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!

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

Sweet potato pizza

Pampered Chef Ultimate Mandoline this is what I used to cut the sweet potatoes so thinly and I use it a lot for Korean cooking

Thin sliced sweet potatoes

The Mascarpone cheese

We used the Boboli pizza crust

This is what the pizza looked like fresh out of the oven....yummy!

I found this recipe for sweet potato pizza on Gourmet Mom on the Go and I have to say that our family thought it was AMAZING! We all loved it and want to have it again, at first my husband wasn't so sure that he wanted to try it but he smelled this delicious smell coming from the oven and that was enough for him. I set my Face Book status to tell that I was making sweet potato pizza and found out that this is a delicacy in South Korea, this was exciting news for our family because my precious children are adopted from South Korea and we are always interested in learning new and interesting things about Korea...actually any culture. So I have a couple of recipes to share with you the first one is the one we tried from Gourmet Mom on the Go, we just love her website and try new recipes all the time and this recipe was taken directly from her blog and was all her idea.

"Slice O' Heaven" Sweet Potato & Marscarpone Pizza
Ingredients:
2 medium sweet potatoes (any variety, we used O'Henry)
1 12" ready to bake pizza crust (we used Boboli Whole Wheat)
5 oz. Marscarpone cheese, softened (in a pinch, you can use 5 oz. cream cheese mixed w/ 2 Tbs. sour cream)
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar (the older, the better!:))

Note: For those of you who aren't familiar with marscarpone, it's a delicious soft Italian cheese that you can usually find in the fine cheese section of your grocery's deli. The marscapone really makes this fabulous but if you can't locate any, you can substitute 5 oz. cream cheese mixed with 2 T. sour cream. It's not as fabulous, but still tasty!

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Peel sweet potatoes and cut into very thin slices.

Lightly drizzle olive oil over pizza crust then spread with marscarpone cheese. Sprinkle with garlic salt.

Layer potatoes over the marscapone and sprinkle with rosemary, thyme, and kosher salt. Drizzle olive oil over entire pizza (about 1 T).

Bake at 425 degrees for 18-25 minutes, until potatoes are soft and crust is crispy.

Remove from oven and drizzle with balsamic vinegar. Serve immediately.

I didn't drizzle the kids or Kevin's pizza with balsamic vinegar because they don't like it but I do so mine had the balsamic on it and I loved it!


We have not tried this recipe yet but it sounds so yummy, we will be trying it next! It's called Mediterranean Sweet Potato Pizza and I found it on RecipeZaar (my friend Mika introduced me to this site and I love it and use recipes from it often)

and in researching the sweet potato pizza a little bit I found that Wikipedia had some info about Korean Sweet Potato Pizza

and I found a blog that talks about eating Sweet Potato Pizza with mayo on it...not sure about the mayo but check out Stranger in Suwon for more info and pics of this pizza!

Visit Seoul.net for more info about South Korea

Going Home trailer

We found out about this documentary through some friends that have already seen it and they said it's "AMAZING". It's the journey of a young Korean adoptee that journeys back to South Korea in search of his birth family. I know that I will be moved to tears because this could be my children sometime in the future. It feels weird to think of my children searching for their birth family but if that's what they want to do then I will support them and be happy for them if they choose to search.

GOING HOME Trailer from ThirdCat Productions on Vimeo.

Visit Seoul.net for more info on South Korea

OKC BFF's

We have these great friends in OKC that we met through our adoption agency. They were adopting Bailey through Dillon International at the same time that we were adopting Makenzie. The girls have been lifelong friends...even before they came home from S. Korea they were destined to be friends. Kylan puts up with the girls but he likes to hang out with Bay's brothers Tanner and Tyler and they are teenagers so he's lucky if he gets the chance to hang with the older boys. We always have so much fun with the Garnett's. Over the long weekend we went to Lake Hefner, hung out at their house, went to the park, played games, ate (we are Mika's official taste testers for new recipes), went to the OKC Zoo and went shopping. We packed in the fun for a long weekend!