Coming home

We come home on Friday September 19th. BUT, due to a long layover, we are driving home from the Atlanta airport. Since we will not get to have y'all welcome us home that night...
We'd love to invite you to our house on Saturday September 20th anytime after 2:00 pm.

We would love you to meet the kids and honestly we'd love some hugs too! We've missed everyone so much and our kids are excited be home in Tennessee! I'm sure we'll be doing some laundry and cleaning up around the house, we'll be playing with our much missed dogs, and just chilling around the house.
Please do not feel obligated to come over that day and seriously they are our kids for life so if you cannot come you'll meet them eventually!

We have something we'd love you to read, regardless of if you come Saturday or not. We know you guys are our biggest advocates and love us so much. We need your help in spreading the info on these pages as we adjust to being home and parenting 3 kids. Please feel free to send/share the below with anyone you would like:

We appreciate that you care about our family. We cannot thank you enough for wanting to learn more about supporting and understanding the adoptive family and for helping make this transition as smooth as possible for all of us! Please note that most of these are suggestions from blogs, books, and have been found helpful from numerous adoptive families. We have added some things and taken away some thing and left some as “general” . 

-Love 

• If you'd like to offer support (meal, help with house cleaning, etc) when an adopted child joins the family,  please do it even if we don't reach out and ask.Many of us won't specifically ask for help or tell you what we need. However, I don't know a single adoptive mom who would turn down an offer to have a group of friends tidy/clean her house during those first few weeks at home with a new child. How wonderful would a meal be when the kids are crazy from 3 days of doctor visits? Likewise, cookies and ice cream are most always welcome and might be exactly what a new adoptive mom needs to get through those challenging times of adjustment!

• Please don't try to get our children to like you the most.Attachment and bonding are challenging enough without having friends and family slip our children candy, shower them with gifts, offer seconds at meals or encourage bending and stretching of family rules. We're already working our tails off to get them to like us! With consistency and time they will learn to like you too, we promise.

• Attachment takes time and work.It doesn't happen overnight. Even if it appears that our kids are securely attached to us it may take many months or years and every child and every family bonds differently. Many times we're faking it until we make it but one day we will wake up and realize that we're not faking it anymore and that our love is deep and real. We have not woken up to this yet, so please just remember we are trying to get them to love and trust us and it stinks to love someone so much and know they don’t fully love you back YET.
• Parenting an adopted child is hard work and we struggle.  We may tell you that we’re okay when we're really falling apart. We're worried that if we are honest about how difficult it is that you won't understand and that you'll think we're nuts. Adding children who may or may not have anything in common with us socially, culturally, biologically or even personality-wise is challenging. Though undoubtedly beautiful and worth all of the struggles, adoption certainly isn't always easy or pretty.
• We may discourage too much physical contact with our child for the first couple months that they are home or until we feel like they are securely attached to us.Please do not insist on holding them too much, hugging them too much or having them sit on your lap. In Colombia, it is cultural for them to hug and kiss everyone they see. We want to teach them that they only hug and kiss family and friends that we trust. We need your help in breaking this habit with them. Even though all of you are family and close friends they do not know you well yet and we want to teach them they need to really know someone to offer that affection to them.  Many children who have lived in orphanages and institutions learn to fight for adult attention. Often they can put on quite the show and act like the most friendly, cute, charming child to draw attention to themselves.
• Please do not disappear.If we thought the waiting stage was hard, it does not even hold the barest candle to what comes after we meet them. Not. The. Barest. Candle. Never have I felt so isolated and petrified. Never have I been so overwhelmed and exhausted. We need you after the airport way more than we ever needed you before. I know you’re scared of us, but please find ways to stick around. Call. Email. Check in. Post on our Facebook walls. Send us funny cards. Keep this behavior up for longer than six days. Parents who have recently added a child through adoption need support, friendship, love and encouragement. Even if we're somewhat withdrawn and spending a lot of time at home with our new additions, we value our friendships. 
• If you were in our life before we still want you in our life and in the lives of our children!Please don't feed the kids if we are around and available to instead. We want them to learn to love us, before they bond with extended family, neighbors and friends. Since we were not there to meet their early needs (breast or bottle feeding, comforting them when they were sick, changing diapers, kissing boo boos) we need to make up for it by meeting as many of their physical and emotional needs as possible now. We have been able to do this nonstop in Colombia so far but being home brings in much more people. We also are trying to make sure they know rules about food, and we like to know how much and what they are eating so we can judge behaviors etc.
• Sometimes adopted children need to be parented differently than biological children. We are not spoiling them. We aren't making excuses for poor behavior. Rather, we are parenting a child whose background may be very dissimilar to anything we've experienced. A child who has been abandoned and who has a fear of abandonment shouldn't be sent to time out alone in another room, we try to sit with them, as annoying as it is. The types of consequences that work for other children might not work for a child who doesn't have the same sense of value of their possessions and who doesn't understand what it means to have privileges. As parents, we must be flexible to help meet the individual needs of our children even if it means that we do things a little differently sometimes. We also are un-doing years of bad habits and ways we would NOT have parented, so that is a constant struggle with all 3 of them.
• If you would like to give a gift to our new children, please consider something small that the whole family can enjoy together.A few ideas are a frozen meal, a gift card to the movies, buying clothes that save us money or art supplies for all of the kids to share. We know that you want to welcome our new additions but gifts can be overwhelming for children who have had few material possessions. Also, we want our children to learn to love you for who you are, not for the fact that they hope they'll get another gift the next time they see you again.
• It takes time to help children start to heal from a difficult past.Just because they have been with us for a certain amount of time does not mean that the are "fixed". On the other hand, just because children are adopted does not necessarily mean that they will be any more difficult, defiant, less successful or anything else as teenagers or adults. Even the happiest of adoptions are a result of challenging or difficult circumstances. 
• Though we like to think of adoption as a "happy ending", birth parents may have made difficult decisions, children may have faced losses and many lives were forever changed. Though most adopted children grow to be happy, well-adjusted adults and though most adoptive families are beautiful and full of love, it is important not to romanticize adoption.If we’ve adopted older kids, please do not ask them if they “love America so much” or are “so happy to live in Tennessee.” It’s this simple: adoption is born from horrible loss. In an ideal world, there would be no adoption, because our children would be with their birth families, the way God intended. Adoption is one possible answer to a very real tragedy. There is genuine grief and sorrow when your biological family is disrupted by death and poverty, and our kids have endured all this and more. So when you ask my 8-year-old if he is thrilled to be in Tennessee, please understand that he might not be. He misses his country, his language, his food, his foster family. Please don’t make them smile and lie to you about how happy they are to be here.
• Thank you for getting excited with us over our little victories. I realize it sounds like a very small deal when we tell you our 6 year old is now sleeping with her door half way closed, but if you could’ve seen the epic level of freakoutedness this door caused for the first three weeks, you would understand that this is really something. When you encourage us over our incremental progress, it helps. You remind us that we ARE moving forward and these little moments are worth celebrating. If we come to you spazzing out, please remind us where we were a month ago. Force us to acknowledge their gains. Be a cheerleader for the healing process.
• Come over one night after our kids are asleep and sit with us on our porch. Let me tell you: we are all lonely in those early weeks. We are home, home, home, home, home. Good-bye, date nights. Good-bye, spontaneous anything. Good-bye, big public outings. Good-bye, community group. Good-bye, nightlife. We know its not forever but it feels like it at the moment. So please bring some community to our doorstep. Bring friendship back into our lives. Bring adult conversation and laughter. And bring a really good football game!
• Here’s one last thing: As you watch us struggle and celebrate and cry and flail, we also want you to know that adoption is beautiful, and a hundred times we’ve looked at each other and said, “What if we would’ve said no?” God invited us into something monumental and lovely, and we would’ve missed endless moments of glory had we walked away. We need you during these difficult months of transitioning, but we also hope you see that we serve a faithful God who heals and actually sets the lonely in families, just like He said He would. And even through the tears and tantrums (ours), we look at our children and marvel that God counted us worthy to raise them. We are humbled. We’ve been gifted with a very holy task, and when you help us rise to the occasion, you have an inheritance in their story; your name will be counted in their legacy.
• Also please remember no one is perfect.If you slip and ask “how much did they cost” or if you've already asked "What happened to their mother?" we won't hold a grudge. We know that our family is different. We understand that it is impossible to be sensitive and politically correct in every situation all the time. And we don’t expect you to be. We sure don’t have all this figured out yet either!

Thank you for being the village that will help us raise these kids. You are so important to us.

Setencia

We got the phone call this morning!!
We got Setencia!! 

That means the judge has signed his part and is just waiting on the children's defender and us to sign! The defender is out sick today so they are looking for a replacement to sign if they can today, if not then tomorrow. We go to sign in the morning if they get all the right signatures today and then we drive to their 3 separate birth towns 1 hour+ away and get their NEW birth certificates. Worst case we drive to the towns on Thursday. They will have OUR names on them and the kids will be forever Sanjines kiddos!!

Thank you for praying for this to happen quickly. This also means we should be good to come home on September 19th, pending no major issues with 3 kids new passports, visas etc.
Still a few hoops but we can finally breath and tell the kids NEXT WEEK we come home as a family of 5!!!
Praising God all day! And....wait for it....its actually sunny today!
For Nick, he's got a cough and has a lot of work to do today and tomorrow with a release at work, praying he feels better but this news makes us all feel better!!

Prayers:

Praise: Kids all have low 99.0 fevers today and Mami is holding strong with NO sickness!!

Till they're home,

Nick, Jenn and Tres Ninos!

Fifth Update from Colombia

Another update from Colombia was the subject of our last email out to family and friends:I realize that subject made it sounds like some super big news happened, sorry it has not yet. Keep praying though. We are hopeful that the Judge here will sign this week and we prefer it be at the beginning of the week. 

About the time that Ashlee wrapped up her trip here we decided to have a rest day. Ever since then at least one of the kids has been some sort of sick. We've had mostly just fever until today when fever turned into throwing up for Brandon. We have been able to work as a team, stay well, and care for the kids. I cannot imagine taking care of sick kids on top of work but even in those discussions here we have realized when we get home, God has already provided a way by Nick being able to work from home in those situations and me being at school with the kids I could run them home if they got sick.
Them being sick sure makes us miss our support of you guys in person. I called my dad almost in tears the other morning as we woke up to Brandon crying and had a 103.5 fever! Yikes! Today he was unable to keep down medicine so we gave him a luke-warm bath and he seems to be doing well enough to go to sleep. 

On a positive note all 3 kids took a nap today! That is a first!! Jenn got to go to the market to shop for some gifts for family and friends and Nick got to watch football while they slept!
They are troopers I'll tell you what! They try to explain what hurts, we point to every body part and we hug them and say sorry. We don't know much else to do but to love them through it and use the medicine we have or can buy here. We have resorted to blowing kisses for today and tomorrow and they are not thrilled about that but we remind them we don't want them sick.

We also talked to Delta Airlines today and got our plane tickets booked to come home. I say that in an excited and nervous tone. Since the Judge has not signed yet, we technically could still need to change them. Again, here is where you come in big time with prayers. Either way my best friend phrased it, "that's next week!" I looked at the calendar and sure enough September 19th is actually next week! We'd love to have you pray that that date works out. We would actually be flying to Atlanta and driving home from there instead of eating 6 hours of layover at the airport with 3 jet lagged kiddos. Please pray that date works for us a few reasons: A) for our sanity, we're about over it here. B) for the kids starting school (that date would give us a good solid week of at home time before beginning school C) That date has some cool details in it...

Details: God is all about them, that has sort of been our "motto" through this whole thing and I hope it will continue to be. So last year on September 18th we got an email from our agency saying they had 3 kiddos files. I was like 3! Whew, ages... 3.5.7.at the time. We looked at their files and I noticed a date on the front of the packet. September 19th, 2011. Their date of resolution of adaptability. The date their parental rights were terminated and they became children of Colombia. So exactly two years after they had officially become orphans, we spent the good part of the night praying for them. God laid on our hearts that these kids had NEVER been prayed for. See blog for a cool post on this. Right Here but we prayed for them anyway. We actually took over 6 months to officially commit to them; but we never again prayed the same way about a group of kids the way we did about them that night. It was a cool couple of days last September, never did we think we'd be here with them in the room next to us calling us Papi and Mami. 

Needless to say, those couple of days are special to us. Please pray we get to make them even more special and make God even more glorified in His details that he knew before any of us were born!
We love each one of you! We will keep you updated this week on the judge and if he signs we will let you know as soon as we do!

Prayers:

-Judge to sign Setencia soon
-That sickness would not spread and that Nick and I would stay healthy and get them well
-Flight date we have chosen that it work out well, all details of process to finish smoothly
-continue to learn English words and phrases
-for us to show them what a "good attitude" means and to teach them to love one another because of Christ's love
-That we would continue to adjust to this crazy new life and trust God's plan for it all, it's honestly overwhelming some days and we've realized our lives will never look the same, but you guys are so encouraging to remind us that is what he's called us to.... we don't want our lives to look the same after he's been at work!

Praises:

-We were able to handle our first fevers, throwing up, and colds without dr visits or too much panic
-Church here at Vida Bogota continues to be a blessing while we miss our home
-we've gotten to have some much needed "lazy" days
-still sleeping well and through the night (all of us)
-Michelle is warming up to Jenn more and more

- Seeing them sing and dance in Church here is one of our favorite parts in a week! 

Playing with PlayDough for the first time! 

What the girls did while we watched football. 

What Nick did while he watched football. 

Fourth Update in Country

We held off on posting this to wait and see if we got good news from the court today and WE DID!! Happy Labor Day! Apparently while Americans are off today the courts here are still open and the Judge accepted our case today! It has been in a court here for a little shy of 2 weeks waiting on a Judge to take it on. He has now up to 10 days to agree to the adoption and sign off on it (this is called Sentencia). Once he signs they receive the name SANJINES and legally become our children. After that we have about a week or so until we can leave the country with them.  This part of our process really does remind us of how we are adopted in Christ and how that process looks. Clearly we have shed some blood, sweat and tears in the process of them becoming ours but NOTHING compared to Christ. Once we are his we receive a new name, a new identity. 

Romans 8:14-19 

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Just today Jenn spent all of about an hour working with Brandon on writing his name and writing Brandon Sanjines and explaining to him how his name was changing. While he accepts it and seems excited about it he has no idea what that truly means. It means he will be ours forever. We will never leave him, nor abandon him and he will always be called Our Son. 

This past week has been good. We went to the park almost every day. Since Ashlee is here we are taking advantage of the extra help and trying bigger better places and staying out for longer. (which results in a little longer sleeping at night...for all of us)

Jenn took the kids to a place called Divercity last week. We have got to get one of these in the states! Nick got a lot of work done that day at home and the kids learned a lot on our adventure. They basically get to "work" and "play" and earn fake money working at the hospital, firehouse, bank, school, etc and at each station they get to learn for about 20 minutes about that job and practice at it. The Vet even had a real dog for them to listen to his heart. After each job they can then go have "fun" and spend their money. It was a good place to explain that Mami and Papi work for their money to buy things just like they did that day. 

Another day, they got to dress up and play at another place we went to eat. Basically a lot of the restaurants here are kid friendly and have play places for the kids.Over the weekend we went to the Children's Museum with our friends Allyson and Scott and their little girl and that was a fun place too. It is so cool to see the difference in their behavior when we go out places now. We still count on at least a small fit from each of them over not getting ice cream or a toy, but nothing like the thrashing, kicking, screaming for no reason that we were seeing only weeks ago. We are trying to more closely identify when these things happen, are they tired, is it neurological, is it hunger? And once we nail down some triggers we try to avoid them or be prepared for them in the future. We also got to sit down and watch the Tennessee football game online with the kids. They loved cheering for our team and we all dressed in our orange. We taught them the V-O-L-S spell out and they did great. Watching that game was so good for our homesickness. As silly as it sounds it really was nice to feel at home for the night, except we still woke up here in Colombia in the morning. So clearly God still has us here for a little bit longer for a purpose. Our prayer is that we search out that purpose and continue to live for Him while we are here. 

They love to see our family on skype everyday. They also ask about going to the states just about every day, and think that every airplane they see is headed to the states. They have no idea how much LOVE is waiting for them from all of you guys!Thanks for hanging in there with us this week, sorry it took so long to get an update out. Please spend some time along with us PRAISING and PRAYING for these things. 

Prayer Requests:

-Continued bonding for us all as a family
-That they would begin to learn more English so that adapting to the US would be easier on them
-That our case would be signed off on by the judge quickly (Sentencia). Once he signs we have a week or so until we come home!
-That plane tickets would cooperate once we are closer to getting home (we don't want to stay a week longer because of adoption tickets not being available etc)

Praises:

- Michel's TB test/chest x-ray came back NEGATIVE...wahoo! No TB and no meds!
-Ashlee is here visiting us and we're having a great time so far!
-We've made some sweet friendships here and God is continuing to bless us by using them in our time here
-Judge accepted our case and they say the rest is just timing and red tape but its good news that he accepted it 

-The children's defender signed off already (this can often cause delays in the end so its great that it already happened)

Until we are home!