It is Finally My Happy Birthday!!!

Luke is 4!!!!! He has been counting down the days until his birthday and couldn't wait! It is finally here. We celebrated yesterday with the family at Pizza Hut while they were all here. He had a blast! Here is him and his much loved pirate cake.

Hi all! We have had a busy life the last couple of weeks! Yesterday we had the kids dedication! It turned out really well. Josh, Matt, Kevin, and I all read verses and dad shared a short testimony. I think Jason loved being up front! The whole family came to our church and it was really cool! We were so big between grandparents, siblings that moved out, my neice, my nephew, and us that we took up two rows of seats!

Tatiana, Josh, Matt, Jason, and Ashley are taking swimming lessons on Monday nights. Tonight is the last night and I think they will all be very sad. They all loved it! It was a new thing for Jason, Tatiana, and Ashley. They have all done really well.

Jason is already reading!!! he can read three letter words now and he loves that he is in "the yellow box"(our reading program is in multiple boxes which are all different colors). Tatiana is now almost done with her letters! She has less than ten left! She proudly shows me the one she passes when she passes it. Tatiana can't wait to finish. She counts how many she has left every time she passes one! Luke is getting there but is not as far as Tatiana. He will be there soon though!

They are using so much English now! Especially Luke and Tatiana. I will walk by Luke and hear a pharse like "look at it" or "that is mine" and it is so cute! They understand almost everything now but aren't speaking it all. Most of it they can say and it is so much easier for us!

At dinner we go in a circle of whose turn it is to pray. When it is one of the Colombian kids, you will hear something like this. "Dear Jesus, Thank you for Mommy, thank you for Daddy, thank you for Brianne, thank you for Kaitlyn, thank you for Josh, thank you for Matthew, thank you for Jason, thank you for Tatiana, thank you for Ashley, thank you for Luke, thank you for amigos, thank you abeulo y abeula, thank you for otros hermanos y hermana, thank you for food, amen. We love it! It is so cute! Sometimes they add other things but that is the normal stuff they put in it. They also like to mention friends by name. They say "thank you for otros hermanos y hermana" because they didn't know the names at first and now it is habit to say otros hermanos y hermana.

The kids are thriving and we can't imagine life without them! We love them so much! It has been five months as of Saturday. I can't believe it has been that long! We have come so far since the first couple of weeks!

Chicago, Snow, and Other Miscellaneous Things

We went to Chicago this week. My dad had a business conference so we went with him. We stayed on the Navy Base and were like the only ones in the guest house. There were only about five cars in the parking lot and I think we were the only ones on our floor. That was not a bad thing because six kids under the age of ten, we are pretty noisy!!!!! While we were there we went to the Shedd Aquarium, Legoland Discovery Place, and The American Girl place. The Shedd Aquarium wasn't our favorite since all the dolphins, whales, and penguins were on "vacation" while they were remodeling. It was not worth the money for the rest because all that was left was little fish that were not very colorful. I think we spent about an hour in there. We then relied on our GPS to get us to the American Girl Place. The girls each picked out a doll and bought it with their Christmas money from our Grandparents and our great aunt. Then on Wednesday we went to Legoland. That was a lot of fun for the boys. It was really cool. First we went through a jungle with Monkeys, tigers, spiders etc. made out of Legos. After that we got to ride the Dragon Ride. You got in a car shaped like a dragon and rode through a medieval castle and eventually got to the dragon who was guarding the treasure. Luke was so funny when we got there because he just looked at the dragon and said "Hi dragon!" After that we did a few other things and then we left. We spent most of the day there. We are very glad to be home.

The day before we left for Chicago it finally snowed enough to play in. It was the first time the new kiddos got to play in it. They had a blast!!!!!! I thought Luke and Tatiana would come in super fast but they were out there from lunch to about three or so. We had to make Luke come in! Luke, Matt, and Jason were outside until about three thirty and then we made them come in so they could have baths and everything. There is a small hill in the common area of our neighborhood. We took them down there for a little bit to go sledding and they had a lot of fun there too.

The kids are doing great! They are fun and silly all at the same time. Luke is just a little goofball. He loves to be funny and usually is. He loves to be the center of attention. He is totally the baby and is definitely treated like one. Tatiana is also very funny and is such a girly girl. She loves dresses and all of that though she doesn't like getting her hair done very much. She takes her time on everything. Jason loves his Legos. He is always found playing Legos with Josh and Matt. He loves to remind people of the rules . All the kids are so much fun and we are so grateful for them.

This month will make 5 months since gotcha day! In some ways it seems like it has been so much longer but when I count it out on the calendar, I always think "has it really been that long?" Before we know it, it will be November 25th and we will be celebrating one year as a family. It is hard to remember what life was like before they came nor would we want to.

Well I better go figure out what else needs to be done but I wanted to update the blog. I have so much fun posting so my posts tend to be on the long side. Here are some pictures of Chicago, Snow, and the museum.

Matt, Jason, and Josh in front of Indiana Jones.

Luke took all the snow on the couch and piled more on it. He packed it down and called it his bed. His expression is a classic Luke expression. He wears it all the time.

Cereal Anyone???

Hi, it's me Kaitlyn again. Today a friend of ours went to the commissary(the grocery store for military families). While she was there she called us with all sorts of deals. We ended up with 45 boxes of cereal and 85 pounds of ground beef. The grand total was only 129 dollars! If eaten every day, the cereal will only last us less than a month. The ground beef should hopefully last longer since we usually eat mostly chicken! The cereal stacked from floor to celling. I had a lot of fun stacking it! It was like giant legos! With a big family we are always looking for deals and 68 cents a pound for ground beef is quite a deal! ;o) Thanks Mrs Ford.

Jason's "Happy Birthday to you"

Happy Birthday Jason! He is 8 years old today! Here are a few pictures of him and his Whirly Pop.

These were all the kids at the family celebration. From left to right is Matthew, Jason, Luke, Nora(granddaughter), Eli(Grandson), Tatiana, and Ashley. Josh is in the back. Jason's lollipop was twice the size of theirs and no one ate the whole thing except Luke and Nora who ate almost all of theirs.

Where has time gone????

We did it! We reached 100 days! Thanks for the great idea Hagerty family! :o) Things are going great for us. The kids are so much fun! We have our days but for the most part we have adjusted to having three more around the house.


Tuesday is Jason's birthday and he can hardly wait! He saw his name on the calendar and asked if it was his "Happy Birthday to you". When we said yes, he got a huge smile on his face. He then went on to tell us something he wanted for his birthday. Since he didn't know enough English to tell us what it was, it was hard to figure out! He kept saying it was circulo and white with mucho colors and lots of red. We kept asking if it was cake and he said no every time, he eventually started pretending to lick something. Maybe ice cream? No. Finally, he drew it. We realized he wanted one of those lollipops you can get at candy stores that is big, white, and swirled with lots of colors and also red. He is counting down the days until his "Happy Birthday to you"!

We are finally starting to get somewhere on our English! They are wanting to learn now and we are hearing more every day. Jason really surprised us when he said "Happy Birthday to you" because we have only sang it two times at most with them so we have no idea where he got it! Luke is really picking it up too! There is still a lot of Spanish but much less than there used to be.

Every Thursday we go to a friends house for a group writing class for Josh and Matthew. While they are doing that, the little siblings(and the big ones that aren't doing it ;o)) are upstairs playing and doing a craft. Afterwards, we all go down the street to their community park and tennis court. The tennis court has a couple of basketball goals along the side too. The older kids and anyone else who wants to, plays knock out. Jason has so much fun! He loves basketball! Luke discovered how much he loved basketball this week too!

The girls have been getting along great! You can usually find them somewhere with their baby dolls. They are easy to track down because if they are playing babies, you will hear them. Tatiana and Ashley always make their babies cry and so it is difficult to tell if someone is crying or if it is a baby doll! Many times we have gone to see who was crying and why and find two little girls with baby dolls in hand and their faces scrunched up in a mimic cry!

We started Jason, Tatiana, and Luke on the English alphabet after we got home. Jason knows all of the alphabet except for one and he will learn it quickly as he loves to learn! I think he will be reading before he knows what he is reading! It comes so easy for him and he wants more so we just found some easy math facts to try. Luke and Tatiana are having a harder time but are still picking it up pretty well. They both know about a third of the alphabet and the sounds the letters make.


The kids love to tell us thank you! At every meal, usually starting with Luke, then Jason, then Tatiana, they thank us for the food. They tell Mom first, then they go down the line. "Thank you Daddy, thank you Brianne, Thank you Kaitlyn." We hear it every meal. Also Luke sits at the table at lunch every day and sings Jesus Loves Me while he eats. It is soooo cute! I think that is his favorite song. It is the only one he knows in English.

Our first post placement meeting was today. It went great and it is a relief to have the first one done. This has turned out to be a long post so I better end here! I will put a few pictures as I know from experience, that is the best part of the post!

Kaitlyn







We stoped at a Gymboree clothing outlet a week before Valentines Day and found these really cute and very inexpensive outfits for the girls. We couldn't resist! And who can resist those cute smiles!




I love this picture of Matt and Jason playing in the backyard. Don't you love Matt's expression?

Just a quick update. Time is going fast and we are adjusting wonderfully. We have had the kids 2 months today and they are a joy. They continue to learn to recognize spoken English although they do not speak alot yet. They do speak more little by little each day though.

Jason and Tatiana love going places. Santiago gets a worried look on his face every time we leave the house and hugs on to mom. He pretty much strangles me until he sees what we are doing and that everything is o.k. Then he relaxes and enjoys the experience.

We went to the Zoo last weekend and they loved it. Jason was as excited about seeing a train on the way as he was at the zoo. I guess he never saw one before. Santiago didn't miss a cage. He had to be sure he saw each one.

We are finishing the adoption finalization next week and Santiago is very adamant about changing his name. We were going to keep the names they used and give them new middle names but he now says his name is Luke! No talking him out of it. We will keep Santiago as his middle name in case he changes his mind later.

Our house is never dull and is much more active. The noise level has increased greatly! We wouldn't have it any other way.

Home Sweet Home

We had a great trip home. We got to the airport in Bogota about 3 1/2 hours before our scheduled flight. We thought that was plenty of time. But..... It took every bit of that time, and when we got to our gate, boarding was already in progess. We were slowed down in large part because we had 9 people to get through all the process. We also had to go through 3 seperate security screens, passports, plus the adoption added additional checks. God provisioned for everything and we got on the plane just fine.

Our kids - new and old alike did great on the flight and we got to Atlanta without any problems. It took about 1 1/2 hours to process through customs, passports and imigration and then headed for our connecting flight home. We had 7 tickets for one flight and two for a later flight. Once at the gate we found there were 54 people on standby for our first flight - the flight we needed two more tickets to all fly together. This was not even a challenge for our God who provisioned for us to get the first two standby seats given out. We got to our house fine even though a major ice storm was in the forecast. We were all happy to be back home and all the new guys are settling in well.

They are meeting lots of new people. We have not experienced any problems since arriving home. We continue to integrate together as a family. It was a bit overwhelming for our new kids when we got home. There were so many new toys, they felt like they needed to play with everything at once. We have got to the point where they now know they can play with anything they like- only one thing at a time.

We met with all the people from our small group past and present 3 days after arriving back home. These are the people who have been are consistent prayer partners since we began this journey. We had about 85 people about 60 who were kids. Yession , Tatiana and Santiago did great with this large gathering. They are not having any inhabitions about meeting new people or going new places.

We had a great first Christmas togehter. We had our entire family together for Christmas and were able to take a new group picture with everyone. Today's post includes the new family picture taken at our church and a picture of the 8 children who still live at home.

Jim and Betty

Home!

Just a quick note- we are home!!! Travel went great! God provissioned for us all to fly on the same plane together. Every good and perfect gift is from above! Praise God. Tatiana is much better. Kids are in sensory overload now we ate in our house! More later

Jim and Betty

Happy Birthday Joshua

Happy Birthday Joshua- 10 years old!

Going Home

We got the visas. We have arrangements to leave in the morning. Right now we have seats on two different flights out of Atlanta. We all leave Bogota together however, Three of us have a three hour longer delay gettting out of Atlanta. We need your continued prayer in two main areas:

First that Delta would allow us to bump up or three tickets to the earlier flight. There are seats available, but not at the fare we booked. They can move us up to the same fight if they want.

Second, Tatiana is sick with fairly bad hives. Pray that the will pass quickly. We were made aware today late that we have had bad water in our room for the last three or 4 days. We think the hives are from the bad water, We have drank bottled water but our Colombian kids are use to drinking the tap water so they did. Tatiana got sick.and we didn't know why until today. Pray no one else gets sick and she has nothing more serious than the hives.

God Bless,
Jim and Betty

Visas Day 1

Today was our day to file for the US entry Visas for our new children. Getting the visa is the final hurdle to jump over on the road home and the completion of our journey- well perhaps not the end of the journey as our relationship with Yeisson, Tatiana and Santigo will be a life long journey. We reflect on going home and realize this is actually the beginning. We look forward to nurturing and growing this relationship and eagerly anticipate each new bend in the road. We do feel like getting home will be like a good rest at a roadside hotel on a long car trip. When we get home we will feel refreshed and eager to continue down the road again.

We were able to get our applications turned in, but not without one little challenge! At the US Embassy we were almost complete with our visa application process when the supervissor tells us one of the kids passports has an error! Yeisson's passport had Betty's maiden name misspelled. She told us if we could get it back to her in an hour, all three visas would be ready tomorrow at 3 pm. (Interesting side note: this suppervisor graduated from high school in the same town as Betty and I in Anchorage Alaska- small world!) We dashed for the car and zipped across Bogota to the passport office. David flew through the congested traffic and got us there in around 20 minutes. He ran in the passport office while we waited in the car. He was back in the car in only 5 minutes with a corrected passport. He is the guy to have on your team down here! WOW! We got back to the Embassy in about another 20 minutes. Then just David and I ran for the embassy! I goaded him a bit and said I'm 50, you're a young man ,we can run faster! So we did- boy did I regret it!!! At 9000 feet altitude a 700 to 800 yard sprint left my lungs SCREAMING! But it all ended well, we were told the visas would all be ready tomorrow. YEE HAW! God has been so gracious again today. We are so blessed.

Later we tried to change our tickets to Thursday from Friday, but as of right now there are not enough seats available. Friday is also GREAT!

We capped off the day by visiting Unicentro for ice cream cones at Crepes and Waffles. Pictures today are of one of our many games of UNO and some of us enjoying ice cream.

God bless,

Jim and Betty

God is Faithful

God is faithful. This is something we have stood upon for a very long time. I found myself thinking this simple statement over and over today. We had a very successful day and accomplished everything today we set out to complete. Jim left to get the birth certificates at 7 am. 7 1/2 hours later we had them and were arriving at the passport office to link up with Betty and the kids. Nothing went wrong - it was all very smooth thanks to our lawyer Oscar. It just took a long time because we needed to get birth certificates from two different places. It went very well.

God continues to show us just how much He is in control of all the details. We had been told that the courts closed after today - which is true. But God interviened at just the right time last Friday. While I was waiting at the second location for birth certificates, Oscar informs me that all the birth certificate offices in Colombia are closed tomorrow! They are celebrating their 40th anniversary or something like that. If we had not recieved the birth certificates today we could not have left on time this Friday! When Oscar dropped this little fact to me I was absolutely floored as I realized just how much my Heavenly Father is in control of all the details and He is so clearly working all things together for our good. We praise Him and give Him all the glory.

In the passport office we again saw things work out in an amazing way. We walked in to the passport office and saw around 100 to 120 people in line in front of us. 15 minutes later we were on our way out the door with the three passports in hand and the waiting room was still filled with the same 100 to 120 people! WOW. I know a lot of the speed with the passports was due to Oscar and David, however, we credit our Lord.

The doctors visit went well and so now all we need to accomplish is the visa. We put in our request for this tomorrow and should pick them up on Wednesday. If this is all acomplished and if there is space on the Thursday flight for us, there is chance we could leave one day early. Either way, to quote an e-mail Betty sent today, "We consider it all joy to leave on Friday".

Photos today are of the crowded waiting room and us at the passport window without waiting in the line!

God Bless,

Jim and Betty

Praying for a Smooth Monday

This is the night before the crazy hectic Monday to come. But before we talk about tomorrow, we want to reach out to our small group Bible study back home. They are meeting as I type this note lifting up all our final needs before the throne of God. We so much appreciate their faithfullness to pray for us over the last weeks. It has encouraged us immeasurably knowing we have you as our prayer warriors back home- thanks to the Keeleys, Fords, Moldrups and Dugans. We also thank all of the rest who have encouraged us, prayed with us and loved us. Thanks also to our new friends we have met in this journey, we have been particularly enouraged by the Hagertys and Woods. Thanks to our church family back home. We covet your prayers especially tonight and tomorrow. They have a very busy and ambitious day planned for us:

Jim leaves with our lawyer, Oscar at 7 am to go get the new birth cirtificates for the kids. We then link up with Betty and the 3 new kids to get passports around noon. Once that is complete we will all wisk away to get the kids medical exams. If this is all accomplished we will apply for the US entry visa on Tuesday and pick them up on Wednesday. Please pray this is all accomplished in such a way that God is glorified.

God Bless,
Jim and Betty

Growing together

Today was mostly another day of waiting, but this is different. We know we begin to finalize things on Monday- so the waiting this time seams to have more purpose than when we were waiting on court.

We are continuing the process of growing together as a family. You can see from todays pictures all the kids are growing together and we are seeing less and less two groups. They are steadily becoming one family. What a blessing to behold. This is happening faster that we could have hoped.

We walked the mall a bit today and stopped and had ice cream again- one of the bargins we have found. We get 9 two scoop waffle cones for about $15. can't match that at home!

We go after birth cirtificates on Monday at 7 am - please remain in prayer this will go smoothly.

God bless,

Jim and Betty