Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 79 Stephen and Amanda Miller

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

This week on Couple Things, we got to chat with power couple Stephen and Amanda Miller! We dive into marriage, family, and adoption with these two beautiful souls. Join us for an amazing and powerful conversation! Here are the topics that we cover: 0:00 introduction 7:29 what it was like jumping into parenting 8:15 the journey of becoming pregnant as teenagers 21:15 what fears did you have going into adopting? 25:27 what type of parents would do well with adoption? 28:58 how do you deal with the identity of all your children? 33:06 how do you keep the identity in your relationship with 7 kids? 38:42 the importance of reminding yourselves why you fell in love 40:31 how did you get into youtube? 46:50 why they didn’t do youtube from the start 51:35 advice for adoption and parenting 55:35 lessons from Lincoln's brain surgery 59:20 best piece of advice You can follow the Millers on Instagram here ▶ https://www.instagram.com/THEMILLERFAM/ The Miller Family's website is linked here ▶ https://www.themillerfam.co ANDD....WE ARE GOING ON TOUR!! Check out the link below to see if we are coming to a city near you in 2022! Click here to get your tickets now ▶ https://www.couplethingspod.com/ We are sponsored by these companies that we love. Check them out below:  ZOLA ▶ ZOLA.com/couplethings promo code: SAVE50 UPSTART ▶ upstart.com/EastFam Don’t forget to use our URL to let them know we sent you! SLING ▶ Go to sling.com/EastFam to sign up now and get your first month for just $10!  If you haven’t yet, please rate Couple Things and subscribe to hear more. Follow us on Instagram to keep the conversation going at https://www.instagram.com/couplething... And if you have suggestions/recommendations for the show, send us your ideas in a video format – we might just choose yours! Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe for more! http://bit.ly/3rnOdNo Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Twitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/ShawnJohnson Snapchat! ▶ @ShawneyJ Follow AndrewsTwitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/AndrewDEast Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Snapchat! ▶ @AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Rona Week, now until Wednesday. Rain or shine, you can always be building yourself a better summer. So head on over to Rona and save 35% on cans of 3.78 liter Rona interior paint. Give that room you keep saying needs a fresh coat of paint, a fresh coat of paint. Build it right, build it Rona. Conditions apply, details in store, and more offers at rona.ca. We sell buckets too. presence is the most important thing and the same with marriage too giving my children the honor of my eyes

instead of the you know the top of my head looking down at a phone that's a really big struggle but I think that that would cover a whole gamut of things what's up everybody welcome back to couple things with Sean and Andrew a podcast all about couples and the things they go through Today we have a treat for you. We have Stephen and Amanda Miller. That's right. Family of nine. Miller, party of nine coming at you.

So seven kids, both biological and adopted. Yes. Their story is amazing. Yeah, it just, we're only a family of four. I don't know how they do it. We have so much to learn from them. Imagine even trying to get restaurant reservation. No.

Bonkers. It is. We were fortunate enough. They recently moved to Nashville, so we did this episode in person. which is always a rare treat. We had them over for lunch, then we sat down with them. And boy, I did I enjoy getting to know them. They had such cool perspective on the meaning of family

and how it all blends together and just hearing about each and every one of their kids. It was just really cool. I feel like we have a lot to learn. Anyway, so thank you, Stephen and Amanda, for joining us. It was a true pleasure, and we're excited to see our friendship grow. If you want to find out about the Miller family, we'll link all their information down below.

and we got to do a comment of the week, one second. So today's comment of the week comes from last week's episode. There's a lot of people who were excited about the Phil Donahue, Marlowe, Thomas interview. Rightfully so. I'm still geek that we got that to happen. But let's see. Colbatan says fantastic interview.

Love Phil Donahue and Marlowe. Valerie says, oh my gosh, such a beautiful episode, full of wisdom. I loved it. And then Dan says, Sean, you look amazing, your great mom, daughter, and overall person. and he says that I'm also a lucky guy so thank you for the thank you for the reminder that is actually what a pleasant

derivative effect of social media in my life where I am so often reminded of how lucky I am to be married and in a relationship with you I will say I am reminded on the daily as well is that right there are girls just they just want you not kidding the amount of times I get asked

if you have a single brother I do you don't Almost, pretty much. You don't. Are we counting dating? Okay. Well, this is a debate for another time. Anyway, we always enjoy seeing your feedback.

Thank you so much for being consistent listeners. And we love having you around. So keep it up. And before we get started, if you haven't, please subscribe to the show, whether you're listening on YouTube or on podcasts, and give it a rating. We love seeing it. So let's get to it with Stephen and Amanda Miller, shall we? Let's do it.

Well, first of all, it's an honor to meet both of you. Same. Thanks for having us. Thanks for coming. I feel like you're one of the first people in person that we've had in... Oh, that's so cool. A year. It's so weird to think about that, yeah.

So crazy. Wow. Which is even we're mixing worlds because we literally got COVID tested 10 minutes for you guys, like, arrived. Oh, wow. That is a good thing or bad. Like, we might have COVID. It's just blending. No.

I don't know what the... We got COVID tested. Yeah. We have something to tell you. You're hanging out here for us for the next two weeks. I'm curious. I just watched on your channel, Stephen. You guys went to Disneyland?

Universal. Even better. The Harry Potter World. Yeah. Harry Potter World. It was amazing. Loved it. Harry Potter World changed my life.

Isn't it incredible? I'm still waiting for my acceptance letter from the owl. I'm not kidding. That's my dream of life. That would have been. So everybody else is. Have you watched the movies? Wait, hang on a second.

You don't have been to Universal. No, no. No, no. Dude. Yeah. Okay. We all just got. because I was about to

I said we've watched it start to finish like four times. Yeah, I've seen it. There's an owl, babe, in the movie. Okay, fair. Okay.

And now I'm on board. I'm just catching up. Okay. My point in bringing that up was the whole time you did a British accent. Yes. Can you just give us a run through

of what that sounds like? Well, basically, I mean, I've got a lot of friends in the world who are not from America. And apparently I've got quite a muddled accent. It's a bit of an amalgamation of all the different areas and regions in the UK and it sounds a bit like a London cockney accent but it's not quite that either because

there are some like northern regions and things like that and so it you know it's a little crazy it's pretty good dude I think it's crazy and like the comments and the YouTube are like kind of mixed reviews like good it's not always sound like you crazy bloke I thought I was picking up some Irish at some point during the video yeah you know it depends because like sometimes like northern England sounds a bit like Ireland or Scotland or Australia Right, right, right. What a tough thing about.

I said glasses in the video and they were like, oh, that's definitely like more like Irish or North. It's actually glasses. I would love to hear the story of how you two first met. I don't know if he was using the accent Amanda or not. I know the first date was prom. Do I have that?

Yeah. Yeah, good. You've got homework, man. Yeah. I'm impressed. Yeah, we met in high school. We were high school, sweetheart. So he's two years older than me.

So it was his senior year. And I was a sophomore. And I was just sitting in the lunchroom hanging out with friends. And he really abruptly just sat down next to me. He said, My dude. Hey, I'm Stephen. And I was like, oh, nice to meet you.

And you guys are how old in high school? So I was 15 at the time. 15 and 17. Yeah. Got to turning. So kids. So sophomore? Sophomore and senior.

Okay. Yeah. So I was about to turn. Well. I wasn't quite about to turn it because it was the fall. I really like sort of pursued her the whole fall and asked her to go to a play with me. And she was like, yeah, sure. And so then I called her one night.

I didn't know he thought it would be a date. Hey, I'm on your street ready to pick you up. And she's like, for what? I thought he had said like a group of us are going to go, would you want to? And I was like, oh, yeah, maybe. And then I had different expectations. I ended up babysitting that night. I felt terrible.

And he thought it was going to be like this first date. and I had no idea, so. So I was kind of like, she's not interested. Yeah. But I kept on keeping it on. My dude. Yeah.

That's the way to do it. Yeah. I knew you were interested when you asked me to prom, though, so. Yeah. April 30th was our dating anniversary where officially became boyfriend and girlfriend. I gave her a note that said check yes or no. You remember your dating anniversary? Is it, man?

Well, it was a week after prom. Oh, I got you. Yeah. Well, and it's high school. It's high school. It's high school. It's right. Remember our dating anniversary?

I do not. June, CMA Fest, that's all I know. CMA Fest. But again, everything in high school is like, it's a huge deal. She's my first girlfriend. So it's like, really for me, like, ooh, this is amazing. Yeah. Which still, I mean, it's still amazing.

Wait, so married now, how many years? 18 years on May 17th. Yeah, amazing. How far your hair's come too, Stephen? I was looking at that prom picture from back in the day. The spiky hair. Oh, my gosh. Madman is really what changed the game on my hair,

because they started doing the little comb thing. I was like, I had when I was a child, but I'm going to give it a shot again. You know, it's a little of both worlds now. You've been in the parenting game a while. You kind of just jumped right in.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Can you talk about that? Yeah. Well, so we didn't necessarily plan on becoming parents as young as we did. And honestly, it was really scary for us at first.

So we had a lot of questions like, how are we going to do this? And are we going to be okay? I just, looking back, I remember just having a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety. And honestly, our daughter is literally one of the greatest blessings ever. I mean, it just completely changed the course of our lives. And looking back, I wish I could like, you know, give myself a hug back then because I was just so scared. But being parents is just like literally one of the greatest blessings on earth.

Now, if you don't mind, so we have covered every topic within our relationship. world you got pregnant when you were 17 17 yeah and what goes through your minds as you're dating as 17 and 19 year olds how how do you tell your parents what goes through your minds do you immediately talk about marriage like how was it that you kind of got through that milestone to your beautiful baby girl yeah I think we first were a little nervous that my dad was going to kill see that I was good I was pretty sure so kind of story goes like she was at my apartment she was working for me at the time actually which is probably a big no-no but none of them is yeah she went home not feeling well and I smelled the pizza sauce and I was like oh go to my apartment you can just hang up there so you know she says hey you should pick up a pregnancy test on the way home so I'm like okay oh dude that's that's scary but okay so I go into the you know HB which is the grocery store there okay I'm sorry I just have to start real quick 19 your reaction is like that's scary that's scary but okay well sure yeah so so i go up to the the register was like yeah you know my wife is uh

feeling not so you know i'm gonna pick up and the guy just like yeah so i go home i'm like here i got to go to i got to go to class you know call me if you need anything yeah he was going to be late for his night class so he didn't even stick around i had to get a class i'll just take this and let you know she calls me as i'm pulling in to the campus and she's like you need to come home you know you Turned speed as fast as I can back to the apartment. Yeah. And we just kind of cried and, and we're like, well, we got to go tell your parents. I mean, it was that night we told them.

Yeah. And they were out at the barn and we walked up and we didn't even have to say anything. Because we never really hung out out at my parents' house. It was always kind of over at his apartment. And so I think they kind of knew when we walked up early in the evening like, okay, they want to talk about something. Well, I don't know if cursing is allowed on the podcast. to go for it her dad goes oh shit

he's the first thing he knew he knew he knew you know and her and her mom knew immediately she starts crying she just goes straight to Amanda gives me a big hug gives her a big hug and they compose themselves and he looks up and says well one thing's for sure you're keeping the baby wow I was really I was really nervous about what their reaction would be because I knew my parents were really supportive but until you're in that moment and you are facing something you never thought that you would have to face like there's just all these scenarios that go through your mind and so it was really reassuring to see my parents really just wrap their arms around us and be so supportive and

encouraging and my first job like I mean my first real job I was running a pizza shop I was running a snow cone stand before that like I was going to be a famous musician you know that's kind of my plan he's like let me give you a real job you know so he sort of taught me to be a man my dad wasn't really in my life and and so he kind of became my dad which is you're so grateful the famous musician the famous musician thing like you're not a famous musician well i mean i mean he basically told me when we were dating he said i defy you and try to marry my daughter and be a musician like he had been a musician he had been a musician for years and just knew how hard it was if he was like you know he was you need a backup plan

player for Willie Nelson. Oh, what the kind of done the whole deal. Sick. Yeah. And he was just like, you know, you're going to ruin your life if you do this. And I'm like, it's a different kind of music. He came around since then, but. There's something.

I feel like a parallel you can make between when you pick up a pregnancy test and you're waiting to find out whether you're pregnant or not, it's similar to, except on the opposite of the spectrum of like buying a lottery ticket. Like you get all these thoughts of like, oh my God. Well, this is the, this is going to. change my life. This is great. But with pregnancy, it's like, oh my gosh. Yeah. How is this going to change my life? Everything. Yeah. What is it about parenting that like the first child is just like so daunting. There is an anxiety. I think it's the unknowns. You know, there's just so many questions and you've

never done it before. So I think there is naturally a lot of anxiety to it. And for us being so young, I think added another layer to it. So I mean, we yeah, I'm just so glad, honestly, looking back, I'm like, I'm so glad that we did have our kids really young. Obviously, we were still having kids, like, you know. Yeah. Well, it's funny because we had one and I was like, man, this is great. Like, I'm going to be, yeah, 38 empty nester. As though we weren't going to have any more kids, you know.

And then we got pregnant with number two. And I was like, but I kind of just wanted one. And Amanda's like, well, you better get used to it because we're going to have more than what you've got already got two. Yeah. I'm like, okay, fine. I just, yeah, one day he said, like, I think I'm really good with a. like one kid and I was pregnant with her second one at the time I was like we've got a second one on the way you might as well say too oh my so I was like but still 40 you know I'll be 40

empty nestor you know yeah and now you're gonna be an empty nestor at how old well it depends yeah we're having conversation okay I've got a lot of questions before we do that can you roadmap like how many kids seven kids seven kids and their ages and kind of how they played out real quick. Yeah. Yeah. Ages 17, 15, 15, 15, 14, 13, 7, and 5. Yes. Okay. So, do you want to take that? Yeah. So our daughters, our two biological daughters, are about two and a half years apart. Okay. Yeah. And 17 and 15. 17 and 15. Yeah. And when they were about seven and five, we had really been looking into the adoption process. And we had gone through like foster care training and that kind of thing. And so ended up just pursuing adoption and adopted our two oldest sons from Ethiopia.

And they were sibling groups. So they were five and three at the time. And so they're all kind of close in age. And when they had been home for a couple of years, we ended up having our son, Ethan, who's a biological son. Found out you're pregnant with them. Yeah. I actually got really sick. I had several miscarriages and just had a lot of health problems.

Yeah. What is the M-T-H-F-R? And so that was causing a lot of miscarriages and just a lot of health problems. But I ended up getting a diagnosis for that and was able to get on the right supplements. And at the same time as the diagnosis, I found out I was already pregnant with our son. So that was really amazing because I probably would have miscarried him if I hadn't gotten that diagnosis at that time. So we call him our miracle baby. And he was number five.

He's number five. But that's Hurricane Ethan. Hurricane Ethan. We named him Ethan after a worship leader. in the Psalms, of course, because I'm a worship leader. Love it. And his name means faithfulness. It talks about the faithfulness of God.

And so we felt like that was pretty fitting. Plus also Mission Impossible. Yeah. And then when he was about three years old, we were kind of evaluating, like, are we done? Do we want to have any more kids? And by now you are 22, 23 years old? At that point, I was 30. Okay.

Something. Yeah. Three. Dang. 30. Yeah. Yeah. This is 2017.

Yeah. Well, 2016, I guess. Because the kids have been home for three years. But Ethan was three. And so we were talking about that. We were like, you know, if we were going to have any more kids, we'd probably like to adopt again. Because there's just such a need. And when we brought our sons home from Ethiopia, it was just such an eye-opening experience.

And so we really felt like that would be the right choice for our family. And we were actually looking into all. older child adoption because we knew that there was a lot of amazing kids that don't get adopted because they're older. And so we were looking into adopting an older child from China. We had a lot of friends who had adopted from China and so felt like that might be a good fit for our family. So we were matched with our daughter, Penelope, who's right there in between Reese and Kira. And so they're very close in age. And so we were about halfway through that process. And there was a lot of reasons for this. But I really felt like we were supposed to

So adopt two children. And I was like, I'm not really feeling about. He was nervous. Because when it came to time to adopt, I was like, babe, we're great. We've got room for one more in our suburban. Yeah. We're good to go. Like, we've got room, you know, in our house for another kid.

Like, we can do this, you know. And so this was changing the game. We were going to have to get a bigger vehicle. As you guys saw the van outside, that's the other van. It's a sick van called the party wagon. Hey, you had one growing up. Yeah, you know, but there's his next level. I am.

It's very mullet-like in nature. It's like party, you know, partying the back, business in the front. It's just kind of got, you know that like we picked that van because it gets the job done without maybe you putting like devious purposes onto our intention or something like that. You know, like we're not going to take your kid to anything but soccer park. Does you also have a sound barrier between the adult seats in the back? We need to do that. Oh my gosh.

That's a good idea. Yeah. So I was really thinking that we were supposed to bring home to children. I was having dreams about it. We were having all these weird encounters with other people. It was just, it felt very apparent to me, but he was like, I really need to pray about this. And at the time for China adoptions, you could only adopt two unrelated children on a case-by-case basis. So you needed approval from your agency, and you needed approval from the Chinese government.

And so we asked our agency, hey, what would that look like? And they said, well, you know, we would need to do like a lot more training. evaluation we need to make sure they wanted to do like a mental test yeah which you'd think they would have done that for one child yeah yeah even more deep dive and make sure we're not yeah they ended up saying after like a lot of training and kind of jumping through some hoops that if the chinese government approved our family that they would approve us as well and so that actually took several months of kind of waiting and not hearing back and I was thinking okay they they're going to tell us no and I remember one evening we were getting ready to go to dinner

with some friends and I just had this sinking feeling. I was like, why did I feel so sure that we were supposed to bring home two children? And I was like, that's it. You know, I just, I don't feel like I need to hope for this anymore. We haven't heard anything back. And I was standing in my bathroom crying while I'm brushing my hair and he has his phone open and he gets a ding and it was literally an email, an email coming in from our agency. And they said, China said yes. So that was our, that was our sign. You said like, if, if this. They say yes, and our agency says yes, then that will be our sign that we're supposed to bring home.

That's kind of it. I was like, man, I'm still not, like, getting a lot of clarity on this thing, but, like, here's what I know. Our agency will probably say no. China will probably say no. So both of them saying, yes, you know what was supposed to happen. And that's your son, your youngest son. Our youngest son, Lincoln.

And our second oldest daughter now. So we adopted Penelope and Lincoln at the same time. They're 12 and 2 when we adopted them. Now they're 15 and 5, so. So you went from, like, not hearing anything. to like okay you got approved and then you got two more kids who join how quickly after that because that's i mean it was like six months after was december that we got to go ahead and then it was august when we traveled to get them so yeah that's right pretty wild let's

take a quick break okay can i dive in because i i really was i have so many questions it's your show babe so you got it okay we've had so many people ask about adoption yeah It's something that I love. And I think there's so many fears about blending families, about bringing home not an infant, but like an older kid, especially when you have a preexisting family. You had your first baby when you're 17, 18, probably. And then all of a sudden you're like, we want this family. We want this very large family. And you dove in head first.

What fears did you face in adopting your first two? and then five down the road adopting Penelope and bringing in, you know, an older, like what, how is that dynamic and what were those conversations like? I think we were pretty prepared, as prepared as you can be, but I really do believe whenever we were younger and we adopted from Ethiopia, we always talk about how we had this sort of naive courage that comes from like not having the crud kicked out of you enough in life yet. Not really experiencing those challenges, knowing that there's going to be challenges, but not really. so like I think that sort of protected us a lot when we were adopting them and they're when you adopt all adoption starts with loss so like they've experienced a world of loss they've lost their family they've lost their birth culture if they're if you're adopting internationally all those kinds of things and so it's very difficult starts with loss yeah you know and so there's something really beautiful about it but it also is a very broken thing that like we're Christians so like we're Christians so like we're

Like, the original design of, like, creation was not that there would be orphans, you know. Right. Kids would be in families, you know? Yeah. And so this is sort of a redeeming of that brokenness in a way that is going to come with cost, it's going to come with pain, it's going to come with heartache, sacrifice, all those things. And I think as those children come into your home, both worlds colliding in those ways, there's a lot of pain.

It's beautiful and very hard at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. When you, um, when you bring children into your home. you're agreeing to step into their suffering. And so that's one thing I think we were a little naive about, like you go through a lot of adoption training to kind of prepare you, you know, what to expect.

But seeing children grieve firsthand is really heartbreaking. And just coping mechanisms for the trauma that they've been through. And, you know, every-old-lasting. Every child has a different story. So, you know, it can be challenging. But at the same time, it's so beautiful to see our children blossoming and just the strength. and the resiliency that they have to overcome the things they've been through.

When you first said stepping into their suffering, my first thought was like, oh, well, is that like, you know, consoling somebody for a week, like after a loss? But I feel like it is 10 years, years where you're in that process. 10 years and we still have conversations with them. Wow. And questions. And as they grow older, you know, that looks different for them. So the ways that they were grieving when they first came home,

us really scared children they had we were dealing with malnutrition and you know bonding issues and that kind of thing a lot of that kind of resolved but you know as they're older there's a lot of questions of like you know why did that happen to me or why did that have to happen or who am i you know that kind of stuff so you shared the story about how jude and liam had never seen ice yeah before you gave them like apple juice and it's like i i've recently been fortunate to have a mentor who's like just trying to get me to in some ways to sounds like a hype man but he he's like he's like dude you need to kind of believe in yourself or essentially like believe that god made you for a purpose like it's kind of where it all starts

is that understanding yeah and i and that is not i don't think uh frequently occurring in situations where there's adoption i think you know that aspect of of loss with those with those kids the understanding that god loves me i'm here for purpose yeah yeah and gosh i have all the advantages working my favor and i still couldn't understand that how much more difficult is it for but what what type of families would you say or parents do well with adoption or what qualities or uh i would say you need to be very flexible and hold loosely to plans because that's a big one there like you you know when your children come home a lot of times you you have an idea of what your child's going to be like and while you're waiting for them to come

home similar to when you have a child biologically you're kind of dreaming of like what they're personality might be like and you know when you bring your children home a lot of it's like they're their own person you know and so especially with older child adoption yeah very much so i think when we adopted penelope i don't know that any any amount of preparation can really get you ready for adopting a teenager essentially she was almost a teen yeah and a teenage girl yeah i remember myself when i was 15 is yes yeah lord help my mom yeah yeah yeah so i think there the beauty of adopting internationally is that you have to slow down to communicate so you can't be quite as reactive but this is one of the best things i think happened whenever we adopted penelope

is that she was a ball of emotion as were we and it's so easy whenever you don't really know why there's tension here why are we fighting why are you angry you know with our with our biological children we can maybe react a lot more on the fly and not be as intentional with our words but when you're using a dadgum translator app yeah you have to talk so slowly and so intentionally and think about every single word because you know that i mean one funny story is one night penelope was really hungry and she just wanted to eat something and we'd had kind of a big skirmish i guess we didn't really know what it was about but by the end of it i was like hey so we cool like what do you want to eat for dinner let's go eat something for dinner and she talks into the translator app and it

tells me i want to eat the flesh of a bull killed in the fight yeah and i was like what the and that was steak you want some steak yeah she wanted steak and that's how it's how apps you know translation apps are so accurate it's amazing i mean i guess technically that's steak you know yeah so we would have those things where you know if if we're just saying something in the heat of the moment it probably would have deteriorated a lot more quickly. But you're having to really slow down, slow your heartbeat. Be very intentional. And be so intentional.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's just a big thing is intentional parenting. They're kids. And so you're going to obviously, you know, parent them the way that you parent adopted children a lot of times, you just have to be so much more intentional and understand that a lot of times the behaviors that you're seeing, you know, there's something underlying there, you know. And so they might have a reaction that you don't understand.

but it's generally from someplace, you know, previously that came from trauma or something difficult that they've been through. And so just keeping a very open mind, being very intentional, is really important. Listening. Listening a lot more than you talk. Yeah. Which as a parent, your temptation is to be talking. Yeah.

You think that if you tell your children like, well, this is how it's supposed to be or this is how we treat our siblings or this is how we, you know, talk to each other. But a lot of times just kind of hearing their heart, you know, is so much more important, and then they feel safe and they feel loved, and then they can share with you more openly. Kind of two sides to this question. I want to start with the kids is identity. How do you deal with the identity of your children when half are biological,

half are adopted, half the adopted side bringing in that weight of loss and the questions year after year, even when they're in their teens? And how do you deal with helping each little kid find them? themselves within your family, but still have such different upbringings. Do you want to take that? I mean, it's a big one. I think something that we, we're very intentional about celebrating their birth culture and their heritage.

And so we celebrate Chinese New Year. We celebrate the Mid-Ottom Moon Festival. We celebrate all these things. I mean, Ethiopian New Year, all these, we try to eat their food. I mean, the boys don't really love Ethiopian food as much, but Penelope is so hardcore. Chinese school. So even with Penelope, we try to go back to China every two years, partly because we want to champion that in her, but also because we actually signed a contract with her when we adopted her that we would let her go back and visit her friends every two years. So that was fun.

She was a little negotiator whenever we were. Yeah, it's so different when you adopt older children and they can, you know, kind of tell you like what they need and what they want and that kind of thing. But she's very connected to her birth culture. And we want that to be true for all of our kids. So celebrating that in any way we can, whether that's, you know, food or holidays or, you know, resources, books and that kind of thing. Just it's very important that they know that they can be very proud of where they came from and that their birth culture is very beautiful. And they, you know, they can celebrate both. They can be, you know, Americans and they can be Ethiopian. They can be American and Chinese and that that's a beautiful thing.

And sort of back to what you were saying earlier about your, sure. That's deep, Amanda. Yeah, hold on that, like, that should apply for so many more people than it does, like, understanding beyond culture, but like, hey, I can actually, I don't know, like, the election just got me thinking about it. I can be a Republican, but also still like, I don't know, it's interesting that understanding. There's such a divide of, yeah. There's so much more room for nuance in the world than we allow. Yeah. And I wish that we didn't take everything to extremes for no reason.

It doesn't help anybody. It sells well, though. It sells well. It really does. I'm curious what you guys' pantry looks like just between the... Yeah, goodness. What grocery stores you go to is.

There is a lot of... Grocery stuff is crazy. And especially now that we have five teenagers, like... Yeah. It's intense. Then going to another side real quick, the identity of you guys and your relationship and your marriage.

Yeah. Seven kids. I mean, our daughter alone. own has challenged our relationship, has challenged our bond, our time for each other, the prioritizing of marriage before kids. You guys have seven, all with their own little worlds of challenges and how do you keep the identity of you guys when it's two against seven? I think we have learned a lot of things over the years how not to do it.

Yeah, that's for sure. And I would say that we've had seasons where we did it really well and seasons where we really struggled. And a lot of times, like earlier on after like bringing home a child or a couple of children or even having a baby, like it can be harder because you don't have as much time for each other. And you're really trying to pour into the new kids or, you know, child. And so that can be really challenging. And we've seen times where we kind of let that slip and we weren't being as intentional, you know, with our time together. And I would say in this season has been really sweet and really good because I think we've been through enough ups and downs that we've kind of started to grasp like what we really need as a couple to stay really strong and really prioritizing that, making sure that that is first because, you know, it is so easy to get kind of sucked into all the distractions or just pouring into the kids that it can take, you know, a back seat and then that's not good, you know, because it's so important for our kids to see that mom's healthy, dad's healthy, and that they have a strong. marriage so that's one of the best gifts you can give your kids especially if you have adopted children

to see a stability in their parents marriage what can happen that's super unfortunately easy is that whenever you have so many years of shared history and a shared story you can cease to truly know your spouse you know you can really you've kind of got this new narrative that you've built in your mind of who your spouse really is because of these experiences that you and from your perspective of them and so there needs to really be a continual pursuing one pursuing of like knowing them not knowing who you've sort of painted them to become even though maybe that's not accurate to you you sort of know your spouse a lot better whenever you first get married which is kind of crazy because you are being so

intentional because you are being so intentional so that over the years you don't really necessarily know your spouse and they don't necessarily know you they know this shared history and you're all constantly changing i mean i've been married to eight different women and she's been married to eight different men you know over the last 18 years and so i think that that's one been one of the best gifts that we've had over the last couple of years is that we're we've really started over this particularly i would say last two years yeah to really really relearn who each other is you know i think especially once we brought penelope and lincoln home from China. There was a large loss of identity for a while because we were just trying to stay

with you with me in particular. I don't know as much about you. I know I. In different ways, in different ways. And you know, you can go through like postpartum depression with adoption too, not just biologically. I definitely hit that. You struggled with that at first. I think it was kind of a shock and you would think like, oh, you already have five kids. Two more wouldn't be that big of a deal. But that was probably the hardest transition for us. older child adoption and she doesn't speak the same language as us so that there's just a whole lot going there and then lincoln had a really scary hard diagnosis that we were not really prepared for and so we were facing brain surgery for him and so there's just just a flood of all these challenges all at the

same time and we're just trying to stay afloat and so that's obviously going to be hard to be pouring into one another yeah when you're just trying to make sure everything's going to be okay so we kind of joke the other like two weeks ago our fifth kiddo became a teenager And I was like, man, I've got five teenagers. It's a good thing I already went through my midlife crisis, you know. I'm 38. I've already got through my midlife crisis, so we're good. But have you guys ever argued before?

Never. I don't know. I mean, I can count on five hands. I would say. We try to be very intentional, especially like on our channel to make sure that we're always honoring each other. And so I'm very intentional to want to build him up and just verbally. speak affirmation over him.

And so I think sometimes, you know, we'll get questions like, do your kids fight or do you fight? Because we are trying to stay positive and we're trying to be encouraging and that kind of thing. But we'll say, like, it's also a challenge because we are complete opposites. So, like, he's Mr. Extrovert, you know, do all the things with all the people all the time. My baby, mother, Teresa. No.

But I am, you know, like a quiet night at home. It's just, it's great, you know. And so, like, we're a complete opposite. So we've had to learn how to. how to love each other really well and how to do that in the way that each other receives it because we're so different. Yeah. I want to give you credit.

It's interesting. We've interviewed, I don't know, four dozen couples. Yeah. And I don't know if there's been such a good bounce back, listening, like kind of playing off each other. Yeah. It's cool to see you guys are very equal and how you let each other contribute, which is rare. Yeah. I will say it's a first.

Yeah. Because usually the dynamic we always see is like there's the speaker. yeah right and you kind of have yeah yeah i want to talk about youtube next i i also want to give you credit though about uh how you describe the trouble and knowing your spouse i it made me think of we watched the movie chair cherry the other day yeah which would i don't would not recommend that it's very dark that's what i've heard it's very heavy i'm gonna watch it but i haven't yet it's a phenomenal movie yeah yeah it's kind of like get you here but they uh it's kind of about relationships as well and he talks about like do you ever stop and think about what made you fall in

love with your spouse like not where you were or or like these broad strokes but like the fine like yeah what was it about the way she smelled or like the little things like dang it actually made me think we just had a five year anniversary and it's like you do just get caught up in the routine and it's so much different than when you're dating and you're like obsessed with what hey what do you have to and what are you reading I don't know it's just there's just there's fewer questions I guess at the beginning but something I started last year is I've got two running notes

on my Apple notes on my phone and one list is my favorite memories with her and one list is my favorite things about her and I'll write I mean I try to add to that as much as I can as soon as something pops up I add it to the list and that's been a pretty cool you read it to me before too

oh wow she didn't know had it for a while yeah one day I think we were going through something and I think we were like arguing about something and you just pulled it out and you started reading and I was like what like it was really sweet but I'm really grateful for those challenges that we've been through in those really difficult times because I feel like it has in so many ways kind of shaped our relationship to be a lot stronger and a lot closer and we appreciate each other and our differences so much more now because of the things we've been through so why YouTube so you come from the pizza slash what was pizza and snow cones music background music yeah you've been mom in for a while youtube is new within the past two years yeah so we were doing i've been a pastor for 15 years i was a pastor before we did youtube and so doing music and writing and writing books and stuff like that that was sort of our main thing and traveling with my band and all that stuff like that and so then

we were just kind of like honestly kind of burnt out just and i was like trying to think of a way to kind of contribute to the family well i'm backing up i'm backing up on that oh before that okay oh yes yes okay so we we were just like sort of in dreaming mode for a while and we came across this family on youtube who just traveled around with their nine kids yeah well in an rv and they were norp and south was the name of the of the youtube And we're like, oh my gosh, like adopted kids as well, like blended family. We're like, wow, that's amazing. And they did it really well.

We're like, how is that possible? And this is at a time when I thought YouTube was like Vimeo. Like, it's just a place I host my video and I put it on my website. Yeah. I didn't realize how like robust of an algorithm and social media platform and all that, that it was. So we started talking. We went out on a date night and went to Starbucks and got a coffee and just came up with our whole thing. It was going to be like, called an adventure.

for nine and we're going to do this whole thing and that's when we got lincoln's diagnosis for moya moya and he was going to need bilateral brain surgery and all this got something so we're like well let's put that on hold because we can't do that so about a year little about a year after we adopted the kids from china yeah Amanda was like I think we should start this thing I think we should start up long it was hard honestly because I am so much more introverted and so that that felt like scary for me to think about putting our family out there even if you know it's something like youtube where you kind of have full control of like the type of content you create and how much you'd want to upload that kind of thing it still is really scary so i was kind of exploring every

other option out there i was like okay well we need to pay for brain surgeries you know what if we do some real estate stuff what if we you know i was just trying to find anything else and we've done this before she's mrs compassionate like she'll be like oh i'll watch kids and then she'll be like, I'm going to watch your kid for 80 hours a week for $100. You know, and I'm like, babe, like, I know you want to be a blessing to these people, but that's like, that's like a dollar and hour. Yeah, that wasn't really going to pay and change. Yeah, that wasn't really going to help.

But, yeah, when we decided, like, you know, there was a lot of people that were asking about our family's story, you know, we had all these children, we had adopted, and just obviously a kind of unique looking family. And so there's a lot of people that were asking us to share more about. our story and so we decided to kind of take that leap and i thought you know okay it's just going to be our family and a couple of friends that are going to watch these videos and didn't really think that we thought like if it went somewhere it would take just a long time and we put that first video out um the kids adoption video and just it just took off immediately so that was exciting and kind of

scary and we're like oh okay i guess we're really doing this and so yeah it's been an incredible incredible journey but we're having so much fun with it so like i guess 2018 september 2018 that's when i probably idiotically made the decision to go full-time on youtube we were like oh this is a good month on youtube i bet this will last forever let's quit our full-time job and be youtubeers and uh and you know it was interesting it's fun though like yeah i'm able to be home all the time and that's been a really nice change that's been incredible we've gotten to know each other better because of it you know that's been i mean it's been sort of like right before covid hit i mean it's sort of right when we i guess it wasn't 28 it was 2019 2019 yeah right before covid hits

whenever we did all this and so all the sudden i'm home and we're out on the back porch every morning like drinking coffee praying together reading our bible together talking about what kind of video we're going to make this week and just it is really it really has been a gift yeah for us who watches more youtube probably i don't know i think we both do you know quite a bit just trying to see other you know creators and that kind of thing it's really interesting but we have very limited time so it's like you kind of got to think wisely it's funny like i watch friends like i think once there's a relational element to it i'm more interested but most of what i watch on YouTube is like binging with Babish like if you're very familiar with him like food he cooks like

meals from movies it's amazing I'm a movie guy like fanatic about movies so like I love that stuff and you know those are kind those are the kinds of things I watch but I'm more of a you know movie guy than a YouTube guy yeah yeah which about you guys oh for sure me oh yeah I mean you know everything about us already so I'm like I'm like yeah I don't even know he's watched a lot of our stuff. I don't know if Sean's ever watch a YouTube video, maybe. Probably not start to finish.

Yeah. I get that. I don't know. I love it so much, but on the other side of things, and I became so aware of this when we had our daughter, where it's like,

there's such a treadmill to the business where it's like, dude, I feel like I'm behind. Right. And I'm freaking doing everything I can to just keep my head above water, like the algorithm or like what the latest trend is. It's like, oh my gosh,

this is stressful. And I got to just, at some point, just, you know, trust that, you know, it's okay. We're putting our best foot for it. It should be all right. I have a theory about YouTube that they'll just, like, change everything up like four or five times a year.

Yeah. Just survival of the fittest. See who actually makes it through. See who will survive. Yeah. And it's like, because you'll go from like 200,000 views to like 80,000 views in a day. And you're like, what just happened, you know? And has it been, so first of all, are you,

Are you glad that you didn't start off doing YouTube with the family? I mean, it's like, go ahead. Oh, yeah. You mean like when we first grew our family and all that? Yeah, yeah. Yes. I would say there's so many challenges with adopting children and they really need that space to process and as a family to really kind of bond and grow.

And so I am really grateful. We had pretty much a full year a little bit more. We didn't really start that until it really felt like, okay, our family is really strong and doing. well and our kids like were really on board with that you know they were all really excited about the idea of like making some videos and that kind of thing but i couldn't imagine doing that and bringing home children who were really struggling and grieving and you know you're trying to get to know them and really pour into them and especially you know we we really make it a point

we don't do clickbait we don't do fake drama we don't exploit our kids we don't want in five years our kids to be like well gee thanks dad for yeah so like there are after so like there are aspects of adopting and whatever that if we wanted to grow really fast, we could show a lot of that stuff and not really be honoring our kids. That's their story. So I'm really glad that we, A, didn't even have the temptation to, oh, should we show this on YouTube, this struggle or this pain or this whatever? People want to see like a real, yeah. People want to see a real honest picture. And so we'll say that, you know, we've, we just. decided we're not going to show any, any time that our kids are struggling or having a hard time,

you know, we're not going to show that. But we'll talk about how we have struggles. Yeah. We'll talk about, you know, just the challenges that there are because we want people to know, like, hey, we're just like everyone else. And like, there are a lot of challenges and there are ups and downs. But we're not going to put a camera in our kids face and show that. And so, especially those early on, yeah, those early on days bringing the kids home. I'm glad we had privacy. Yeah. I was just watching a breakdown. We were talking earlier. If someone, evaluating like a certain family who does family blogs and i got to me thinking i feel like the type of content that at least we do i classify completely separate than these like scripted reality

family blogs where it's like oh my dad gave me 10 000 to spend on uh fortnight today right and it's like you know is that real i don't think so did fortnight give you that money or did you're like you it's like i almost just consider ours like home video stories like i don't know it just i i i want to distance myself from that set up kind of storyline as much as pot so that's exactly us i mean like as far as i can remember back from knowing you we would sit up in your like game room upstairs when we were dating and watch home videos yeah i mean that was like our thing like yeah so we've sort of always done that every holiday every christmas every thanksgiving ever anything when all the family gets together we're watching home videos and so we love to document the journey is

just kind of like home videos for us and it's really fun because we get to watch back with our kids and they love that they're like oh remember when we did that you know they don't sometimes they don't even remember doing it you know it's like so it's kind of getting to relive it's really fun

yeah I feel like I have big questions as far as we usually ask every couple the same like closing question and talk about relationship but you guys feel so many buckets and you have lived so much more than the average couple that we've actually interviewed. And I want to go back to adoption, parenting, all of it.

If you could sum it up, which is all but impossible. And you were to give a small glimpse, what is the one thing you would say about adoption and what's the one thing you would say about parenting? I think with parenting, presence is the most important. thing and the same with marriage too i mean giving my children the the honor of my eyes instead of the you know the top of my head looking down at a phone that's a really big struggle but i think that that would cover a whole gamut of of things from from adoption to parenting to marriage to friendship to anything you know i think that's a huge thing giving your kids the honor of your eyes being present

because they're going to talk your ear off and sometimes you're like I really don't care about that anime show or whatever but they do you know and when it comes to bonding with your kids whether it be biological or adopted just them knowing you really care them knowing that I would say that the four most powerful words I'm proud of you you know knowing that you're really proud of your kids that they're knowing that their dad is really really proud of them. Yeah. You know, I think I was 31 years old the first time I remember my dad telling me that. And I hung up the phone and bawled, you know, as a 31-year-old man, you know. Yeah. And it was on Father's Day. Amanda was out of town.

My dad called. I just finished watching The Impossible, which is a crazy sad movie. And so maybe that's why I was bawling anyway. I don't know. But he just said, Dad, you know, Stephen, I want you to know I'm proud of you. And I was just like, dang, man. My soul's been longing to hear those words, you know. So I try to make it a point to tell my kids that every opportunity I get.

And not just like, you know, I'm really, like, Kira, Kira's the best at reminding me how to do this the right way. Okay. Because you can just say I'm proud of you and it's, it's lip service. Kira, I'm so proud of you. Oh, thank you, dad, for what? You know? And so then, like, I get. opportunity to like really affirm yeah and it's the same with penelope same with jude same with

leum same with ruse i mean especially the girls i would say yeah but the boys too like that they know that their dad's proud of them i would say with adoption it's such a beautiful journey but it's also very challenging and so i think that most people will look into it and you know we hear so many people say like i've thought about adopting you know but there's all these things that worry them and so I would say like yes there are challenges but it's so worth it it's so worth it and it will change your life and it will change who you are in your perspective and the amount of empathy and compassion that you have and really how you view yourself because you see these children who are struggling and who've gone through things that you

really can't even imagine yourself and it changes you and it grows you and it grows you as a family and it grows you as a couple and you know so as much as i can look back and be like man we even do some hard stuff like i would not change it for anything yeah it's so worth it can i ask i have i have several friends who i grew up with who uh had families where there were some type of special strain or trauma placed on the parents because of, you know, one of the kids had special needs and that was just like a unique stress, right? Like it just, it just is another, you know, of the thousand unknowns, there's another one thrown on top that just complicates things. With Lincoln's brain surgery, how did you make it through that? What lessons did you learn? That was a one day at a time

kind of thing um and it was really challenging it was honestly probably the scariest thing we've ever been through yeah and you know they had told us like if he doesn't have these surgeries it's not a matter of if he has another stroke but when so we knew like this is something that has to happen and that was a a long process too before we even got to the brain surgery yeah so we got his diagnosis in May, April, and he didn't have surgery until October. He was having so many seizures. They put him on steroids, and he became a demon child for a while. He gained like a thousand pounds.

Yeah, our happy baby, they put him on this high dose to try to take down the frequency of the seizures because he was just having so many a day, and it made him aggressive and angry, and he wouldn't sleep, and it was horrible. It was just a very terrifying time for us. And I just remember sometimes I would put a show on for the kids and then I'd go in the bathroom and just cry because I just didn't know how to handle it. I feel like that strengthened our faith in so many ways

because it's during those times where you feel like, how am I going to get through this? How am I going to get through one more day? And where are those, you know, you're searching for answers. You don't even know where it's going to come from. And that, seeing the Lord's faithfulness and having him carry us through that, being able to look back and be like, wow,

like, I cannot believe like we got through that. But we did, and God sustained us. You know, that's, it strengthens your faith in so many ways. And so, I mean, yeah, I, it was the grace of God that we got through it. Yeah. But, you know, you don't know what you can do until you do it. And sometimes you're in situations where you have to. And you look right now, it's like Lincoln, you know, he's learning to say words.

He's walking. He's running. he's hey buddy hey nash this is nash thanks for joining but we were worried you weren't going to join in on this episode but so to think back to those days

where he could only scoot you know and he could only grunt like a you know we always called him like a walker from the walking dead like he's just and that's all he can do you know and it's just like one day buddy one day you know one day you're going to be walking

and the doctors are saying like I don't know maybe he won't ever walk you know and then you see him start walking and then you see him start running after his brothers and now he's saying words and he's mimicking and he's singing like he'll he'll hum along to songs and he's like in tune and we're like wow kid like he's yeah it's remarkable wow it's incredible well you guys have shared a wealth of knowledge and it seems like your experience has given you an incredible amount of wisdom so i appreciate you i appreciate some of that with uh with us today and i'm excited you You guys are freaking in town now.

So let's go. Yes. We have to get the whole squad together. Seriously, man. Party. Gosh. That'll be wild. Yeah.

It will be loud. It might get loud. Yeah. The way we end every podcast is you guys have been through a lot and you will continue to go through a lot. You have an ever-changing, ever-growing family. When it comes to you guys, what is the best piece of advice you would ever give or have ever been given about relationships?

chips. One funny one, probably real. Number one, get a massage table for your wife. It really will change the game. I mean, parenting is stressful, you know, and you carry that in your body, not just in your mind or in your heart. Like, we're holistic being, so like it always works itself into our body somehow. So try to make it a priority to get a massage table.

They're not expensive. And then learn how to massage the right way. You're pretty serious about this. I really am serious about this. think that's what she would say is deeply appreciated gift i've ever given her is yeah i mean used to be like at the end of a hard day you go and you get a hot shower but like having your spouse massage you is just wow one step up from that yeah i would also say i mean this is a little more serious like that's serious too but don't be defensive you know like it's so easy it's so easy to get defensive

about everything your spouse is not attacking you they're just passionate as much as you are about stuff and it's okay like this is the biggest thing i'm learning right now wow so i'm saying it because i'm actively attacking it in my own life like don't get defensive like my wife loves me she's crazy about me i'm pretty sure i think and uh and she's not my enemy like she's my friend she's my best friend and she really wants me to be the best version of me i can be so like learn from what she has to say and don't get defensive about it yeah Just like learning each other to see things from each other's perspective is, I think, really important. And be curious.

Yeah. Be curious about what the other person is. Feeling or thinking. Feeling why they're acting the way they're acting, saying the things they're saying, thinking the way they're thinking. Dang. Good stuff. I'm excited to hang out more. Thanks for giving us the time.

Thanks for having us. It's a pleasure to meet you in person. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you guys. Yeah. Thank you guys so much.