Oh Christmas Tree

We put up our Christmas tree on Sunday, and put the lights up outside too. Maggie loves having the lights on - she asks to turn them on every morning when she wakes up. I think there is going to be a battle royal when we have to put this away after the holiday!

Some pictures from Thanksgiving...

And a good time was had by all...

Update on Ethan!

We received a little update on Ethan. He is doing really well with his foster family, and is trying to learn to stand on his own. His favorite thing to do is to pick up toys and throw them down - 100% pure boy! I cannot wait to see that sweet face in person. We are still patiently waiting for the approval to come from China, which I hope will come sometime in January. Good thing the holidays are here to distract us in the meantime...

I have also had the pleasure of working with a group called Grant Me A Chance. They are a non-profit group that helps adoptive families like us raise funds to help offset the expenses with the adoption. People always ask us how much it costs to adopt a child - and it can cost up to $15,000. Since Ethan's referral was so sudden and unexpected, we aren't as prepared as we had thought we would be. But Grant Me a Chance offered to post Ethan's story on their website to allow people to donate towards his adoption! I have also included the ChipIn link on our blog as well, so if you would like to donate - you can just click on the ChipIn icon and follow the steps from there.

Raking leaves...

Thanks to 2 gigantic trees in our front yard, we usually end up bagging 20-25 bags of leaves every year. Luckily, we had an expert assistant helping us out this year...

We don't give a damn for the whole state of Michigan...

We're from O-HI-O!!

GO BUCKEYES!

Ethan's Story

For Maggie's birthday, I decided that instead of toys or something that she would lose interest in a week- we would sponsor a foster child through CCAI's Charity Outreach program. Now don't worry - Maggie got plenty of fantastic toys and things from her grandparents and cousins! But I really wanted to give back to the country that helped us become a family. So, we got set up with the foster family program.

I received quarterly reports on the children that we sponsored, and rejoiced every time our sponsored child was matched with her forever family! This occured several times throughout the year, and I received a new match each time. Our latest report was sent to us in July 2007 for our newest sponsor. He was this little boy who had these heartbreaking eyes - John said they were "brutal", and that was the perfect word. He was so tiny and looked so fragile! I read in his report that he had a tumor on his back, which was removed via surgery. Something in this little guy just grabbed me. On the off chance that we could find out more information about him, I contacted CCAI to see if they would ever receive his file in the Waiting Child program. They emailed me to say that the chance is highly unlikely due to the number of agencies his file could be sent to, but they would let me know if they did see it come across their desks. I was disappointed, but accepted it and hoped that this baby would find his family soon.

One September afternoon - Friday afternoon - I got home from work and saw there was a message on the answering machine. It was CCAI, asking me to call them back right away and "You will never believe what we received today!!" I started to cry - was this really happening? YES IT WAS! Deniece called to let me know that they received Fu Bao Jin's file, and wanted to know if we would be interested in reviewing it! This was truly a one in a million chance, and it was a miracle that CCAI would have received his file in the first place!

After a lot of discussions, a lot of medical opinions, a lot of praying and a lot of support of our family and friends, we accepted Bao Jin's referral on September 28, 2007! We asked Maggie what we should name him, and she replied "Ethan". I have no idea where this name came from, as she doesn't know anyone by this name! But it was decided that he would be named Ethan Patrick Jin Novak. Hopefully we will get to travel in early 2008 to bring him home!

Hello!

After numerous questions from other families asking us what our blog site was, we decided to make the leap into blogging! Since we are adopting for the second time, I thought this would be the easiest way to keep everyone updated with our progress on our adoption and also post updates on our 2-year old. Forgive me in advance - I am new to this, so the blog is a work-in-progress!