Pink or Blue??

So we talked to our adoption agency Wednesday and told them that we would like to change our infant request to boy OR girl 0-10 months! The agency seemed to think back in Nov. we would get our baby referral in a few weeks and there was no worries about our Jan 24 court date. Then it was pushed back a few more weeks and now we are leaving for ET Jan 17th and still have no baby referral. It is really getting down to the wire now....

We can actually submit the paperwork up until Jan 19th , but if it goes that long there is no guarantee the judge will accept it. So we very well may be flying to ET not even knowing if a judge will accept the baby's paperwork or if we will even have a baby referral.

I am trying to rest in the Lord and be calm about it..but ....about 75% of the time I am freaking out! We have been on this adoption road for SO LONG and I am just so tired.

We changed to boy or girl because our whole family decided we were good either way and it would be fun to be surprised and we will increase our chances of getting a referral sooner. There have been 4 referrals for girls since the last boy one.

PLEASE PRAY with us that we will get our referral call next week and have time to submit the paperwork before we fly out!! There are a bunch of families flying out soon and they are all excited and packing and I just can't even get into it right now until I know there is a baby there for us. I KNOW God has a special one for us...I just cant wait to see who it will be!

I will let you all know a soon as I do if we are pink or blue! Thanks!

One month from today..

One month from today ( January 18th) I will meet my new baby boy that I have not even laid eyes on a picture of yet! So surreal. There has been a delay on our referral for a baby boy, but at the moment, AWAA is not worried about our court date. It will be 5 weeks away from this coming Monday and they seem to think since we have a court appointment and it is for two children, we can submit the paperwork still.

Still I am sooo desperate to know what my baby boy looks like and how old he is and his history. I feel like I know Micah so well. We have sent him care packages , we have tons of pictures and we have been given monthly updates from our agency on him, we have skyped with his sister. I just feel like he is my son and i am SOOOO anxious to meet him and give him hugs and kisses! But with Isaac, he just doesn't even seem real yet. I mean, who has a court date and no baby? The only thing I do know is that God timetable is sometimes early but NEVER late!

The babies in the TH are all sick and they will not refer one until he is getting better, so we "think" our baby boy is there and recovering from a upper respiratory infection. They have also mentioned babies there that are missing documentation for a referral. So I am thinking that it is kind of a race to see what happens first: Babies getting well or documents arriving. Kinda cool that God knows exactly which baby is Isaac and so He can allow the right baby to become referral ready when it is time. AND since there has not been a baby boy referral since NOV 13..I think it should be time pretty soon!

My birthday is Monday and then Christmas is Saturday, so I think this coming week would be a PERFECT time to see what our son is going to look like. :)

Christmas..showing some Africa love

Here are a few ways this Christmas looks a little bit different from the past ones....

We have Africa shaped gingerbread..And this is one of the African ornaments I painted so we have some Micah and Isaac love on our Christmas tree too! It will be so nice next Christmas to have us all together.We were also able to send Micah two Christmas care packages. One of the packages was given to him this week. All 3 kids wrote him a letter and we sent him a harmonica and a shirt and some other fun things. The mom that gave him the packagae said he loved the harmonica and all the kids were dancing while he played it! He came up to her and gave her a hug the next day. I love how he has his hands wrapped around her arm. Soon I will be able to give him a big hug too!

Isaac's quilt

My mother in law took some of my adoption shirts and made a baby quilt for Isaac. I loved how it turned out and cannot wait until he is home crawling around on it!

Adoption shower

Our church threw us an adoption shower in November. It was so nice. My mom and BFF, Amy came down for it. Isaac and Micah were showered with all kinds of cute things. I cannot wait for them to be home to use it all!

Merry Christmas

Tickets are booked

Yahoo! We have tickets! We will be flying out on Jan 17th. We fly to Washington DC and from there, we fly straight ( Yay for no layovers!) all the way to Addis. We will get there at 8:25 am Ethiopia time and stay until Jan. 24th. We fly out at 10:15pm and after a quick refuel in Rome, we will get back to DC at 7:25 am. Hang out in the Nation's Capital for a few hours and then fly back to Charlotte. We should be home on the 25th around 5:30.

I really wanted to fly out of Greensboro, but Charlotte was better times and cheaper. I think we will save the Gboro arrival and departure for the second trip so we will be closer to home when we have the boys and people can meet us at the airport easier. (Abby is planning a welcome home airport party) :)

It seems so real now that we have concrete dates and can plan our week out! Now to just have a baby boy to go with that court slot! (sigh)...maybe today.

Court Date

We received our court date phone call last Tuesday. We were in Virginia getting ready to have an early Thanksgiving with my parents and were so happy to finally have a concrete date. Our court date is January 24th, 2011. The best part is there are two slots for TWO CHILDREN!

AWAA does not seem to think it will be a problem at all to submit the baby's paperwork once our referral has been received and accepted. I am praying and hoping it will be this week that we finally get to see Isaac's face.

I will be working with travel agents on Monday , but our plan is to leave on Monday, January 17 and arrive in Addis on the 18th. We will meet the kids on the 19th and then be able to spend a bunch of time with them as well as go to Trees Of Glory and see our sponsored child there and love on those sweet sweet kids.

One of the biggest blessings in the adoption process is seeing how God works and the people He puts in your path. One of the families that sent in their dossier and became DTE on March 26th was the Herwehe family. Laura and I have texted and called and emailed and inboxed ourselves into a great friendship! ( Dont tell Greg, but I texted Laura about our court date before I even called him!) :)

My DTE buddy and me have been praying we would get to go to ET together....well, her court date is Jan 18 and they are leaving ET on the 21st so we will be there together for 3 whole days! We are sooo excited!! They also sponsor a child at TOG, so we will get to go there together too. God is so cool to give us this experience along side each other!

So sorry for the lack of blogging. I have just not felt like much of anything since our referral being taken away, but I know God is good and He has given me so much peace over this. I know when it is the right time He will give us our baby Isaac too.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all

Love ~

Jackie

A hard phone call....

We received a phone call that AWAA is needing to withdraw the referral of our baby boy. We cannot go into the details as to why, but it is for a good reason and we do understand that it is better for the baby. We are, of course sad, but feel God's peace in the situation as well.

We are now waiting for another referral for an infant male. The good news is that if the referral comes soon then we will be able to swap paperwork in court and it should not delay bringing the baby and our 10 year old son home together still.

Thanks for the prayers for our family as we process this information.

Kernel Kustard

We were finally able to use our Kernel Kustard gift card that "The Kernel" gave us to celebrate our adoption. We actually waited until October 26th, since the 26th is our DTE day. We would have been 7 months DTE, but not this month..we can finally say we have our referral!! We took pictures of the boys with us and enjoyed some yummy frozen kustard. I can't wait to take Micah and Isaac there when they get home!The pictures are blurred out because we cannot show their faces on a public forum until after we pass court. Sorry, but trust me they are soooooo cute! My three other cuties didn't mind posing though with their dessert. Thanks again KK for the yummy treat!

A sweet update from Ethiopia

Here is an update from an adopting mom who is in Ethiopia for her court date:

"Jackie, all that I can say is that your wait was totally worth it! Your little guy is AMAZING!!! So, so adorable and sweet...crazy hair standing up on end and quick to smile! I actually went to find him at feeding time and got to give him his whole bottle...he burps really easily! (I know that may sound funny, but at least one of my kiddos took forever to get a burp out of)! He finished his whole bottle like a champ, and is just a charmer! You are one blessed momma!"

I am so ready to jump on an airplane and go get my baby and my big boy!

Time to Register!

Our church is giving baby Isaac a shower in November and now that we know how old he is, we thought that today would be a good day to register. I have NEVER registered for anything before. Not my wedding or all the kids, so this was a new (fun) experience for me. Abby was so much help and she loved beeping all the stuff she thought Isaac would need!

Here we are getting ready to go beeper crazy!So many bibs, so little time...I had to explain to her that babies that dont walk really dont need 25 pairs of shoes!Diapers on the other hand...we will need LOTS of!!!Greg met us at Target later with the E and N and Esther was able to beep some stuff with us. Nate on the other hand, he was about as thrilled as his daddy to be there "helping us"

I can't wait until the baby shower and see all the cute stuff Isaac gets.( I am also thankful I live in the south where you get baby showers no matter how many kids you have had!) It has been almost 10 years since I had a baby shower and so we are pretty stoked with all the baby cuteness around here! :)

care packages

We are blessed by families heading to Ethiopia soon to deliver care packages for our boys! Yay!! We had so much fun gather things up for them. Micah was a lot of fun to pick out toys and clothes for. Nathan realllllly wanted to give Micah one of his hats from his "collection". At first he put in his last years YMCA baseball hat and that is what is in the picture below. We later changed it to a W-S Dash hat. We also sent a disposable camera and hopefully he can take some pictures of his time in the Transition Home. A young man that just recently came home to the US from Ethiopia has offered to translate a letter for Micah and so we are working to compose that and will send it next. Its really hard though..what do you say to your 10 year old son for the very first time? I am struggle with wanting it to be just right and have decided to pray over it and just let the Lord lead.
Here is baby Isaac's stuff. Complete with a FL Gator onesie, some toys, some infant vitamins and Mr. Elephant. I have to say I was a little bit weepy sending off that stuffed elephant I have kept under my pillow for the whole summer. Hopefully it will smell like mama when Isaac cuddles it!One of the best things is that the families taking it to them are also going to take photos and maybe videos of the boys for us! Yay!! I cant wait to get more pictures you look at!

Referral Acceptance

We signed and mailed in our referral acceptance on Friday! We are sooo excited and still on cloud 9! Now we will wait for our court date and travel information!I have been waiting sooooo long to post this on our Yahoo group!! I had to take a picture to remember it!!

We got the Call!!!!

Its a Boy!!!! ....And a Boy!!!!

Today was the day! (Actually, it was yesterday as I just realized it is after midnight!) We were at our Thursday co-op and Greg was with us because he was needed to help out with basketball and we were talking to a couple of moms about our adoption and the wait and how hard it was getting. Well, they walked away and I grabbed my phone out of my purse and saw on the screen 1 missed call from AWAA, 1 voicemail from AWAA at 1:51pm!!

I am so thankful we were together! Greg calmly steered me out of the gym and to our van. We listened to Caitlin's voicemail asking us to call her and so we called Caitlin back and heard the long awaited words, "this is your referral call!" I really couldn't breathe for a few seconds!

She went on to give us details about a baby boy ( 4 months!) and then she said this is also your referral call for Micah, his paperwork came in today too! Whoooo Hooooo!

We have been praying so hard that we would get the referrals together and we did!

We decided to calmly go back into the gym, grab my laptop and sneak off to an empty classroom to look at the pictures. I cannot tell you how hard it was to walk by so many moms that had been praying for us and not shout at the top of my lungs, "We got the call!!"

We knew we wanted to tell the kids first so we went to a classroom to go online and we couldn't get online, so we ended up looking at the pictures on my phone. We then met Esther in the hallway, and I couldn't stand it anymore, I blurted it out to her and as she is squealing and jumping up and down, we go and get the other two from their classes and show them their new brothers! Nathan was just a shaking!

I did go back in and tell some of my friends at co -op before we sped home to open all the medical files and documents.

We will sign the referral acceptance letters in the morning and get them mailed out. We already have some care packages to send the boys and AWAA families willing to carry them for us next week!

We are soooo blessed and happy!! Next we will be submitted for court and then we will wait for a court date to travel and meet the boys!

Trees of Glory Update

We have the privledge of sponsoring a little girl named Kidist that lives in a village not too far from the capital city of Addis Ababa , Ethiopia. She is able to go to the care point center, Trees of Glory for food , clothing, medical supplies and this fall... schooling. Children's Hope Chest is doing some amazing work in Ethiopia right now and we are so thankful to be a small part of that work. For $34 a month you can sponsor a child and know that your money is going directly for supplies for that child.

A team is going to be visiting Trees of Glory in Novemeber and taking every child there a care package. We were able to fix a care package for our little girl and send it to her with pictures of our family. The cool thing is, depending on our adoption timeline, we will get to visit with Kidist in person too! We are planning on going to TOG on our trip to Ethiopia to meet the boys and go to court. Abby will get to go with us to TOG and see all the children, play and love on them too! It is going to be amazing!

A fun surprise

Today I was able to Skype with Mikias' little sister that lives in California. We were on the computer for about 30 min and she was able to meet our whole family. She is the cutest thing ever!

She told me some fun facts about Mikias ( pronounced MeKeyas):

He likes baseball, basketball and Foosball

She thinks he would like a baseball cap and a little car in his care package and also pictures of our family.

He likes chicken tibs and eggs

He likes brothers, sisters and babies :)

He laughs everyday and is happy

He is sometimes shy

She doesn't think he will be afraid of our dog, Mac, but maybe he will.

I promised to send her a recent picture of him when AWAA sends us one. She also thanked me for taking care and adopting her brother. I am so excited that they will be able to skype and send letters and cards to each other!

I forgot to ask her if she thought he would liked to be called Micah when he moves to the US..I hope he will since that is what we all call him already!

Manna

I have been thinking a lot lately about the manna that the Israelites were given in the wilderness. How it was sweet and filling and straight from the Provider. Also, how there was just enough each day to meet their needs. Any more and it would spoil. Each and everyday they rose, went out, expectant for God to provide this life-sustaining food for them. After all those years, do you think it became second nature for them to look to Him to provide? Do you think it increased their faith?And every day He did. It is such a picture for us.

As Christians, God wants to provide our needs, He desires to give us what we want, but we have to become in the habit of looking to HIM to provide it. I think our minds are too small, (as well as our expectations) for Him to give us everything we need for this life in one swoop. He knows that part of this faith walk is to be able to look expectantly into His face and believe that HE has everything we need. Everything.

Our adoption is the reason I have been thinking about manna and those Israelites. If He would have given us all we needed to financially back this adoption, I know I would not have looked to Him with the fervency that I am looking at Him now. Nor would I appreciate when He allows the blessing to flow at the exact time we need them to.

You know what..I don't think I would have the confidence that adoption is exactly what He has called us to either. There is something about God calling AND providing that makes the call even more sacred.

Another thing that the children of Israel did, was they went. They put feet to their faith and when it was time to pack up and leave Egypt. They went. They gave God the chance to provide. Could He have provided for them in Egypt..well, yes, but would they have recognized Him for who He is....Jehovah Jirah. The God who provides.

Sometimes it takes a call. A step of faith to really really see God as our provider. Sometimes it takes the simple act of just picking up the manna and having the faith to not doubt it will be there tomorrow too.

We joke about how many stares we will get when our homeschooling family increases to 7 with two Ethiopian children, but it is my prayer that we will be a living testimony of God's provision. How HE alone can take simple Israelite slaves and turn them into a mighty banner of His love, grace and yes, His provision.

The Number game

Soooo Today we reached our 6 month DTE anniversary! Crazy I actually thought at one point we might have our baby home by now! we haven't even seen his face yet! Still I am thankful to be this far along. I am hoping and praying that we will get our referral call this coming week!

AND courts open tomorrow!!!! We have made it through the two long months of rainy season! Yay!!! This means when we do get our

referral, we will be submitted to court and eventually get a court date to travel to Ethiopia. So I am happy to be 6 Month DTE, but even happier to be sitting number one for a baby boy.

(We share this spot with two other families, so I am hoping and praying we all get our phone calls soon!!)

Number 1 baby!

We are now number 1 for a baby boy! We have sat at number 2 for 7 long weeks and I was sooooo happy to hear of a baby boy referral today! We will celebrate our 6 months DTE on Sunday and hopefully next week get a call and see our sweet Isaac's face! YAY!!

Life Song for Orphans!

We received a a phone call this morning that we have been given a matching grant from Lifesong for Orphans! The grant is for $2500 and if we can raise $2500 by November 15, Lifesong will give us $2500! That is $5000 for our adoption!! We cannot use our own funds for this, it needs to be money that we have raised. We are sooo excited because the extra money that Mikias was....you guessed it...$5000!

We will be working on a fundraising letter to send out, but if you have been thinking and praying about giving to our adoption, now would be a great time to give and to give to our account at Lifesong!

We are so excited that God has provided for us in this way!

If you are ready to give today just go to Lifesong for Orphans and Donate to: Mullis Family #1552

Here is the letter from Lifesong:

September 20, 2010

Dear church, family, and friends of Greg and Jackie Mullis,

Lifesong for Orphans (www.lifesongfororphans.org) is a non-profit Christian ministry dedicated to help meet the needs of orphan children around the world, and obey God’s call to “visit the fatherless…in their affliction” (James 1:27).

The number of children worldwide without families to love and care for them is astounding… there are over 5 million orphans in Ethiopia alone!

God tells us in His word He has heard the cry of the orphaned and abandoned children (Psalm 10:17, 18) and He has made a way for them to be cared for – through adoption. As believers, He adopted us into His family through Jesus Christ, and did not leave us as spiritual orphans!

We believe adoption at its core is evangelism--a vital part of the Great Commission is bringing the mission field home. God desires orphans from all nations to be adopted into Christ-honoring families so they may ultimately be adopted into His eternal family through Jesus Christ. God calls us to fulfill James 1:27, “visit the fatherless…” but not all are called to adopt. Some are called to pray, some to give financially, some to go on mission trips, and some to adopt.

Greg and Jackie have sensed God’s call . . . and have joyfully stepped out in faith and obedience to adopt 2 boys from Ethiopia. As you may already know, international adoption can cost around $30,000 and prevents many godly families from adopting. Lifesong believes God has raised up the Mullis family “for such a time as this…” and we have committed an Adoption Matching Grant of $2,500 to help raise the funds necessary to complete the adoption of this child. This means Lifesong for Orphans will match “dollar-for-dollar” everything the Mullis’ raise from their church, family, and friends between now and November 15, 2010, up to $2,500. We invite you to support them financially to make this adoption possible. Your gift is tax deductible and you will receive a tax-deductible receipt. *100% of all funds raised will go directly to cover adoption costs--nothing will be taken out for Lifesong for Orphans administrative costs.

Will you invest financially in the life of these boys? . . . It will be an investment with eternal return.

God bless you for laying your treasures up in Heaven,

Andy Lehman

Vice President

p.s. I trust God will do great and mighty things through this, and all for His Glory!

PO Box 40 202 N Ford St Gridley, IL 61744

phone 309 747 3556 fax 309 747 4647 www.lifesongfororphans.org

bringing joy and purpose to orphans

Update

We were sent an email today that said that "M", the little boy we would like to adopt, should have all his paperwork in his file in the next 4 to 4 1/2 weeks. Then we will be able to receive his referral. We still dont know when we will get a baby boy referral, but it should be in that timeframe too. This means we can go to court for both of them and adopt them together. Even though 4 and a half weeks seems like an ETERNITY right not..it is happy news that his case is progressing and it seems to be great timing in regards to Isaac's case!

Sooooo not a referral yet, but we are getting close!

Why Ethiopia

*There are more than 5 million orphans in Ethiopia.

*One-tenth of Ethiopian orphans will die before their first birthday. One-sixth will die before their 5th birthday.

*Malnutrition is the cause of more than half of all child deaths.

*60-150 million Ethiopian children live on the streets.

*Half of Ethiopian children will never go to school. 88% never attend secondary school.

*Only 24% of households in Ethiopia have access to safe drinking water.

*The average life expectancy for men in Ethiopia is 48; for women it's 50.

*One out of every four women die in childbirth.

*There is only one physician for every 34,988 people.

*In the US there are approximately 65,000 domestic adoptions each year. 14,000 of those are private infant adoptions. Yet in 2009, there were less than 13,000 international adoptions in the US, and less than 2,500 children adopted from Ethiopia.

Our adoption video

I Just Haven't Met You Yet By Michael Bublé Lyrics

My Isaac song... :)

The Words I Would Say - Sidewalk Prophets [lyrics]

My song to Micah..

So another month, huh?

Well, we found out yesterday , based on what our family coordinator says, we wont get our referral phone call until end of Sept/ beginning of October. This is just what she foresees...not certain ( meaning it COULD come earlier..or later) So bummed! Now, I know that doesn't sound like a very long time, but when you spend most of your waking hours staring at a cell phone , willing it to ring...days and weeks can really begin to wear at ya!

Thankfully we are beginning my favorite time of the year..I love fall! The crisp air, football season, the change of leaves, the anticipation of the holidays. I am so excited that now I will be able to add the memory of seeing our new children's faces to this wonderful season.

I know God's timing is perfect and if court had not closed and if baby boy referrals had not slowed down like they have, we may not be able to be referred Mikias ( Micah) as well. So it is all in HIS perfect will. Here are a few prayer requests concerning our adoption, if you would like to pray with us:

1. That they are home by Christmas (and that is still a possibility) :)

2. We receive one or more grants that we are waiting to hear from

3. That we can raise $5,000 more for Micah's adoption

4. That I can wait on the Lord and not stress out as I stare at my phone obsessively

5. For Micah and Isaac's health. We are unsure if they are at AWAA's transition home or in orphanages right now, but I know the TH is battling illnesses right now with a lot of the kids and I am sure the orphanages are too.

Thanks so much for joining us on this journey. I have to keep thinking back to last September when I was waiting to see if AWAA would even approve our application to adopt...Oh how far we have came!

Thanks Kernel Kustard!!

I have shared on here how we have celebrated milestones in our adoption with ice cream, like when we became DTE and every month anniversary that followed. If we EVER get a referral call , we plan on going out for ice cream to celebrate that too! Well, the owners of a fabulous local custard shop, Kernel Kustard heard about our celebrations and sent me a note and $20 gift card to celebrate on them!! We are waiting for that referral call and then we will go to the Kernel for a yummy celebration! Thanks so much Mckie family!

DTE number 5

We are DTE 5 months now.I am really not excited to be posting this post. My "cup is always half full" brain never thought I would have to wait 4 months let alone 5. We are also researching grants and fundraising possibilities because adopting Mikias will add about $5,000 to our expenses. He is totally worth it...still not a lot of fun trying to figure out the expense side of adoption.

So I am kinda blah today. It would be an awesome day for a referral..but who knows...we may be waiting another 6 weeks. I may have no hair left on my head by then, but still...we wait.

While we are waiting we had to celebrate our 5 months with ice cream, so we went to Kernel Kustard last night with friends to enjoy another friend of ours play at a "local flavor" concert. It was a nice time, even though I have to admit I would have much rather been there celebrating a referral call not a 5 month DTE!

On Deck

We received our On Deck email today! That basically is just the official you are reallllly close to getting a referral email. We kinda knew this already, but it feels much more real now that we have read the email! I actually starting making a list of baby items we have and baby items we still need to get!

Now, we could get the call tomorrow or weeks from now, BUT that email was the last step before seeing our sweet baby's face!! And that is exciting!!

Homeschooled????

Yeah this cracked me up and yes my kids are HomeschoolED!

Abby's contest

If you wouldn't mind would you please go over to HERE and vote for Abby in this contest. It only takes a minute to do. It wont send you spam either. The only reason you have to register is they want to make sure it is legitimate emails. Thanks soooo much!!!

SHE WON!!! THANKS TO ALL WHO VOTED!!!!!!!

Come on and RING already!

OK... We were told back when we began paperwork that baby boy referrals were about a 4-6 month wait, THEN it changed in January to 3-5 month wait. By the time we submitted our dossier in March it was back up to 4-6 months, but I held out hope that MAYBE three months and we would have a referral...Well, then it became four months...now it is 4 months and 8 days.... and all I have to say is RING ALREADY!!

This and that...

I wanted to share with you about a little girl named Samantha whose family is adopting a little boy from Ethiopia. They also sponsor a child through Children's Hope Chest. Samantha came up with the idea of making bottle cap necklaces and selling them for just $5 each to raise money for the care point center in Ethiopia. As of right now she is over $640!! How awesome is that! I ordered three necklaces for my kids and they are just so cute! Here is a link to her blog....Go check it out!And by the way....Check out the picture below......
We are # 6 on the overall list right now! Whooo Hooo!! We were number one for siblings and we prayed about it and decided to change our request in order to wait and see if Mikias' paperwork will be finished soon. We are still on the list though and number 4 for a baby boy! :)

Praying this will be a busy referral week coming up!!

VBS Donations

A few weeks ago the kids and I made this video to show at church and on Sunday and then the first night of Bible school

We asked for donations for Ethiopia as our VBS offering this past week. The kids did an amazing job filling up the chest full and overflowing with donations! We also had a man donate money to cover the extra baggage expense to get it to ET AND we have had money donated to buy more supplies too! What a blessing! We will ba able to take donations to the AWAA transition house and to Trees of Glory ! God is good!!

This is how much stuff we had collected by the last night!

A favor...PLEASE

Hi ya'll! My daughter Abby is in a contest that her orthodontist is sponsoring. She can win an Ipad ( Which would be AWESOME to take on that loooong plane ride to Ethiopia this fall!) If you wouldnt mind, would you please take a minute to go to the site and vote for her? You can actually vote once a day all week! Thanks SOOOO much!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!!!!!

Our monthly celebrations

We had decided when we were close to being DTE, we would celebrate each month with ice cream. It has been a fun way to mark each passing month as we wait on our referral call. The day we found out we were DTE ( March 26) we went to Kernel Kustard with Amy....I Loooove the Kernel!!

On month number one (April 26) we had Root Beer floats at home...one month down..how many more to go??Month number two (May 26) Our friend Deana had her wisdom teeth out so we picked up some Zacks Yogurt to go and took it to her house and shared our month number 2 with her. Month #3...the kids were in Virginia with Nana and Gramps, so Greg and I had Bill and Leah's ice cream and Abby assured me they had ice cream in Va too. ;)Month number 4 ( Could this be our last month!!???) Greg had to have three teeth cut out and so it was Zack's again ( I am sensing a theme with Zacks and oral surgery!)

It has been fun to celebrate this way, but let me tell you I am hoping and praying not to make it to month number 5! Maybe we will celebrate our REFERRAL DAY (SOOOON PLEASE!!) with Kernel Kustard just like we started out back in March!

DTE Month number 4

Being DTE for month number 4 feels kinda like I imagine turning 40 will feel like..thankful we made it, but not real thrilled to be here either! I do expect we should be getting a phone call any day! Now, thats exciting!! We actually heard that the paperwork on the little boy Mikias is progressing and it is possible we might be able to adopt him as well as a baby. Thats exciting for us as we have been praying for Mikias for months now. If we are able to adopt Mikias, then we will change our baby request to either boy or girl.

I am beginning to feel a bit weary of the waiting and I realize it is only begun. We will now have to wait for a court date ( October will be the earliest) and then an Embassy date ( praying its November!) and then we finally will bring them home! I read this quote the other day an I am trying to cling to it.

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength." - Corrie Ten Boom

Tee shirt give a way

My AWAA friend Debb and her hubby just created the coolest adoption shirts! You can win it before you buy it if you go HERE

Our official request

On the AWAA waiting list we went ahead this week and confirmed our request. Here is how it reads:

2 children, siblings or non related, male-male or male-female, one being between 0 and 10 months and the 2nd one being between 0 and 6 years.

I think this means we are first on the waiting list for 1 boy and 1 girl now! I know we are first for the age range we have chosen!! Now this could mean we get a phone call tomorrow or months! BUT, be sure my phone is with me all the time! I am so excited to see the faces of the children God has chosen for our family!

Yard Sale

Well, we had our adoption fund raiser Yard Sale this weekend. We had about 6 families donate stuff and we had a TON of stuff for sure! Friday was an awesome day and we ended up making about $340!

There were so many nice people that gave more than they bought and said to put it towards our adoption. Saturday started out nice, but around 10:30 the dark clouds began rolling in and soon we were scrambling to get everything picked up before the rain started.

I had thoughts of waiting it out and setting everything back up, but it was still raining by 2:00 that afternoon, I knew our day was up! We still ended up making around $500 and that was the amount I was praying for! Here are some pictures from Friday:


A BIG THANKS to all who donated and a HUGE thanks to Deana for bringing Bojangles each morning and coming to help at the crack of dawn on her summer break!

TEE SHIRT BLITZ!!

We are having our big adoption fund raising garage sale this weekend! I have had 6 families donate stuff, so we have a lot! At the same time we are doing a final push on tee shirts with a TEE SHIRT BLITZ! We are lowering the price of our adoption shirts to $12 and that includes shipping! We only have about 25 shirts left so ACT NOW! ( said in my best Billy Mays voice)

You can use the paypal button , but you may want to email me first to make sure I still have the size you need or email me about mailing a check. We will also have them for sale at our garage sale so if you are close by stop by and pick one up! Here are a few photos of them. (I only have XL and 2XL left in the navy, but all sizes in maroon)

The maroon shirts on the cutest models ever!The frontClose up of the frontThe backClose up of the back

Wow! Thanks for the quick response!! Here is what I have left:

4 navy XL's

2 Maroon XL's

10 Maroon L's

1 Maroon M

2 Maroon Youth M's

Isaac's elephant

Once we get our referral we will be able to send over a care package with a travelling family. I have not bought a lot to go in a care package yet because I am waiting to see what size he is before I buy clothes. I did buy this elephant.

Actually, I bought 2 elephants. Every morning when I get up and make my bed, I put one of the elephants under mine and Greg's pillows. There is stays all day and so hopefully when we send him to Ethiopia, he will smell like mommy and daddy! Once we have sent the first elephant in the care package, I will do the same thing with elephant number 2 . When we go to bring him home, it is not certain that we will get the elephant back, so we will have #2 ready with us. That way he will have a smell, sound ( you pull his tail and it makes music) and feel that is familiar to him with us.

We are kind of at that point of waiting to where there is not much to do but wait. I cant buy clothes because I don't know what size or what season I need, his crib is up, I have no pictures yet to start a scrapbook..all we are doing is waiting. Mr. Elephant is something small I can do to start the bonding process with my baby boy!

Hoping for that phone call SOON!

Ethiopia Donations

This is the video we made for Vacation Bible School at our church. We are collecting donations to take with us when we go to Ethiopia.

* If you click on the middle of the video screen TWICE , it will take you to Youtube and you can watch the full screen video.*

Cool giveaway

Here is a link to The Dixon family's blog. They have some pretty awesome adoption gear they are selling! I LOVE the pink and brown baseball shirt and hat! LOVE IT! They are also doing a give away sooo check them out!

Month Number 3

We are three months DTE today!! On the unofficial list we are 7th in line for a baby boy and 12th overall!! Every month on our DTE day, we have celebrated with ice cream!! Month 1 we went to Kernel Kustard, month 2 we had Zack's yogurt and to celebrate tonight, we are gonna have us some Bill and Leah's ice cream. Yum!! Here is hoping for a referral by month #4!!

Awesome quote

There is a family sitting in Ethiopia right now making some decisions on faith and trusting God will see them through. She posted this on her FB wall, and I loved it. Praying for you Smith family..I think you rock!

"One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough,and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least... we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can."

Blessings!

This week, we found out that we were going to receive a $3,000 grant from Caroline's Promise! We are so excited and blessed by this! CP is a wonderful organization and we have been able to watch them live out what they believe in our community.

We also received our amended I171H form in the mail. We did this in case Mikias comes available through AWAA or if we happen to get a referral for an older than our original Home study stated ( 0-4 years). We know we want a baby boy and that is our original request, but we also know that we are going to want to adopt more than one child from Ethiopia, so it makes sense ( money wise) to go ahead and bring both children home at the same time.

God has placed a little boy named Mikias on our hearts and we dont really know right now if that is to adopt him or to pray feverantly for him. His pictures are in our house and our children pray for him every night. We have not heard an update on him in months now, so we really have no idea where he is our how he is, but we are still praying for him.

That being said, we wanted to be paper ready if he does become available and if he does not, we have decided that with the older child...well, we are going to leave that in the Lord's hands and have a fairly large range. If it is not Mikias then I would like for the child to be younger than Esther (8), but can be a girl or a boy..its kinda exciting to be waiting and see exactly what God is going to bless us with!!

Hopefully, the wait wont be too long either! We will be DTE 3 months this Saturday!! We could hear from our agency with a referral realistically within the next 6 weeks!!!!! It could, of course take longer, but I am not going to think about that!

a prayer tonight

Tonight our Adoption Yahoo group decided to have a prayer time. It was amazing to hear/read so many families pouring their heart out to God on behalf of these sweet babies and children.

Father, I come to you tonight on this special day set aside to honor fathers, to ask you to be with the fatherless. I pray that you would guide the steps and the decisions being made on behalf of these special children. I pray that You would be with each family going through this journey and help them to not lose hope. Abba Father, we pray that You would be with these precious children. Keep them safe and out of harm. I pray that You would be with those right now in Ethiopia, those waiting for court dates, waiting to travel, waiting for referrals and paper chasing. God, uphold each family and bless them through this journey. Lift our spirits Lord as we wait. Help us, Lord ,to not get focused waiting on the event, Lord, but help us to wait on YOU, to put our eyes on YOU and You alone... In your sweet and precious Son JESUS name we pray, Amen

Adorable Adoption video

I found this video through another blogger friend of mine and I love it! The B's are a Florida Gator family too with three adorable girls! It is such a blessing to see the Lord work in families lives and connect people through adoption.

how about a giveaway

No news on the adoption front this week (so far!) but I wanted to let you all know about a book written by Tom Davis of Children's Hope Chest. It is a book dealing with the sex trade industry and the girls that have been victims of this horrible tragedy. Kari is doing a giveaway of 10 of these books. I am hoping to win one to take with me to camp in a few weeks. Check the links out and go buy a book! She is Priceless