This Year

It's the last day of 2010.  What a monumental chapter in my book called life.

It started with little nudges that turned into nags. They would enter my brain at the strangest times.  In the checkout line.  In the shower. In the middle of the night.  While running, changing diapers, wiping counters. 

The thoughts wouldn't leave. 

"Heather, there's a little girl out in the world who needs you."  

These feelings scared me like nothing has ever scared me before. 

My life is so comfortable.  So normal.  So sweet.  

What would bringing an "outsider" into our pleasant little family do to our kids? 

What if, what if, what if? 

Wow, what twelve months can bring.  Now I know, not only who this little girl is, but a little bit of why I had these feelings. 

This year, I have come to learn that not only does this child need me, but I need her.  We need her.

This year has been painful and frustrating. It has brought me lower than I've ever been.

But...

It has also been miraculous and extraordinarily beautiful. It has taught me many, many truths.

This year, my Father blessed me with something I never knew I was missing: 
A tiny taste of how He feels about those He made differently.
A knowledge of their purpose.  A passion for being a part of their world.

It also marked the fourteenth year that I have been a mother. Though extremely challenging already with a teen all the way down to a toddler, I thought there was no way it could get any better.

Until this year.

I have always felt like the very best way for me to make a huge impact on the world is to be a mother and teach my children to love the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I love fulfilling this part of my destiny. I know that I'm improving the world, one bedtime story, one kiss, and one home-cooked meal at a time.   

This year, I've disassembled at least fifteen forts.

Gone on at least 150 walks

Developed my love of photography

watched my husband baptize my son

and my daughter blossom as a dancer.

Every day this year, I have looked into these gorgeous faces.

And every night this year, I have thanked my Father in Heaven for blessing me with them 

and for blessing me with a man who loves them as much as I do.  And shows it.

This year, I have pushed myself to reach outside of what I'm familiar and comfortable with.  I've learned that the Lord has other things He is hoping that I will be.

I have struggled more than I ever thought possible. But He has allowed this for a reason.

This year, I have learned how to use the gifts that I have been given to make more of a change. I have also learned that all of God's children have gifts planted deep within their souls that may need unlocking. That God made us each uniquely for a reason.

I'm so excited to explore and discover my next chapter.  The chapter that includes Anya.

I know I still have a long way to go and I am capable of being much more than I am.  But I'm excited for the opportunities that exist next year and what I'll learn from each one of them.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Love This...

Our local news highlighted a family who just adopted two girls from China who have physical limitations. I love when these stories are on the news. I hope it inspires others who have considered adoption to realize how wonderful it can be to adopt a child with special needs.
Christmas comes early: Adopted special needs girls join their new family - ksl.com

What Christmas is All About

A few nights ago, the doorbell rang. We opened the door, and no one was there. We looked down, and saw a plate of treats and this.

We have received a lot of donations to help us bring Anya home.

We've felt the love of our Savior through every one of them.

But this one touched us differently.  We cried like babies. Nothing is more beautiful than when children give of themselves to others.  Some cute family had been saving their dollars and coins and putting them into a jar for a little girl who lives far away.  They wanted to help give her something that she could never give herself. 

I don't know if this family will read this, but I want them to know how much this touched our hearts.  Thank you so much.

Merry Christmas everyone!  May the love of our Savior fill your hearts and bring peace and joy that surpasses all understanding.  I know Christ is our Savior and that His atonement was His gift to each one of us.  I am so thankful for His never-ending love for us, and the small, simple things that remind me of this every day.

Just Like the Ones We Used to Know

We made this video last Christmas (2009) and sent it out as our Christmas card. Please enjoy our cheesy/nostalgic production of "Just like the Ones We Used to Know." I wanted to do something similar this year, but Landon is officially "too cool" for anything like this now. :)

We hope you all have a wonderful, warm and happy Christmas. Looks like we'll have a white one this year...it snowed 8 inches today! Yeah!

The Rest of the Process

People have been asking about our timeline...."So, when will you get to bring Anya home?"

The short answer to this is...probably the end of February or the first part of March.

And here's the long one...if you're interested :)

Our court documents should arrive in our in-country Coordinator's hands Monday.  She will then translate all the thirty some-odd documents.  As long as she finds that everything is there and correct, all she has to do is wait for the letter from the Ministry of Education that says that Anya is all cleared for adoption.  When she receives that letter, she'll submit all the documents and the letter to the court.  We're praying that this will happen before the end of the month because the courts will be closed from Jan 1-17 for their big holiday. But she told us not to hold our breath. 

So...realistically, our documents will probably be submitted Jan 17. We should receive our court date within a few days from the time they're submitted.  Court dates are usually about a month out.  So that would put it at about mid-February. 

So we will go for our 2nd trip at that time.  We'll only be there for 3 days.  The first day, we'll go have our required 8-doctor medical exam (oh, joy!) The 2nd day, we'll go to court and hope and pray that the judge finds favor with us. If everything is a "go", then we'll return home for the 10 day waiting period, which is required in most Eastern European countries for anything to become "official."  Some people stay there for the 10 day wait.  We don't want to be gone from our little ones back home for 3 weeks, so we're going to come home during this time.

After 10 days, we'll fly back for the 3rd and final trip. Anya will be ours at that point. We can spring her from the orphanage the day we get there, (my heart races just thinking about this day...) and keep her with us at the apartment for about 4 business days while we wait for her passport to arrive.  As soon as it arrives, we'll hop on an overnight train to the capitol city.  We'll be there for 4-5 business days to finish the process with the US Embassy, so that Anya can become a U.S. Citizen. and get her Visa to come home with us. The third trip should take about 9-10 days total. It will be challenging and long and we'll really miss the kids.  But when it's over, we'll have the greatest reward imaginable to bring home with us.

Her. 

And the Winner is....

We assigned numbers to each of the people who donated, one number for each $10 increment. We used http://www.random.org/ to choose a number between 1 and 592 and the number it chose was 149, which belongs to...drum roll please.... 

Colin and Emily Thompson!!  

Wooo  Hooooo!!

Congratulations, Thompson family.  We are so happy and excited for you!

OK, now for the totals.  This is so amazing.  This fundraiser brought in a total of $7, 085.  In just a week and a half!  $1120 just today. This brings our total donations so far to $9, 305.  Wow, wow, wow.  We are only $3,700 short of the total amount we need.  So much closer!

We had two $1,000 donors.  One whom we have never met (thank you, Cristine.  I don't have your contact information, so I will publicly thank you. May you be blessed beyond measure for your generosity) and one whom I just met last week at a DS Mommy lunch. Her husband called me last night and told me that all his wife wanted for Christmas was to donate lots of money to help us bring Anya home.  (Cue the tears.) Many of our congregation members, family and friends also contributed, many of them truly stretching out of their comfort zones to give. 

Our dear friend, Jen Cantwell (the one I talked about in this post who has a son with DS) e-mailed everyone she knew and brought in $690.

Whether you gave $10, $100 or $1,000, or simply shared our link on FB or e-mail, we want you to know how touched we are and how much we love each one of you for what you have given to help bring this miracle about.  

Merry Christmas.  God bless you all!!

One More Day till Giveaway!

Tomorrow night we will draw a name to see who wins the iPad! We're giddy with anticipation to find out who will get to open it on Christmas morning! 

Can I just tell you something? We are so overcome with gratitude this Christmas. Witnessing so many people coming together to be a part of Anya's miracle has been just...beautiful.  That's the best word I can think of.

Since we started the iPad giveaway fundraiser, sixty people/families have given us a total of almost $4,000.  Our hearts are so full, we wonder if they will explode! Thank you, every one of you.  We are now half way to our $13,000 goal because of you!

We didn't think we'd have to start fundraising and we didn't want to.  We thought of fundraising in negative way... I mean, who wants to ask people for money?  Um, not me.  

But it's turned out to be a blessing.  Not just because of the money, but because we can feel an amazing energy and support that wasn't there before.  Jeremy and I were talking last night, just basking in the beauty of it all, and we decided that any trials we have faced and have yet to face will ALL be worth this past month. Meeting Anya, then coming home and feeling this comradere has enriched our lives like we never imagined.

Since we started our process to bring Anya home, I've been envious of all the Reece's Rainbow families who are adopting from other countries than hers because they get to bring their child home after the first trip (and pay about $10,000 less, but that's beside the point. lol.).  I have to say, though: In a way it's kinda fun to meet your child, then return home after meeting her/him and let time do it's thing.  During this time, your love for your child grows and you appreciate everything more.

Not only that but your extended family and friends start feeling the excitement with you. Before you meet your child, it's hard for them to take it all in.  They want to be excited, and some are, but most are just concerned. They haven't had that same experience of the Spirit guiding them to this child and they worry that you've been a bit overzealous and wonder if you've made a bad decision. 

Then, you go spend time with this precious spirit that has been hand-picked by God just for you.  You take pictures and video and show your loved ones.  They feel that connection, not only in the pictures, but in your voice.  They start to realize that this really is wonderful.  The support you feel from them is more real, and it helps build up the reserves that you will need when it comes time to bring your new little one home and start your real life together.  I know, a month from now, I'll be saying "OK, enough is enough. Let's just get our girl HOME!" But really, this time in between has been a good thing. :)

Anyway...back to the point of this post!  (Sorry...I tend to get sidetracked.)   We are just a few hundred dollars away from our goal for this fundraiser, but still about $6500 away from our total goal of raising $13,000.   The thermometer is rising every day, and it will only reach the top with your help! 

Thank you so much for taking part and helping to spread the word.  We couldn't do it without all of you!  We love you all so much and thank Heavenly Father for leading you help. Our prayer is that your Christmas will be more wonderful and your hearts will be more full because of it. 

I leave you with a picture that we took at Temple Square in Salt Lake City last Sunday night.  As we walked around and took in all the majesty of the millions of lights and the beautiful Christmas music, we couldn't help but think of our Savior and all that He has done to bring hope and light to the world.  We love Him so much.

Stay tuned...next post (Friday night)will be the big announcement!

iPad Giveaway Update

Some of you are new to our fundraiser, so I thought I'd move it up to the top of the blog and add an update.

We are extending this until Friday night! We feel like one more day will make a difference in getting us to our goal of $4600.

Just FYI, the Chipin Widget on the side only reflects the amount that has been raised through that particular means of payment. Our current total raised as of Tuesday morning is $3,135. We're getting there! Of course $4,600 is only the goal we set for this fundraiser. We'll still have $8,000 to raise to pay for the remainder of our adoption expenses. (That includes the adoption tax credit that we'll receive in 2012. ) So anything beyond the $4,600 will bring us that much closer.  Please help spread the word. Thank you again! This is so wonderful and beautiful, I can't even describe it!

(PS..if you'd like to see a breakdown of how this adoption is costing $35,000, click on the tab above.)

Your Dollars

I want to try to explain to all of you how we feel about the dollars that are coming in to help pay our "ransom" for Anya. They are sacred to us in a way. We've never been on the receiving end of something like this and it's been a really interesting experience.

The first thing we feel when a donation comes in is a little guilt because we know it caused that family to have to give something up during tough times. We think of each person or family and know it wasn't easy to give what they did.  So far, 35 families have done this.

Then the Spirit reasurres and reminds us that this is much bigger than dollars and certainly much bigger than us. And the guilt is replaced with gratitude.

Gratitude for abundance. Gratitude for friends, family and even people we have never met, who are loving Anya along with us.

As gratitude finishes settling in, joy comes along for the ride.  We're that much closer! Anya will no longer have to sleep in one of these beds with a number. Her bed will be filled with another child, not because she was sent to an institution, but because she went home. She'll have a mama and daddy to tuck her in at night, kiss her soft cheeks and say bedtime prayers with.   Not only that..but look at what her new siblings will get out of the deal.  A beautiful sister to love. Teach. Share everything with. Protect.  Learn from. 

All thanks and glory goes to a loving Heavenly Father who has moved mountains to bring us to Anya, helped Jeremy's business to support us this far in the process, and touched the hearts of many people to reach out and be a part of the miracle.  We know he loves Anya and we know he is mindful of what it will take to bring her out of the orphan system in her country and into our home.  

We're having a hard time thinking about spending money on things we don't need this Christmas.  Earthly possessions don't mean much when a little life is waiting for a change.
 

And little lips are waiting to give more kisses.  :)

We have raised $1500 so far with the iPad raffle.  Our goal is to bring in $4000 profit from this fund raiser (on top of the cost of the iPad)  So we need to raise $3,000 in the next five days.   We've thought about extending the raffle for a few more weeks, but we want the winner to have it in time for Christmas.  Will you please help us by posting a link to our blog on your Facebook or blog or email, or whatever you can think of?  Feel free to print the flyer and pass it out to your neighbors and friends.  All it will take is lots of people donating a little and we'll be there!!  Please help spread the word. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!

Child of Light

About a week before we left for our first trip to Meet Anna, I heard this song called Child of Light, by Mindy Gledhill. I thought about Anna as I listened to the words, and cried tears of gratitude that she will now have that opportunity to share her light with the world.  During our whole trip last week, this song kept playing over and over in my mind.  I knew I had to share it, along with some of our video footage of our time with Anna, whom we have now decided to call "Anya." 




Every time I think about the millions of orphans in the world who won't ever have this opportunity, it hurts, so much more than it did before we saw it for ourselves.  I want to find forever families for every single one of them.  If only.