B and Ms Weddings

We don't have any official pictures yet from either wedding, but both my younger brother AND  sister are married....one in August and one in September, just two weeks apart.  We didn't get to go to B's.  We couldn't afford airfare, hotel and van for 7 of us.  Everyone said the food was great at B and Ms and I heard Ithaca is just beautiful!  But, I finally got to see some pictures.  They're super small, but it was probably just so dad could email them to M.

Here is B and M.  Welcome to the family M.





Here are M and As.  Welcome to the family A.

Only because Chelsi's in the picture I will post one of me with my "escort" for lack of a better word....okay, the Best Man.

This must have been Chelsi before the ceremony.  She just wanted to ride the bus to the party.  :)



And for Lois, here are some pictures of the decor M designed and put together.

I want to know more (Korean)! 한국어 학습

I've been trying to teach myself, off and on, to read Korean.  It's almost impossible to learn to speak unless you have someone to speak to.  I know a few words, but not enough for conversation.  I can translate quite a bit now, but Korean is very hard and I don't quite understand all the ins and outs of honorifics and prefixes and suffixes.  I really am having trouble getting a handle on leaving I and you out of sentences, but I'm able to translate "some".  I want to know more!

I've been trying to find someone around here to help, but the Korean population is SO small.   What to do??

Lisa

Jaemin's Homecoming Video...finally

Since all we have is a short video of meeting Jaemin in Korea and not actually bringing him home like we did the girls, I put some photos together for his homecoming video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxzyenYOVF8

Dance, Sing and Play

My youngest 3 love to dance and sing.  So they were doing that today......a lot!

Here are the girls and Jaemin listening to one of the Korean Children's Songs CD's Jaemin's foster family sent with him.  They love listening to it, especially Chelsi right now, but she always wants me to find the Three Bears Song.  I hope to teach them San Toki (Mountain Rabbit) song sometime if I can get the correct words.



Video for Jaemin's foster family.  I hope you all are doing well.



After all this dancing, singing and playing Jaemin just laid himself down on the floor in the middle of it all and went to sleep.  How sweet.

I have a close up and one with all the animals scatter around him.

Our little fixer and wannabe

Our tractor has been broken for years.  The chain came off a long time ago and we just never had time to take it apart and get inside it to fix.  Chase has been working on it for a bit and got the chain fixed and then the steering went out.  But, he continues to work.  :)  Jaemin was watching big brother

Baby steps, dogs, and fun medical stuff (not)

Then Jaemin.  Poor baby has been sick for a couple of weeks now and wakes up coughing so hard.  Last night was actually a decent night of sleep for him and us.  And he wasn't able to scratch the heck out of his ear so we didn't wake up to change his sheets again this morning like most.  We moved the way his bed was facing for him and mittened his scratching hand and he actually slept pretty well.  He woke up in a great mood!  Last night I dropped something when I was holding him and I said "uhoh" and he quickly repeated me.  Now he's totally into saying "uhoh" all the time.....in the cutest little voice.  He's also been very kissy kissy the last couple of nights.   This morning, though, he realized that sometimes giving kisses gets your way so he tried to give me a kiss so I would let him have the remote.  Sorry baby that doesn't work for everything, but I'll take the kisses anyways.  He's starting to give in and really love on us.  We love that!!!  In the end, slowly, we planned the 4 older kids, one by one.  Our last little man, Jaemin, was a surprise of every sort and everyone of us are so thankful for those unplanned babies!

Next, not so fun thing, is Dash......M's dog.  While he can be fun he has decided that Cole is playing rough with him whether he wants to or not and now chases him and act like he's going to bite.  Don't think he will, but he has Cole believing it.  You gotta settle down with dogs.  Really Dash did well Thursday night and last night, but this morning Cole took him out at 6:30 and by 8 he pooed on the floor.  Okay, my kids haven't even done that.  So, we Oxycleaned the floor and then I Lysoled it for good measure.  I moved him upstairs to the hardwood after that.  He'll be easier to take out then anyways and closer for night time so he doesn't get scared.  He probably just misses mommy and daddy.  :)

This weekend hasn't really even started yet, but so much fun.  Some parts, anyways.  I got to end yesterday with my first, baseline, mammogram.  Since I have a sebacious cyst they decided to ultrasound it as well.  Apparently, these are supposed to be filled with clear fluid and mine has "matter" in it.  They're not too concerned yet.  It's been there for over 2 years and hasn't changed and it's not completely uncommon to have some matter, they're going to repeat in 6 months to check for changes since I've never had it looked at by anyone other than the regular doc.  And as my first time to the mammogram world...so fun!  Can I roll my eyes here?  They squish what little you have and then squish some more while you're half way on your tip toes holding your breath, half naked.  Pretty sight, I'm sure.  But, don't have to do that one again for 5 years!

Paying for adoption?

Okay, so I know people wonder, and Brian's friend outright asked not so long ago, how we keep paying for adoptions.  I know I, for one, always thought adoption was for the rich.  That's how the movies portrayed families/parents anyways.  I just assumed we couldn't, which was part of the reason it took us so long.  It took me a long time to take the time to sit and research enough to know that it was possible if you really were creative and tried hard.

So, yes, we make well under $100,000/year with our two incomes combined...think less than 50...after taxes.  We have no credit card debt.  We've always bought only what we could pay for at the end of the month and when we paid off our cars the last time we intended to never get a car loan again, so we have pretty old vehicles, minus our primary ride.  Granted, if some of them died now we might have to get a loan, but again can't afford that, so we'd have to get creative yet again.  So with only our house to pay for, we've saved every penny and dime we could over the past 7-8 years in anticipation of each adoption, with the exception of the last; since you couldn't prepare for that.  So Brian was right in telling him part of it was because his wife is careful with our money.

The other things we've done is sold a pool table we had years ago, cash out our life insurance and buy term instead, a small amount was through fundraising and we applied for grants like crazy each time.   We were also loaned a portion of the money for the first two adoptions by family which we paid off with our tax credit the first year.  The first two adoptions were estimated to cost a little under $20,000 for everything including finalization.  We managed for $15,000 or less due to grants and fee reductions (you do have to ask)  since they were special needs adoptions and our income and circumstances qualified.  The last was estimated to cost closer to $40,000 and I think we ended up closer to $30,000 in the end with a gift for part of it, the rest of our savings for part of it and a large portion was refinanced and cashed out of our house.  We took all we could out of our house, to 80% anyways.   We do, I guess, have a loan for our adoption, so to speak, but we felt this was worth everything to do.  In the end, our loan rate was lower and we saved in interest what we borrowed for the adoption....win, win to us!

The point being, we came out debt free as far as adoptions go.  We have no savings left, but every dime has always been worth it.  We have always been in the habit of being very frugal; aka cheap!  It's actually become the lifestyle over time.  But, without being this way, a family on our income could not afford adoption.  So, can it work for you?  Yes!  If you want something you just have to work for it.  It was stressful a lot of times.  We had no idea where some of the money was going to come from.  The first adoption was 12 months, start to finish.  The 2nd was 6 months and the 3rd was 2 months.  We've never had a lot of time to come up with money, but it was always there through all these avenues, when we needed it.  I guess, in ways, I can't truly explain how we afforded the adoptions.  Things just worked out the way they were supposed to because we followed Him and His plans for us.

So if you believe in God and believe this is what He wants for you, believe He will bring you through it.  If you don't believe so much, then try and make it work.  You may just end up believing more firmly in God, in the end.




Lisa