John and Christine plus....

Everyone you ask would agree that we jumped into life together way too fast and haven't slowed down since. It began with our 2 months of dating before eloping on Decemeber 30,1993.

In May 1995, we had our first child Adam.

Just seventeen months later we had Caleb in 1996-- our only child we found out the sex of.

Eight months after that we were expecting our first girl though we did not know it at the time.

By December 1999 we had four children just six years into our marriage.

Between William and Andrew I miscarried very early in the pregnancy. But praise the Lord because we were blessed with another beautiful boy in February 2002.

In October 2003 we had our last biological child-- sweet little Jonny.

At first we thought we were done with our family-- but God changed our hearts when we saw the devastation caused by the Asian Tsunamis in December 2004. That is when God opened our hearts to adoption and we welcomed Anna and Sveta home from Russia in September 2005.

Realizing that not all adoptive families are able to parent their adopted children (for whatever reasons), we opened our hearts to our daughter Annalyn in August 2006 by adopting from a dissolved adoption.

Here are the eleven of us at Disneyland!

In February 2007 we provided respite for a girl for one week. After not seeing her for nearly four months because she went back to her previous family, we welcomed her back into our home-- forever! In November 2007 Rachel officially became our daughter.

In July 2008, God amazed and blessed us all with Dennis (just 22 months old) who was just a baby at the time. With seven surgeries in one year he showed us a thing or two about strength and courage.

In August 2009, we went back to the same exact orphanage we adopted Dennis from and brought home Alex. Even before he learned to walk, Alex had me chasing him!

Since we were on a roll, we welcomed Paul and Anastasia this past summer in July 2010. Even though they were our oldest children at the time of their adoption they have transitioned into our family with the greatest of ease (after the initial week).

In December, John and I agreed to take in Galina-- just for respite. After being in our home for three weeks, we learned that her previous family had come to the decision to find a permanent, new family for her.

Just a few days ago, John and I decided that we would be that family.

And so as Annalyn called it--- we are now going to be John and Christine plus fifteen!