One of the greatest blessings of building our family has been watching the kids build relationships, come to love each other and claim each other as siblings.

This picture is from last night and is of Nathan and Mercy. Nathan was our first child, and was our oldest child, until we adopted Mercy and her sister, Des. Mercy is a year older than Nathan. Her and Des came to us three years ago, when Mercy was nine years old, Nathan was eight and Des was six. Many "experts" would have strongly discouraged us from adopting these two girls (and in fact we were discouraged by several... more

Today I am continuing on with answering transracial adoption questions from some of my blog readers. You can go on over to this post and leave a question of your own if you have one you would like to ask or if you have a topic you would like me to write about.

The question I am going to answer today is:

I now see the AA Santa's, AA Nativity sets, etc. How do you balance the holidays?

First off, while the holidays may seem a world away right now as we prepare for back to school and are cramming in a few more weekends at the lake, reality is that the holidays... more

Another one of the questions that was left on my blog last week was this one:

Any (very kind) witty remarks to keep up my sleeve for the busy bodies at the grocery store?

Becoming a transracial family is becoming a "highly visible" family. While in some areas and in some places and situations your family may blend in to some degree, chances are that no matter where you live, as a transracial adoptive family, your family is going to get some extra attention when you are out and about.

A lot of the attention my family gets is positive. A lot of people stop to tell us that our kids are beautiful or something like that. However we also get our... more

There seems to be a prevalent habit amongst the general public of labeling anyone who lives their life outside of the narrow-minded guidelines of "normal", as "crazy".

You have more than three kids? You must be crazy.

You are adopting internationally? You must be crazy.

You chose to have a transracial family? You must be crazy.

You are adopting more than once? You must be crazy.

You adopted three kids in one year? You are crazy.

You adopted a child with HIV? You really are crazy.

You have 10... more

The letter "S" is for siblings in this post of my Transracial Adoption ABCs.

Siblings - There is lots to think about when it comes to siblings and adoption.

Are you open to adopting siblings? Sibling groups are often the hardest to place, because many adoptive parents do not want more than one new child at a time, however it has been shown that siblings often do better with their adjustment than single children because they have each other as a "constant" in their lives.

From a child's point of view, being... more

I am going to take a break today from the Transracial Adoption ABCs and write a bit about being a transracial adoptive family out in public.

My family just spent an amazing week in Florida on my daughter’s Make A Wish trip. We left the small, quiet town where we live, and where just about everyone knows us, and ventured... more

Now I am going to write about the fourth article in a series on transracial adoption from the Salt Lake Tribune.

This article is titled, “Race, culture challenging, but not real barrier for adoptive parents’ love”.

I have to say that right off, I liked the title. It sort of sums up the way I feel about transracial adoption…Yes, there are issues. Yes, they can be difficult and challenging and should not be overlooked. But, those issues are not big enough for me to decide not to love that child, not to choose to parent that child or not to build my family this way.

Moving on… I... more

I am going to take a break from all of my writing about adoption barriers and concerns, and share something a little bit more light-hearted for this post.

Today was one of those busy busy days...making appointments, boosting kids in and out of the van repeatedly and the seemingly endless process of buckling and unbuckling carseats.

I used to be able to run errands without calling any attention to myself. I could blend right into the crowd, and get in and out of the stores, doctor offices, etc. without standing out in any way. Once we became a transracial... more

Continued...

So Josh decided to go and say something. He said hi, introduced himself and apologized for staring, and told them that their family was beautiful. Then he explained that he was usually the one being stared AT, not the one doing the staring, and he told them about our family.

Turns out they had a great conversation…This family has nine kids, including several from Haiti and one from a domestic adoption, along with their biological kids. They were thrilled to hear about our family, and they talked with Josh about raising transracial families in small country areas, different... more

As the mom of a large transracial family, I often write about our experiences being “out and about” and how conspicuous we are and the attention (both positive and negative) that we receive. We get nice comments, we get rude comments and we get down right silly ones…

Case in point…yesterday, I took all of the kids to dinner by myself. As I carried my two trays of happy meals back to the play room, a mom looked at me and said, “Birthday party?” I said, “Nope…just my family.”(and smiled at her politely.) She got this bewildered look and said, “oh…that’s nice… I guess.” And she didn’t smile…it was more like a sneer.

Whatever. (Later on she did comment nicely that my 10 kids were... more