We have spent the last week cleaning, packing and organizing our house. It has been exhausting work. It is times like these that having a lot of children is very obvious. On one hand, we have so much stuff, because there are so many people in our family. On the other hand, there are a lot of extra hands to make the work lighter. I have been so impressed by the hard work even my six year old has been able to accomplish, let alone my older children. Most of us are feeling very excited about this new adventure in our lives. We looked at our hopeful new home again today, and it was fun to again imagine what our life will be like if everything goes through and it becomes ours.

One... more

We had a fantastic time at Disneyland. It was wonderful to be in California where there is so much racial diversity. The weather was beautiful and made it hard to return to cold and snowy Utah. We loved being with Tana's family. We were comfortable with each other right away. I've known Tana for some time now, but our husbands had yet to meet, and it had been awhile since our children had seen each other. It didn't take long for our kids to find a buddy in Tana's family and before I knew it, I was watching my kids walk hand-in-hand with their new best friends. Tana gives a terrific run-down of our trip, so you can read more about it there.... more

In two days, my husband and I will head to California with our six children for a visit to Disneyland. Ever since we brought our three kids home from Ethiopia two and a half years ago, we have been promising a trip to Disneyland. We thought about the trip many times, but it never panned out. Then my friend, Tana mentioned that she and her family were going to Disneyland, and it suddenly seemed like the perfect time to go.

I look forward to seeing Tana again. I can’t wait for our husbands to meet, or our kids to get to know each other better. I look forward to enjoying the happiest place on earth with a family so similar to my own.... more

I'm officially back (but it probably wasn't very obvious that I was even "gone". I managed to get quite a few posts up using my husband's computer). My husband surprised me with a new computer this week. He bought me a MacBook. I have spent the last couple of days trying to figure it out. It is quite a bit different than my old laptop. From everything I've read and heard, I will soon turn my nose up at any non-apple computers! For now I am mostly enjoying it, but also feeling rather frustrated, too. It may be awhile before I feel completely at ease with my new computer. But I am feeling very grateful for the ability to immediately replace my old one.

Right now I am... more

Usually when I do “Love Thursday,” I try to pick photos of our girls in Haiti. However, my computer has crashed and I am using my husband’s computer. I am therefore limited to using whatever photos he has on his computer.

This photo is of my daughter, Claire (born in the U.S.) and my son, Ezra (born in Ethiopia). They are both three years old. Claire is older than Ezra by two months. We adopted Claire at birth and Ezra when he was seven months old (Claire was 9 months old when Ezra came home). When they were younger,... more

This is just a short little note to let you all know that I haven't disappeared completely. My computer decided to crash early Saturday morning. My husband has been trying to fix it (and salvage as much off of the hardrive as he can), and it appears I will have to replace it. I will do my very best to post on a regular basis until I do have a new one. However, I will have to use my husband's business computer whenever he isn't using it. I will have a limited amount of time with a computer for the next little bit. I hope I will be able to write a few posts during the week, and then a few posts on the weekends.

I am certainly not going anywhere, so keep checking in with... more

I love this photo of my husband, Tim with our youngest child, Talley. This is from our first trip to Haiti. In fact, it was taken on Talley’s first birthday … on July 13, 2006.

Before we started our journey to adopt from Haiti, I had begged Tim for months to adopt a newborn baby. He semi-agreed at one point, but a few weeks later admitted that he was seriously regretting his agreement. He felt like he was done with babies and never wanted another child under the age of three.

Eventually he agreed to adopt Georgia,... more

I’d like to tell you about our sweet baby Ruth. About two months after we started Georgia’s adoption paperwork, we decided to add another child from Haiti to our family. We were given the referral for a little girl born in January of 2005 and we named her Ruth. Had she lived, she would have turned one year old this month.

Here is an excerpt from my personal blog:

June 4, 2006

Last Friday when Tim and I were driving around doing adoption paperwork, we were discussing whether or not Tim should come to Haiti with... more

Continued from Part Two...

It was very upsetting for Tim and I. Now we're wondering what we could have done differently to avoid her having to ride the emotional roller-coaster right along with us. We hardly ever talk about the girls to the babies. We do have photos here and there. They have seen the videos. They have been told we are leaving to visit Georgia and Talley. But we really don't talk about them very much. In fact, it seems like the... more

Continued from Part One...

An excerpt from my online blog:

December 1, 2006:

Something sad happened tonight. Don't worry, it isn't anything terribly bad. Let me go back a few months. One day I was shopping at Walmart and saw a cute little black baby doll with a basket and bottle and other accessories. It was right before we went to Haiti for the first time. I wanted that doll for... more