COURT DATE!!

Yaaaay-- Mary called today!! But, of course, I didn't have my phone, so she left us a message. I was in awe as I listened to her tell us that we have a court date!! It is June 10th. I hope and pray that all goes well. Wow--I'm soooo excited!!!

Another Graduation

Today is the last day of school for my kids. Our youngest son, Derek, is graduating from the 6th grade. Poor guy, with Kayla graduating from high school, his big day has taken a back seat. He'll be attending middle school next year. It always seems like such a huge step, but since I've already been through this twice, I know it's going to be a good change for him. I added a picture of the handsome guy pitching at one of his baseball tournaments. We're so proud of him!

We told Kayla that her graduation present was a trip to Ethiopia to get her new sisters. She was so shocked and excited. She cried and cried. Of course, this made me tear up, too. She's a wonderful young lady. I'm afraid once we get her over there, we won't be able to get her to come back home. I know it's her calling to do something great and make a difference in this world--her heart is huge!

We are very excited to be sending a package to our daughters in Ethiopia. It's so wonderful that people travelling to bring their children home are willing to take packages for families who are still waiting. I hope I can do the same for others when I finally get to go!

Graduation

Well, I made it through graduation weekend! I actually had a lot of fun. We had a great turnout for our party, and the scrapbook was a big hit. My baby girl is officially out of school. Now it's on to college!

On the adoption front, we received an update on our girls from Mary. That was very exciting!! We have their sizes and we're ready to shop! We were also able to send them a letter telling them all about their new family!! We'll also be sending some gifts with a traveling family this week. Lots of things are happening....how bout a court date?!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was great. We spent the day at a baseball tournament watching our youngest son play 2nd baseman and pitcher. When I got home I was surprised by my older two children with a clean house, flowers, presents and a cake. Wow!! They're awesome! I couldn't help thinking about our other two daughters in Ethiopia. I'm so excited about them being here next Mother's Day, celebrating with us! I also thought of their mother in Ethiopia...how difficult it must have been for her to take her precious daughters to an orphanage. My hear aches for her!

Our journey to adoption

Today, I'm working on my daughter's high school graduation scrapbook. I'm putting together a "through the years" scrapbook--each page dedicated to a year in her life. I am NOT creative, so this is very painful--a labor of love!! Anyway, I'm taking a break from that, so thought I'd write a post about how this family of six decided to add two more.....

I'll try to keep it somewhat short. After our third child was born, we thought our family was complete. 5-6 years later, we decided we wanted to have another child. After a long time of not being able to conceive, we pursued domestic adoption. We were selected by a mother to adopt her child, but she later decided to keep her baby. Then...we found out I was pregnant. We were very excited until the 5th month when a heartbeat could not be found. A sonogram confirmed that our baby was not alive. Our sweet daughter Natalie came into the world on April 24, 2004, but her soul was already cuddling with Jesus. One year later, God blessed us with our little Emma. Then, once again, we thought our family was complete. When Emma was two, I felt a tug at my heart to adopt an older child, since we have a 9 year span between our two youngest anyway. I mentioned this to my husband who gave me the "you're crazy and you're scaring me" look! I said, "Okay, maybe it wasn't God talking to me." About a month later, a friend of ours spoke in church about adoption--from Ethiopia, in particular. He challenged our community to do more to help the orphans. Slowly, John's heart started to open up to the idea of adding to our family. We met with these friends about the process and began pursuing the adoption in Dec 2007/Jan 2008. Some other friends of ours mentioned that its harder to place older siblings, hint..hint! I laughed and said, "Then you need to pray that God will work on John's heart again"----and HE DID!! God is incredible!! Now John is equally as excited as I am to bring our daughters home.

Now we are awaiting a court date to adopt 2 beautiful girls from Ethiopia. I am thankful to God, my husband, Gladney Center for Adoption, the Ethiopian government who opened their doors for us to adopt, and the mother of our future daughters who loved them enough to let them go!

Dossier Complete

DOSSIER COMPLETE! Those were the words I read from Kate at KBS Dossier. Hooray! That was a big undertaking and it's nice to have it done! Our dossier is on its way to DC and then off to Ethiopia!! What an exciting time!

CIS Approval!

I wasn't expecting to receive our approval this soon, so imagine my surprise when I got the mail and saw an envelope from Homeland Security. My first thought was...what went wrong with the fingerprints! But, the envelope actually contained our I171H!!! Yaaaaaay!! I was so excited that I called John at work. We're getting it notarized and sent off to Kate today! Thanks to all who have been praying for us!!

Hair

Well, I finally did it--I got my hair chopped off! I've been growing it out for some time so that I would have enough to donate to locks of love. I kept thinking that if I had to put my hair in a pony tail one more time, I'd scream. Then I'd remind myself that there are many people who would love to have hair to put in a pony tail. I can be so selfish sometimes!
My husband is actually one of those few guys who prefers short hair. I always thought that was strange. I also wanted to get it cut before we take pictures to send to our girls in Ethiopia. I didn't want to send them pictures of me with long hair then show up with short hair.
We've been so busy this weekend moving bedrooms, building bedrooms, painting and cleaning in preparation for two more bodies in our home. I've read in other blogs about getting that nesting instinct--about wanting to clean out everything to get ready for the new additions. It's so true! For me, I think it's just something we can do to move forward with the adoption while we're waiting on other things to happen. Unfortunately, the house has to become a disaster before it gets better. Moving kids to different bedrooms sure has made it easier to do spring cleaning though! How did we accumulate all of this junk?!! It's time for a garage sale!! I'm thinking we might have an open weekend in June!