One More Home

Happy November! The month where many thanks are shared socially and around the table. And if you weren’t aware, November is National Adoption Month. We love adoption here in the Holleran household, and it is certainly something worth celebrating. I’ve watched as many friends in our circle changed their profile pictures to include a frame that said, “I am touched by adoption.” Now if you were one of those people, please stick with me as I do not seek to criticize, but there was just something about those words I just couldn’t hold on to. Three times in my life, I have personally been impacted by adoption: the first being when I was adopted as an infant, the second being when I was adopted into God’s family through salvation, and the third being when we adopted 5 kids into our own family. Make no mistake, I’ve received a family, I’ve been given the gift of eternity, I’ve had a front row seat to watching God work as only He can all through adoption. I’ve been made a new creation, ...

I saw them. That stream of pictures of your kids in their Halloween attire. Tiny ninjas and Disney Descendants. I smiled at the shark week family and oohed over the creativity some of you have when making homemade costumes. And yeah, I felt that tiny tickle of guilt as my kids lay across all our couches, munching on popcorn and eating the small handful of snack size candy bars I gave them as they watched "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Watching a movie and not trick or treating because I just couldn't this year. October had us spending our first entire calendar month in the US as a family. It was the month my kids visited the eye doctor for the first time, started attending Sunday School for the first time, the month their dad returned to full time work, and yes, the biggest of all, they started school here in America. Which I've come to learn also seems to include the first time they have ever been asked to do homework, or maybe the first time any parent...

I can remember sitting in the doctor's office as a little girl with a Highlights magazine in my hand, staring at the seek and find. It was always a bummer when someone had the audacity to use a pen and circle the hidden objects. I mean talk about ruining it for the rest of us! But if it was clean of precircled objects, I'd happily gaze at the picture trying to find every item on the list. There was the butterfly in the bark of the tree or the ice cream cone hidden in a fluffy patch of clouds. But then you'd get something like a needle or a top and try as I may, it wasn't there! So, I'd have to start over with finger to the paper, covering every centimeter, trying to locate the last hidden treasure. That's pretty much what life is like right now. We've officially had the kids in our custody, 24/7 for two months. If you stop by to drop off a meal or happen upon us out in town and have asked how things are going, I probably told you life is very "tiring....

Well, our newly expanded family has officially been home in the US for just over a week now. We pulled into our drive a little past one in the morning, tackled overly excited dogs that were so very happy to see us, and then tackled overly excited kids that were wound up from the hours spent traveling and all the new they'd spent the day drinking in. I just wanted to collapse in bed, but instead I had kids opening closets asking, " Are these my clothes?" And, "I don't understand, where are my dresser drawers?" when they opened drawers that I tried to explain had clothes that were too large for that child, but we'd fix it...at some other point in time that wasn't 2 in the morning. But such is the brain of kids like ours, even at 2 a.m. they are trying to make sense of their world and put it into perspective that they can have some control over. The next morning I woke up feeling disoriented and without adequate rest, but our littlest were up, so w...

For those of you who have song lyrics running through your head right now, I'm right there with you. Should I stay or should I go now? If I leave there may be trouble But if I stay it might be double Well, sitting here 1 month and 4 days after the day when we left the Hogar with our 5 newest family additions in tow, headed to our home here in Costa Rica, those song lyrics are pretty fitting. Yesterday we sat at the Costa Rican passport office for just under 4 hours taking  care of applying for our kids' passports and we are scheduled to pick them up on Monday. Next comes the appointment at the US Embassy for our visas, and then the Holleran family can pack it up and move it out to "Estados Unidas." I'm ready to leave. Ready to see my newest grandbaby and ready to drive myself to the store without hailing and waiting for an Uber to arrive. Ready to love on my sons that are back at home, and ready to sit under the roof of my church on Sunday morning, singi...

This adoption is going to be the death of me. Seriously. Some of you asked me to blog and update while we were in Costa Rica, so here it is: I am dying. Before you go thinking I'm being overly dramatic, let me explain. Life two months ago, before we had a travel date, while we were enjoying summer vacation, going out to lunch, taking day trips to the zoo and the movies, it was a good life. I had no complaints.  Life today consisted of waking up at around 5:30 and the sun was already up. One child in our bed by 6, his two sisters in the same bed by 6:30, and arguing and complaining about someone taking up someone else's space within 10 minutes. Fast forward to the point where we were trying to get some structured learning accomplished and I had one child who cannot focus on her own work because she's too busy looking after someone else, another who was trying to avoid any work at all, a 4 year old who was upset by his lack of workbook, a 13 year old wh...

I had a kind friend that stopped me at lunch today and ask if I was planning to update my blog anytime soon. I realized that I have taken to publishing pictures on my Facebook page of all that has been happening, but no, I really have not sat down to share my thoughts. Not to worry, I've had my mornings of journaling all that is circling around my brain, letting my emotions and frantic thoughts bleed onto the paper in hopes of finding some release. And, I've even got a separate journal directed at our newest daughters and son, in hopes that one day I can share what was happening in my little corner of the world while we were waiting for them to become part of our family. If you have ever thought of picking up a pen and writing down what may be on your mind, I encourage you to give it a try. It's a personal journal, there isn't anyone to impress, no one needs to read your words, they are yours alone. It's a beautiful safe space, and sometimes when I write, my thoug...

A person once said, "An unopened gift is still a gift." It doesn't matter whether anyone comes along to tear off the paper and gleefully exclaim joy over what's inside. Although you may think there is no fun in giving something that remains under wraps, the fact is, it's still a gift.  God gave each of us a gift when He sent Christ to die as payment for our sins. We're born into this fallen world and, while we may have to wait until someone shares that there is the life-saving gift of redemption waiting for us to accept, the fact is, the gift was there long before we took a breath. The most precious gift, waiting for each of us to choose whether or not we wish to accept it.  An unopened gift is still a gift When we began our most recent turn in our adoption journey, it was because we felt called to give the gift of a family to 4 little girls and 1 little boy. I've written in my journal about these five, I've prayed over them again and...

If you've ever had the chance to get to know my husband or myself, I don't think it takes very long to realize that we are a marriage of two different personalities. One of us is very logical in their thinking, able to pick apart scientific questions and come up with correct answers, the other drawing a very pretty picture of something in nature and not giving a second thought to answering that same question. It's very handy for raising kids that need to finish their homework, because one of us helps tackle the science and common core math questions, while the other is the go-to for every poster board project, diorama, and writing edit. But....our differing personalities can also cause some friction. While Mike only needs to know a general sense of whether he's travelling North or South in order to get where he's going, and doesn't mind a wrong turn or two, I MUST  have well-written, orderly instructions that must be followed to the letter. The second we dev...

As we get closer to the finish line of this adoption, our agency has asked that we begin to prepare for the reality of meeting our kids, bringing them home, adjusting to our new lives. There are books to revisit and conversations to have as we try and create a toolbox of helpful tips and things to remember. I've messaged other adoptive mamas and picked the brains of foster parents for how things "really are." And here's what I've learned: Fostering/adoptive families are a lot like icebergs. To the rest of the outside world, when you see one of these families, you probably get that warm fuzzy feeling that comes from this blended family of parents and kids that's the result of a heart deep desire to see children welcomed into forever families. It's a beautiful picture, it really is. I had a chance to look at a video of families that have adopted from Latin American countries from our agency this week, and it was so encouraging to see family after fa...

When I was a little girl, my daddy worked for a civil engineering firm and he gifted me with one of his old briefcases full of various tools used at his job. Being the visual, artistic person I am, I would pull out my tools and map out my bedroom on a piece of paper. I would then make little shapes that would represent my bed, desk, dresser, etc. and I would cut the shapes out and begin to rearrange them in my little bedroom model until I came up with a new layout that suited my fancy and I would rearrange my room to reflect my design.  If you had asked me when I started high school what I envisioned for my future, I would have told you I was planning to go to law school, graduate, get a job, be married sometime in my mid-20's, and have a kid or two in my 30's. When my husband and I took a cruise many, many, many years ago, every morning I would wake up and scour the daily list of activities that were available to us and I would pick and choose just how we would sp...

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Psalm 147:3 Before I begin sharing with you my thoughts, I need to preface this post by saying it is in no way intended to be a harsh scolding or to make anyone feel bad. Please, please don't take it that way. Instead, I'm hoping that this will give you a chance to stand in my shoes, to read my thoughts, to see things from my perspective. That being said, most of the time when people hear that we are adopting 5 children, that we are actually connected to 5 lives that will become part of our family, that we know their names and ages and have seen a picture of them, the one question we're asked is, "Do you know what happened to their parents?" Now thankfully, at this point in our adoption story, our kids aren't home with us yet and they haven't had to overhear this question. But for the most part, my answer will be that we really haven't been given much information at this point. And...

To update, we hit the 2-month mark on Sunday. Two months. Since that life-changing Facebook post. Since the email that started us spinning in this dizzying journey to bring home 5 kids from a place I have yet to travel to, so we could plant 4 girls and 1 boy in a land they've never set foot on.  I was telling a friend tonight that for all the many times I've shared our story in these two months, for all the many people that have exclaimed that those 5 faces on my phone are precious, for all of the amazement at 5 kids and the joyful well wishes for our family, for every one of those, I hope I've done a decent job at faking it. May my plastered on, upbeat, excited face convince the other person that we're trucking right along on this adventure and we've got it all together, because the inside of me....well it's a bit of mess. In 2 months, we've redone physicals, obtained new certified copies of documentation, been fingerprinted by the FBI for the 3rd ...

During the two tours that Mike was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, we lived through seven hurricanes and several more would be hurricanes that ended up being tropical storms by the time they made it to shore.  I've moved my outdoor stuff inside, I've stocked up on non-perishable foods, and I've even gone to the extreme of filling up my bathtub with water. When I was pregnant with our eldest child, we went through two relative strong hurricanes. We had received a lot of rain that summer leaving the ground soggy, and so I watched as trees swayed in the wind until they finally fell onto the roof next door. And, I can remember the sound of walnuts being launched at our siding from the downed tree. Not to mention how scary it was to sit through one that passed over us in the dead of night and all you could do was stare into the blackness outside and listen to the wind howl while branches and trees cracked and fell, with no earthly idea what the outside world woul...

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin...But if God clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious...your heavenly Father knows that you need them all."   taken from Matthew 6:28-32 I've been busy this afternoon, taking a break from my to-do list and taking time to write out some thank you's. The picture above is my list in what I've now coined as my "adoption notebook." It's where I write notes such as the major holidays observed in Costa Rica and little things that come to mind when I think of our 5 ticos. But it's also where I'm making a list of names that have given to our family in support of our adoption. It helps keep me focused on the ways that God's working that has nothing really to do with me, but relies fully on Him to provide. Some gifts are financial i...