Time Change

I know it has been a while. We have been some busy people!!! What have we been doing you ask? Well...where to begin...
First, My friend Ashley and I bought a company. That's right, I'm a small business owner! Whaaaa??? While the first two months have been a tad bit stressful, I am doing better and into the swing of things. I. LOVE. IT!
Second, Andy went to China for work....and ate a bunch of strange things! While he was gone  I trekked up to the U.P. to spend that time with my parentals. I wasn't about to try doing the whole parenting thing on my own. RESPECT to single parents! Seriously!
Third, we were in the finishing stages of the paper work and that takes precedence over this blog.
And lastly....I'm a mom for the love of Pete. There just isn't enough free time in the day!
So yeah, that's why I haven't blogged in a while. On to the meat~

We have basically finished up our paper work at this point. We have a few things to mail here or there, but for the most part the busy work is done. Our next major hurdle is the fundraising! I am terrible at it, I hate it and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. So there. That's how I feel. If ya have any ideas feel free to share! For those of you who have helped out and have done an at home party or garage sale or have given us things to sell or have just flat out given us money. THANK YOU! You have been a huge blessing!! OH YEAH!!! We raised a pretty good chunk from the 31 bags party! Thanks guys!!! Sooooo thankful for all who purchased!! Thank you Thank you!.....

Now to the bummer part. We got an email today from our agency and this is how it read....


blah blah blah....The wait times are increasing from 18-24 months to 24-30 months for a male or female infant or toddler.  We do not have as many families requesting children four years and older and thus the wait for those families will likely be shorter than the current wait times.

Paperwork, specifically the clearance, is still the main contributor for the slowdown in the Ethiopia program.  If we have a child in the transition home who is completely paper-ready, but does not have a clearance, we need to wait on that final document before referring the child to a family.  Unfortunately, the clearance process is still one that is intensive and can be drawn out over many, many months; the final clearance could take one month or a 1+ years to obtain.  Unfortunately, this is a process that we are not permitted to manipulate and is contingent on the governmental bodies in Ethiopia. 

We know this is difficult news, especially in light of the holidays.  We are excited to post our November Referral Update on our blog later this week as there were over 10 referrals this month. We want to walk through this journey with your family and will do as much as possible on our side to have these children placed in homes as quickly as possible. Blah Blah Blah....

So that sucks! There is no other way of putting it. It just plain sucks! When we started this process it was 9-12 months and then last November it changed to 18-24 and now we are looking at nearly 3 years to go. It pretty much makes me want to throw up, give up, and scream! Andy handles these things way better than me. I melt down and throw a little fit and he just tells me it's gonna be ok. I tell him I want to quit and he says "I don't!" ....boy did God ever know what he was doing when he put us together! He holds me together until I can get it together. I kept thinking our little munchkin was probably already born, but in reality.....our new reality....she probably hasn't even been thought of by her birth parents. She sure as heck has been thought of (and prayed for) by her forever parents though!

I guess I should look at the bright side right? It gives me 3 more years to raise $29,000! Makes it sound more doable right? (Now would be a good time to agree with me!) :) 

Thanks for praying guys. We sure need it! 

Bananas

As you know, last week we had the Jewelry Party fundraiser that my friend Donna had for us. It was SUPER FUN! After all of the information and demonstrations were done we just sat around and talked and laughed our rears off for hours. Literally hours. It was wonderful! We made $150 from the sales and we were also given a $100 donation at the party, so I would say it was quite successful! $250, 3 hours or so and a whole lot of laughs! What a great night! Thanks to all of you who supported us through this!

Now, onto where our hearts are at....
Paper work, paper work and more paper work. Phone calls and emails for clarification on previous paper work....aaaggghhhh....I am learning more patience than I have ever had to before. I just want this to move....fast! And then today I was at Walmart with the boys. We were going to buy bananas and I wanted green ones. There was a nice man filling the banana stand with bright yellow ones, but I wanted green. (I know, this sounds like the beginning of a Curious George episode, but hang in there...) So, I asked the nice man if he had any green ones and he said he would run back to the back and check. I thanked him and planned to just wait patiently. As the man walked out of the way the sight behind him caught my breath. I saw a sweet girl, about 3 years old, twirling in her pretty green dress. She looked so sweet, so happy, so innocent. I started to cry. Why you ask? Because this little girls skin was the color of dark chocolate and her moms was a chalky white. That is going to be me soon....I want it so bad. Our daughter may not yet even be born, but my heart longs for her. And this little girl today was so happy, so normal, so loved. I could tell. It warmed my heart to know that children are not only getting a fighting chance at having a family, but children are learning what it means to be loved, learning God's love. As I was processing all of this...crying of course...the nice man returned holding my green bananas. I thanked him and took them from him and tried not to let him see me cry....I am pretty sure he thought I was nuts. No sir, I was not crying because you found my green bananas.
Andy was saying how amazing it has been for him to be able to pray for her, long before she is even born. She is likely not born yet to this day. It isn't that we are praying for her as she is in a hard state of life, we are getting to pray for her before her life has even begun! For love, protection, hope, health, joy...you name it. We are blessed to be able to cover her in prayer before her existence. Awesome!
Someday, someone will see me walking through Walmart with my dark skinned daughter and hope will fill their heart....I can't wait!

Jewelry Party Fundraiser

Over the past years I have been helping out with the Wakarusa Children's Resale. It is a huge ministry that provides the opportunity for people to buy and sell their used children's items at an amazingly cheap price. It helps both the sellers and buyers. I love it! Well, during this time, I have gotten to know a sweet lady named Donna Love. (I just called her a lady...she's like my age...does that make me a lady?! Yikes, I might be getting old. ) :)
Anyhow, all of that to say, she offered to have a Premiere designs Jewelry party for us as a fundraiser! How sweet! So, on Aug 20th You all are invited to a party/fundraiser at my house. Aug 20th at 6:30! If you can't make it but would like to purchase some Jewelry please comment and I will talk to Donna about getting information to you so you can decide what you would like to order! Really cool jewelry for a really great reason! Hope you all can come!!

One other thing...A huge blessing...We needed to have some CPA work done for our agency and we had a local guy Regan Lehman do it for us. I emailed information back and forth for a day or two and voila! He had it done in less than 48 hours and he didn't charge us a thing! Free!! What a great guy! (and a nice lady named Angela helped us out there too!)  If any of you locals are looking for an accountant I highly suggest you check him out. I didn't tell him I was going to do this, but the man deserves a plug here. We are so thankful!!

little frustrations

I have begun to dread seeing emails in my inbox from our adoption agency. It is always another thing that we have to fix, change the date on, re-notarize, rewrite or just something completely new they need from us. I feel like this home study process...which could have taken a month....has been drug out in an unbelievable way. Every time I open an email I hear myself audibly say, "seriously?!" Which is usually followed up by tears of frustration. We were told by our home study agency that we were finished. They billed us and we were done. We were just waiting on the confirmation from our adoption agency that it had been approved. I have learned to stop expecting to meet time frames. It is so hard to get an email saying we have to re- notarize because the date the doctor wrote and the date the notary wrote were different. It is hard to sit in a doctors office for an hour for a doctor to sign a paper, only to have to leave and wait ten more days to make it happen. It's hard to do all these seemingly pointless and mindless things when there are orphans WAITING ON PARENTS! Sometimes I just want to throw in the towel and push the truths of these orphans to the back of my mind and pretend they aren't there. It would be so much easier. My emotions wouldn't go up and down every ten minutes. I wouldn't spend hours, months even, doing paperwork and running all over the state just for someone to spend ten seconds to sign their name to a paper.

 But the truth is: My little girl is already in my heart even though I don't yet know her. My heart is way too wrapped up in this to stop now. God has called us to this and has every intention of following through with it. God broke our hearts for these Ethiopian children and even though it is emotionally wearing (even this early on in the game) there is a plan and a purpose for this. We must keep trusting and pushing through the frustrations. Please pray with us that things would go more smoothly. That we would get better at doing this paper work junk and understanding all of the requirements expected of us. And that God would bring our little girl home....sooner than later!

Happy Fathers Day

Now that we know we will have a daughter.......

I couldn't resist. This card was screaming at me from the shelf at the store. When I picked it up I welled up with tears. I think the teenagers standing next to me in the isle thought I was nuts but who cares! The inside was so simple, so true and so fitting......

When Andy opened it he got all teary eyed and said, "I didn't expect this..." and smiled. She has a very special place in our hearts already and I know God is preparing her for us as well. Can't wait till her daddy is actually holding her on Fathers Day!

Thank yous and updates

It has been WAY too long! I am so sorry! We have been so busy. I haven't had time to blog but there is so much to update on so this is gonna be a long one!
First of all the garage sale:
I want to say a HUGE thank you to Amanda Wilson! Amanda and I have been friends for about 12 years now. We don't often get to see each other, but we are the kind of friends you know you can count on and even if you haven't seen each other for a year it's like you haven't skipped a beat! Love her! Amanda called me out of the blue one day and said she wanted to do a garage sale fundraiser for us. She did everything! I hauled one load to her house and that's about it! Not only did she plan it, organize it and run it....She did all of that while MOVING! She literally moved her whole house, 2 dogs a husband and 3 kids the weekend before the sale! What a blessing she is! THANK YOU AMANDA!
I also want to thank David Arment of David Arment Photography. He donated 100 pictures for us to sell! They are super cool outdoor pictures with scripture on them. We still have some left if anyone is interested! We are selling them for donations. You pick the price! Contact me if you are interested!
Another thank you to Heathyr Harkless of House of Harkless Photography. I had never met Heathyr. I am a cloth diapering consultant and Heathyr is a customer I was going to do a consult for. I had never met her but we had been communicating via facebook. When she found out we were adopting she instantly offered a photo shoot for us to raffle off. (We raffled it off at the garage sale and my friend Alice won it!) She has a heart for adoption and plans to begin her own adoption process next year. What a blessing! How often does someone you don't know just offer you something like that?! Thank you Heathyr!!
Thank you again to Joanna Beasley. She is a recording artist who gave us a ton of her albums to sell. We had them out at the garage sale as well and we still have some left if any of you are interested! We again are selling those for whatever donation you would like to make! She is really awesome! I highly suggest you check her out!...p.s. she is in the midst of making 2 more albums at the moment! CAN'T WAIT!
And lastly, thank you to every one of you who donated! I don't even know all of the people who donated items but to all of you THANK YOU! Thank you to everyone who shopped and donated money. Amanda was telling me about people who hardly had enough money of their own giving extra just because they believed in the cause. Thank you God!
The garage sale brought in over $560.00 and we still have a whole slew of California Raisins collectibles to sell on ebay! Believe it or not what we have could bring in an additional $500.00 once we get it up for sale! You wouldn't believe the people buying this stuff!! Kinda crazy but kinda cool all at the same time! :) So all in all, once we get those sold we will have made somewhere in the ball park of $1000.00! Praise God!

On to the next topic! We have the money to pay for the home study taken care of and now we are in need of $2,490 for the next phase of the adoption. We have again been trusting God for each cent knowing that he will pull through! We have gotten checks in the mail here and there from friends we haven't seen in a really long time and have been totally blessed by each one! A week or two ago we were blessed above and beyond! Some good friends of ours gave us a check that blew us away! I continue to be amazed by peoples generosity! People giving us tax returns or their tithe money for the week. Whatever the situation is we are so grateful for each and every one of you who have given to us. You have no idea how much each dollar means to us....We are humbled and thankful!

Next up on the list today is Home studies. Since we last blogged we have had our final 2 home studies. Our social worker has come to the house, looked around, talked to the boys, talked to us and read through the conglomeration of papers we have had to fill out and notarize. (I have never had to notarize so much crap in my life!!) She asked us a million and one questions, watched us with our boys and talked through just about every aspect of our lives from birth up until now. Pretty sure there is no stone left unturned! she was really kind easy going but we are so thankful to be done! It has been a long time coming! We had to delay things for weeks and months due to Nahum being sick or Nahum having surgery or her schedule being busy. Whatever the reasons were, it just plain took too long! But hallelujah it is done! We meet up with her on Thursday evening to verify and basically sign off on the papers that will be sent in to our adoption agency. FINALLY! Now on the the craziness that is the dossier.....I am certain there will be some crazy blogging during that 6 months! The dossier is a 4-6 month process of paper work and at the end of that we submit it to Ethiopia for approval and then we wait!

What will we be waiting for you ask?  Well....Andy and I have said from the get go that you can't pick a gender when you have a biological child so we would leave this one up to God as well. However, God has really impressed on our hearts that he has a specific child for us and the way we answer the questions (ie: would you take a cleft lip, cleft pallet, deaf, boy, girl, siblings etc etc.....) is the way a child (or children) would be chosen for us. So we prayed. We answered questions. We prayed. We changed answers. We talked and prayed some more and changed some more. All of that to say...dun dun dun....we will be getting a GIRL! I almost lost it in the store tonight when we walked past the girls clothes. :) I know in my heart that God has a little girl in mind for our family! I know it! Now why did I say "or children" a few sentences back? Well, we said that we would take a sibling group if there was a little girl who had a brother or sister. I don't want to break up siblings!!! So, if God wants that or has that in mind for us it is a possibility for Ethiopia to refer siblings to us.....oh my.......Are we crazy? :)

Lastly I want to thank my friend Darcy of Darcy Holsopple Photography. She took the amazing picture you see above. When she posted it on fb she had some really sweet things to say and it got me all weepy. Thank you Darce for being willing to do this for our family! Get your trigger finger ready to take pictures of a beautiful little girl in 18 months to 2 years from now. And....get those braiding fingers ready cause I. CAN. NOT. FRENCH BRAID!

Thank you all for checking in and supporting us! Also, check out the thermometer to the side....it keeps going up thanks to God and all of you!!

Garage sale update

Due to interest in donating all types of items, we will be taking donations for all items not just children's items for the Garage sale! If you are interested in donating items to the sale please contact me or Amanda at spirited_88@hotmail.com! The sale is May 10-12 at my house if you want the address, contact me!