All posts by Molly

First Adoption

Happy Birthday, Quinn!

1 Comment

Today, well, technically yesterday, is Quinn’s fourth birthday… May 3rd.

Even though Quinn is not here, he is not ours yet, and we have not even met him, we decided to celebrate his birthday. You know us, any excuse to eat cake!

Can I just take this opportunity to tell my mother than I am completely in awe of her cake decorating skills? I wish I had a photo of my Tweetie bird or Pocahontas cakes to insert here, or maybe the really cool one she made for my sister’s birthday to look like swimming pool, complete with graham cracker bears in bikinis. I have decided that my children will always be getting cake balls or cupcakes for their birthdays, unless my mom happens to be in town.

We are hoping that this is the last birthday Quinn will have to spend without a family and next year, he will get some sort of yummy baked goods and presents just for him. Maybe even a party!

Today, he might not even know that it is his birthday. Let alone presents and cake. As I understand it, orphanages  have a mass birthday party to celebrate many birthdays at the same time.

Ha, can you imagine that? Most kids I know anticipate their birthdays for weeks. Countdowns. Multiple parties. A big pile of presents.

I can’t wait to celebrate Quinn and Erika’s birthdays with them… even if it’s just cupcakes and one present, I know it will be meaningful for them.

The actual today, May 4th, is the birthday of the coolest seven year old I know– Owen! That kid is seriously special, good special… Happy Birthday, Owen!

How cute is he?

First Adoption

Another FAQ

Leave a comment

One that I forgot earlier…

Are they siblings?
Biologically, no! But, hopefully, they will be someday! We considered some sibling groups, but they were either too large or the special needs of the children were too great or they were too old for us to adopt or something else entirely. I do not know the details of either of their placement in the orphanage yet, but many orphans in Eastern Europe are “social” orphans (where the parents cannot care for the child for some reason, as opposed to “true orphans” where both parents are dead).

First Adoption

FAQs

2 Comments

How old is Erika?
I’m sorry that I forgot to post that! She is two- her birthday is December 8th, the day after Aaron (and of course Rachel’s!).


How long ’til you have them home?
First, there are no guarantees. We can’t be sure that we will bring them home! Although we have talked to a home study provider and done other researcher that points to us being able to complete the adoption. But, anyways, on average, an adoption in their country takes 7 months. I’ve also heard anywhere from 6mo to 15mo!


How can I help?
We have had so many people ask us this, and we are so grateful to have such fantastic family members, friends and even acquaintances. Honestly, I have been amazed by how supportive everyone is! If you are in Kansas and have clothing, toys, whatever for kids about their ages and are willing to part with them, that would be great. The less we have to buy, the better.

I recently added the place on the right where you can help fund our adoption… and we would be so grateful for financial support. Adoption is super expensive. BUT, I also know that there are causes a lot greater than ours, organizations where your $ will reach more people… and there is no guarantee that we will be able to bring them home.  If you feel called to give to us, can spare the money, would like to donate to our adoption instead of giving us a Christmas or birthday present, please do… that would be great. If you would like to support another organization that supports adopt, check out Reece’s Rainbow. You can also donate to us through them(let me know if you need the details on how to do that), and if our adoption does not go through, any money donated to “us” through them will still stay in Erika and Quinn’s fund to find another family… if you decide to do that, when you donate, please either use our names or Erika and Quinn’s, as well, as there is currently another family with the same name currently working with them.

Also, please share our blog and pray for us!

The end
Please let me know if you have any other questions. I’ll do my best to answer them.

First Adoption

More photos

Leave a comment

I mentioned in my post yesterday that we do have more photos of both Erika and Quinn. I found an older photo of each of them from before the missionary visited their orphanage. I also found several photos of each of them on another website.

Little Quinn. He looks like a child of the 80s here… I think it is the shirt.

Little Erika. I love this photo. I think that she looks so much more like a baby here… even though she’s clearly a toddler… gotta love that belly.

I think, in all, I have about 10 photos of Erika and 15 photos of Quinn. A missionary sent me a bunch of photos of Quinn and some photos of their orphanage… if you request, I will email you photos… otherwise, I will just slowly share them with you here.

First Adoption

Erika & Quinn

2 Comments

We have OFFICIALLY committed to adopting two children from Eastern Europe. I was going to write some long story about how we chose them, but I decided to skip the monologue and get to the cuteness… sound good?

As you may know, we were looking for children between 2 and 5. We were thinking that if we were going to adopt two children, we wanted them to be a couple years apart in age and preferably a boy and a girl. And… (I feel like we need a drumroll)

We committed to adopting Quinn…

There is something about that big smile that drew me in! Quinn is almost four (in five days). There was a missionary in his orphanage in March, and she wrote: This guy likes to be the center of attention. He is full of fun, smiles and laughter. He is very energetic and he seems to be needing a lot more attention than he’s getting. He is very playful and laughs easily. Really cute kid. He would have been quite happy to crawl all over me and cling to me the entire time.”

As if he isn’t cute enough, we also committed to adopting Erika…

How adorable is she? From the same missionary, “She is a quiet, pretty girl. She likes playing outdoors. She was very curious about us. She seems very sweet.”

I have a few more pictures of them… I will have to post them at some point, or you send me an email and I will send them to you!