Having a good day by Jazmin Cavender, age 8

This post is by Jazmin. Today was a best day and all this week and next week our class will have no homework, except maybe for math. That is because we have MAP testing. MAP means Missouri Assessment Program and Assessment means Test, so we will be taking tests this week and next. If I get an "Advanced", I will get to go to Worlds of Fun! Mommy says I have to go to bed earlier than usual and eat a good breakfast. I will tell you one thing that is good to eat for breakfast is the cereal Whole Hearts....I had some this morning and it is sooooooo good!

Addendum by Debbie...

just wanted to say we had an awesome weekend celebrating Easter with God and our family. Saturday we "tried" to have a garage sale to raise funds for the adoption, but it was a bust due to cold, rainy weather. But in the afternoon, Jessica, our oldest daughter, and I went prom shopping! She must have tried on at least 15 dresses, but we found a beautiful one that is royal blue; she also got gold strappy sandals and we found a sapphire and diamond necklace and earring set (fake stones of course), all at the same store! She looks so beautiful in her dress; hard to believe my firstborn is getting so grown up.

That evening, we grilled out and had S'mores; an all-around awesome day (except for the garage sale, but it was only the first one).

Sunday, we did church with the family, and went to my Dad's for an Easter Egg hunt and lunch. The kids had a blast looking for eggs. Then we roped everyone into a game of Pictionary and after that the kids watched the movie HOP while my soon-to-be-stepsister figured out how to do Jessica's hair for the prom. We had Jess try on her dress and show everyone; Daddy's eyes got big seeing his little girl all grown up and looking like a princess! I've posted a picture of the dress, but not with Jess in it until hair and makeup are done!

Then we finally got home, put the kids to bed, and got on to begin one of our adoption training classes. We made it halfway through until we got so tired we couldn't focus on the words.

Today, we got good news that the church will let us do a fundraiser for Lucky; I'm thinking a lunch thing after the second service, something easy to put together like baked potato bar, taco bar, etc. Plus desserts....my stepmom-t0-be is an awesome cook, so I think lots of people would come just to eat her goodies!

As I sit here, I'm thinking of Stacey and Richard in China, it's about 7 am there on Tuesday. They meet Dusty (Seth) today face-to-face for the first time. I am so nervous I feel like I'm the one over there! Am saying many, many prayers for a harmonious meeting (and that she gets to meet Lucky and Ned!). If Lucky gets my letter, than he may be a Jeramy, Jaxon, or Jonathan by the end of the week!

Debbie

Teen adoption

Recently, some on my Yahoo groups have posted many issues with teen adoption, in some cases, real horror stories. To read some of these, you would run screaming in the other direction and never consider adopting an older child. Then you read the posts of those who had the opposite experience. While I can't imagine any transition being seamless and perfect, there are those who have experienced less "bumps" in the road.
Am I more scared now than I was? Yep. Am I more aware of what things to watch for? Yep. Do I worry about how this will impact our current children? Of course! Each time we adopted, we spent time rebuilding a "new normal". I cannot speak for anyone else, but I feel it was crucial for us to wait so long between adoptions to get to that "good" place that can weather another upheaval and adding another teen will definitely upheave us!
We talked with all our kids at the dinner table tonight about all the things that "could" happen and what we would do. As advised in some of the posts I mentioned above, having a plan is the key. We even discussed changing certain behaviors that we don't want our new son to mimic and that we would all need to be tremendously patient while Lucky finds his niche in our family. We even talked about our basic family rules (which is hard to put on paper definitively if you've never done so!).
I especially have to be prepared for him to not want affection or touching or hugging for a long time, if ever. That will be hard for me, as I show my affection physically with hugs, kisses, a pat on the shoulder, etc. I think when we come home, one-day-at-a-time will be my motto.
Debbie

Homestudy visit!

Today was our home visit for the homestudy. This was a good excuse for me to purge the house of "excess". We got rid of a large truckload...going to have a garage sale to raise funds. Home visit went great, social worker said she would approve us for healthy or special needs, 15 and under, boy. That should cover it! Very happy to have that first one out of the way, next week we should have the visits done, so I'm hoping to get the dossier ready to certify and authenticate by the time the homestudy is done.

On another subject, I chose to run for our school board back in January. When the adoption came up, I thought about withdrawing but I like to start what I finish. Tonight, we had a town forum where we introduced ourselves and answered questions. I was so nervous I thought I was going to hurl! But it went well and I got a lot of good feedback, so we'll see what happens next Tuesday! There are six candidates for 2 positions, unheard of in our little town!

Picture of Lucky

Here he is! Isn't he a nice-looking young man??!!

PA, PA, PA

I have been so busy I keep forgetting to post! But I have tremendous news! After finding Lucky's file and getting it transferred back to WACAP, we of course submitted LOI. To our amazement, we got a call from our agency on March 15th, less than 24 hours after we submitted our LOI, to tell us we got PA! God is truly in control of this journey and we are humbled by his Grace to open the door to China once again! Please pray that I can get the paperwork done fast and that the homestudy goes quickly! The Sanders are leaving next week to pick up Dusty and I'm sending a letter with them for Lucky. We are trying to think of names to suggest to him and let him pick which one he wants; of course, the only thing we ask is that it be a "J" name!
I wanted to lift up my older children in praise tonight.....we have to trust that God will provide the finances for this adoption; He has already provided much needed help in the form of financial aid through our agency and an orphanage donation waiver, but that will still leave around $15,000 (by my estimates) to come up with. Not a small amount in only 5 months! Jessica and James offered their help by choosing to withdraw from a school trip in 2013 they were signed up for and we were putting money towards. They wanted us to use that money to help with the adoption costs instead. We're hoping we can take a family trip instead to celebrate Jessica's graduation in 2013.

2012- New Journeys

Hi! I haven't posted for such a long time! Been busy running the kids around to everything under the sun! I've revived our blog because once again, God has opened the door to China quite unexpectedly. I have always felt there was one child missing from our family, another boy to complement our wonderful son James, who has always desired a brother as well. We have begun the Amazing Race to our new (hopefully) son, a 13-year old who will age out in August of THIS year. Can't say much more or post his picture until PA, I think. About 5 total months to do what we did in 20 months the first time and 13 months the second time; hmmmm, seems to be a pattern developing here.
Our kids are very excited and can't wait....this will be so fast it will be no time at all. We'll have to think of some good fundraisers as God in his infinite sense of humor, allowed us to move mountains to submit LOI (will post on that tomorrow), but neglected to provide the funds quite yet!
Stay tuned.....
Debbie

ok, back again, at least it's only been two months this time. I truly cannot believe how busy we are some days. Getting 4 kids to their various places is just wild! At least Judi and Jaz go to some of the same places, but I am getting to the point where, on a rare day off, I want to stay home and go nowhere! Today was a day off, but here was the agenda: up at 6 to get the kids ready and drive them to school (normally they ride the bus), went back at 9:30 for Judi's Valentine party, then right to Jazmin's at 11. Got out of school at 1pm, drove 20 miles to Wsbg for Judi's doctor appt as she has sinusitis AGAIN! At least she went 4 months without it this time. Picked up medicine, hightailed it back to Leeton for parent teacher conferences for older 3 kids from 3:30 to 4:45. Picked up son, zoomed back to house, grabbed dance stuff, dropped Judi off with Jessica, and went back to town for James' baseball practice and Jazmin's dance class! Then I'm back up at 4:45 tomorrow for work at 6! At least the kids are out of school tomorrow so I don't have to whisk them into bed as soon as we get home. That's not a typical day, but kind of close!

The kids are all thriving, Jessica is doing so great this year in 9th. Always on the high honor roll, she got nominated for homecoming princess (tho didn't win, but close!), and is going to try out for the cheerleading squad in April. James is all baseball and basketball. He's 12 and a half and is over 5'6"; he grew 3 inches just from July! He's going to be tall and skinny like my dad and younger brother (6' and 6'3" respectively). He's also doing much better this semester, getting A's, B's, and a C instead of "ahem", lower. His teachers say he's really got his head on straight now and is seeming to mature more every day.

Jazmin is just precious and is loved by everyone she meets. She's doing great in 1st grade and her reading has really gone gangbusters so far; it's so cool to hear your kid read! She's a wonderful big sister tho she does get impatient with Judi sometimes; they still get along great almost all the time, but there are times I have to make them separate to get a "breather" from each other.

Judi just takes the world by storm; it is her playground. She walks around the school like she was born there. She still follows Jaz everywhere and copies her, we're working on learning that she can choose to do other things, it doesn't always have to be what Jaz does or gets or wants; still some competition there. She can write her name now very well, knows all her colors, almost all the alphabet by site, and is now asking me to spell everything. I think she'll be ready for kindergarden in the fall with no problem. She still seems little to me, just a compact ball of energy and smarts and attitude. She's only 41" tall but you always know when Judi's in the room! Enjoy the latest pics....til next time!