, it is very very unlikely that a child will be adopted domestically after three. There are many other countries who have these types of rules, some requiring them to wait 1 or even 2 years.

Korean government offers incentives to (domestic) families who adopt, including housing, education, and medical subsides. This is sort of ironic because it offers less "incentives" to unwed mother's who want to raise their own children. And although domestic adoption has risen in the last few years, it is still rare.

Despite the efforts by the SK government, of the 9,420 children available for adoption in 2005, only 1,461 were adopted domestically while 2,101 children were allowed to be adopted overseas. So what happened to the nearly 6,000 children who did not get adopted domestically or abroad?

2008 was the first year that domestic adoptions were higher than international adoptions. However, it probably isn't because there has been a great increase in domestic adoption. It's more likely due to the fact that government is allowing a lower number of children to be adopted internationally.

There are 22 adoption agencies in SK. Of those, 4 facilitate international adoptions. The SK agency that our US agency works with is called Social Welfare Society.

In the mid-90's Korea decided that it wanted to stop allowing their children to be adopted internationally by about 2015. I've heard some reports that it will happen and some that it will not. The SK government has been pushing domestic adoption, the numbers have risen and society is beginning, ever so slowly, to change their ideas on adoption. I'm not sure if they are quite ready yet to end International adoption without having these children go into orphanages, but hopefully one day soon they will be.

Here are three articles I found interesting:

Orphanages in South Korea? Don't ask, don't tell.

South Korea and It's Children

South Korea Orphans

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Renewed Craft Time

After the fun-filled and busy week with Aunt Emily we've laid pretty low this week. I don't know how it happened, but I seem to have two little home-body boys. Even though I feel like we do a lot of fun activities I also feel like we're home a lot. And there are plenty of days when I ask if they want to go out (maybe to story time or the park) and they say, "No, we want to stay home and play!" I guess this is a good thing. I feel like our time together is much more "quality" when we're at home spending time together than when we're out and about. This week they wanted to be home even more since we were gone a lot last week. So we've had a lot of fun playing together, doing their workbooks (they love those preschool thinking skills workbooks), baking together and making more crafts. I haven't been taking as many craft time pictures since they are all starting to look the same, but I'll post a few of the cute ones below.

Oh, and in an attempt to help Caiah with his colors and letters, I made a game I saw on my favorite preschool craft site. It only took about 45 minutes during their nap time one day. It's great because I can tell the boys to play it together and Orin can tell Caiah the color and letter on whatever fish Caiah gets. How awesome would it be if I could get Orin to teach Caiah his letters and colors? It's sort of funny to me that he still doesn't get his colors. He knows a few but can't seem to remember them all. I've been really focusing on them for the last few months, but still nothing. I know he'll get it eventually.



Orin is on a mission to do a craft for all of the letters in his name. We have 'O' and 'R' so we made 'I' and we'll eventually make 'N'. I love how serious they always look while they are concentrating.
Caiah always enjoys patting down whatever he has just glued.
I swear they have some sort of conspiracy to not smile and look at me at the same time. Orin insisted on doing everything on his own. He even drew out the "I" on his own (with me telling him where to draw the line) as well as all of the x-cross lines on it. I was so proud! He chose pink for his ice cream of course.
This was an awesome craft we made one day while Orin was at school. It's a puffy cookie. Micaiah loved it! First he made the "dough" by mixing shaving cream and glue.
He mixed it all together with some brown paint.
Can you tell he was enjoying the mess?
Then he spread it all onto a paper plate.
And put on the chocolate chips. It didn't look appetizing but the shaving cream made it smell really good. And Caiah smelled like Damien the rest of the day. ;-)

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Our Space Walk

Our second trip to the UTA planetarium. We love that place. Orin was in heaven. Last time we actually saw a show about space. This summer they were showing old kids movies for $2. We saw Caiah's favorite - Cars. We're thinking about going back to see a show about Black Holes.

Maybe in his future?
Micaiah was so excited as we waited for the movie to start.

These kids hate having the sun in their eyes.
"How do I look?"
As soon as the kids see Damien walking home they run to meet him - and then fight over who he holds. Luckily he has two arms!

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My Two Sweethearts

ORIN

This is a conversation Orin and I have had at least 4 times a day for the past few weeks. He always starts it out of the blue - although sometimes it's right after he's been punished. :-)

Orin: I really love you.
Me: I really, really love you.
Orin: I really, really, really love you.
Me: I really, really, really, really love you.
Orin: I really, really, really, really, really love you.
Me: I really, really, really, really, really, really love you.
Orin: I really, really, really, really, really, really, really love you.
Me: I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really love you.
And on, and on, and on.

Orin is pretty good about just adding on one "really" - up to a certain point. Than it becomes 30 seconds of "really, really, really...". Finally I usually just say, "You must really love me!" I'm starting to get sick of the conversation - but I'm trying not to because I love it and it's so sweet.


MICAIAH

Micaiah loves to cuddle. We cuddle a few minutes before naps and bedtime almost every day. He'll put his face right up to mine. Last night while we were laying there he suddenly started touching parts of my face and whispering, "I love your nose, I love your hair, I love your ear, I love your other ear, I love your chin, etc..." On and on naming as many body parts as he could reach. It was seriously the sweetest thing I've ever heard from a 2 year old. And my favorite part is when he says, "I love your eyebraries." (eyebrows)

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It's Official - I'm Old

Emily has been visiting this week. Awesome.
She wanted to go shopping. I haven't been to a mall to "shop" in a LONG time.
Damien graciously babysat so we could go. I don't think he realized how long girls can shop.
We went to the "fancy" mall here in Dallas. It had some stores that Em wanted to go to that she can't go to in NOLA.
After going in a few stores all I could do was laugh. Seriously, the clothes were (in my opinion) hideous! It was a peek back into the '80's. Well, we did go in a few stores that had more of the type of clothing style that I was used to, but for the most part I was in shock.
I didn't believe that this could be for real. But there were lots of people shopping in the stores and even wearing outfits.
I felt bad. Em wanted me to give opinion of clothes she tried on. Of course it looked great on her for what it was supposed to be. I didn't know what to say though.
Really, I'm old. I mostly listen to kids music or obscure Christian music so when I hear music at the store all I can think it "what in the world?" Who would like this?
I knew it would happen.

I just had to try on a few of this dresses that EVERYONE seemed to want. Maybe they looked better on a person than on the rack, right? Wrong. I couldn't stop laughing. And when Damien saw the pictures? Yep, he laughed too. Ahhhh, we're so old!

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Just a few pictures...

Waiting to get their passport pictures taken. For some reason they were very excited.

Practicing his smile. :-)
I don't know what it is about Micaiah, but kids (especially girls) are very drawn to him. We'll go places and random children will just decide to come and talk to him or follow him around. I know this is a terrible picture, but we're at the library and this little girl was so enamored with him. At first he wasn't incredibly happy and told her no, but after she followed him around a while he got used to it. Here he was trying to read a book and she just kept hugging and touching him. So hilarious.
The City of Arlington which is near us has a few great community pools. They are perfect for the kids and, more importantly, they are cheap. We've only gone a couple of times since it's still a 25-30 minute drive, but the kids love it.



He is so close to being able to swim on his own. He can hold his breat under water for a few second can doggy paddle for a little bit too. I wish we had more of a chance to get in a pool because I know he'd be doing it in no time.

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Adoption update: Not much to update

Our agency sends out emails once a month to update everyone who is waiting. Nothing has really changed. Referrals are still taking about 6 months. And if you're open to special needs (as we are) they are sometimes coming earlier. It still takes about 3 months to travel from acceptance. So, like I said, that's about the same they told us a month ago. That's a good thing. It would be hard to take if it looked like things were taking longer - which is not a rare occurrence in international adoption. Next week we'll be at 1 month waiting, so we're still trying to focus on 5 months - and if it comes earlier we'll be even more excited.

I finally called two IA doctors. Even though it might still be a while, at least we'll be ready. There are two Doctors in Dallas that specialize in IA. When you first get a referral you are encouraged to have them review everything beforehand so you understand all of the medical info. One Doctor is part of a pediatric practice and the other is at Children's Hospital. What surprised me was how expensive it is. Insurance doesn't cover it and it's about $300! You email the file, they review the info and a week later they give you their take. It's even more expensive if you want to go in and have a face-to-face. Phew. How long does it take to look at a file? That's like $300 for 30 minutes. I was hoping to have it reviewed by two Doctors (ya, know to have a second opinion) but that's not going to happen. I'm thinking about having it reviewed by the IA doctor and then the clinic here on the center. They'll only charge me $17. :-)

Speaking of adoption expenses, we got the kids passports today. They were so excited! Of course, they don't have any idea what they are for, but they just sat and looked through them. That's another thing that cost more than I realized. It's cute to see their little faces on a passport. Orin kept saying he wanted to take it to school to show his teacher.


I'll just throw in these two pictures because they are cute. This is how I find Micaiah almost every night. He is ALWAYS clutching Barney as he sleeps. I LOVE it! And for the past month or so he's been sleeping without pajamas. You'd think he'd get cold but he's a great sleeper so I think he's fine. And I'm enjoying having less laundry.

Orin said, "Mom, take a picture of Micaiah and me hugging!" So I did. :-)

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My 4 Year Old Has A Mustache...

...well, a milk mustache. I swear, he cannot drink milk without getting a huge white upper lip. Of course, we think it's so cute.

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Day At the Zoo

Everyone says that the Fort Worth Zoo is better than the Dallas Zoo. And yes, FW is newer, larger, and has quite a few animals and areas that the Dallas zoo doesn't have. But the Dallas Zoo has the "Children's Zoo." And the Children's Zoo has water that the kids can play in, a petting zoo, and a bird aviary where you can hold and feed the birds. So in their eyes, the Dallas Zoo blows away Forth Worth. :-)

It's nice to have friends who have memberships so you can get in free! One day we'll have to hunker down and get one but for now we're just mooching off of other people. ;-) We've been to the zoo quite a bit in the last month but here are pictures from our most recent trip.

Orin hoping to see something swim by.
Ooo, there it is!
Ok, so I know there are too many pictures of this gorilla, but it was just so funny how it kept looking at them.

Do I see a staring contest going on?

Orin and Caiah with Edward.
Orin saw this alligator and felt the need to put his head in it's mouth.
And of course, Micaiah had to copy what Orin was doing.
"Aunt" Christa trying to help Orin spot the real alligator. I've always called her Miss Christa but for some reason the kids started calling her Aunt Christa. I'm thinking it's because they have an Aunt Crystal and it sounds really similar.
Micaiah is such a sweetie. He loves petting animals. I think he's pretty gentle for a 2 year old, but I'm not sure the animals love it too much.
Orin's turn. I love the way he's looking at it.

And the water area. It's so much fun.

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