Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Frozen Birthday's

Eden turned 3 and Jubilee turned 7 this March......
       We decided to celebrate the girls special days together...

Frozen is kind of a thing at our house right now.

We sing/hear  a lot of "let it go, let it go!" and "Do you want to build a snowman?" every day.

So a Frozen theme was an easy choice, and one upon which both girls were thrilled to agree....

                                                                 The Frozen Sisters

'Elsa'



some of the decore'

                                                                 


Frozen snacks (I forgot to take pictures of the food table all pretty before the kiddos ate the food, here's what I've got!
We had snow balls (glittery frosted white cupcakes), snow man arms (pretzels) snow man noses (carrot sticks) frozen grapes and more... it was super fun, We had signs up everywhere that said things like, "I like warm hugs!" and "do you want to build a snowman? and my favorite, "the cold never bothered me anyway!" all the fun ideas came from a blog I stumbled upon while trying to plan the party called:
pagingsupermom.com 
                                                         (just FYI in case your curious!) 

The Best part about this party was that for the first 45 minutes all the little girls just sang frozen songs with the soundtrack we have downloaded on the iphone! It was adorable! I may post a video later... but I better ask the other mama's first! It is so funny how much all little girls (and even my boys;) seem to just love that movie!                                       

a little more decor

'Anna'
Anna hair
Elsa Hair



Here's those sweet girls, just  a little glimpse!

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Ok, so I am not so very good at blogging....

Hello blog world,
  I have decided I am a blog failure.  I officially disappeared from this blog for about 3 months.  I am going to make it my new goal to post something, even if it is short or totally unrelated to the adoption once a week or so.

                In Fact I have several ideas of things I want to post about: home life, home schooling, what Jesus is teaching me, guest blog posts from some of my older kiddos, as well as of course, adoption updates when we have something to share.

Speaking of adoption news we are finally just about done with the home study and actually almost done with compiling our dossier as well.

For those who do not know these adoption terms...

         A home study refers to part of the paper work you compile, including fingerprint clearance cards, Dr. visits, police clearance certificates and a whole lot of other things along with interviews you complete in your home and in an office with a social worker.  Who then takes all this and compiles a report on your family which she submits to the state in which you live and to the adoption agency you are working with. This will then serve as a guide when they place a child or children in your family.  They consider things from finances, health,  personality even your desires to determine the ages and number of children your family is 'suited for'.  It is also basically the way in which you are granted 'permission to adopt' by your state government.

The Dossier refers to the home study combined with a lot more paper work and legal documents such as certified copies of marriage licenses and birth certificates and pictures of your home and family as well as even more paper work which must be submitted to both the US government and the foreign court in the country you are adopting from.  

This is all in Christa language..... I am sure someone else could do a better job of explaining this....

  Anyway, we are exited to be moving along with our paper work (finally).... It has been slow going.  But the Lord knows all our days every one is accounted for in His sight and  we know he has had his hand in this timing.

        In fact we are hoping we will have fun and exiting news to share here soon..... maybe even info about the kids we will be adopting.

For now though we wanted to share some fun pictures of one way we have been enjoying learning about African and even specifically Ugandan culture this winter....

    We went with special friends to see an Ugandan Children's choir....  It was amazing.  The music was beautiful, and our kids got to meet some of the kids afterwords as well as hear first  hand from kids who were orphans at one time but were now in a safe and Godly home with a mother to call their own within their own country in what they call a children's village.

        This ministry is called Wototo Children's Village and it truly has an amazing vision of raising up a Godly generation of children who will be able to with Christ's power change the future for Uganda as a nation.
 







Anyway, hearing their stories and watching their smiling faces and sweet music was such a blessing!
                         
                Don't they all have such sweet smiles? What a special night!

Want to read more about this ministry?
http://www.watoto.com/home


Here's a music video of the Choir:


Be on the watch for more regular blog posts from the Okerlund crew!