Please contact us at jolin4utopia@yahoo.com if you have any questions.
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| | Gabe with his birth sister. Our sincere desire is to raise happy, well adjusted children and we want them to know where they came from, to know and love their birth families. Our relationships with each of the children's birth families is so different because we mutually figure out an agreement that works for all of us. |
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Auntie at the Zoo
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My face-book is full of family, all our families, which includes our kids birth families and some of their friends (who want to watch the children grow up).
Some of the children' s birth-families have adopted our family just as we adopted a child from their family. On the other hand, some of them only want pictures and infrequent visits, while others are open adoptions but they choose not to have contact. We want an open adoption but ultimately the choice is always yours.
We are surrounded by a HUGE, LOVING, and DEVOTED extended family. Just to give you an idea, we have 8 actively involved grandparents. It is not hard to keep up with all of our family, it is fun. Also within our families there are 24 children that are ADOPTED.... including our children. We have a vast amount of support, experience and love.
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Gabe's birth Grandpa came with me while Gabe had his surgery. I really needed him there and was grateful for his support. |
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| Gabriel's birth Grandpa gave all the kids matching elf pajamas . |
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Grandpa (Jolin's dad) giving Isaac loves.
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Over at Grandpa Choo Choo's (birth Grandpa) house, Gabe was learning to walk, while Uncle John (birth uncle) was encouraging him along. It was neat how his birth Mom could see his first steps.
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| Gracie and Caleb's birth Grandpa..... was helping Gabriel ride a miniature horse at their farm (they live 3 hours away). |
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| Hay ride at the farm |
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| Gracie and Caleb's birth Grandpa, giving Isaac and Gabe a wagon ride. I love how they treat all the children as their grand children, they even put all of the children's pictures on their family wall. |
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| Caleb's first egg that he cracked was at his birth Grandparents house, his look is priceless. |
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| Before we adopted her, Gracie lived on their farm with her birth-Mom. She lived there when they got these chickens as baby chicks. Gracie remembers bringing home the chicks with Grandma. Now she gets to go back and see them all grown up and help collect the eggs. |
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| Caleb's birth Grandpa was getting dressed in his nice clothes so he could visit a friend who was sick. Caleb changed into his nice clothes, he wanted to go help the friend too, he was so sweet. |
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| On the day of Gracie and Gabriel's adoption we were lucky enough to have both my parents there and.... they traveled 6 hours via plane to be there. |
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| Gracie and Caleb's birth Grandparents too. They traveled 6 hours via car to be there. |
Two years ago we decided to start having family camp, this has a spiritual theme and the goal is to strengthen our children and help them better realize their potential.
For the first family camp we got to share it with Gracie and Caleb's birth family. It was amazing. Everyone got a specific assignment, their birth Mom make the shoes, Aunt Bernie made the shield, Grandpa made the swords, Grandma made the aprons (which we still use today) and I made the headbands.
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| Alisia donning her gear. |
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| Grandpa was working on his sculpture while we were there, he let the kids "pretend" to work on it. He also showed them some woodworking tricks. |
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| The finished art!!!! Wow |
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This is Poppy, Gabriel's birth Grandpa, after seeing him for the first time, I would say it was love at first sight lol.
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