Emma celebrated her 3rd Birthday this month. We had a party before my parents left. Here are the kids singing Happy Birthday for the 3rd time because Emma kept saying "Do it again!" Some kids were done and wanted the cake instead. 
Happy Birthday Sweety!! I love you!
Here is our Drake named Daffy. He is going to be a daddy soon.
Steven did not expect this !! It was so funny I said, Sweepy do you like Daddy's sign? The answer .....yes, maybe a little to much!!
Here is Sweepy. She walks around freely sometimes and she came around from the back of the house to see what sign Daddy was putting up. She loves being around the family. 
It looks like she likes the sign and approves.
This is a duplicate. I was trying to delete it but I am not very good at this part yet. I will let you know having Sweepy is like having a family dog.
This flag was perfect for our house!! I just love diary cows.
This is one of our Roosters. My husband named him Flavor Flave. Hmmm. OK then. Anyways, he comes to the back porch ....eats the cat food and crows. He is actually good, we did have to get rid of one turkey who chased any visitors who got out of their car. He would usually walk not run around the car but with his feathers open he was very intimidating. He was like a watch dog but became a little to dangerous when we could not predict what he would do if he did catch up to the person running around their cars trying to avoid him. Many learned to call or beep to get Steven to go outside and shoo him away. Sometimes he was stubborn with Steven also. It did bring lots of laughs even from those being chased. We have a new Tom Turkey now but Flaver Flav here keeps him in check. 
The kids love reading the blog and especially love the music. Here they are in the kitchen looking at it. Hi Kids!!
The kids love taking the bus and it took them some work on convincing us that they would behave on the bus and listen to their bus driver. I can tell you with 7 siblings on the bus....you cannot get away with much because one will usually come through the door and tell on you. There are so many times I wish parents could ride on the bus so that the bus drivers would not have to drive and watch a bus load of kids but someone must have spoiled it for the rest of us because they do not allow it except for pre-elementary.
Early morning hours we have a visitor in the pond. My husband has named him George. He loves to go fishing and usually is by himself.
Hello Everyone,
Happy Birthday Sweety!! I love you!
Here is our Drake named Daffy. He is going to be a daddy soon.
Steven did not expect this !! It was so funny I said, Sweepy do you like Daddy's sign? The answer .....yes, maybe a little to much!!
Here is Sweepy. She walks around freely sometimes and she came around from the back of the house to see what sign Daddy was putting up. She loves being around the family. 
It looks like she likes the sign and approves.This is a duplicate. I was trying to delete it but I am not very good at this part yet. I will let you know having Sweepy is like having a family dog.This flag was perfect for our house!! I just love diary cows.
This is one of our Roosters. My husband named him Flavor Flave. Hmmm. OK then. Anyways, he comes to the back porch ....eats the cat food and crows. He is actually good, we did have to get rid of one turkey who chased any visitors who got out of their car. He would usually walk not run around the car but with his feathers open he was very intimidating. He was like a watch dog but became a little to dangerous when we could not predict what he would do if he did catch up to the person running around their cars trying to avoid him. Many learned to call or beep to get Steven to go outside and shoo him away. Sometimes he was stubborn with Steven also. It did bring lots of laughs even from those being chased. We have a new Tom Turkey now but Flaver Flav here keeps him in check. 
The kids love reading the blog and especially love the music. Here they are in the kitchen looking at it. Hi Kids!!The kids love taking the bus and it took them some work on convincing us that they would behave on the bus and listen to their bus driver. I can tell you with 7 siblings on the bus....you cannot get away with much because one will usually come through the door and tell on you. There are so many times I wish parents could ride on the bus so that the bus drivers would not have to drive and watch a bus load of kids but someone must have spoiled it for the rest of us because they do not allow it except for pre-elementary.
Early morning hours we have a visitor in the pond. My husband has named him George. He loves to go fishing and usually is by himself.Hello Everyone,Hope everyone is doing great. It has been so wonderful reading all of our families' (Reeces Rainbow) journeys towards bringing all these wonderful children home. If you are not familiar with RR please click on some of the blogs on the right or go to the RR site and go under "sponsor adopting families" to read these stories. If you are moved to donate please do so whether it is for our adoption or any of our ( RR families') adoption. Right now, I do want to thank 2 beautiful woman who I have never met/or talked to but have donated to our FSP. Thank you so so much!! I have your names and pray for you often. One day not expecting to see a change I looked at our FSP..... it went from 0 to 300 dollars. Wow! I started to cry thinking maybe it was a mistake so I inquired about it and we were not familiar at all with the names but it was no mistake it was a gift for Danylo and Annie. We did not know them but they donated...we are so grateful to you and we hope that you are reading this. We also thank my brother Stephen who sent us 50.00 (Thank you Steven, I know you are reading this love you).
Where are we? I often ask myself OK what's next. It seems that the simple things such as getting our birth certificates ordered have had its hurdles. We were wondering why it seemed to be taking so long but after calling the vital stats agency there ad of getting our certificates in 3 business days where "misunderstood" it was actually 30 Business days and they blamed it on "Massachusetts". I did ask them to please modify their ad so that people would not be misled and did ask to have the manager call but still have not heard from them. It cost us 240.00 and still did not have the extra certified copies of our marriage and birth certificates. Anyways, the good news we had our family ( thank you mom and dad )back in Massachusetts obtain them for us. I guess we will have lots of copies!! So if you are even thinking of adopting please Lesson #1 make sure you have 2 certified copies of marriage and birth certificates before you even start. This had also held us back with getting our passports so we had to expedite them in other words double that cost. It cost us 400.00 but again waiting six-eight weeks would just be to long for us since we needed the numbers for our dossier. I hope this helps anyone who is new to international adoption. Lesson #2 Please get your passports way ahead of time before moving on to the next step.
In regards to our dossier we have been blessed with this wonderful woman named Phyllis. I feel that the day I walked in that office to notarize my first paper it was a blessing from God. I then hesitantly told her that "there were lots of papers that would have to be notarized and would she mind us coming to her?" without any rolling of eyes of bad karma she so angel like said sure "I will be here". I know she doesn't know about my blog and for sure does not know that I have written about her...but I have a favor to ask from you....could you please say a prayer that God blesses her because it is people like this that I believe God has placed along our journey to help us keep going on. Her smile alone gives us hope. By the way, she did not accept any money for her services but I told Steven that at the end of all this I will bring the children in to see her and bring her a gift card from them.
We have a goal that all our paperwork will be sent in by June 1st please pray for this also. I know God wants us to be very specific in our prayers.( Thank you God love you!) We have a wonderful social worker who has given us the hope and always makes me feel better after only talking to her for a short time. I know that my fears come out but she with her upbeat, hopeful, professionalism attitude eases my anxiety. Lesson # 3 pray to find good people who you can "vent to" without being criticized.
All of the children are doing well. They are very glad to not have to wear winter jackets to school. They are having a hard time in getting their homework done first THEN going outside. The weather is getting warmer so I don't blame them.... but what happens is they go outside ....then they are to tired to do any required reading or studying . Some have started doing their homework on the bus and I don't mind as long as their writing is neat. I know I would get sick but they're kids. I have included some pictures of the farm and kids. By the way we had a wonderful Easter. I misplaced the cable to my camera so cannot download the pictures from Easter other then the ones Steven took on his phone.
This month in April was not only Emma's 3rd Birthday but also Thomas 3rd year anniversary of his passing to be with Jesus. Thomas was a very special boy who lived with us for almost a year. He was in foster care not because he was neglected/abused but because of his complexity in his medical care. His parents wanted him to live in a family environment with the short life he had left. They felt that he was blessed having us but oh...... if only they knew how much Thomas blessed our family. He will forever be engraved in our hearts. He taught us to be better people and to love simple life and the gift that is given to us everyday LIFE. His parents and family will never be forgotten.
Families who are interested in doing Foster care must realize that the number one goal is reunification of the parents and child. We become caretakers of the children and become their parents until they can go back home. If a plan cannot be established or if the parents relinquish their rights .... we then are first in line to adopt them if it is our choice and the child's choice. I do suggest wholeheartedly to never put their biological parents down. As adoptive and foster parents we must be very careful in our words especially when talking about their biological parents. We must instead let these kids know that "they made bad choices" and encourage these children to forgive so that they do not harbor anger. I know that this could be a blog post in itself but I just felt it was so important to mention.
