Four Years

Wow, time flies!  Four years ago yesterday, we landed in Minnesota and were no longer of family with six kids, but one with eight.  Going from six to eight kids was a big adjustment for me.  Not sure why.  Going from zero to one was the biggest change, but after that every additional child was added in quite smoothly until we jumped from six to eight.

Since it was our first "older child" adoption, that probably had a lot to do with it, not to mention jet-lag.  Maybe it was because it was a busy time in our lives anyway with homeschooling and Raelea's therapy, or maybe t was the language barrier.  Who knows?

We've come  a LONG way in four years, but I would be lying if I said that all the adjustments are over and we're not still dealing with adoption issues.  We are. But, much, MUCH progress has been made over the course of the last four years, and for that we're thankful.

One last thought, people occasionally ask us if we celebrate Gotcha Day with our adopted kids.  The answer to that is no.  Because we have both biological and adopted kids, we have opted not to make too big of a deal out of Gotcha Day, since only six of the eight HAVE Gotcha Days.  We do make mention to our adopted kiddos the day we brought them home, but we do not make a big hullabaloo about it.  That's just what we have decided to do :-)