It's not bragging, right?

I have had the biggest blessing in the past week of hearing from other people in the process of adopting children who have met our daughter in Ethiopia when they traveled for their own court date. It has been so wonderful to learn more about her personality!

And since I had absolutely nothing to do with shaping who she is right now, it's not bragging to share the great things I've heard about our girl in Ethiopia, right?

She's been described as always smiling, gorgeous, lovable, social, confident, happy, charming. And she loves to be held, hugged, cuddled, and kissed!

Can I just say how proud I am of this little girl? If I'd been through what she has been through, I'd be curled up in a corner of the orphanage. But, not this girl, she has chosen (whether it's a conscious decision at age 2 or not, it's still a decision she made) to be lovely, smiley, and happy. I'm grateful and honored to even be considered to be her mommy!

I really can't wait to be the one holding her, I pray that God protects her sweet spirit until we can get to her and bring her home!


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Random Snippets of Life

Blogger was down last Thursday night and Friday morning, so that's my excuse for the lack of blog posting the end of last week. I know, I know, many have told me Wordpress is better, but I can think of a million things I need to do and a trillion things I'd rather do than spend the countless hours it would take for me to figure out how to move my blog over to Wordpress, so I'm staying and if Blogger sometimes needs an unanticipated day off, I get it, happens to me, too, sometimes.

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I hope you're ready for some random because that's all I've got!

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I took my 3 kids to the pediatrician one day last week for check-ups because we are currently in the process of re-doing a bunch of adoption paperwork that is expiring. I really do not know how this happened, but this was the first time we'd been to the pediatrician's office in about 6 months!!!!! Just to help you understand the hugeness of that, we were there just about every other week for the past 8 years! Sometimes (and I'm not kidding here) we were there even more than once a week -- you know one kid would get sick and I'd take him to the doctor and then 3 days later another kid would come down with it and back we'd go to the pediatrician. So, our recent visit was like a reunion! It's a family practice with a father and son doctor team and then the older doctor's wife is the office manager, and they were all so excited to see us, hugging and kissing my kids, commenting on how tall everyone had gotten! So funny and wonderful!

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While at the doctor they did a vision test on each of my kids and for my just-turned-four year old, instead of a letter chart they were shapes, like heart, star, and triangle. He had to cover one eye and read off the shapes from different lines. And when my little guy came to the plus sign and said, "Cross", I could not have been more proud! He didn't think of that "+" shape as a "plus" or even a lowercase "t", nope to him it was a "cross," as in Jesus died on the cross for our sins!
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We wrapped up soccer season yesterday. My 8 year old son loved it and wants to play again in the fall. My 5 year old daughter? Well she didn't hate it and I think she actually made contact with the ball once or twice during each game (like at kick-off when the ref. handed her the ball to kick), but we're definitely hanging up the cleats for the foreseeable future. I feel a little bad that I'm kinda happy about it, but at this point, ruling out a sport really makes my life easier! We signed her up for soccer because she hadn't tried a team sport yet and we didn't want to always wonder if that was something she would have loved. But, now we can just focus on what she does love -- swimming and gymnastics! She recently tried out and made it onto our local swim team for the summer and she is having so much fun! In fact, her workout got cut short due to thunder one day last week and she cried she was so sad to stop swimming early!

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My 5 year old has another interest that I just may be a little excited about -- sewing! Today she and I used these instructions and made this skirt for her. It was fun to make and came together really quickly!I have an extremely long list of sewing projects we can work on over the summer -- just have to keep those boys occupied with something so we can sneak off and sew!!

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I just figured out there is an Ethiopian grocery store really close to our house, so we are definitely planning an outing over there very soon, and are so happy to know that once our new daughter comes home we'll be able to easily keep her supplied with injera should she so desire!

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Happy Monday!

Bring On The Summertime!

I'm not sure who's more excited about the approaching summertime, the kids or me.

I cannot wait!

I love the slower pace of summer!

The not having to part with my older 2 kids from 8am to 3pm each day!

The we-have-nowhere-we-have-to-be-today days!

Wearing only a swimsuit or pajamas for days on end!

Making and eating homemade ice cream!

Multiple trips to the library in the same week!

Running through the sprinklers!

Building massive forts out of sheets in their bedrooms!

And using every bit of our Thomas the Train tracks to build the longest railroad, winding through much of the upstairs!

I can't tell you how many friends have approached me recently telling me all about everything they've signed their kids up for the summer. "This week he'll be here from 9 to 3 every day then the next week is 9 to 5 at this camp, then there's lego camp, it's just 9 to noon. . ." There are the friends sending their kids to overnight camp for 2 or 3 weeks. And all of the friends have invited my kid or kids to join their kid, even offered to carpool, which is so sweet. But, call me selfish, and perhaps my kids will one day, but I say summer is my chance to spend a lot of time with my kids. School gets so much of their time during the other 9 months of the year, for these 3 upcoming months, all those camps can't have them!

The two oldest kids are doing swim team and we'll do 1 week of VBS at our church and a family vacation, and of course we are praying for a miracle summer court date so we can make a trip to Ethiopia to meet our new daughter/sister!!!

But the rest of the time will be unscheduled fun and relaxation and time together.

And I can't wait!

Find more Thankful Thursday here.

A Sure Sign Your Puppy May Need Some Training

In all my life of having dogs, I've never witnessed quite this level of inappropriate dog behavior. ALL FOUR PAWS up on top of the dining room table!

We'd all gotten up from the table, cleared our plates and left the room, until we heard a commotion in the dining room that brought us back in and had me running for my camera!

You know the adage, "Adorable puppies grow up into obnoxious dogs." We may be leaving the adorable phase and entering obnoxious!



Find more Wordful Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday, & Not So Wordless Wednesday.

More than Coincidence

We've had several things come up throughout our adoption process that we know are definitely more than coincidence. They are things that really seem too crazy to have just happened by chance. We believe they are God showing us that He's all over this story.

The past week brought two huge "only God" moments.

First, was in relation to someone who has recently become a very good friend of ours, someone who shares a heart for Africa and orphans, and she traveled to Ethiopia a few months ago and visited among other places, the orphanage where our daughter is. We've been saying, "Hey, maybe you met our girl!" but we weren't really serious because there are over 100 kids there and we didn't even know who our daughter was back then! But, last Monday after seeing our pictures, she broke down in tears and said, "Yes, I met her, she sat on my lap for a long time! We colored together!" What are the chances?!!! Right now this friend lives here in our city, we became friends recently before we even knew who our daughter was and somehow God arranged things so she held our daughter, colored with her, even, half-way around the world!! "God, you are awesome!" is about all I can say about that!

Then on Saturday we got some more pictures of our girl from our caseworker; they were some older pictures than our referral pictures that she was able to obtain from the in-country personnel. I sucked them into my computer's iPhoto so they filed in by date all mixed in with our other family pictures and the earliest picture we now have of our new daughter happened to fall right after the picture I'd taken of a book I bought for her for Christmas (of course we didn't know who she was then, but still wanted something under the tree for the little girl that felt a part of our family already). The book is "God Found Us You"!!! So, when you scroll through the month of Dec. in my iPhoto, you see the "God Found Us You" picture and then immediately after are the earliest pictures we have of our daughter in Ethiopia! Does that make a statement, or what?!!!
Some might call these things coincidences but we believe they are sweet reminders that God is involved in every detail of this adoption! And we are so thankful for the encouragement and comfort we've gotten from seeing His fingerprints so clearly. It's like He's saying, "Don't worry, I've GOT this!"


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The Post-Referral Vortex

In the past 18 months of watching several other blogs of people adopting from Ethiopia I've noticed many blogs with frequent updates throughout the wait until they get their referral, then there is a post or 2 with all the details of The Call and then nothing for months, sometimes not even another post until the "We're Leaving for Ethiopia in 3 Days!" post. And I've always wondered what is going on during that time after referral, why do their blogs get so quiet?

Well, I'm beginning to understand.

My mind is mush right now. Complete mush.

There are a million thoughts running through my head at any given moment, but it feels near impossible to string them together in any coherent way.

I have a child on the other side of the world. A walking, talking, eating, sleeping, playing, crying child. And I can't go to her.

How is it that every day, regular life can go on?

I think if life did just stop for a few days, I'd feel better. But right now regular life is May and May to a mom with school-aged kids is the equivalent of December, maybe even more busy. End of year parties, open house, musicals, art fair, last field trips, preschool water day, elementary school field day, parent appreciation dinner, teacher end of year gifts, and swim team season is overlapping with soccer season for three crazy weeks! All combined with the usual wash, errands, cleaning up messes, and feeding people.

But at the forefront of all else that goes on, is this precious child we know only through pictures but feel certain is our daughter just the same. We are so thankful and overjoyed with the referral, to know who she is, to be able to gaze at her face in pictures any time we want! But with all that happiness comes the questions.

When can we bring her home? We have no idea, literally no idea. Could be a few months, could be several months. Halloween? Christmas? Next spring? No idea. And that's hard.

Is it wrong to get this attached, refer to her as daughter/sister when she is not legally ours yet, and with adoptions anything can change right up until the whole thing is finalized?

What do we call her? Is there a way to meld her Ethiopian name into something more pronounceable in America? Are we even pronouncing her Ethiopian name correctly? Our other 3 children all have names that begin with the same letter, shouldn't we give her a name that begins with that letter, too? The baby name books have been dug out from the way back of the bookshelf, dusted off, and combed through. Lists have been made, debates had, children consulted. We may have a verdict. But, what if she hates what we've decided? She'll likely be 3 when we bring her home and 3 year olds have been known to be opinionated! But at the same time, if you'd allowed me input into my name at age 3, it's quite likely I wouldn't be happy with that name now as a 30-something year old person!

Where should she sleep? From the photos it appears she's in a crib right now in Ethiopia at the care center, but she'll be even older when she comes home, shouldn't we just go straight to a bed? And if so, then toddler bed or regular twin bed?

When is the right time to get the bed and prepare her space? After court when we know it's official that she's ours? But, what if we get a quick embassy date and only have a few weeks between court and bringing her home, I'll likely be busy recovering from one trip to Ethiopia and preparing for another and won't have time for bed shopping or room decorating!

What is the necklace she's wearing in many of the pictures, sometimes tucked inside her dress with just a bit of its black cord showing around her neck? Was it just a freebie from other adoptive parents bringing gifts to all the kids at the care center or is it something more personal to her? With my other children I had by birth, I know every bit of their history, pretty much every item they've ever had, I know the story, where they got it, how long they've had it, how much they love it, etc. This little girl has a past, two and a half years of life (and counting) that I was no part of. There's so much I want to know about her and will probably never know. How old was she when she began walking? What was her first word? Was she a fussy baby or easy-going? Did she spit out her first taste of solid food or eagerly swallow it and reach for more? And so many more questions.

Also, there are adoption issues we now feel totally unprepared to handle. For example, along with sharing the news of our referral and showing people her pictures have come the questions about her past and the uncomfortable conversations because we don't want to share information that is very personal and painful to our daughter, a story of great loss. But what is okay to say? We thought we had this all figured out, decided even, before we got our referral, but now with her real story it feels different.

To illustrate what all that crazy swirling around in your head can do to a person:

My husband and I traveled out of town for a few days last week to attend some optional adoption training offered by our agency (my husband's parents came into town to keep our kids). In our defense we attempted to pack light so we wouldn't have to check bags on the plane, which is a challenge for us over-packers, but upon our late-night arrival to our hotel we realized he'd forgotten his razor and I'd forgotten my toothbrush, so the next morning he shaved with the razor I use on my legs and I used his toothbrush! Too much information? Perhaps, but it gets better. We went by a store before heading back to our hotel after the first day of training and got a few things we needed, but I forgot to buy a toothbrush!!

Now that I'm back to using my own toothbrush again, I'm hoping to get back to regular blogging (although after this rambling, long-winded post many of you may wish I'd just be quiet until we're heading to Ethiopia!). If anything maybe I can work through these thoughts as I write them, and I can attempt to record them for our sweet girl in Ethiopia to see someday when she is older because we really do believe one day she will be home with us!

Thank you for bearing with me, for being a sounding board, for your encouragement and prayers!

The Phone Call of a Lifetime (Part 3)

More of the story of The Call. . .

When the phone rang last Friday at 3:45 pm, no way did I expect it to be The Call (and yes, I do believe you have to capitalize that term) we'd been waiting on for nearly 13 months!! In fact, by about 1PM I was like, "Okay, so today's obviously not going to be the day and that means this week has not been the week and now we have to wait out the weekend."

I was busy with my kids and when the phone rang I had to scramble to get it, I saw the number was from our adoption agency's area code and I answered it but still I didn't really think it was The Call! After initial hellos, our caseworker said, "I hear you guys are coming for the training next week and I wanted to make sure I got to see you while you were here." I made small talk with her about the training while opening a snack for one child and cutting a "too scratchy" tag out of the swimsuit of another child (I really think I was babbling incoherently) when in my head all I could think was, "Please don't let that be the only reason you're calling!!!"

Then she finally got to, "There's another reason I'm calling . . ."

And I just about fainted thinking, is this really it are we finally going to know who the little girl is we're going to adopt?!!

When she told me she had our referral ready, I didn't ask her anything about the child, yet, because my husband and I had already decided if at all possible we wanted to find out her age together. Since my husband was at work, I asked if we could call her back and would she be in the office. She gave me the direct number to call her back and I'm so glad I repeated it back to her because I'd written it down wrong my hand was shaking so much!

I called my husband and he agreed to come home so we could be together to get the news and see the pictures. I began flying around my house like a crazy person saying random things to my kids and wildly rubbing sunscreen on them. I dropped my older two kids off at swim team practice and then came back home, started a movie for my little one, then my husband drove up and we called our caseworker back.

She said, "Okay I'm hitting send."

And my email in-box churned for what felt like at least 90 minutes but in reality was about 1 minute. I have no doubt I hit refresh about 120 times during that 1 minute!! And then it was there! The first email introducing our new daughter with about 12 photos attached! Then there was another email with many attachments with medical info, etc., etc. We talked through all the attachments with our caseworker for about 30 minutes. And I have to say, the whole experience is just about as surreal as anything I can imagine! But yet, my husband and I both had complete peace at saying "yes" right away without taking any time to think about it or discuss amongst ourselves, even though we were told we could have several days!

It may sound crazy, but it was instantly there, this bond we feel with our new little girl. I told my husband later that night before we went to bed and were staring at the pictures we'd printed out, "She looks really familiar to me for some reason, like she reminds me of someone, but I can't think of who." I still haven't thought of anyone she reminds me of, I really just believe she looks familiar to me because God intended us to be together all along.

My mind is a whirlwind of crazy, so I'm sure this blog post is incoherent at best, but I'll wrap up with telling the kids. It was late evening before we could tell them because my husband had some key work stuff he had to finish, so he went back up to work and ended up staying late to make up for the time he was home in the afternoon, and we wanted to both be there when the kids heard the news (they knew we'd gotten our referral, but just didn't know her age, yet and hadn't seen the pics.).

We hooked up the computer to the TV to show the pictures really big and the three kids gathered in front of the screen. I'll never forget my oldest son's reaction, upon seeing the very first picture he smiled huge, raised both his arms, and cheered, "Yay!!!!"

Makes me cry just writing about it!

My 3 year old (who is now 4 -- it's been a busy last few days!) said, "She's as cute as Madeline!" Madeline is our new puppy. We may or may not tell the little sister someday what he said. But for the record, our puppy is pretty cute!!

My 5 year old daughter was rather quiet so I asked what she thought, and she asked, "Is she a baby?" and I said, "Well, more of a toddler, but she'll always be your baby sister because she'll always be younger than you. And, this way maybe she can share a room with you right away, she may not even be sleeping in a crib when she comes home." My 5 year old was very pleased with the idea of sharing a room with the new sister (she's always wanted someone to share her room with, like the boys share a room)!

Then all then kids began asking about how we'd teach her English so we talked a bit about how someone learns a language. I said, "Just like you guys learned, you can help her learn. Like you can pick up a ball, show her and say, "ball" and that's how she'll learn. Then my 5 year old, being too smart for me, said, "Well how will she ever learn to say 'hi' and 'bye'?" You know because "hi" is not a thing you can show someone! Thank you kindergarten for teaching the concept of a noun!

Anyway, the kids are very excited to help her learn English and I'm afraid she's going to be bombarded by too many eager teachers when she comes home! The 30 children she's living with in her specific house of the care center may seem quiet compared to her 3 siblings!