Family Time at the Beach

We are having a blast at our annual family beach trip! We go for the week after Christmas with my family. There are 9 girls, 4 guys, 2 little boys, and 1 baby girl. In the past we have rented a couple of condos, but this year we found an extra large condo that has 8 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. It has been so fun to be all together! Growing up in a big family, it was very normal when we went on vacation for some of us to sleep on sleeping bags on the floor or on couches. For the first time that we can ever remember there are 4 people with their own rooms and we actually have extra beds that aren't even being slept in! It sort of feels "empty!" Just kidding!

The weather has been gorgeous, too! It has been sunny and very warm! We have been enjoying lots of food, tons of games, and great outlet shopping!

Update on the PJ Party!

A huge THANK YOU to all of you who participated in the PJ Party for the children in Mexico! It turned into a huge success for the kids! Here's a link to a few pictures from the party.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you! As we celebrate the birth of Jesus tomorrow we will be surrounded by our families--opening presents, eating good food, playing games, laughing, and our hearts will be full of joy! I have looked forward to tomorrow for a while now--I can't wait to watch the wonder of Christmas unfold for my sweet little Riley boy!

But, there will be a piece of my heart that will still be a little sad as I think about our sweet baby #2 and wonder if he or she has been born yet and if we're missing his/her first Christmas. In some ways I hope that our baby has been born because it means we're that much closer, but this mama's heart also can't bear to think that we might be missing the first Christmas that little one is alive for.

I heard this Third Day song last Christmas and it melted my heart...I think about it now as I think about our next baby and as I try to focus on all of the Christmases we will have together as a family.

"There's a little girl trembling on a cold December morn
Crying for momma's arms
At an orphanage just outside a little China town
There the forgotten are

But half a world away I hang the stockings by the fire
And dream about the day when I can finally call you mine

It's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

As I hang the tinsel on the tree and watch the twinkling lights
I'm warmed by the fire's glow
Outside the children tumble in a wonderland of white,
Make angels in the snow

But half a world away you try your best to fight the tears
And hope that heaven's angels come to carry you here

It's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

Christmas is a time to celebrate the holy child
and we celebrate his perfect gift of love
He came to earth to give his life
and prepare a place for us
so we could have a home with him above

It's Christmas time again and now you're home
Your family is here so you will never be alone
So tonight before you go to sleep, I'll hold you in my arms
And I'll tell you from my heart, and I'll you from my heart
I wish you Merry Christmas"

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It IS the most wonderful time of the year, although in our household it's a little bit less than wonderful. Riley has been under the weather and now has bronchitis. Ugh! This is not how I pictured our last few days before Christmas. I am just thankful he doesn't have the throw-up bug! At least we can all sit around and watch movies and eat yummy Christmas treats!

In many ways this Christmas is not how I pictured it would be. We've had a lot of disappointing news in the last month that I don't want to go into right now on my blog. I really thought we would have had good news to share and be excited about this year as we gathered to celebrate. But, things have not worked out the way that we would have planned.

In all of this I do know that God is in control and that He can be trusted with our lives and in the plans He has for us and our family. And, our circumstances do not change the miracle of why we celebrate this week--that God chose to give us the ultimate gift of life forever with Him through the birth of His son Jesus. Through that gift, one day we can look forward to the day when we will be with Him and there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more suffering, and no more disappointments. THAT makes this time of year the most wonderful time as we remember all we've been given and the "so much more" we have to look forward to!

Infertility and Adoption

In response to a question about infertility and adoption, I thought I would share a little bit more about our struggle with infertility.

For many people, they are given a diagnosis of their infertility but for a lot of us our infertility is "unexplained." We have pretty much had every test, exam, procedure, etc... to find out why we were having problems getting pregnant but no one has been able to find anything wrong/abnormal with us. And, we have been to general ob/gyns as well as reproductive endocrinologists.

We did get pregnant once and lost that baby very early on. After that we thought it would just be a matter of time before we were able to conceive again, but that has been over 4 years ago. (Wow--I hadn't thought about how long ago that was until I just typed it...so much has happened in 4 years.)

I had always wanted to adopt...when Michael and I were dating and before we were engaged we both remember me asking him if he would be open to adopting one day. He said he was open to it, but at that time he honestly never thought much about it.

After trying on our own and then later when our fertility meds and procedures weren't working, we really felt strongly "why are we continuing this when we ultimately just want to be parents and there are children who need us?" This isn't to say that once we decided to adopt that we have never felt sad about our infertility--there are definitely days, definitely moments where we have to recognize the loss of being able to conceive and carry a baby. BUT, those days and moments are fewer and far between.

For us, the bottom line came down to our desire. Our desire was to be parents. More than anything else we just wanted to be Mom and Dad. Our ultimate desire was not to have a labor story; our ultimate desire was not to have little replicas of ourselves running around; our ultimate desire was not to pass on our genes. All of those would be great, but it came down to our ultimate desire of being parents.

Becoming parents has been the fulfillment of our dreams...we don't in ANY way feel "slighted" or "less parents" because we became parents through adoption rather than through giving birth. Grieving for the child you never birthed or the loss of the dream that one day you will birth children is a process. I think it is very rare that a couple would never (even if in a very small way) feel sadness or grief that those dreams haven't come true and probably won't come true. But, I also know that that pain, grief, and sadness are not experienced as intensely forever. Time and more than time, Jesus, can take those places in our lives and turn those places of mourning into JOY!

(If you are struggling with infertility, I would love to talk to you! I certainly do not have all of the answers, but I do understand, and would love to encourage you in any way that I can. Also, if you are thinking about adopting or know someone who is, I would love to help you, too, in any way that I can. Drop me an email at: erin0302@hotmail.com)

Why Korea? Why International Adoption?

As a Christian I really believe that God puts certain desires in certain people's hearts. I think that we were also created with certain passions, likes and dislikes, etc... No one is created exactly alike.

Some families who are interested in adoption may have a bent towards adoption in America; others are drawn overseas to international adoption. For us, we really felt pulled towards international adoption. If I'm being honest, part of the pull for us was the perceived safety of the process. I say perceived because it is very unusual for a birthmother to change her mind when adopting internationally; however, there are still so many uncertainties with timeframes and other changing parts. I know that there are successful domestic adoptions every single day, but I also know that the potential for heartbreak is big with a birth family changing their mind and deciding to parent rather than making an adoption plan. After our loss and infertility struggles, we wanted an option that was as close to a sure thing as possible.

We also really felt a pull towards adopting from an Asian country. We first thought we would adopt from China because that was the most familiar to us and we have several friends/acquaintances with children from China. Once we started gathering info about the process we found out that we were too young because we both had to be at least 30 years old and neither of us were at the time. Vietnam was another option but international adoption from Vietnam had been closed for a while and was just beginning again; again this seemed too risky for my heart at the time. (Adoptions from Vietnam have since been stopped again.) Then we learned about Korea.

We loved everything we found out about Korea. Korea has the world's oldest international adoption program. Most of the children are in foster families as opposed to orphanages; this means that there is a lot of one-on-one interaction between the children and their foster moms/parents. Being in a foster family also gives a baby a greater chance of bonding which then eventually helps them bond with the adoptive family. Korea has excellent medical care, too. At the time when we began the process for Riley the process also was fairly quick which was very appealing to us after desiring to be parents for so long.

With Korea it is very, very rare (I can only think of one instance I have heard of) for a sibling set to be available for adoption. Usually if it were a sibling set it would be a set of twins, but very rarely siblings of different ages. In our homestudy (which is sent to Korea) we have only requested one child at this time. This doesn't mean that we would never be open to adopting more than one child at a time, but at this point our plan for this second adoption is just one child. I would still love a big family, but Michael and I are taking things one child at a time and we will see what God has planned for our family.

Right now our hearts are still for children in Korea, but we are definitely open to wherever God leads our family in the future.

Talking about Adoption with Your Kids

A great question was asked in my Question and Answer post about whether to discuss with your children the fact that Riley (or insert any of your children's friends' names who were adopted) was adopted.

I honestly had never really thought about this until the question was asked here. I have pondered it and have also asked for other people's input from one of my adoption message boards. The consensus seems to be to follow your child's lead. In other words, wait for them to initiate conversations about adoption (or why some children don't "look" like their mommy or daddy) and answer their questions (on an age appropriate level) as they ask. As your children start asking questions, talk to your friends who have adopted if you need suggestions on what to say.

There are also some GREAT children's books about the topic of adoption. One of our favorites is My Family is Forever.


This is a great book for our family because one of the topics talked about is how families don't always look alike. It is a great children's book in general and would be a great purchase for any family. For those of you we know in "real life" (hahahaha!) this would be a great book to have on hand as your children grow up and start asking questions about adoption.

Even though this wasn't a part of the original question, I do want to say that we talk to Riley all the time about his story. All research has shown and experts say that children who were adopted should be told that from a very young age. Since we are Caucasian and Riley is Asian it would not be long before he would notice that he looks different than us. Most children begin noticing the difference around 3 or 4. But, we never want Riley to have "that moment" where he remembers finding out he was adopted as though it were a bad thing or something to have been kept a secret. We feel quite the opposite!

We began talking to Riley about how he became a part of our family since the time he first came home. It was wonderful to have that time to talk to him and figure out exactly how we would tell him his story while he was still young. Now Riley can tell you about how he was born in Korea, his foster mother Mrs. Park took good care of him and sent him a hanbok, he flew in a big airplane with Miss Kim, and Mommy and Daddy were SO excited to hold him for the first time at the airport! It has been so fun to live near an airport because we drive by it almost daily. It has been great for Riley to see the planes and then just very naturally talk about the day he flew in a big airplane and joined our family.

Incorporating Korean Culture

Another question asked in my Question and Answer post was what we do to incorporate Korean culture into our family. (Becky, I'm not sure that you will get much out of this answer because it's probably no different than what you guys do/have done.)

One of the first things we did was celebrate Riley's first birthday with a Tol ceremony. There are four main parts to the Tol: praying and giving thanks, making and wearing the birthday clothes, preparing the table and performing the Toljabee, and sharing the food with guests and neighbors.

We had our families and a few close friends over for Riley's tol. The first thing we did was have a time of blessing for him (praying and giving thanks). We invited people to speak blessings over him through prayers and/or Scripture readings. Riley wore his hanbok (making and wearing the birthday clothes) that his foster mom had sent home with him.



Next, we performed the Toljabee. During the Toljabee a child sits at a table where the parents have placed a variety of items. The child then chooses an item or items that they are attracted to. The child's future is supposedly predicted by the items they choose. Riley chose scissors (talented with his hands) and a knife (a good cook).



Another thing we do to incorporate Korean culture into our home is by celebrating Children's Day each year. Children's Day is a Korean national holiday celebrated on May 5th each year. In Korea there are usually parades and a lot of fun kid places offer free admission on Children's Day. Parents also buy gifts for their children. We have celebrated two Children's Days since Riley came home. On the first one we bought him a gift and took him out for dinner. On the second one we bought him a fishing pole and had some of his friends over for lunch/playdate and cupcakes.

Michael and I also have tried to learn more about the Korean culture through reading and talking with other Koreans. We plan to take our children to Korea for a family trip when they are old enough to remember being there and would get a lot out of the experience. In our area there are also Korean culture camps for children adopted from Korea. Once Riley is old enough to attend we will definitely check this opportunity out.

We are obviously not Korean but we want to celebrate Riley's heritage as well as we possibly can. No adoptee is exactly the same. There are those who are grown who embrace their original heritage and who wish their parents had done more in this aspect; there are others who identify only with their adopted heritage. Until Riley is old enough to decide which he prefers, we feel like we owe it to him and to his birth family to try to incorporate as best we can aspects of his Korean heritage.

Favorite Blogs

Thank you for the questions I received after my last post. I will take the next few days to answer the questions that were asked. (It's not too late if you want to still leave me a question and I will try to answer it. Here's the original post.)

The first question was what are some of my favorite blogs of people who are not my friends "in real life." These are some of the blogs I read consistently that I think you might want to check out:

Really Living

Urban Servant

The Stitch that Makes the Sweater Perfect

Spirit of Adoption

Bring the Rain

My Charming Kids

Also, don't forget you can become a fan of our blog by clicking on "Follow this blog" on my right sidebar.

What about you? Not that I NEED more blogs to read (ask my sweet husband!) but what are some blogs you enjoy reading?