Happy 10 yr Gotcha Day Makenzie!

Nobody can ever know about all of the heartache, suffering and pain and pure joy that you go through while trying to adopt unless you've actually walked in those shoes and it's a bond we share with many, many other adoptives families that we have been so blessed to meet during this adoption journey.  It's a lot of work proving that you will be a fit parent for these precious children and you have worries about will it be "enough", will they pick me?  I'm sure most parents go through a lot of these emotions but it's a little different for adoptive parents because we have people come through our house for a homestudy and make sure it's ok for a child, it is nerve wracking and emotionally draining on top of all of the interviews, meetings, paperwork, fingerprinting, police records check and the list goes on and on.  Will we EVER get through this is a question we asked ourselves often.  Then the big day comes and you get a referral (we even got a picture AND a video of Kim, Sun Hwa), this adorable, chubby cheeked, black haired, almond eyed child is going to be ours after years and years of praying for a baby and exploring so many options along the way, we finally have a picture....now comes the really hard part WAITING for her passport and visa when you know what she looks like and all you can think about is that she's getting bigger and bigger and is she smiling? is she rolling over? can she say any words? is she attaching to her foster mom?  will she have attachment issues or will she bond with us? Questions, worries, waiting, happiness that you have a child in this world but you haven't met her yet...it's a swirl of emotions.  Then, the call comes in that she has a visa and passport and a lady(we love you Beverlee) that we've grown to love and trust is in Korea and is willing to bring her to us...oh happy day!  We rush to LA, California and anxiously await her arrival....but wait SURPRISE the morning she's supposed to come in we hear a knock on our hotel room door and it's Kevin's parents and my mom, they want to share this joyous, happy day with us!  Then, time seems to stand still while we pace about the LAX airport just waiting to see her and then she's here and all of the sudden all of the past 8 years of trying to have a baby fade away and are just a distant memory and our daughter is safe in our loving, open arms at last!!!  November 19th, 2000 is a day Kevin and I will never forget, God answered our prayers and gave us a wonderful, special gift of Makenzie Nicole Wedemeyer and for that gift we are eternally greatful!  The past 10 years have been the happiest 10 years of my entire life and I know it's because of this blessing sent from God with a detour through South Korea!  If you have questions about adoption please email me at adoption questions I would love to help others experience this wonderful gift!
I Samuel 1:27 For this child I prayed and the Lord has given me my petition which I asked of Him!

Please leave me a comment and tell me how your life has been touched by adoption!  November is National Adoption Awareness month!!!

Every year on our children's gotch day we eat Korean food in honor of their birth country and we give them a small gift so they know that we love and cherish them and think the day we "got" them is very special.  We look through their Korean box, which holds their baby clothes that they arrived in from Korea, an extra diaper from Korea, and any pictures that were taken while they were in Korea, some Korean money and any other items sent to the U.S. with them from their foster family.  This year we were blessed to eat lunch with the wonderful Delano family and they helped us celebrate Kenzie's 10 yr gotcha day, they are in the adoption process for a sibling group so please keep them in your prayers!

Mika's pantry blog

One of my besties of all times, Mika,  has started a cooking blog called Mika's Pantry and I just wanted to share with all of my readers because she has some great recipes!!!  Leave her a comment and let her know you stopped by!

Her and her husband adopted Bailey at the same time that we adopted Makenzie.  Everytime we go visit them in OKC they try out new meals or their favorites at the time on us and EVERYTHING is always so delicious!!!

This is a pic of Mika and Bay and Makenzie and I at the Dillon Family Picnic 2001

Happy Gotcha Day Kylan

Our referral picture of Kylan this was the very first picture that we saw of him! 2001

This is the 1st time Kylan and Kevin meet at the Tulsa airport! 2002

2002 first time Kylan and I met in Korea

2002 hanbok photo

2002 tired mom with 2 kids

2002 with Papa

2002 at Connie and Brian's while Kev and I were on our 10 yr anniversary cruise

Dressed as Peter Pan for Halloween 2003

2003 playing in the snow

2003 cowboy Kylan

2003 playing with bubbles

Pumpkin pic 2004

Playing on the beach in Hawaii

Trying to shave like daddy 2004

Eating pancakes while camping 2005

2005 Yellow Balloon Preschool

2005 they could both fit in the golf cart at the same time!

2006 kids choir FUMC of Owasso

Skatepark 2006

Easter 2006

WDW 2006

2007

2007 Christmas with broken arm

2007 Durango Mountain

2007 craft-turtle

2007 WDW

2007 Sea World

2008 Cruise to Mexico

2008 skatepark

2009 sledding

2010 Osage Hills State Park

Today is a day to celebrate that Kylan has been with his Forever Family for 8 years! It's hard to believe that it's already been 8 years but it has! Time flies when you have kids that keep you busy. What a blessing he's been to our family we can't imagine life without his sweet smile or his ornery ways. Here are some pics of him growing up over the past 8 yrs. I also want to let you know that if you are on the Internet searching for adoption info here is a link to Dillon International they are the adoption agency that we used 9 yrs ago to adopt Makenzie and 8 yrs ago to adopt Kylan. They truly were a blessing to our family and helped change our lives forever. Once you get the child home they don't just leave you either they offer post adoption and pre adoption support and they also have Korean Camp during the summer, cooking classes, support groups and many other things that help make the adoption option a very smooth transition! If you have any questions please email me at kenziekylanmom1@cox.net.

To read more info and about Kylan and his gotcha days
7th gotcha day post go here
6th gotcha day click here
5th gotcha day go here

Happy 7th Gotcha day to Kylan

This was the very first time I met Kylan. He was not a happy boy and was scared of me. I only had 1 hour with him that first day and he cried for about 45 min of it.

This was pure bliss...holding my son for the VERY first time. I had been dreaming about this day for months and months. After so much paperwork, days of crying and praying for this child the day had finally arrived!

Yes, he finally calmed down enough so I could hold him!

This is the board with the babies names that are leaving Korea
Kylan's foster mom saying goodbye to him. It was really hard on her to let him go and she cried a lot. We are very thankful that she took such great care of him while he was waiting for us to finish up all of the red tape (Paperwork).


The moment he was placed in my arms before we were leaving Korea. This was his "Gotcha" moment for me. This is what I think of on his special day. Yes, I am crying...notice the time 12:35pm in Korea. We arrived home the same day but it was actually about 30 hrs later due to travel and time changes and crossing the International date line and everything


Now, I am not crying just happy that he's finally in my arms and we are leaving for the US pretty soon!

Kylan in his white hanbok that we bought for Connie and Brian's wedding








Kevin and Makenzie dropping me off at the airport for my journey to South Korea to pick up Kylan and work for 2 weeks on a MOMs mission trip with Dillon International

7 years ago today I woke up in Seoul, South Korea anticipating the moment when Kylan's foster mom would place my son in my arms and I would be able to get on an airplane and bring him home to meet his daddy and sister and the rest of our friends and family for the very first time. The moment he was placed in my arms was a feeling that I will NEVER forget, it was such a miracle adoption and when the moment that we had been dreaming of had finally arrived I was overcome with joy, and just started crying and thanking God for this little miracle boy.

This is such a happy day for us but I have noticed that the older my kids have gotten the more questions they seem to have on their gotcha day. I know it's a happy day for them as well but in some ways they seem a little sad too. I just pray that we can answer all of their questions to the best of our ability and that Kevin and I are sensitive to their inquisitiveness about their adoptions, foster families and especially about their birth family and the reasons that they were not able to stay in Korea. We do try to teach them as much about Korean culture as possible and they go to a Korean culture camp every summer (which they LOVE). They learn Korean songs, dances, Tae Kwon Do, Korean games, how to eat with chopsticks, Korean food and many other things plus they built friendships with other children that were adopted from S. Korea. Every time we pick them up at camp and I look out across a sea of black haired children I am thrilled that our adoption agency has this opportunity for our children. They come home talking about how all the kids at camp look similar to them and I can see that this excites them and makes them happy. OK is not a very multi-cultural state so when the kids see other Asians they always ask me if they are Korean too and I wonder if it bothers them that in most of our groups (except our adoption friends) they are the only ones that are not Caucasian.

If you have questions about International adoption please click here. To read what I wrote about Kylan's 6th gotcha day in 2008 and read about the other end of the trip which was the arrival in OK click here.

For more info on Korea go to Seoul.net

When love takes you in ~ Steven Curtis Chapman

For those of you that have been touched by adoption this will have special meaning to you and if you haven't been touched by adoption please check out this video anyway...everytime I see it I remember that first moment when we held Makenzie in our arms and then the first moment that I held Kylan in my arms...it's something that changed our lives and theirs forever and of course we are going to love them forever...therefore we are a "Forever family".

Prayers for this family

Through a friend we found out about this family that is doing mission work in South Korea and they are also involved in homeschooling. So, as most of you know all of these things are close to our heart! Homeschooling, missions, and South Korea so we are praying for this family daily..if you want to check out their blogs they are very interesting people!! I just love the daughters blog...seeing Korea through her eyes is very enlightening!

http://www.pentfamily.com/
http://www.sangmyong.blogspot.com/

Visting friends!

We went to OKC this weekend to visit some of our dearest friends...we went through an adoption workshop together and then met them at an adoption function and have been the best of friends since then. Bay and Kenzie are close in age and have a lot in common and when they were little we used to call them the twins because they looked similar. Here is a current pic of the girls...they don't look like twins anymore but they are best of friends.

We had so much fun hanging out and they even had a fire in their backyard to we could make smores!! YUMMY!!! Kylan had fun playing with their 3 dogs...he was in doggie heaven!

Blog of the month!

All of my blogger friends I am encouraging you to check out this blog http://www.garnett5.blogspot.com/ it's so cool. Our friends Mika and Jim also adopted from South Korea and they took their family to Korea last summer and she has just posted the pics and some video of the trip. If you want to know more about Korea like the food, what the clothes look like, etc take a couple of minutes to check out thier blog and you can always ask us questions also we would be happy to answer...especially for homeschooler!

Happy Gotcha Day to Kylan!

The picture the newspaper ran about Kylan's homecoming.
The newpaper article...if you click on it you should be able to read it. It still brings tears to my eyes every time I read about his arrival!!

Yesterday was Kylan's 6th gotcha day! He really wanted to go to Incredible Pizza this year so we did! He had so much fun playing games and visiting with family. Since it was his special day everyone gave him their tickets (THANKS Korey, Tiffany and Makenzie) and he bought a camo lava lamp...he's so happy about it!

Grandpa took him on a go-cart ride, Grandma shared her tokens with him and Grammy took him around to play some games. Then after all of that we went to Grammy's and watched the video of Kylan and I arriving home from Korea! I can't believe it's been 6 yrs!!! Time flies when you have kids to love on!

If you don't know the miracle story of Kylan's adoption...just ask me sometime because it's an almost unbelievable story but we all know from Matthew 19: 26 " With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. "