A long overdue update

Wow.  It has been a year since I last blogged.  Where to even begin?  We've been through some changes...that's for sure.

Our last post was in regards a second adoption so I'll start with updating there.  In October we traveled to Latvia and brought our son home.  The next few months had a lot of wonderful moments but also some very difficult ones too.  There were a lot of different dynamics that played into the outcome and in March of this year our son returned to his country.  His adoption into our family was not finalized.  Thankfully though that is not the end of our relationship.

You see, adopting older children requires going through some pretty murky waters sometimes.  You have to love with abandon and without expectation and sometimes you are going to get hurt.  For whatever reason God wanted this boy to be a part of our lives and so we have continued a relationship with him and are doing our best to love and parent him from a far.  Do we have regrets? Yes.  Does he? Yes.  Does it stink? Yep, that too.

But being open to these children is God's command for all of us.  And while we don't always understand or like the outcome He has already gone before us and know's what lies ahead.  None of it was wasted.  Not the money or the time or the heartache.

So where do we go from here? Only time will tell...  Once you know you cannot pretend to unknow.  These children are forever in our hearts and there are plenty more still waiting for families to come forward.

But for the time being we will continue to pray for all of God's children.  He will not forsake them.  They all have the opportunity for a hope and a future.

If you've always wondered how you can become involved in orphan care I encourage you to check out New Horizons for Children.  This is an amazing non-profit organization that brings these children into Christian families for a few weeks each summer and winter where we can be the hands and feet of Jesus and show love, compassion, grace, and mercy.  Currently they are matching children from Ukraine and Latvia to come over the Christmas holiday.  Matching for China and the Philippines will begin soon.

All that aside our family is doing well.  Our daughter will be home two years in March (hard to believe it's been this long already) and we are seeing progress with her in many areas.  Our youngest started Kindergarten this year and our oldest boy is a high schooler. Our middle boy is blossoming and coming out of his shell.  Everyone is officially in school now and while it makes for quieter days not so much for nights lol.  We stay busy with work, extra curricular activities, and homework and it does make for quite the scheduling adventure at times but we love the family that God has pieced together for us.  We are doing it, the good, the bad, and the crazy, and but most importantly we are doing this thing called life TOGETHER and as a FAMILY :)  And on that note I really need to update my blog graphics and get my girl on there!

So that's the brief version of where we are today.  Hopefully it won't be another year before I update again.

LAST CHANCE Child–Time Is Running Out!

Hey everyone, I need your help in getting this young man out there and known asap!  Our team met him in Latvia while interviewing kids for the Winter 2012 hosting program and had great things to say about him.  His younger sibling was adopted a few years ago by a family here in the states and he wants to be adopted too!

Meet Anatoly.  He spoke very good English and needed little translation.  He told the team that he never drinks or smokes as this behavior is not part of his life.  Anatoly would like to complete high school and then go to college to be an engineer.  His best subject is math but he is also very athletic and loves sports too!  He likes cats and dogs and says that any family with any age children would be good for him.  He prefers to live in a city or suburb verses a country life as he is used to the city atmosphere.  He is also very good at computers and would like to learn more about them like programming, etc… 
Anatoly is available for hosting this winter but his dream is to be adopted.  Time is running out for Anatoly as his birthday is September 16th and a family would need to file their i800a by then.  He needs a family that is homestudy approved to step forward asap!  We know there is a family out there that is willing and able to bring Anatoly home.  We just need to connect the two!!!
Please help us advocate for this precious child and find his family before time runs out!
Anyone with questions regarding adopting Anatoly can email me at tbutler@newhorizonsforchildren.org or any of the other volunteer staff at New Horizons for Children.

We need this to go viral…

I’m going to summarize our story here for those that are just finding out about us to save you the time from having to go back through all of our previous posts.  We have an emergent need for funding and I need your help in donating and sharing our story with everyone you can.  Time is of the essence and we cannot do this without help!

Our family is going through our second adoption in less than 6 months.  Our first one was expensive.  The second one is too.  Why would we do this when we don’t have the cash you ask?  Well because there is a life depending on it and you can’t put a price on that.
We are adopting a boy from Latvia that will be turning 16 in three short months.  Once he turns 16 his hope of finding his forever family will diminish as the law says he will be ineligible for adoption.  The life that awaits him after he “ages out” is not promising.  Most orphan kids in Eastern Europe end up in a life of crime and get involved in drugs or prostitution (yes the boys too) and 15-20% of them will commit suicide by the age of 25 because its just too hard.

We had the pleasure of spending this past summer with this young man and to say that he is a treasure is an understatement.  Our hearts are CRAZY for him and he is meant to be a part of this family!  Aside from the urgency of his age is that our daughters visa expires in two months and we have been told that if we move fast enough we can bring him home when we go to finalize her adoption in October which will save a few thousand dollars in air fair alone not to mention the extra time we would not need to miss from work. 
In order for us to get a court date for him that quick we need to get our dossier in country ASAP so they can get it translated and get things rolling there.  THE DOSSIER IS READY NOW!  There is just one problem.  Money….

We need to send $5110 to our agency before our dossier can leave the country.  This covers our agency fees, translation expenses and a post placement retainer fee.  We just don’t have it.  We don’t.  There is a family leaving one week from today that is more than happy to carry our papers over but we need to overcome this one tiny problem first.

Will you please consider making a donation of $15 in honor of the 15 year old boy we so dearly want as a part of our family?

I have set up a donation button below or if you’d like to make a tax deductible donation please send a check with Butler Family Adoption in the memo line to our agency at
Adoptions Related
Services, Inc.
8 South Main Street
P.O. Box 201
Shrewsbury, PA 17361

GOAL MET!  Thank you to everyone that helped us reach it!

PLEASE HELP US REACH AS MANY PEOPLE AS WE CAN!  With this being our 2nd adoption in 6 months there is no way we are going to pull this off without help. 
THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT AS WE STEP OUT IN FAITH TO BRING A HOME FOREVER!

News from a land far, far away…

We are celebrating great news from Latvia today.  Some of you may know that we had decided to adopt A while he was here this summer with us for hosting.  Well soon after he left to return to Riga at the end of hosting things became not so clear and we had put the adoption process on hold and have been praying fiercely about the situation.  A dear friend of ours that has walked this process with us since last summer is in Riga to finalize her sons adoption and she spent some time at a Christian summer camp where A is at this week.  Well last night he came up to her and asked her to pass a message to us (I'm thinking God put her there for this purpose!).  He said YES and wants us to start the paperwork to bring him home forever!!!  Pray us through this peeps, we aren't out of the woods yet but we are going to move forward in faith that we are showing him love and what its like to have someone stand by you even when things are tough. 
Let the fundraising begin!!!

Headed Back to Latvia

Tomorrow Danny and Grace will board a plane and make the long flight back to Latvia in order to arrive for court on Tuesday to finalize her adoption with us.  It’s been a wonderful three months with her and we are happy to be making her a part of our family “official”.  She’s dreading the trip and is coming up with every excuse she can to avoid going back so I guess that’s a great indication that she wants to stay! LOL

Anyway, we are still raising funds for this trip as well as the final trip that should come in the next 4-6 weeks that will make her an American citizen.  We have a Charity Project page set up if you would like to make a donation towards our adoption expenses.  You can find that page here

http://www.acharityproject.com/f/BringingViktoriaHome

Pray for safe travels for them and for me as I take on single parenting for the next five days please!

We are also counting down the days until Arturs arrives to spend the summer with us.  Just 28 days until he will be here!!!  We are wanting to build a bunk bed for him and Sean to share so if anyone has any skills and time they want to share I’ll buy the supplies and cook for you too

Thanks everyone for supporting us in this wild and crazy journey of adoption and hosting that God has put us on!  We feel blessed to be on it.

6 weeks into our new “NORM”

And life is good. Actually life is GREAT.  The kids are all getting along really well.  Baseball is in full swing.  Grace (FYI, Vica has decided to go by her new middle name) is learning English quickly.  She’s made a few good friends and absolutely loves church.  In fact, last week she accepted Christ as her savior after watching a video on facebook of one of her fellow Lat friends that is also now adopted being baptized.  I also turned 34 this week.  I had a wonderful birthday and was so happy with the surprise cupcakes and cards and pampering my kids gave to me as well as a night out with Danny for dinner.  A dear friend spent the day helping the kids with their creations and babysat for us that night.  Too bad we can’t have birthdays twice a year

We should have our 2nd court dates soon which will finalize the adoption with Latvia.  Grace and Danny will both be making this trip.  It’s probably going to be between $3800-$4000 in air fare plus another $5000 in court fees.  We do not have any fundraisers planned at the moment since everyone’s lives, not just ours, are so busy.  I do hope to be able to have a yard sale in the next few weeks that will hopefully make some money as well as clear out our garage.  Fundraising takes a whole lot of work and is tiring so we just can’t do it right now but if you would like to contribute to our 2nd court there is a paypal button on the right side of our blog that you can donate with your paypal account or credit card.

I’m also still doing my mongramming/applique business which helps our adoption funding as well so if you have a need for a personalized t-shirt or kids birthday shirt, towel, bride/groom towels, or baby gifts please let me know.  You can view my page on facebook by search Scrapberry Designs or clicking this link https://www.facebook.com/scrapberrycreates

Here are a few photos we’ve snapped over the past few weeks:

My heart is full <3

We are home and adjusting

Once again I am sorry it’s been a while since I’ve updated but as you know, life happens (especially with kids).  We came home a week Saturday with our new daughter and things continue to go amazingly well.  Vica and the boys are doing great together.  She’s really stepped into her role as big sister and is loving every minute of it.  Her only real issues that we have realized at this point are the way that she wants to hug and love EVERYBODY and her being overstimulated with too many people and things going on around her but this is to be expected.

We came home to my mom being in the hospital here for problems with her foot.  She had actually flown here from her home in Florida to help with the boys while we were gone and then ended up hospitalized .  She is fortunately okay and came home on Tuesday. We also have had family come in to visit for the past few days so things have been a little busier than normal. I also started back to work last week too so we are all working on adjusting to our new life and schedule as a family.  This week we add homeschooling into the mix.

I read up on the idea of cocooning on another adoption friends blog and I think we are going to be doing a modified version of that with Vica for a while so she can learn the difference of liking other people versus loving and hugging every body she meets and that those feelings are more so for your family and also to help her ease into life in Amercia and to try to avoid some of those over stimulating factors.

On another note: Friends, I need you to be patient with me right now.  My life was busy before and it’s a little busier now and my kids are my first priority.  If I don’t answer your phone calls it’s because I’m corralling four children into the car or getting kids to baseball practice or doing homework or talking to someone that has knocked on the front door or trying to run a business while potty training a toddler while translating for a teenager that is brand new to our life.  I love my life and all of it’s craziness and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world but sometimes it’s hard for others to not take it personal that I just don’t have the extra time.  Just please be understanding that I am really limited right now and DO NOT take it personal.  IT’S NOT YOU.   If you send me an email I will do my best to get back to you in a reasonable time.  I know some of my friends are feeling neglected so I just wanted to explain this to everyone.  We just need some time right now.

Here are a few more photos

 

Paldies friends and for now, ata!!!