Friday, October 3, 2014

Love



This is what love does…

Remember my little love Tommy?

Because of love, I advocated for him.
Because of love, we connected.
Because of love, he was chosen.
Because of love, we are friends.
Because of love, we will be…
…Always in each other’s lives.


This is my boy’s mommy. Isn’t she beautiful?




And his sisters? Oh my! Adorable. He has four of them.
The baby is from Chin@ also and happens to look a lot like him.
Daddy is so handsome. What a beautiful family our little boy has.
His family gave him the name Samuel. It suits him, don’t you think?
And his family is working so hard to bring him home to the States.

This is their blog.
May Blessings Flow

Go ahead and click on it. Check it out.
Please consider participating in their giveaway for a chance to win an iPad or a Galaxy Tablet.

Because of love
We can help bring Samuel home.



Sunday, September 21, 2014

Thank you.

Just a quick post.  We are so grateful to those who shared with us. We had our first donation within hours of posting our link. I was moved to tears! Thank you. We had very generous donations, we are just in awe. I know that not everyone can contribute monetarily, but just your support, kind words, love, friendship... it makes a world of a difference and we appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts.
We can't wait for progress. Can we fast forward a few months? :) Mila talks about her sister all the time now. I guess she changed her mind because a little while ago she wanted a brother. She says she has many girly things to share with her sister and not a lot of boy things. Another thing that she worries about is that she doesn't "want to have to buy another bed for a brother." She can just share hers with her sister. I explain to her that her sister or brother will have their own bed regardless. But she refuses. She wants to sleep with her sister. Okay, baby girl. No problem. :)



She "tidied" the bed all by herself.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Who? What? Where? When?


 
Ha! We’ve received these and so many more questions. But most of all, an inundation of overwhelmingly wonderful, positive, loving, generous comments and private messages. Warm hugs and well wishes in person. We are so humbled and thankful.  

We signed with a home study provider here, out of Dub@i.  The social worker is licensed in the US. She will prepare our home study docs for us.  We are currently researching agencies that will work with us in our unique circumstances. Obviously, we also want the best, quickest service and that has their fee schedule very clear.  China is part of the Hague Adoption Convention and by law agencies must be transparent with where all fees go. 
We’ve been paper chasing this summer.  Many documents are required. Notary stamps. Aaall kinds of stamps and signatures. Sigh. And lots more are needed. As you might imagine, we’re planning on adopting from China. Preferably from the orphanage in which I volunteered at. At the very least, the same province. Well, we’d love to  be able to visit dear friends we have there.  We are leaving gender open and keeping with birth order,  0-4.  This process takes 12-18 months average. Sometimes more, some times less.

Most people who have reached out to us are asking what they can do to help.  Support is very important. We can tell who supports us in this amazing time in our life – growing our family. It’s a very exciting, yet trying time. There will be days that we might get overwhelmed with paper work. There will be days that we will just want to be there already meeting our baby. There will be days – after we get matched – that we will feel so much joy in seeing our child’s face, finally. The little eyes I’ve imagine for so long looking back at me through pictures. These days will be joyful, but also very hard. So emotional support will be so appreciated. 
Our wonderful family has asked specifically how they can help us financially.  We set up two easy ways that they can gift us. We weren’t comfortable with making that public; but after some gentle persuasion from some of our amazing friends who have fund-raised to help with the costs of adoption, we will.  International adoption has so many fees, stamps, immigration, papers, papers, papers...
For now what we’ve set up, donors’ amounts and well wishes will be able to either be private, public, or anonymous.  We encourage anyone who’d like to gift us with any amount, to not be shy to post it publicly. Every single penny will go towards bringing our child home. And we will always remember that you were a part of that.  Feel free to share this with anyone you think is keen on helping an orphan to become a beloved daughter/son, sister/brother.

Again, thank you for just being excited for us. We’re so happy and looking forward to many blessings in our little family.

Click to DONATE

Monday, September 8, 2014

Why are we so happy?

























All photos shot by Natalie Atick @ Natalie Atick Photography Studios. All photos are copyright of Natalie Atick.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

KG Graduation is a big Deal!

(Will post pix soon)

My little girl graduated today. I can't believe how fast time passes us by. A little over five years ago she was an itty-bitty newborn. And now, she's graduating Kinder. We are so proud of her. She has matured so much this past year. She has gone through so much change all of her life with all the traveling. But what she and we as a family have endured this past school year was hard. Losses.
She is so strong, so brave. But losing her "baby brodder" was hard on our Munchkin. She still misses her Tommy and talks about him all the time. How I wish he could've been here with us to celebrate her huge milestone.
Our girl was anticipating today for so long. Her gorgeous class put on an amazing performance choreographed by her extraordinary teacher, Ms. Tara. It was a "Gingerbread Man" musical. Munchkin got to be a gingerbread man. They had beautiful costumes. They all knew their parts. It was a great production. They also sang and danced to other songs. It was so neat. And of course, receiving her diploma in her cap 'n gown was an awesome moment also. We were so happy and proud of our baby. She does all her parts so well. I know I'm bragging. But it was so cute to see her making all the little moves she learned. So cute. So funny. It reminded me of when she was in the school-wide production "The Ribbon" at Eton House last year. She really learns her part.
After the ceremony, we headed to her classroom for a little party. There were gifts, and cake - from La Brioche!!!!!! Yuuuummm. But I was good. Not one bite! Mila, on the other hand ate from the "brown cake" twice. And from the "white cake" twice. Plus other little snacks. By the time we left for lunch, her belly was a little full. We headed to the mall with her BFF. Both girls all dressed up. They were so cute. Everyone looked at them and smiled as they passed us. While Daddy was parking, we started walking and the girls were talking about how their parents never let them ride on the mechanical stuffed animal rides. Hmmm, I figured it was a special day. Why not? So on they went. Both of them giggling and crashing into each other as shoppers walked by. Then we all went to lunch. Both girls only ate half of their lunches and I packed the rest. Afterwards, we wanted to give the girls another surprise. We went down to the basement to Fun City. They were so excited! They played so much on the machines and got so many coupons to exchange for prizes. It truly was so much fun for them. After all the machines, carousel rides, and prize retrieval, we decided we just needed a rest. So we sat at the loungers in St@rbucks. And we waited for the mommy to pick the BFF up. We chatted a bit. Then they left to do some shopping at -Carrefour_ and we decided to give Mila her special gift.  She finally got her very first big Lollaloopsy doll. Such a happy camper.
We were so tired. We went home and watched videos of her grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousin congratulating her on her big day. What a full, fun-packed day.




*Funny, we were having lunch at L'Italianos with her best friend. And out of the blue, this little girl asks me to show her a picture of Tommy. I was so surprised by that. But that also tells me that Mila talks about him often. Oh my sweet girl. And my sweet boy. How we miss him! But hopefully soon we'll be able to see him with his forever family. Maybe he'll be present in Mila's next graduation or maybe we could be present in his KG graduation. That would be neat.

Monday, May 5, 2014

The Epitome of Selflessness.

This sweet mama, Tara, wrote the most selfless post. It made me think of my Little Lovie's forever mom and his foster mom. Well, and his first Mama. What an amazing heart. So much grace.

"The Best Mama"

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Easy Like Sunday Morning...







I cannot wait for this summer. For so many reasons. We have some fun things planned and also planning on not planning too much. Just like our Tokyo trip last summer. Nice, easy breezy. We're stopping in Paris for a few days on our way home. We've been trying to visit Paris for years now and something always changes our course. Disney Paris is also on the horizon. Mila will be so thrilled.
I have so much to look forward to. I'm feeling so blessed. But, as they say here: "Shway-shway", little by little, poco a poco. Easy Like Sunday Morning. My favorite attitude.










We will have friends from here visiting Miami for the first time. It'll be fun to show them around. They've been so good to us here; we hope to show them the same hospitality there.
We will be doing lots of swimming in my mom's pool. You see, my family has had big dogs ever since Mila was a baby. It was hard for us to use the pool because we were scared. We have a big dog, but they've been with each other from day one. Mila was a stranger to these dogs. We only go visit in the summers so they don't really have a chance to get to know each other. Well, now the dogs are not there and it'll be a great opportunity to enjoy Vovo's house. :) We also plan on lots of bike rides on the Beach. Our favorite thing to do when we first got married was to ride our Elektr@ cruisers to Bay H@rbor. Easy Breezy. Oh, and my cafes con leche from Moses Cafe a.k.a. Cachita's. Yuuuummm!
I've had a hard year. I need to put so much to rest and look forward to all the wonderful blessings that are presenting themselves to us.
Dawn... I really hope we get to meet finally. Maybe the girls can come over my mom's for a swim. Since you're neighbors anyway.






Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Praising God...



I’m happy to share that our little sweetheart has a family committed to adopt him. I am very relieved that we will know that he will be so loved. This is a wonderful family. He will have lots of sisters to play with and dote on him. He will even have a sister who looks just like him.  I am in awe at how all of this played out. The mom is a very dear person whom I already consider a friend. She is very real and very sweet. I feel so at peace and grateful. I can’t really put my feelings into words. She very kindly has expressed a desire to keep us posted on his life with them. I couldn’t ask for more. I know things might change in the future, but just knowing that this little person that means so much to us will be taken care of is such a blessing. I don’t have to wonder where he is anymore and what type of family setting he has. I know he is so cherished already.  I even have real hope of seeing him again one day. Meeting this wonderful family in person will be such a joyful occasion.