They are HOME!!!

It sounds like such a weird statement to say that the kids are home.................but just in the last week i've had these reality checks that ..........YES!! THEY ARE HOME!

I didn't put it all together until I read an email from another adoptive mom about all the various emotions we've experienced and realized we haven't even been excited to finally have them home. We never got the time to be excited. We somehow skipped that part.

We went from a long wait to these acute feelings of despair and anxiety with the earthquake, and that rapidly set into overwhelming situations. In the overwhelming parts came some ugly feelings............there just isn't words to describe what our first 2 months have been like...... But I've realized that we never experienced excitement and gladness. We were never able to celebrate just how amazing the circumstances affected our family. I mean...........THEY ARE HOME!!!!! WHOOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! All our waiting time.....................is done!! I was thinking that when we picked up Aidan it was going to be incomprehensible how we would have visited and left Samar there for maybe 2 years as we waited for her paperwork. But guess what...............WE DON"T HAVE TO WAIT!!!!!! Samar is home too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is AMAZING that she is home with us. I'm so thrilled we are adjusting to life and going through these times when she is 6.........not 8. It has finally happened.........................WE ARE A FAMILY!!!!!!!

I no longer have to look at other families and love the idea of a larger, diverse family..................WE ARE ONE!!!!!

As another mom said.........'we are finally doing what God called us to do 3 years ago'..................

I can see the kids as blessings and children of God..............and we are part of God's plan for their life. We are blessed!!! Life has been crazy, but it's also full of fun times. The more we "play" together, the more I realize life can be fun with change. We have been SO amazingly blessed at how well Alyssa and Austin are accepting the changes. It just has added a whole other level to their acceptance as kids and I am so thankful for this.

Oh.............and did I mention that it's so exciting that they are home???? We don't have to try and play out the timing of our lives. Like...........should we do this? or that? Should we spend money on this? or that? You see, our kids are HOME!! There is no more guessing about when we should plan on kids being home..................It's DONE!!!!!!!!!!

And do you know what...........................since we were SO close in Dec. to being done..........and as I tried to "choose" times in January or Feb. that I thought would have been perfect timing and worked good into "our" schedule..............everything did work out in perfect timing. God's timing. Jan. 22 wasn't a time I would have picked, but everything worked out perfectly. As always with God.

i do think this really deserves a big celebration......... more to add to our 'to do' list:) :) :)

Do we trust God with our lives regardless of what we see? One second of doubt can change the way we view God’s presence in our lives. If God is leading you to do something, don’t resist Him. You will never regret obeying Him. He is the only one with all the facts, knows all the truth there is to know, and has a wonderful plan in mind for your life.” Charles STanley

I had saved this saying a while back. Before I thought it was so true, without a doubt. In the recent weeks I had to cling to it and trust God. I had to keep telling myself that God has all the facts. And I don't want to doubt and change my view of God. I needed to trust that His wonderful plan is still in progress.

I had a hard time updating anything on the blog because this has been a huge, huge, huge adjustment. There have been many phases to it all.........the exciting phase..........the honeymoon phase...........the establishing boundaries phase................and then the REALITY phase. I was stuck in the reality phase. I spent a week in this phase of being angry and mad. But I've come to realize that the kids are adjusting fantastically. It was myself that was having a hard time. My whole world had crashed down and there is nothing left of it like I knew it. My time was not the same. I have double the people needing my attention with negative time to myself. I was coming from having 3 full days of kids at school.............and now I am down to NOTHING!!!! Not only do I not have enough time.............but Aidan has been taken care of by other people while I'm helping Samar in school. This week I had a 1/2 day of just me and Aidan and it was THE FIRST time I spent a MINUTE with just him. i needed that. For bonding. I had to go back to my journal and see how we were led to this journey and remember that we are here to be used by God. But I guess in some way I thought it would be a good journey that would be easy, and happy. But this reality phase has been just that...reality. It's not always easy. When we started this journey, I wasn't really out of the little kids stage.........but after 2 years of waiting I am realizing how much freedom I had, and how easy life was...............and I didn't realize how hard it would be having a little toddler around again. I didn't realize that I'd have to be excited and smile after seeing the same thing and hearing "mom" for the 40,000 time of the day. I was naive and unaware of exactly how orphanage life affects kids. At first I had my expectations and was irritated when reality was so under it. Now instead of being irritated.........I can say I'm glad I get to be "teacher" in their lives and start from the beginning of learning. They always say to meet the kids were they are at, instead of the real age they are at. that has been hard for me........just dealing with that reality. I think for the past 2 years two things have happened. One, in some way I built a wall around my emotions to our child. I wanted to love him with all my heart, but was reserved because it was such a LONG wait and was guarded about having such feelings. But also in the 2 years I built up expectations in the wait. Maybe it was a way of 'fantasizing' about life would be like when it all finally happened. I think both things have been very hard in this whole process of adjusting.

And sure it's great to have nice weather............but there is ZERO trust in the kids and ability to be on there own. It's back to having all eyes on the kids while outside. I can't even comprehend what this summer will be like..............chaos!!!! And I never know if we should go out and run errands or if we're going to have some melt down and crying/screaming attack. And when we do go out...........I feel like I"m threatening Alyssa and Austin because I couldn't handle every kid being out of control. i"m not feeling like a nice mom lately.

And the idea of having a clean house?..........that went out the window....lol......... I do look back to how we moved last summer and am so thankful that we felt we should move. I can not imagine moving these kids in the near future. God knew what He was doing when we moved before they came!!!!! And if I think about putting in a video so that I have 1/2 hour to think...........I feel like it needs to be an educational video---which Alyssa and Austin balk at........and in reality---Aidan and Samar have no interest in TV so they are by me anyways.........so a video doesn't even work.

Okay----so enough about my pity party. I did have to chuckle that I use to think freedom was dropping off 2 kids at school and being on my own................now I consider freedom dropping 2 kids off at school, even if I still have 2 at home.......lol....!!!!! Seriously, another layer of fog has lifted. There is a little more of a routine to home. We've managed to get through dinner time without total chaos. Bedtime goes well and we actually had 2 full nights of sleep this week!!! (The first week the kids slept through the night probably out of pure exhaustion, but then we've had sleep issues.) It's amazing what sleep does :) School is going well for Samar. I'm doing some 1/2 days yet with her. Sometimes I feel like she has so much to learn, but then I remember how much she's learned in 7 weeks. It's just a lot of discipline on our part to do some learning and homework every night......with all the kids. So that has been our life. Just trying to maintain and keep alive :) I feel like the "water level" has been around my nose for the last 7 weeks, and this week I feel like the "water level" is around my chin level. i need to keep remembering that God has it all under control..........I may not........and don't..............but God does.

Many great firsts...

Each day is full of many first, there is rarely a dull moment around here...... I thought I'd just share some BIG highlights of recent.

This is just a great picture of all the kids!! We went and climbed all the steps at a local beach and walked along by the ice and coast line. The funniest part was seeing Austin jump off an ice burg into ankle/knee deep water and lay on his belly and act like he was swimming, snow pants and all. Who says there is no fun in the winter!!

Aidan and Samar had their first snowmobile ride!! Some friends called up and wanted to tool around with the kids. It brought back fun memories............Paul and I had gone on a snowmobiling trip with them-----this was pre-kids......so about 9 years ago!!! Anyways, what a blessing that they could share fun stuff around there house with us and just love on the kids. I think their daughter was on a snowmobile for well over an hour giving rides to them!

We had a gorgeous sunny day and snow is melting that the bikes came out!! They've been pointing to them in the garage all the time, so today they came down. Both the kids loved it!

And today was a BIG day for Samar. She started school :) She wanted to go so bad and she really loved it. On the way home her words were......"school is good. very. very. good."

She's really a very social person. I think she thrives in the school setting and she really loved her first day. I'm so thankful for that. I went with her just to help ease the transition and to communicate things that she needed help with. She is doing some kindergarten and some pre-school time. I'll be in with her during the kindergarten times since they are a little independent and it's a bigger class, but for preschool times she can go on her own. We'll just evaluate how it's all going after the first week or 2.

Another first.........a trip to the ER. This wasn't a good first. We woke up to someone falling down the steps. I think I jumped out of bed and made it down the steps the same time Aidan made it down the steps. He had walked to our bedroom in the middle of the night in previous nights, so I"m not sure if he thought it was our bedroom or if he was wondering around, but he ended up with a good goose egg on the front of his head. I could tell he was going to be okay, but wasn't sure if he was able to communicate if he was really hurting so we went into to ER anyways. And it all turned out fine.

I think we have a couple rocky weeks just figuring out the school thing. Paul is home with Aidan while I"m at school, so we don't have a lot of normal yet. But I really see the light that soon we may find a groove again. i don't think life will calm down soon because everyone is still needing full on attention, but at least we can function and Paul can have normal again soon. Is there such thing as normal for a mom????