Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Monday
Posted by Jon at 2:23 AM 2 comments
Saturday, December 12, 2009
We're breaking out of here
Posted by Jon at 10:05 AM 5 comments
Please....Someone save them!
I'm posting this in hopes that someone reading my blog may be feeling led to adopt a child with Down syndrome. Please consider saving one of these precious angels before they spend their life "behind bars" in a mental institution where they will surely die. 90% don't survive 1 year in these places and once transferred, they will not be able to be adopted. Maybe not you, but maybe you know someone who's considering adopting. Please share as these kids are SO worth it!!
URGENT PLEA!
URGENT PLEA!
URGENT PLEA!
URGENT PLEA!
Posted by Sarah Maples at 2:49 AM 0 comments
Friday, December 11, 2009
Fundraiser for another family
Please visit this link and consider making a donation to this family's fundraising efforts.
http://joneseeadoption.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-can-happen-in-6-days.html
Posted by Sarah Maples at 2:05 PM 0 comments
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Just One Big Family Now
Posted by Sarah Maples at 2:59 PM 10 comments
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
MckMomma HP Touchsmart giveaway
Blogging friend MckMomma is part of the contest to give away an HP Touchsmart computer. Go checkout her blog for many great things including the giveaway. http://mckgiveaways.blogspot.com/2009/12/hp-touchsmart-giveaway.html
Posted by Sarah Maples at 2:45 PM 0 comments
He Signed!!!
We got the signature today that we've been waiting for. The adoption ceremony will be tomorrow and we get to spring Grace Nadja from the orphanage when we get back. We are so excited!! We are hoping to leave here on tuesday. Look for an update of the ceremony tomorrow night.
Posted by Sarah Maples at 2:24 PM 4 comments
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Bittersweet Day!
Well, today was the most amazing and emotional and sad day all in one that we've ever had throughout our 5 adoption experiences. We got to meet Grace Nadja's birth father, his sister and a maternal uncle. They travelled several hours today to come say goodbye to sweet Grace. Let me just tell you how much they love this little girl and how hard this meeting was for ALL of us. As soon as they came in the room, we all started crying. Very few, if any, families ever get the opportunity to meet birth family so we are totally blessed to have experienced this today. We now know why we did not get our signature yesterday. If we had, we would have travelled for the adoption ceremony today and they may not have been able to come say goodbye. I will never question God's timing again! Sadly 2 of Grace's sisters are in the hospital with pneumonia so her mother was unable to come. However, we hope to meet her after the adoption ceremony. Grace won't be with us then though so she won't be able to see her again and that breaks my heart. We got many many photos today and a little video as well to show Grace when she's older. It is so obvious how much they love her. They have our blog address and will be able to watch her grow up and thrive in our home. We are so thankful they want to keep in touch and they have invited us to visit them if we are ever back in this country. They are such warm and loving people and we feel like they are now a part of our family too. I just don't even have the words to express the love we felt today. We got to spend a total of about 3 hours with them today and even though they don't speak English, we were able to communicate. The embrace I got from Grace's father was the biggest, tightest, longest, and most heart felt hug I've ever received from ANYONE!!! We both just sobbed. I cried equally as hard when he and Jon embraced. I would love to post a few pictures but I will not unless I get their permission. I want to protect their privacy and do not want them to feel any shame or embarrassment for placing her for adoption. If they could, they surely would have kept her. Resources for a child with Down syndrome just don't exist here and her surgeries for the cleft palate are just too expensive. They asked us MANY questions today about resources for her and were pleased with what we will be able to offer her. We shared photos of our other kids and saw pictures of Grace's siblings as well has her paternal grand parents. We may even be blessed to receive some baby photos of her. God's timing and plan are perfect all the time and we couldn't be happier with the way things are going right now. I'll stop now as I'm starting to cry again visualizing Grace's father saying goodbye and looking back as he walks to the elevator.
Posted by Sarah Maples at 3:37 PM 8 comments
Monday, December 7, 2009
Posted by Jon at 3:36 PM 2 comments
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Day 7 videos
Here are a couple of cute videos from today. First we finally caught Grace laughing on camera! She likes it when I jump with her and lift her in the air. It takes her a little while to warm up and she gets bored after only a couple of turns, but eventually she gets going.
Posted by Jon at 4:56 PM 1 comments
Home Happenings
Here is a note we got from Holly who is the young gal taking great care of our kids while we are gone. She is so great with them and sounds like they are having a great time. We are soooo thankful for Holly and at total peace that she is running the show while we are gone. Truely amazing. THANKS HOLLY, WE LOVE YOU!!!
p.s. I was in stitches reading this :)
Hey there Sarah,We had a great day today. We went to Chatau Theatere as planned and then to Playland McDonalds for lunch with some of my family. (I added some pictures.) Sam has been really good. For both him and Ian I've had a pretty much no tollerance rule as far as whining and willful disobedience goes. And, even though they didn't appreciate it too much at first, knowing what to expect from me is helping them allot with first time obedience. We really had a very great day with both of them. I praised them up so much tonight for how good they did, especailly Sam, and he about popped with pride. It was pretty cute. And of course after that he put out a double effort with helping me with things and helping the other kids. I have three funny/cute stories for you. (I hope this doesn't get too long, lol, it might!)The first is that Sam informed me that you can say bad words with your hands/fingers. He then informed me that mommy said he should NEVER EVER EVER do it EVER. Then all four of them proceeded to show me how it was done. Pretty funny.Second, was that tonight I left the kids pot pies on the table while we came down and read your blog posts. Well, we were sitting there and all the sudden heard a fork hit the floor. Ivy looks at me, eyes wide and said, "I think Barney ate our pot pies. Do you know how I know? He just doropped his fork!" The imagery was so funny that I really couldn't hardly be upset at Barney, even though he did indeed eat three out of the four. What a crazy dog! We'll know better now!Third was just a cute thing that happened tonight while putting the kids to bed. I always say, "Do you want me to pray for you?" And then proceed to thank God for all the good things we did that day and ask him to bless tomorrow. I was just about to leave for the night and Iris says, "Holly! Holly! Holly!" very urgently and then said, "Pray for Barney, too." So, we prayed for the stuffy, too. Pretty cute.Oh, one more thing, while I was watching Grace's movie clips I randomly said, "She's so cute, I could just take her home!" I of course was just using the expression but all four of the kids, Ivy, Iris, Ian, Sam were like, "NO!" Sam grabbed my face and looked me straight in the eyes and all the while Ivy is saying, "She belongs to us, WE adopted her!" Oh boy, some kind of love you got going on in this family! :) :) :) Anyways, I'm sure loving your kiddos! Praying for things there, Goodnight, or goodmorning. :) Holly
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Saturday's Visits
We had 2 visits with Grace today and when we went to her room to get her, she actually put her arms out to me. Talk about melt my heart!! She is just such a sweet child but she does know what she wants and does not want. She also cried when she bumped her head which is GREAT!! Most kids in an institution won't even bother crying as their cries will not be heard. Grace shows appropriate emotions and reactions which is wonderful. She's starting to show more interest in toys as well and played ball with us today by rolling it back to me. Very smart little girl we have here.
We really had a great day all around today. Jim and Mary(the family here adopting sweet Milos) and us spent a lot of time together today. They showed us how to use the tram which was so easy and will save us $15/day in cab fare to and from the orphanage. We then had lunch together at a Mexican restaurant. It was a cute little place and the food wasn't bad either. We then hit the open market but didn't find anything that we couldn't live without. We were in search of a nice dress for Grace to wear the day we spring her from the orphanage. The one we brought is WAY too small. She's much bigger than we expected :) With no luck there, we continued walking to the pedestrian zone which is like a big mall area similar to our outlet malls in the states. We did find her a sweet dress and leggings but failed to look at the price and it was around $70...yikes!! Oh well, we haven't spent money on souveniers yet so I felt I could splurge on Grace. We then took the tram back to the orphanage for our 2nd visit. The weekend staff is a little more laid back, should we say, and the children were hungry and fussy. We decided to walk the halls a bit with Grace and one of the nurses yelled at us. Oops!! We are confined to a very small visitation room. Not a lot to do in there with a 2 year old who doesn't have much interest in toys. ANYWAY....we then hooked up with Jim and Mary and decided to try a hamburger at a "fast food" joint. Umm....disgusting!! It certainly was not beef and I actually had to spit my bite out. Oh well. Next Jasmina(our facilitator) met us and took us to a professional basketball game. We were invited yesterday but didn't have much interest but decided to go tonight for something to do. I'm sure glad we did. We had a blast and the game was very exciting. We did lose by 2 points but it was very nerve wracking. We weren't sure what was going to happen after the game as there were many helmet wearing police officers at either entrance to the gym. The crowd was rowdy and would throw rolls of toilet paper and other objects on the court floor if they didn't agree with the ref's calls. Did I mention how LOUD it was in there? However, at the end of the game, the team players shook hands and there were no riots going on. We made it back to our apartment and are now catching up with emails and having something to eat. We're hoping to get some sight seeing in and had actually planned a tour today but the weather wasn't nice and the fog rolled in which would have made it difficult to see the sights. Maybe monday.
Now for prayers. 1. the adoption minister to sign our case on monday. If this happens, we can have the adoption ceremony on tuesday and get the passport and medical on thursday. Then all that's left is the visa. However, the US embassy doesn't do visa appts on fridays so we'd have to wait until monday. 2. please pray they will make an acception(they've done it before) to do our appt friday so we can all leave as a family on saturday. More details on that later in the week once we know in the minister signs.
We are very excited to know that Grace's birthfather will be coming here on monday to meet us. Her mother most likely will not be with as she is suffering emotionally from all of this as are Grace's 2 older sisters. So sad. Please pray for Grace's birth family that they have peace with their decision knowing Grace will be so loved and given the best opportunities to reach her fullest potential.
Well, that's today's adventures. Tune in tomorrow for more....
Good night!
Posted by Sarah Maples at 4:09 PM 3 comments
Friday, December 4, 2009
Day 5 videos
Just a swingin'
Determination
Grace was determind to get to her bottle. This was the first time we have seen her crawl on her hands AND knees. So far to get around, she's done the Indian crawl and dragged her legs. Now that we know she CAN do it, we will be finding lots of things to motivate her to crawl MORE. Oh how I love this girl!!
Posted by Jon at 2:43 PM 2 comments
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Day 4
No words today just a video of our baby girl. We do suggest you turn down the sound before you watch, so you don't have to hear the corny laughter. :)
Posted by Jon at 3:18 PM 2 comments
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Day 3
Ok, now for a few more pictures:
Having a little taste before I bite daddy's nose!
Posted by Sarah Maples at 4:42 PM 5 comments
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Happy 2nd Birthday Grace!
OK, this is going to be just a quick recap of the day since Jon's writing it instead of Sarah. Today 12/1/09 is Grace Nadja's 2nd Birthday. Happy Birthday Grace. We got to visit Grace twice today in the morning and the afternoon. In the afternoon we brought her a tutu and angel wings to dress up in, some presents to open and a few decorations. Grace really warmed up to us today, even in the morning she was smiling and by the afternoon we had gotten her to giggle a little bit. Well that's about all I'm going to say, I'm sure Sarah will elaborate further later when she's feeling up to it. Here are some pictures from our day, enjoy.
Posted by Jon at 3:43 PM 7 comments