It's a wonderful life.

When a family's adoption story grows silent, I always wonder how things are. If everything turned out okay. Now that we've been absent here for over a year, I thought I'd return with a quick update, just in case someone else delving into the adoption world, looking for any information they can, happens upon this space.

Our Christmas cards last year read, "It's a wonderful life." That's really an accurate summary. Of course there are hard moments and days and weeks, and there are tears shed and raised voices and frequent need for forgiveness, for all of us. But more than that, there is joy and fun and togetherness and adventure and celebrating. There is love and grace and more good things than we can count.

We're homeschooling again this year, as it continues to be such a good (if sometimes difficult) fit for our family. We have two independent readers and two boys eager to learn, and are filling many of our days with many good books, as everyone in this house loves a good story more than almost anything.

We are happily awaiting the arrival of baby number six (!), another little sister, who we're expecting in the next few weeks. We're also enjoying the last few weeks before James's first deployment. This year holds big, new things for all of us, that is for sure. If there's one thing we know, it's how little we know of what God has planned for us in the days and months to come!

Finally

See the people in this photo?

They're all named Figueroa now! We went to court yesterday, and the boys' adoption is now complete and final! It was relatively quick and easy. We had to answer several basic questions from the judge, who was a very kind man. He granted all of our requests, which included a change of birth year for our oldest boys.

We've been together for just over eight months now, and it's hard to imagine life any other way. These five bring such great joy to our home. Adoption, of course, isn't easy for anyone, but it is so worth it. The wonderful times have surpassed the hard in spades. We're so very, very thankful for this family of ours!

Six Months Down, Forever To Go

It's been six months since the judge said yes. Six months since we officially became a family of seven. Like many things do, it feels both like we were in Uganda so much more recently, and that so much more time must have passed since that life-changing day.

Now, six months later, we're still learning each other. Still figuring out how to best communicate with each member of our family. Still experimenting with the best ways to promote harmony and teamwork. That might look a little bit different here than it does in some other homes, but really, isn't that the continuous journey of parents the world over?

As we learn more about each other, we're drawing closer to each other. We're finding better ways to communicate love, appreciation, and respect. We're noticing the wonderful, unique way each person in our home was created, and trying to facilitate an environment that will help each of us thrive.

We've been homeschooling for six weeks now, and it's been such a great (stretching!) experience that has been an important part of the dynamic we're trying to promote here. Curiosity and exploration are able to be encouraged and provided for, relationships are able to be the priority, and flexibility is able to be taken advantage of. (Of course, these things don't always happen. Our family struggles as much as the next, but, our current situation makes these things possible. They're on the table, and by grace we hope to choose them more often than not.)

Not everything we've tried has worked, but part of the beauty of where we're at right now is the ability to set the things aside that don't seem to fit and try, try again until we find what does. Despite the inevitable bumps in the road, the progress that's been made in six weeks has been kind of remarkable.

One of our biggest goals is to encourage a love of lifelong learning - an inclination they already have. (Don't we all, at least at first?) So far, it feels like we're on the right track.

In case it needs to be said, the decision we've made for our family, for this year, is just that: a decision based on what's best for us at this time. We support homeschooling, public schooling, and private schooling. Learning is beautiful wherever it's happening, and what works for one family may not for another. We're for families doing what's right for them; we all have different journeys, each as beautiful as the next. Today, may we each be able to see the wonderful in the stories of the people around us and encourage one another in love and sincerity.

Settling In

We're approaching four months since returning to the U.S., and in many ways, it seems like we've been here much longer than that and much shorter than that, all at the same time.

Our days have been full since our return, both as a family of seven and as first-time homeowners.

We put an offer in on a house while we were in Africa, and it was accepted. We'd spent weeks searching for  a home in Mississippi, where James was transferred to, and finally found the one we were looking for. While we'd never seen it in person ourselves, our realtor sent us more photos from her visit, and a friend came to look at it with the inspector. That, coupled with the virtual tour on the listing, gave us the confidence to move forward.

And...we love it. It's better than we'd imagined and has been such a great place of rest, and life, and togetherness for our family. We closed on it and moved in just two days after landing in the U.S. What timing! We're learning a lot as we learn this new area and this new home, and we're steadily making it our own.

Here's a peek at what it looked like last month. The bushes had been trimmed and the cracked doorbell had been replaced, but otherwise the front looked the same as it did when we moved in. Since this photo was taken, we've taken care of a few more things, the most noticeable of which was replacing the broken vertical blinds in the big window. I'm glad and thankful every time I see that big empty spot isn't there anymore and see the wide, horizontal wood blinds that are in their place.

This house has a wonderful backyard, which we'd been enjoying daily - until the boys' bikes got fixed, and the big boys taught themselves how to ride without training wheels (in about two days!). Now they spend most of their outdoor time racing around the cul-de-sac.

Life is feeling normal now, as we settle into new routines and learn what works best for each of us. There are, of course, plenty of hard at times, but so much more beauty and kindness and grace and growing.

What a story we're living... Thanks be to the Author of it all!

In the photograph below, James and the kids are checking out a box turtle that frequents our backyard after a heavy rain (and subsequent yard flooding, which you'll see in the following photo).

Introductions

We're back in Kampala after spending a wonderful Easter weekend in Fort Portal, awaiting word of the boys' passports being done.

In the meantime, we wanted to introduce you to the newest members of our family:

This is Joshua. He is seven years old and the best big brother; he loves to play football (soccer) and to help the people around him in any way he can.

This is Steven. He is five years old and has such a big heart. He loves music and singing and dancing, and is always quick to smile.

Henry is the littlest boy in our family - but only by two months. He will be four in June. He is sweet, strong, and silly, and he loves to play around.

We can't put into words how blessed we are to parent these three. We're so thankful that this was God's plan for us. What a gift these boys are!

It's Official!

Today, we received our guardianship order and written ruling - we are officially legal guardians of these three sweet boys, and a family of seven!

This is us, this evening after dinner, out on our apartment balcony. We'll introduce you to those three new little faces soon!

Zoo

We enjoy visiting the zoo wherever we go, and this trip was no exception.

We went yesterday, about an hour from where we're staying, and had such a wonderful time. There was a baby elephant walking (and running!) around, chimpanzees clapping for more sugar cane, a baby giraffe to feed, and a camel to ride. What fun! 

There are only a few photos without faces that we can share with you now, but here they are:

We hope to be able to share their sweet faces with you in the next day or two - we heard yesterday morning that our court ruling was positive! We should officially have legal guardianship very soon! (Thank You, God!)

And Then There Were Five

We (finally!) got to meet the boys, almost four days ago now - though it seems like just yesterday. We had no idea what to expect, but it went really, really wonderfully. We spent several hours at their foster home, playing football and getting to know their foster mother; it was a really fantastic day. 

We went back the following day, Saturday, for a short visit and to bring them back to our apartment with us. The transition, though difficult, especially for them, has really gone very smoothly. 

We're slowly getting into a daily rhythm and learning life as a family of seven. There have been few tears and much sweetness, and we are grateful to be here, with these five little people.

Our hearts are full. God is so good.

Where We Are

Can we interrupt this several-month-long silence to tell you something?

Something really big? And exciting? And wonderful?

We have a referral.

We've known it was coming, but this morning, we got the call. And now it's official. We have a referral!

Maybe most exciting of all is that baby #2, who now has a name and a face, is really babies #1, 2, and 4. That's right. Our family doesn't just get to grow by one, but by three!

H, S, and J are three, four-and-a-half, and six-and-a-half. They have the sweetest little faces that we cannot wait to see in person. We are so excited to meet them, and are so grateful that God would entrust three more little lives to us.

We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is where He wants us right now, and that knowledge gives us such great confidence, hope, and joy, in spite of all of the unknowns this journey holds. We're not selfless enough, loving enough, prepared enough, optimistic enough, anything-enough to do this on our own. But our God is El Shaddai - HE is more than enough.

"[We] are where [we] are for such a time as this - not to gain anything - but to risk everything." And somehow? Somehow, God is so good that really, in so many ways this hardly feels like a risk. Really, it just feels exactly right.

Nothing and Everything

These days, it seems, I have a lot and nothing at all to say, all at the same time. James has been home recuperating following his shoulder surgery (which went really well), and we have been spending lots of quality family time together. Around here, that means playing football - a lot of football, reading, creating, playing with water outside, enjoying our meals, and spending time at the playground each evening until the sun has set.

We've also had adoption on the brain more often than not, and have been spending quite a bit of time talking about all the different facets of it - of our own personal journey as a family, and of adoption in general. We're making lists and researching flights and vaccinations, and waiting. The social worker handling our home study update should have the update completed in the next few weeks, and then we'll send it off to USCIS for them to update our approval. Our referral could come at any time once the update is complete.

Have we mentioned how huge the referral is?

That email is the one that will make our hearts skip a beat and stop us right in our tracks. That'll be the email with our sweet boy's face in it, his name, his background information, his medical information. That will be the email that make things much more urgent and much more slow, so much easier and so much harder, all at the same time.

Whew. I so often imagine what that will be like and I know that I cannot even imagine it. We're full of contradictions around here.

While we wait, we're trying to put our energy into what's before us right now. We're trying to delight in the little things, which are, really, the big things. Trying to, as Ann Voskamp puts it, "Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth. Give Thanks. Love well."

December 24th

Our big plans this Christmas Eve were to take the bus to the Honolulu Zoo, and boy did it make for a memorable day. We had gone in April for AJ's second birthday, and I never would have guessed that eight months would make such a difference in how much AJ would enjoy it; I think this was the most obvious example of how much he's grown up that we've had in quite awhile. He was so much more into all of the animals, asked so many questions, and just had the best time. It was a fantastic way to spend the day, and having Mimi and Papa there made it all the more special.

That's how you know it was a good day. Ha!