Fiji mission trip

Our oldest son just returned on Saturday morning, from a two week trip to Fiji, helping the people on the Island of Labasa.  We missed him so much, but it was so great for him to be able to go.  He has wanted to do a mission trip for a while now.  It was such an experience for him, even got totally bitten by 'bed bugs'!!

My gorgeous boy 

The kids club help helped with.  

Jackson at one of the churches they helped in.

This is his feet after a night with bed bugs

He was invited to a kava ceremony

coconuts

Helping to local villages by planting watermelons

One of the horrible insects found while planting!
Very poisonous apparently

*** Jasmine ***

This week has been an eventful week.  Our oldest son is on a mission trip to Fiji for two weeks, helping in Villages etc, quite a huge deal for him and us.  This week has been also about little miss Jasmine.   We finally managed to have her birthday party, after waiting patiently for the movie to come out at the cinema.  Lots of fun was had but all her little girlfriends.

And two days ago, we again enjoyed reminiscing about the first time, 8 years ago (hard to believe) we first saw our daughters little face.  It was the date she was allocated to our family and we were given her photos.

Birthday Fun, and JUST LOTS of waiting............

Been a bit slack updating my blog lately, but since I am getting lots and lots of questions about what is happening with our adoption, I thought it was high time I wrote something :)

The good first:

In amongst all the sad parts of the last two months (loosing our boys), there have been very fun family times, and two birthdays.
Jasmine turned 9 and Jason....Well I'm not allowed to say.

We took the family up to Auckland for a long weekend to have some birthday fun, at Rainbows End and the Zoo etc.  We are still tired, :)

Daddy and his 2 girls

Chanel

trying to soak each other

Our family almost used up all the boats

ADOPTION:

Waiting....... is the word that best describes how that is going.  We are finding it really hard to understand why it is taking so long for us to receive another referral from Russia.
We have three friends who lost children after their first trips and received referrals the day after, so for us waiting this long seems excessive.
We are aware there are children there that appear to match our profile.  Is it really hard, not being told anything, and not having any idea what is going on.
So the whole situation is pretty sad and disheartening for our family.  We were so looking forward to adopting again.
There was an update of 'our boys' on the internet this week with their new family, which is so hard to see.  That would have been us home with them, but instead we are still in this process with no answers and no child.
So all in all we know as much as you .. nothing.  I so hope we have some good news soon.  It is 7 months since our first trip to Russia.

Our second oldest

Birthday Girl turns 9

My oldest boy

In the weekend my oldest born went to his first school Ball (for all my American friends, that is a Prom)
This event certainly made me feel a little older!
They went as a group, had a nice pre-ball get together with all the families,  and hired out a Limousine for an hour drive around the city before it started.  Very exciting.

She LOVES to sing

This video is kind of for the grandparents who find this cute, but enjoy anyway.  My three year old loves to sing.  There are not many days when she isn't singing her way around the house.  She told me today "Mummy I like being cute".

Life at the moment for her is about, princess dresses, soft toy puppies, dancing and baking, having her brothers and sisters serving her, haha.
She asks me a lot lately, about having a new brother or sister, she is very excited about a new child/children joining her family, and told me the other day that she will share her mum and dad with them, which is kind of cute really.

I am finding taking photos of the older kids a challenge, they get to the stage of not really wanting them.
So more will follow sometime of the boys.

Easter Fun

We had a great Easter break, but it always goes so quickly.

It all started with a bit of retail therapy and dinner with the girls, while Jason took one of the boys to the movies.

 Finishing the long weekend with a great day walking around Mt Maunganui, and eating ice creams on the beach.  Haven't felt this relaxed in ages.

Just Musing

Well, we have done a LOT of crying over the last few weeks, and a LOT of talking.

We are so sad to loose the boys, but are hoping they have a family that loves them.  We are trying to look at the positives, and the big one is being able to grow up in their own country.  

This is really closing the chapter on this part of the journey, and opening up a totally different one.  We will always think and pray for those two, they are part of our journey.  

You can't replace children, even with a miscarriage, when a person tries again, it is never to replace the one that was lost, but we have got to a point that we are looking forward to starting again, and hoping we don't have to wait for a long time.  

So this is the start of a new journey for us.

  

We are trying to have lots of fun time as a family at the moment, now that we don't have a looming court date coming up.   Although we have the cost of another trip to Russia, it has eased the financial load.  It is crazy how things work, after we lost the boys we had the money we needed come in.  Go figure!

Hopefully we have some good news to share soon xx