The Bell Family Update

August 2005 Bell Family Update

2005-08-23T22:34:00.000-07:00

Here we are what feels like marathon parenting some days!! It has been 8 months, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!! WOW!!! My how time and energy fly. I have never been so exhausted in my life. After stopping and checking in with myself I figured out why…

Since the last update so much has happened. We still live “Groundhog Day” almost everyday. We have taken tons of the cutest pictures and our video camera gets used more than I could have every imagined!! We must really be parents. We have tried doing the group family pictures a little differently. Instead of a studio, our home has become a beautiful backdrop and then we are able to use a few rolls of film to get at least 1 picture with at least 90% of us smiling at the same time. Goofy ones are much easier to master right now.

The twins are now ONE and fully mobile! We had our first birthday party. Well it was put together at the last minute and it was a ton of fun!! Next year I will have to do a little more planning. All of this first time parenting stuff is a challenge. Thank goodness we many more years of practice to come and make it even more fun. WOWWEE life is fun!! They are so darn CUTE!!! They are both crawling faster than you can imagine. Giovianni loves to roll a ball and then crawl as fast as he can after it while laughing at the same time, all to catch it and do it again!! We can’t help ourselves from laughing out loud all of the time. He is definitely our little comedian. They are both standing and pulling themselves up onto the furniture. He stands and holds onto what ever he can and bounces up and down like he is dancing. As soon as anyone or anything makes a sound like music he is up so fast to dance and laughing, (He really loves the Sesame Street song) the only thing we can do is burst out laughing it is so adorable!! He is also our little dance machine. He loves to make truck sounds with his mouth. I am amazed at how quickly and easily they are learning things. He is a true little boy. He has grown so fast and eating so much. He is now 19 lbs and 27 inches long.

Tattiana is our little ballerina and gymnast. She loves to laugh and play. She is 16 lbs and 29 inches long. She still is making the most beautiful dolphin sounds. Her favorite game right now is sitting in our lap facing us and then flipping herself backwards while we hold onto her as she does a complete backwards somersault and laughs gleefully the entire time and repeats this over and over until she is so dizzy that she can not even sit up straight and falls over laughing. One of the cutest things that I have ever seen or heard is when we go and wake the babies up. We open the to their room and their little heads pop up out of their cribs with really big smiles on their faces and Tattiana says really loud “hhhiiiii.” It truly has to be the cutest thing on the planet. They are the happiest babies!! She has picked up so many words. When we say things to her she now repeats the simplest sounds easily and clearly. We love it!!! She is a true little girl. Their little personalities are blossoming beautifully. These babies are such a joy in our lives.

We have had some really huge mile stones happen. After we got the twins for the first few months they did not like being cuddled. It was hard to accept that, at first. However we understood and did not push the issue. Now they both come crawling up to us as fast as they possibly can and snuggle in their own wonderful little ways. Tattiana wraps her little arms around us and lays her head on our chests while cooing. I don’t know that there is anything that can melt our hearts faster. Giovianni climbs himself up us, wraps his arms around our necks and then opens his mouth as wide as he can and latches onto our faces and either sucks or blows raspberries….. Drool everywhere and we love it. They both say Mama and Dada very clearly and loudly!! They definitely know who we are and the sound of our voices. This is displayed in the child parent relationship of them being completely content while we are out of sight and sound and then the minute that they can hear or see us the screaming and crying (as though something has happened to them) commences. I often wondered why children do that. Well I still do not have the answer but I have even more compassion and gratitude for all of those parents out there that have been through this, and I know that all of you have, than I did before. The blessing in all of this, what seem to be chaos, is that there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that we have all bonded and that we are the parents of these beautiful little angels. What a beautiful thing. We are teaching them sign language. It has been a lot of fun for all of us. Brandon was the one to learn it all the quickest. The babies are able to tell us “more”, “all done”, and “milk”. It is amazing to see how their little minds are like sponges that learn so quickly, easily and eagerly. I love every minute of it.

I am amazed everyday at the things that children say and pick up on. One day Brandon and I were out doing some errands and when we got back home Brandon looked at me and said “Good job driving Mom.” The only thing I could do was laugh. Apparently we say that phrase a lot.

We have watch the movie “Finding Nemo” countless times now. In fact so many times that I can pretty much play the entire movie out for anyone. So from that movie I learned a few things about being a Mom from Dory the fish. She is the fish with short term memory loss. Well since have these beautiful children in our lives I seem to have lost my short term memory somewhere along the way. I am not really sure where or when. Anyway as things get crazy and I am on the verge of crying I find that Dory’s song is very appropriate in all situations. She sings “Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.” You can pretty much substitute it with any word you would like such as running, playing, working etc. Well again kids really do listen. One early evening just before dinner I was in the kitchen cooking and the babies were clinging to the other siding of the baby gate screaming at the top of their lungs to get to me. Just when I thought that I was about to start crying I heard this little voice coming from the living room “Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.” Again it shifted my context and everything became fun again!! Dory the fish really is a great roll model. The beauty of short term memory loss is that you can’t remember anything long enough to stay mad. So I find myself just singing a lot!!

One beautiful sunny afternoon we were all snuggling and playing on the hammock in our back yard. Brandon requested that Christopher sing to us. So Christopher in his wonderful humor started to sing “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns ’N’ Roses. Then after a nudge from Catherine, he broke into “And All God’s Children Sing, Holy, Holy, Holy, and Hallelujah, He Reigns!! “

A couple weeks later Christopher and Brandon were out driving and they needed to stop for gas during a busy part of the day. As they pulled into the gas station parking lot there were cars and people everywhere. As Christopher was maneuvering though the vehicles and from the back seat Brandon sang, “welcome to the jungle”. Talk about out of the mouths of babes….

Well now for the not so fun stuff. Since the last update…… so much has happened. It is our daytime soap opera called “As my stomach turns” you will understand what this name means as you read on. Javier got out of prison on Tuesday April 26th. He had a 1 hour supervised visit with Brandon on Wednesday April 27th. As we suspected Brandon was very confused after the visit and his temper got worse, so as you can imagine we were not looking forward to the visit scheduled for the following week. Well Javier helped take care of all of those worries as on the Friday April 29th (yes 4 days later) he violated his parole (by seeing Lidia) and committed a misdemeanor (by throwing cans of vegetables at Lidia in the middle of a grocery store) at the same time. He was sent back to prison for another 7 months. So the visits were stopped. At his check-in court hearing in May the Judge said that he does not get to have any visitations while he is in prison. He has since tried but the children’s attorney has been wonderful at keeping CPS updated on the judges decisions. He did finally get the DNA test for the twins done and they are his. He has not asked for any reunification services for them. The July court date for the twins to be released, so that they can be adopted, happened. Well sort of. Both Lidia and Javier are contesting the twins being released for adoption. So a trial date was set for the following week. It did not happen as both of them were not present and they did not know where Lidia was. Well Lidia helped the situation by getting herself put into prison for 300 days. This helped because at least they knew where she was and had a way to get her where she needs to be when. So several court dates came and went because the judicial system and the penal system could not coordinate these 2 people to be where they needed to be. Anyway Last Friday August 19, 2005 Javier had a hearing about Brandon. If he had kept himself out of prison he could have been granted custody, rights terminated or been granted another 6 months to work his reunification program with him. Well none of these things happened because of his parole violation. The judge decided to speed everything up and have the cases happen at the same time rather than separately because of the difficult task of getting these 2 people to be in the same place at the same time. So today they had a trial that terminated the reunification rights to Brandon for both parents and the twins are now free to be adopted…. Well sort of. They have 60 days to appeal this decision.

In the mean time we have had a very difficult time with Brandon and we (Christopher, myself, the adoption agency, CPS and Brandon’s therapist) have all come to the same conclusion. Brandon needs to be in a home with no other children or if there are they are teenagers or older. Brandon has not officially been diagnosed but he has all of the traits of having Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Reactive Attachment disorder. They are all so bad that they don’t really know which one is worse. So with a lot of prayer and tears we had to make the very, very difficult decision to let him go. He is still with us and will be until we find him a healthy, educated family to take this all on.

To make matters worse Maria the grandmother (Javier’s mother) contested all of the courts and CPS’s decisions up until now and has exercised all possible rights that she has. So we all have been under investigation all over again because she is trying to take the children away. Yes all 3 of them. One of my major concerns with this is the safely and the mental health of the children. The courts have stated that Javier is to have nothing to do with the children and when he gets out of prison he will be living with Maria as well as having contact with Lidia (which he has already proved). Every part of this screams that it is unhealthy for these children as Brandon’s current mental health is all a product of that environment. I did express this to the new social worker that is involved in the case and reviewing everything. There is a new director of CPS (child Protective Services) that believes that children should be with their DNA relatives and kept together as siblings rather than in a healthy environment that can give them everything that they need to heal and function as healthy adults in society one day rather than repeating their families history. Well I have to say that I am the wrong person to agree with that as I am the product of both situations. What I know for sure is that my life would not be the same if it was not for my family that adopted me. I thank God everyday for them and for the future that they gave me. I would not be the same without them.

I did ask the adoption agency if every family goes through this. They said “no.” This is new territory for them as well. It is much smoother for all of the other families. So I believe that we are having to see the worst of it and how bad it can get so that we can educate others and do something about it in the future for other families. There are currently 380,000 children right now in the foster care system in the United States. 180,000 of those children are available for adoption. These adoptions have not take place for a few reasons. So Christopher and I created (and still are creating) a team of people to help us put together a place for families to get educated, supported and other resources for them to be able to adopt and raise these beautiful children successfully. So we invite all of you to participate in anyway that you see fit. Whether you have resources, books or people that would be able to educate and assist families with these children we welcome your support and contributions. I know as if we are not up to enough in our lives. That is why we need and team of people. If everyone does a little bit then a lot can be accomplished.

So we are asking for everyone’s prays around these beautiful children and us. We pray that the twins stay with us and that Brandon gets adopted by a family that is educated and equipped to deal with everything that he needs help with. We want to be able to come up along side of this family and assist them with what we know works with him and to develop and life long relationship with them so that the children will always have a relationship with each other. These are our prayers.

Thank you for being in our lives and for being a part of an amazing village of people that are helping us raise these incredible children.

April 2005 Bell Family Update

2005-04-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

I apologize to all of you for not updating everyone sooner or replying to all of your incredible e-mail messages. My sit down time and energy are very limited with 3 little ones. I am having more success talking on the telephone to people as my cordless phone, headset and incredible phone plan still allow me to get everything else done at the same time. So please always feel free to call at any time and if you get the answering machine please keep talking as I am probably running to the phone. Home: 831-663-0178 or Cell: 408-568-6478.

So here we are now 4 months into our adventure of being parents. We are now all on a consistent and predictable routine that feels like we are living “Groundhog Day” everyday and it gives the children a sense of safety and security. Also anyone that comes into our home has a place to jump in with us, as the routine is posted on the refrigerator for all to follow. I took the children to have their first professional photo’s taken….. well I had no idea how hard it would be to get 3 children to sit still and smile all at the same time. I needed a nap after that!!

The twins are now 8 months old. Since our last update Tattiana and Giovianni are now both saying their first word “Dada” clearly and very loudly. Their personalities are developing and showing themselves daily. Giovianni is exercising his vocal cords to see how loud and how high he can screech out sounds while Tattiana sings and makes dolphins sounds to communicate with the world. I feel like I need earplugs!! Thank goodness they are so cute!! They are both eating solid foods for all 3 meals a day and still sleeping through the night YEAH!! Tattiana is now rocking on all four and shuffling backwards. Giovianni is still flipping from his back to his front and slithering backwards. I am very nervous about them becoming mobile. They are both sitting up on their own and so we now have all 3 children bathing together. This is a whole lot easier than 3 individual baths. It is probably their favorite time of the day. They all splash, laugh, sing and squeal together at the end of the day.

The twins have had their DNA test done in March to determine if Javier is their father or not (upon his and his lawyers request). We are still waiting for Javier to take the test to find out what the results are. Javier gets out of prison on the April 26th, 2005. We are very nervous; as Brandon will now have supervised visits with him once a month as well as his continued supervised visits with Maria (Javier’s Mother). Javier has not seen Brandon in over a year, so no one really knows how this will go. We are nervous because of the aftermath of Brandon’s behavior and what that will be like and then what we will have to deal with after every visit. Right now after every visit with Maria he comes back to us and is difficult to live with for the next 2 weeks. He also still has a call with her once a week and is very defiant after that call for the next few days. This behavior is normal for children in the foster care system that still have visits with their birth family. They unconsciously feel like they are betraying their birth family by getting close to us. So I feel that I am very close to reaching my limit with all of this. I look forward to the day that the judge makes a decision about Brandon’s future one way or the other. As you can see Brandon is definitely where most of the work is. He is now in pre-school 5 mornings a week. He is learning letters, numbers and how to write his name. He loves school and hates to leave. He has pushed Christopher and I to the edge to see where it is (all just needing to know where the boundaries are so that he can feel safe that we will keep our word.) He still asks if a man will come and take away if he is bad. This is heart breaking as this is what he associates being bad with all from being bounced through so many foster homes before he came to us. Brandon still has a visit with his therapist once a week. These visits are very insightful for all of us and it has been a great place for Brandon to be working these issues out.

We are starting a life book for Brandon. It is his personal story. This will help him understand what adoption is, what happened to his birth parents, where we fit in and later on help him deal with all of his emotions around all of this in a healthy way.

Parenting is definitely the most challenging and difficult job on the planet. All of you parents that have done this and who are still doing it now I am in awe of you for your courage, discipline and commitment. This has pushed Christopher and I to a whole new level of service, discipline, organization and partnership. We have been really focusing on giving attention to Brandon’s good behaviors and no energy to the destructive behaviors. This is very challenging as there are more of the negative behaviors vs. positive right now. Parenting Brandon is a very delicate situation as our therapist gave me the analogy of parenting him is like holding onto a bar of wet soap, the tighter you squeeze it the further it will slip away. So we are learning to gently correct and mold this young persons character without him slipping away. I am very thankful everyday for the grace of God in our lives, as we could not do this with out his love and guidance daily.

We still have a visit from our therapist once a week. Dave has been a huge blessing to have on our side. He has been addressing a lot of my personal concerns around Javier getting out of prison and what exactly this will all look like for example the calls and visits and then of course the fall out from these. Today we did realize that we had made progress on some issues. When we first got Brandon he projected his emotions on to us, mostly his anger. So when he was upset he would make a statement and say, “you are angry” when we were not. Well this past week he has started to say, “I am getting angry” or “I am angry” which is really huge that he is feeling and saying what is in his own body. The other milestone is around food. He would always say that he wanted something to eat or that he was hungry when really he just wanted attention. After a lot of re-framing he now asks to be touched, hugged and kissed and accepts it and reciprocates it with us. And now he asks for food when he should be asking for it (when he really is hungry around meal times) instead of all of the time. So we celebrate these milestones and keep moving 3 steps forward and 2 steps back every day. I feel like I am running a backwards marathon that will never end.

Over all Christopher and I are doing surprisingly well. This has made us come together on a whole level of partnership, service and co-creating with each other. I have joined a gym that I go to at 6:00 am almost every morning before the children even wake up. This seems to be giving me more energy and stamina to make it through the day. Christopher and I have our individual weekly meetings with men and women in our community to connect with and have some time for ourselves. I talk on the phone and continue to reach out to people more than I ever did before. The only other thing that I really miss is attending my weekly bible study, I am sure that I will be able to fit it in again somewhere soon. I am clear that it definitely takes a village to raise children. All of these children, Christopher and myself are very blessed to have an incredible village surrounding all of us, all of the way from Canada to down here in California and everywhere in between. You are the BEST!!

Love & God Bless,
The Bells

Feb 2005 Bell Family update...

2005-02-23T21:42:00.000-08:00

Here we are a little over 2 months into being parents to 3 brand new beautiful children. As I am sure that most of you can imagine things have been pretty crazy around here, going from 0 to 3 children over night. First of all we really want to thank ALL of you for your loving thoughts, prayers, cards, gifts, flowers, calls, visits and most of all for your help.

We are all on the biggest learning curve of our lives. God calls us to care for the widows and orphans in this world, so being obedient to this in our businesses and now our lives this has brought us more blessings through all of you than we could have ever imagined. We are very glad that God only shows the light at our feet and no further…as if he had shown us anymore I do not think that we would have been brave enough to take on all of this all at once.

Here is the update:

So many of you have a lot of questions so I will do my best to answer all of them for you. We are currently considered Fost/Adopt parents to these children. What that means is they are still in the Foster Care System and are considered on the track for adoption pending the choices that the birth parents make. How the system use to work is children would be placed and bounced around in Foster homes until they were free to be adopted (which could take years). Once they are free that is when they would be placed with an adoptive family and the bonding process would have to start all over with the new family as the children are also older this makes this process even more challenging for everyone involved. So CPS (Child Protective Service) finally figured out that this might not be the best thing for the children or the families. They have been trying a new program that has been working a lot better for everyone and that is what is called the Fost/Adopt Program. So do to the nature of the case it looks like these children will be able to be adopted so they have been placed with us so that we can begin the bonding process as well as the legal process.

So how the children came into the system is that Javier (the 21 year old Mexican birth father) is in prison for spousal abuse and has been for the past year. Lidia (the 35 year old German birth mother) was telling 2 separate families at the same time that they could adopt the children. Due to her lack of cooperation with the families they all decided not to pursue the adoption of these children. After living on the streets with the children for a while (to her credit) she called the police one night and turned the children over to them. The police turned the children over to CPS (child protective services) and the children were then put into foster homes.

By the time that we got the children, Brandon had been placed into 4 different foster homes and the babies had been in only one.

So we got the twins on Saturday December 11, 2004 and we got Brandon 1 week later on Friday December 17, 2004. Needless to say our lives have not looked the same since. Our house looks like a day care, we bought a Mini-van to fit everyone and Christopher and I feel like zombies.

After all of this Lidia decided that she wanted the children back. So the process with the courts started. Lidia had weekly calls (on a separate prepaid cellular phone that can not be traced back to us) and supervised visits scheduled with the children. She managed to make a few of them but then she disappeared and was unable to stay clean & sober. In order for her to have visits with the Children she has to have 2 clean blood tests, which she has not been able to pass to date. Her court date was in the beginning of January to terminate her rights to the children. She appealed and the trial for that was set for Wednesday February 9th, 2005, which she did not show up for so it got extended to Tuesday February 15, 2005, which she also did not show up for as well. Her attorney requested another extension but the Judge denied it and her rights were terminated. Lidia now gets 1 one hour supervised visit per month for the next 6 months with the children. It is suppose to be sort of like a weaning period for the children??

Now we have to wait and see what happens with Javier. On Wednesday February 9th, 2005 Javier was granted reunification services for Brandon. What that means is that he now has 6 months to turn his life around and prove that he will be able to take care of and parent Brandon the way he needs to be. He will be out of prison by the end of April 2005 and once that happens he will be able to have supervised visits with Brandon. We are now waiting for a DNA test to be completed to see if the twins are Javier’s or not, this will then determine what will happen with the twins. The next court date is May 13th, 2005 this will be a review to see how everyone is doing. If the twins are not Javier’s or if he does not want them then on June 10th, 2005 there will be a court date for the twins to be free to be adopted. August 19th, 2005 will be the court date for Javier – the Judge will decide at that time if he gets another 6 month extension to prove himself, if he gets custody of Brandon or if his right are terminated to Brandon then. In the mean time Maria (Javier’s mother) has a call once and week and a supervised visit once a month with the children. So that is the legal stuff. No we have not met any of these people in person. It is completely confidential who we are and where the children are for the safety of everyone.

In the mean time we have been working really hard to create schedules and most of all consistency for the children so that they feel safe and are able to bond with us. When we first got them they were both sick with Bronchiolitis and RSV (a deadly virus that turns into pneumonia). We were giving them medication for 5.5 hours a days and now it is only 40 minutes a day. So they were very unhappy babies. Now that they are better they are really happy babies…and very cute and kissable. The twins Tattiana (girl) & Giovanni (boy) are now 6 months old and definitely finding their voices. They are now sleeping through the night (hooray!!) bringing us a ton of pleasure during the day and bonding with us quite well. They are the easiest part to all of this so far!! They are staring to eat solid foods. Tattiana loves her food and would rather blow bubbles with her bottle and Giovanni would rather have his bottle than have to eat the food. We call Tattiana our “Angel baby” or our “Dolphin Baby” as she makes the cutest dolphins sounds. Giovanni is our “Snuggle Baby” because he loves to snuggle. One of his favorite things is his jolly jumper. He loves it so much and has figured out how to get some serious airtime. He has figured out how to not only bounce up and down but also how to take 3 jumps while swinging forward and lift his legs on the way back to give himself even more airtime!! It is quite funny to watch. Yes we will be changing their names once we legally adopt them. Until then they need to keep their given names.

Brandon is our “Hungry Bear.” He can out eat most adults that I know. He is very cute and very charming. Brandon is definitely our challenge. He came to us pretty damaged. He has abandonment issues of course as well as a whole lot of other things going on. He has therapy once and week with a therapist that specializes in all of this. Brandon has experienced more violence than any child ever should have to. He is more familiar with negative emotions than the positive ones. He pushes for the familiar ones, which makes things very challenging. Consistency is what the game is and has been the most challenging. Talk about personal DISAPLINE!!! We have our good and bad days and we are working on having more good than bad. We have to watch him like a hawk as he has a lot of behaviors that need to be corrected. He is in pre-school 3 mornings a week for right now and they are working with us on all of these issues, which is really great. He loves his school and his teachers. He is learning to write his name and is very eager to learn everything that the teachers teach him. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium last Friday with his class and had a tons of fun. Brandon loved every minute of it and has not stopped talking about it since we got back. We got the chance to see a pod of about 30 dolphins in the bay just swimming by the Aquarium that day. It was such a blessing. Brandon also loves to do his artwork and bring it home. Our refrigerator is now an art gallery.

Christopher has been taking Brandon to work with him about once a week. It gives them some really great bonding time and the best part is he gets the chance to be around men and see how they behave. One of the things that we discovered about Brandon was that he had more female tendencies than he did male. Since he has been with the men he is now starting to have more boy behaviors. He has helped build a water garden with some of the best waterfall builders in the country and he helps the crew on the service routes. I think that his favorite part is feeding the fish…of course. Brandon also comes and does errands with me such as the post office and the bank. All of the people there have got to know him quite well. He loves to help and most of all he loves to say “Merry Christmas” when we leave. He will keep saying it over and over until the other person says it. We have explained that Christmas is over so he just adds what ever holiday has just passed onto it and keeps saying it to everyone we pass. So right now it is “Happy Balentines Day and Merry Christmas!” Yes Balentines day…. We are still working on the speech.

Christopher has been truly inspired by all of this and the numbers in Alliance Land & Waterscapes, Inc. have defiantly shown it. We have grows more than 60% in our over all sales from last year. Just like our family Alliance Land & Waterscapes, Inc. is growing as well. We now have another baby in Alliance called our Commercial division. Christopher has also been busy making the yard safe and fun for children. We built a big play structure in the back yard for them. It has a slide, monkey bars, swings, a rock climbing wall, store and a picnic table all for little ones. Of course we still have our water gardens, which the children love and it is great for teaching about nature.

One of the biggest gifts that I have experienced is Christopher and I being a united front and having a true partnership in all of this. They say that the best gift that we can give to our children is us loving each other. Well that definitely shows up everyday. All 3 children just stare silently and intensely at us as we kiss hello and goodbye. If we are in a hurry and forget to kiss and hug good-bye Brandon does a great job of letting us know until we do it. I have no idea how any single parent does this job alone. Christopher and I have therapy once a week with a great therapist that specializes in all of this. We talk a lot to make sure that we are on the same page.

We hired a nanny to help us out. She usually comes in Monday – Thursday for a few hours a day, which allows me to get other things taken care of or just sleep. I definitely feel like I have 3 full time jobs all running simultaneously. Her help is really great and she speaks Spanish to Brandon and he speaks back to her in Spanish so we are really happy that he is getting that so early in his development. As for other help it has been a bit challenging for us, as there are certain rules that we need to follow when it comes to the children. Anyone that takes care of the children have to be finger printed, have a full physical and a TB test done as well as take an infant CPR course. So not just anyone can come and baby-sit. So if any of you feel ambitious enough just let us know and we will be happy to send you a package with all of the forms.

Yes I am still working in Alliance and From House to Home. Usually for only about 1 hour a day. Believe it or not it seems to feel like a break for me. I have never got so much pleasure out of my work and what we do for people. Especially when I get to talk to other adults!! One thing about being a Mom is that it is definitely not very gratifying in the moment. I keep being told that the gratification comes in 20 years. So in the mean time I will continue to feel productive in other areas of my life.

I have been able to find humor in some of this. Because I am so tired I completely forget when someone said that they would call or visit or that I was suppose to call or visit them. Normally this would bother me like crazy but because my brain does not seem to retain anything anymore I never take any of that personally or have a chance to get upset with them or myself because I can’t even remember that it was suppose to happen. I am just really happy to hear from them when they do call. Now I almost know what it feels like to have lost my mind. I thought when people said that they have pregnant or had mommy brain it was because they were pregnant and gave birth to the children…well I have come to find out that being pregnant or giving birth has nothing to do with it. My hat is off to all of you women in the world that gave birth and then did ALL of this!!!!

Another thing that I have found amusing is that all of these wonderful people in our lives keep asking us what we need. My mind is blank when it comes to this question and I figured out why…we have never done this before how in the heck would we know what we need. So for all of you experienced parents out there, if you think of something that we need please let us know. So far that is how we have been figuring out what we need, it is only after someone lets us know.

As you can see our old fat cat lives are definitely not about us anymore. The amazing thing is that both Christopher and I grew up with the same sibling group…2 boys and a girl. We both have first hand experience of being in foster care (Christopher) and adoption (Catherine) in our childhood. It is amazing how this has come full circle for us. Yes we are very aware that we have bit off more than we can chew….and it is only by the grace of God that we are able to make it through each and everyday. Again we thank God for being the lamp at our feet.

We all hope that this finds all of you blessed and highly favored.

We would love to hear how you are doing and would love to see you even more so please know that you are welcome to come a visit anytime.

Love & God Bless,
The Bell‘s

Dec 2004 Our original message...

2005-02-23T13:32:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone!!
We wanted to let all of know that God has blessed us AGAIN!!
Well here we go!! As most of your know Christopher and I have been on a long journey to adopted children. Well the day has finally arrived and after all of the waiting it is happening faster than we could have ever imagined. We got a call yesterday afternoon that there are a set of 4 month old twins (boy and a girl) and a 3 year old boy (all siblings) that need to be adopted. We went and met with them today and are movong ahead to the next step of the adoption process.
We are very excited and overwhelmed by the thought of becoming parents overnight (well sort of ... our journey has been 9 months long now). We need to keep reminding ourselves to breath!!
We leave for Cabo San Lucas on business in the morning and we will be back on Friday and Saturday the children arrive at our home!! WOW!! A stork is bringing us our babies!!
We will do our best to update you on all of this as there is a lot to prepare for.
Here is a picture of our new famlly.
We really want to thank all of you for your prayers, love and support. And now I think that we really need your prayers!!
We are very excited and dazed right now..... we are off to get the last bit of our sleep that we will get for a few years.
Love & God Bless,
Catherine & Christopher