iPad Giveaway!!

We are kicking off our fundraising for Kareen with an iPad giveaway!

iPad Giveaway for KAREEN!

Kareen is a 4 year old little girl with Down syndrome who was given up at birth and has lived in an orphanage in Eastern Europe ever since. In her country a child with special needs is only held in an orphanage until the age of 4 or 5 and is then transferred to an institution where conditions are bleak and offer little hope for living a fulfilling life. Kareen's story has touched our family, and we are committed to bring her home. The cost of international adoption is very high, and we could use your help!

Donate now through Saturday, February 5th, when one lucky person will receive a Brand New 16GB Wi-Fi iPad

For every $10 donated, you will be entered into a drawing for the iPad (i.e. $50 equals 5 entries). Also, if after donating, you advertise this giveaway on your blog or facebook, you will get an additional entry. Simply leave me a comment with your name and the link to your post.

Ways to Donate:

• Go to www.kareensjourneyhome.blogspot.com and click the “Chip in “ button
• Bring a check or cash by our home. You may email me at keciajcox@msn.com for our address.
• Tax deductible donation (must leave me a comment with your name and donation amount to be entered into the giveaway, since this site is kept confidential)http://reecesrainbow.org/sponsorcox

Every dollar helps, and brings us closer to having our little angel home safe.

Thanks for your Support!!!

- Kris & Kecia Cox

***Feel free to grab one of the buttons from our sidebar for your own blogs***

New YEars Eve 2010

We spent New Years Eve at Tysen and Chris'.
The guys cooked an amazing fish fry of all sorts!
Probably the best array of food I have ever seen at a New Years Eve bash! It was DELISH!

Lyla took a little cat nap so she could stay up late to party with us
Grandma did the fishing pond for the kids....they loved it!

The kids played the clothes pin drop game

This was BRee's reaction when she missed

Kyra and aunt Caitlyn
Bree trying her woody doll's hat on
We played the candy bar game
Bree LOVED getting the gloves on


THe kids enjoyed chasing bubbles!


Of course the blow horns are always a favorite....
except for Bree, she covered her ears....she hates loud noises



It took a few attempts to get Kris to cooperate for a picture!



When Kris was a kid they had a tradition of getting pantyhose full of goodies on New Years morning.....it is a last gift from the elves. The girls were thrilled that the elves visited aunt Tysen's house so they could enjoy this tradition too.

I love the way my sister in law Caitlyn captured some of the events so this excerpt is from her blog documenting the evenings events:

The greatest New Years Eve fish fry you ever did see. Fried halibut, fried shrimp, french fries, onion rings, steak, crab, lobster tail, shrimp cocktail, and deep fried oreos. And yes, I came home 5 lbs heavier.

Mad Gab extravaganza. Where "crime suspect" became "8 grams of fat" and "We the People" was confused for "We ate people", thanks to Corbin. Never play Mad Gab without him, or you will not truly experience the hilarity that is this game. Go Team Cobras!

Another Corbintastrophe...experimenting with Chris' new soda machine. Apparently you have to tip the bottle after squirting in the CO2 before you unscrew it from the machine. Did Corbin tell me this? Nooooooooooo. So what happened? Major lemon-lime soda explosion! And had Kris not insisted on no diet soda I wouldn't have spent the rest of the night all sticky. Thanks dude. It's very unfortunate this event wasn't photographed. Apparently Kyra was laughing so hard she couldn't even talk when she went upstairs to tell everyone.

All in all it was a great way to say goodbye to 2010 in style!

Opinions

Well the opinions have started....

some people think we are crazy and can not fathom why we would do something like this......

to that I say,

if you had felt what we felt about this and about this little girl....you would do it too! There is just no denying the feelings and the hand of God in this process!

I mean why wouldn't we want more of the love that Bree has brought?

Why wouldn't we want to give this sweet little muffin hope and love and a FAMILY?!

Of course we worry about the unknowns and of course there are concerns, but one thing I found while this decision was weighing heavily on our hearts was this perspective that a father shared on my friends (I can call you that right Bethany?even though we are virtual friends?) adoption blog back when she was going through this journey. It is even titled

"Why Not?"

When Charissa came
to me and asked me, "Can we adopt a little girl
with Down Syndrome?". I didn't say anything. I just thought.

Then she said, "... there is a little girl in Ukraine that needs a family." I didn't say anything except.. mmmm.

I began to go over and over in my mind how MY life would change. How would this affect ME. What if this happened what if that happened. How would this little girl integrate into our family?

So, here is a list of questions I asked, prayed over and meditated on for several days:
- This is a huge commitment
- Will she talk, eat, walk
- What will Word of Faith folks think of me having a child with a disability
- How will my life change with this little girl
- Will my kids accept her
- Will my kids rebel
- Will my kids be safe while I am half way across the world
- Can I afford this
- and many other thoughts

Then I had this thought.. What is this little girl thinking:
- When is my daddy going to come kiss my neck and throw me in the air?
- When is my daddy going to come help me get my eyes fixed?
- When is my daddy going to help me learn how to eat, walk, talk?
- When is my daddy going to take me out of this crib and put me on his shoulders?
- When is my daddy going to hold me close at night before he puts me to bed?
- When is my daddy going to tell me he loves me?
- When is my daddy coming to get me? Why's he taking so long? I'm ready!

God defends the orphan! He will defend me and my family..

What a blessing little Ava has been in my life! I just cannot imagine life without that little girl. Jesus will increase your ability to love every child you bring into your home. He'll work miracles in your heart and in the hearts of a whole lot of other folks too.

Don't be afraid to LOVE! Love heals.

I am grateful to this father for sharing these feelings because it helped me when we were having these same questions go through our minds. And it helps me now!

Happy BIrthday Kareen!

Dear Kareen:

Today is your 4th birthday and my heart is very full! I am completely overwhelmed by the love and support you (and we) already have from family, friends, and all your "prayer warriors". I can not begin to express the amount of love we have felt in your behalf already. You are loved by so many, and you don't even know it yet! My heart is aching today as I think about how we can not be with you today on your birthday. I want so badly to be able to kiss you and hold you and let you know you are loved and that you have a family on your birthday.

Your sisters are SO excited to welcome you into our family. They want to honor you today and celebrate your birthday. We will be having cake later and they made you birthday signs that are hanging in our house.

Kyra's says this:

-I love you

-BSF=best sister forever

-I can't wait

-Your gonna have so much fun

-I'm so excited!

Adrie's says "Happy Birthday Kareen! I love you!"
They also made you birthday cards
Kyra and Adrie have been excited since the moment we showed them your picture and asked them what they thought about becoming your family. They talk about you every day and at night your dad and I will walk past their room and hear them talking about all this things you will get to do with them one day. They talk about how you may have never had a story read to you, and they are going to read them to you. They talk about what your favorite color might be, and your favorite food (Adrie asked me what kind of food they eat in "your world"), and what your favorite character and princess will be. They talk about taking you to Disneyland. They knew before we did, that you were meant to be part of our family.

When this decision of adoption was weighing heavily on our hearts, and we were trying to explain that we were still deciding and still praying to know if the Lord wanted us to take this journey, they knew they answer was yes! Adrie said to me "Mom why wouldn't Heavenly Father want you to do this?" and the night we prepared to go to the temple for answers to our prayers, Kyra looked at me and said "Mom you know the answer is going to be yes!" and through my tears I said "how do you know?" and she said "I just know!" What amazing big sisters you will have soon!

The night we told Kyra and Adrie that we were officially going to commit to adopt you, they immediately stood up and dumped out their piggy banks and made this jar for you! They wrote "Kareen's money" on it and have scowered the house and the cars for every penny they could find to put towards the cost of your adoption. They gave every penny they had and they did it happily. They have all sorts of plans to help with raising the funds to bring you home. The other day they asked if they could make bookmarks and sell them on the side of the road (in the snow). When I told them we should wait, they said "ok we can just do it when we have our lemonade stand for Kareen"

You are already teaching your sisters and family about loving unselfishly as we start this journey.

Your dad and I are so thankful for all those who prayed for you because we know that those prayers reached our hearts. Your dad left this sweet comment on Patti's blog last night as we shared our news of bringing you into our family with our friends and family.

"Patti- There aren't words to explain how much we appreciate the time and effort you have spent on behalf of our new little angel. We are so excited that our little Kareen already has so many people that love her and pray for her daily.

One thing that we pray for daily for our little Bree is that God will place friends in her life that will watch out for her and see the good that she has to offer. To see that our prayers are already being answered for our little Kareen through you and your great frineds and family is a witness of the love God has for all his children!

We are so excited to begin this new chapter in our life to bring home our little girl. We look forward to sharing our journey with good friends like you, and also look forward to a future reunion where Kareen can meet her "warriors"

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!"

Kareen, we want you to know how much we already love you and we haven't even met you yet!

Last night as I lay awake thinking about you I thought, " Is she warm? Is she healthy? Is she happy? Is she safe? Does she feel loved? " I pray every day that you are, and that Heavenly Father will protect you and will continue to bless our path to you.

Here is another birthday tribute to you at aunt Shaley's blog

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET GIRL! This is the last birthday you will have to spend alone! Your family is coming to get you!

We are Expecting....

..........A TODDLER!

We are adopting this sweet little girl from an orphanage in Eastern Europe. She is 4 years old TOMORROW! She has down syndrome and her and Bree are one month apart, so we will basically have twins! It has been an very unexpected surprise that we are on this journey, but it has been nothing short of miraculous so far, and I am sure it will only continue to be more so as we go on.

I NEVER would have guessed that we would be starting a journey like this. I started following this adorable family on their adoption journey, and then found out that this family had also traveled this road, and then I recently followed this family and I would often joke to my husband and friends and family that "if I keep reading these blogs, I am going to do this." Well I was completely joking but I now know that it was all to prepare me for this! I have wanted another baby for a long time now (we have been trying for almost 3 years) and then after my awful miscarriage last summer I was devastated and just kept wondering "why?" "what does the Lord have in store for our family right now if it is not this?" Well, little did I know that it was Kareen that he had in store for our family. The way every step of this process has unfolded so far is nothing short of a miracle and nothing short of the Lord's hand guiding our path!

I have looked at the little ones on Reece's Rainbow (an International Down syndrome orphan ministry) on and off over the last year or two, but although of course I felt bad that these children were orphans, and theoretically wished I could save them all, I never felt "drawn" to one of them, or even felt like I should pursue this for that matter......until about a month ago.

At Christmas time Reece's Rainbow does an angel tree and tries to raise funds for these angels (since the cost of international adoption is alot). So lots of my friends had links and posts about the kids on Reece's Rainbow. As I got looking at them, I started to feel like maybe I needed to pursue this. So I started looking at what the process really entails and reading more details about others journeys. I started to look at individual kids and tried to feel "drawn" to certain ones. To tell you the truth, because I want another baby, I tried really hard to be "drawn" to a baby and it just didn't happen . As Kris and I were looking over the website one night, he actually saw Kareen and we noticed how close in age she was to Bree...only one month apart. But we kept browsing and that was that. But soon after that I came upon Lily's blog and out of the goodness of her heart, this amazing woman was doing fundraising for two angels on Reece's Rainbow, Olga and Kareen, and as I scrolled down the page Kareen's face came on my screen and I was completely overcome with emotion! I was sobbing and I thought "Oh my goodness, I think she might be mine!" Of course I kindof freaked out because I wasn't looking for this, I wasn't looking to adopt, and so I tried to move on..... but I could not think about one other thing! Kareen completely consumed me and my thoughts...day and night! From then on everytime I saw her picture I cried and even when I really thought about her I cried, and then I started picturing her with my other girls and it fit. But it was still scary, there were (and are) so many unknowns. Well after MANY hours of prayer, fasting, and soul searching. Kris and I knew that we were supposed to do this! Kareen was supposed to be part of our family! We both admitted that we had been dragging our feet a little because we were scared and we knew the easier answer would have been no, but we knew that we could not deny the incredible feelings we had felt about this little girl. The last few weeks as I have been deciding this and pondering, I have felt closer to the Lord's spirit than I can even explain. I KNOW he has led us to this girl and that we are meant to be her forever family!!

I am very grateful for the answers I have received to prayer and I am grateful to be embarking on this journey. I can all ready tell it is going to be amazing!

Cox gift exchange

Bree got a retro record player....so cute! We totally had this when I was little!
Adrie got a LaLaLoopsy doll
And grandma gave everyone personalized towels for summer swimming at her house
Adrie had wrapped her present for Ellie all by herself...so cute!

Kyra got a LaLaLoopsy doll too!

Mazie and Ellie came home with us for a sleepover and the girls had a GREAT time doing shows!