Update!!

I did not update the first of March because not much has happened.  Things have pretty much been at a stand still.  International Adoption has been in a negative view of some Ethiopian officials and they have not been authorizing documents.  There have been a couple meetings that have taken place recently and they have had positive results.  The Minister has confirmed that there is no plan to shut down International Adoption in Ethiopia.  The delay in documents should soon improve.  Research done by the Ministry of over 142 orphanages showed that they are dependent on the support given by the agencies to provide for the children.  The goal in all of these delays and research is to improve the integrity of the adoption process and referral process.  This is really great news!  Although none of us are thrilled about the extra wait times, we are all very happy to see the Ministry trying to improve things. The Minister assured all at this meeting that her position is in favor of international adoption as a child's last means of support, and that adoption from Ethiopia has not, and will not stop.  We have also learned of an additional step that is meant to ensure a child meets the true definition of "orphan status".  Each orphanage will be required to search for alternative means of support for each child.  The orphanage will be required to advertise each child for local adoption.  They will do everything they can to try to find local placement for the child for 2 months.  After the 2 months, the child can be approved for International Adoption.  As I understand it, this is to take place immediately.  We are assuming there will be no referrals for at least 2 months.  Again, we don't the wait to be any longer, but this is definitely a great thing.  This is what has been going on!  On a happy note we did move up a couple spots in the last two months to #34.  Our hope is that after these 2 months pass, there will be a huge month or two of referrals.  We have also decided to change our age range when we get our home study updated.  We will be asking to be able to adopt a child up to age 5.  Kian is hoping for a little brother that is 4 or 5 years old!  Kaitlyn is hoping for a baby sister.  Aden really doesn't care!   

February update

We received our February update on Monday. Boy things are slow!  It's killing me. I'm getting anxious!  The closer we get, the harder the waiting becomes. We moved up 3 spots to #37. We did get some good news the last part of January about the closure rumors. Rumors they were and it sounds like there is still a positive view on international adoptions. That was a relief. I was beginning to research what our other options might be.

We did get Kaitlyn's room upstairs almost completed!  The wall is up and it is painted. We just need a door and to get the base molding back on. Hopefully a couple weeks and she will be moving in. It looks really cute!  I'll post pictures when she's moved in. She's excited!!!  Now I just need to get the upstairs and basement cleaned up and organized. Next project will be the kids bathroom. I can't wait! New floor and cabinets!!!  I still need to paint the rest of the upstairs bonus room and both bedrooms for our little ones. Lots to do!!!!  It's a bit overwhelming!

Kaitlyn had another tumbling meet last weekend in Edwardsville. It was a fun one!  She's loving every minute of it. We are so proud of how much she has learned since June. We will be in Decatur next weekend and Pana the first weekend in March. She has one coming up in Effingham for anyone who would like to come watch!  It's really fun to watch all the kids. She's already talking about next year so I guess we are committed for a while.  Kian went with us last weekend and now he wants to do team tumbling. He loves his boys tumbling class!

The snow and cold has kept us in quite a bit so not much to share. I'm ready for spring! How about you?!!!!

January Update

Wow…It's been a while.  There was not much to update in December.  We did not move at all in the month of November.  It was no fun!  December brought only a few referrals.  We moved up 3 spots to #40.  I was hoping for more than that.  December was also pretty uneventful until the last couple of weeks.  There has been a lot of talk going around about Ethiopian adoptions.  We have known since last Saturday evening.  We are really not for sure what is fact or fiction right now.  Apparently the Ethiopian government (or a portion of it) would like to end International adoptions.  As of right now, we are being told not to read into this too much.  It could possibly just mean there will be more changes on the way.  We are not sure where we stand right now.  It is possible things could change soon or it could take years for the government to get things in place to end international adoptions from Ethiopia.  I'm not sure what we will do if that happens.  We have talked about it a little but are really hoping Ethiopia will not shut down but just make necessary changes.  It may make our process longer.  We just don't know.  Hopefully we will know more soon.

On a better note….we had a great Christmas!  We always do.  I just love Thanksgiving and Christmas. We spent Thanksgiving in Houston with my sister and her family.  We always have a great time visiting them.  I was able to meet my new great nephew too!  He is really something special.  He was not supposed to be here until December 6th, but made his arrival Oct. 25th.  He weighed just a little over 3 lbs.  He was home from the hospital and doing great while I was there.  I just love him to pieces!  He is perfect in every way.  Christmas is always great.  We spend time with everyone in the family.  We had my family over for dinner Christmas Eve.  We spent Christmas Day home with the kids.  We were very lazy that day!  I spent the next two days cleaning house!  Saturday, we spent the day with Jason's family.  Jason surprised me Christmas morning and said we could go back to my sister's, so we left Saturday night and drove 15 hours to Houston.  It is a horrible drive!  We arrived there around 9:30 Sunday morning.  We had a great visit.  Baby Xander has grown so much just in a month.  I couldn't believe it.  I forgot to pack my camera, so I have no pictures to share.  I was not very happy about that! We left Houston on Thursday and went to Dallas for a night.  We did some ice skating at the Galleria and experienced how the rich shop.  We only purchased some candy at the candy store and some Auntie Ann's pretzel bites.  Thursday night we went to Medieval Times.  The kids loved it, especially Kian.  He cheered, well I would actually call it more like screaming and yelling, and ate a ton of food.  Friday we hit Main Event where we played some laser tag, bowled, and hung out in the arcade.  We headed home that afternoon so we could beat this snow storm.  Now I am wishing we had just stayed down there through this week too!

Right now, I am sitting it the dark in front of the warm fireplace.  We have no electricity and there is probably 10 inches of snow blowing around outside.  The temperature is supposed to get down to -14 tonight with a wind chill of -40.  Jason is working on getting the generator going as I type.  He has been out all day cleaning driveways.

Me, my beautiful niece Abbie and baby Xander

Kian loves baby Xander

Me, my beautiful niece Jaycee, and Kian at Top Golf

My sister Michelle and Xander.  Happy New Year!!!!

Ice Skating at the Galleria in Dallas

Our snowman.  Don't judge!  It's not a very big one!!! 

Our first attempt at making snow ice cream.  It was pretty good!

Hope you all had a safe and happy holiday!  We wish you a great year to come!  Hopefully big things will be happening for us in 2014!!!!  

First Tumbling Meet!

Kaitlyn had her very first tumbling meet last weekend.  We spent Saturday and Sunday in Olney watching her do her thing!  She did a great job!  She started some tumbling when she was little, then did a little dance, and a little more tumbling.  We started taking her to a gymnastics class in March 2012.  She then decided she did not like the balance beam or vault very well.  We moved her to Mattoon Academy of Gymnastics in June and she has progressed tons!  When she started there, she had just managed to do her back handspring (thanks to Miss Sam Fisher, who also has helped her tons and is still helping her).  Now she is doing three in row.  They aren't always pretty but she is doing them!  I could barely do a cartwheel at her age, so I am very impressed!  On Saturday she had her double mini passes and her trampoline routine.  She placed 6th on double mini and 7th on trampoline.  She competes in the Novice 9 year old girls group.  We thought this was pretty good considering she just started double mini and tramp in June.  She had no experience in either of these events.  Sunday she had her tumbling passes.  She is in the 9 year old sub novice group for tumbling.  She did really good on her roundoff, 2 back handsprings.  Her roundoff, 3 back handsprings is very challenging for her.  She did really good!  We were so happy that she landed it and did not hit her head!  She placed 7th in that event.  She had a great time competing.  She will compete again in Arthur in January.  I must say she looked super cute in her team leotard and her hair in a bun!

November 1st Update!

Friday was torturous!  The first of every month is update day.  In our little world of adoption, that means email stalking, FB stalking, and impatiently waiting for that update.  Friday was especially tortuous because that update didn't come in until evening.  The clock hit 5:00 and I thought we were just going to be waiting until Monday.  Bummer!  As we set off for trick or treat Friday evening about 6:00, I checked my email on my phone and there it was!  FINALLY!!!!  It was a good one too!  The month of October started off slow, but boy oh boy did it end well.  There were 13 referrals!!!  That's big!  We moved up 10 spots.  We started off at #63 in June.  Last month, we were at #53.  This month we are at #43!!!!!  Woohoo!!!!!!  We were told in October to expect around 25 referrals coming up, so I am assuming November could be a good month as well.  I am hoping!  There are also some rumors going around that we may possibly only have to make one trip to Ethiopia rather than two.  I am hoping and praying that is the case.  There have been some changes in the process, so we won't know for certain how it is all going to work out but hopefully, they will go back to one trip!  It will more than likely be a longer trip, but will be much cheaper to only have to fly there once.  I am also not thrilled about the idea of passing court and coming home, leaving our kids behind in Ethiopia until we are cleared to bring them to America.  That will be rough!  I hope we will not have to do that!  

So....what are we doing while we wait?  Not much!  It is really hard to do all this waiting.  I am ready now!  We have Aden's room done and he has moved into it.  He loves it!  It turned out very nice!  I still do not have his old room completely empty yet though.  I need to work on that.  There was a lot of stuff he didn't want.  I can't decide what to do with it!  We will hopefully be getting Kaitlyn's room upstairs started soon.  I am totally dreading her moving her stuff.  She is a hoarder!!!!  It is bad!  I am also working really hard to prepare myself mentally.  Our lives will be changing big time!  We now have three kids that are really pretty independent and very busy with activities.  I have to admit that I am stressing out a little about adding two more!  Two more that could both be under 2.  I've never had two kids under two before!  I'm going to have tons more laundry.  I will be trying to wiggle two more little people schedules into our busy schedule.  I know it will be fine and we will just roll with the punches, but while I am sitting her waiting with nothing to do, I am worrying about how we will manage it all.  Thankfully, I have the best husband ever who works very hard so I can stay home with our kids.  He does know how to do laundry too even though he folds everything the wrong way and I have to do it over!  I think he does this on purpose.  He thinks it is hilarious that it bothers me when the clothes are not folded correctly.  Haha!  Anyway....I know we will be fine, but it is a little scary.  It was scary each time we had a new baby too though.  It will be a big adjustment which we will make.  I am so excited about having a big family.  A big family is big work, but it is also big fun and big love!  

September Update

Our September update came through this morning.  We are up a total of 10 spots, from back in June, to #53.  There are 25 referrals coming up but there have been some delays on the Ethiopia side.  Hopefully by mid October, we will start seeing some of these come through.  That will give us a nice bump up on the list!  I'm not good at this waiting game, but to be honest these last few months have gone by quickly (thank goodness).  We still have a super long wait ahead though.  Even if we get that referral around June, we will still have around another 6 months of waiting to bring them home.  I will just keep myself busy preparing for them.  We did get Aden's room moved to the basement.  He LOVES it!  It still needs a few things (minor decorating) but he's down there.  I will get that finished up this fall and then we will start on the upstairs room for Kaitlyn.  Poor Kian is not happy that he is not getting a new room!  He wanted to have the downstairs room too!   Aden is just not up for sharing with him though.  :)

I keep thinking I will do better posting on our blog.  I have good intentions and just never post.  I am trying to make a new recipe every week (which doesn't always happen) but I am going to try to start sharing them.  I love cooking and trying new things, but I do not love cleaning up my messes!  I also have several Kian stories to share.  He is a funny kids and is always saying the funniest (sometimes very embarrassing) things!  We have a family trip coming up, so I will definitely be sharing about that.  We are all super excited for some beach time!

I have also become somewhat involved with a couple of moms who have also adopted from Ethiopia through our agency.  They have partnered up with Children's Hope Chest to start a care point in the region of Ethiopia where their children were born, Wolisso.  After traveling to Ethiopia, they decided they wanted to become involved in some way to help that area.  There were not able to come up with anything, so have teamed up with Children's Hope Chest to open up a care point there.  Pretty Exciting!  They are searching for people who would be interested sponsoring children.  They will have 150 children who will need a sponsor.  Sponsorship is $34/month and will provide the children with warm meals, water, and and education.  In that area, if you cannot afford private education, you do not go to school.  This provides those many children with that opportunity.  After getting all the children sponsored, they will begin raising money for development projects, such as building wells, a school, etc.  If you think you would like to sponsor a child, please contact me and I can get you more info or in touch with these two wonderful moms!  We sponsor a child already through Children's Hope Chest.  She is 11 years old and just started school.  She lives with her grandfather and has lost both of her parents.  We are able to send her letters and photos.  Our site leader is going to be traveling to Ethiopia soon, so we just mailed a care package to her to deliver for us.  It was so hard to choose only a few things.  I picked out a light jacket, T-shirt, underwear, socks, toothbrush, Lip balm, hair accessories, and some snacks for her.  I can't wait to get some pictures of her with her new things.  Things she has never been able to have new before!  When we travel to Ethiopia, we will have the option of going to her care point and meeting her.  Of course, I will be doing everything I can to make that happen!  Another family that has traveled and also has a child sponsored through CHC, was able to meet and take a package to her sponsored child.  So cool!  There is another mom who shared a story with us....she actually met a young lady who had shared with her that she had been a sponsored child and what a difference it made in her life.  She was able to go to school and I believe is now a teacher herself and able to support her family.  I'm thrilled to be able to do something so small on this side of the world to possilbly make a huge impact in some child's life on that side of the world.

August Update

August was an incredibly slow month!  There were 3 referrals this month, but two were older children which does not affect our number on the list.  We received our update on Tuesday and we were at #56.  That is only one spot!  There are several potential referrals coming up, but we have been told there has been a delay in some paperwork.  Hopefully, September and October will see some major movement.  There has already been one referral this month so that actually puts us at #55.  We have such a long way to go and I am not good at waiting.  At this point, I don't see how we will have a referral in the timeline we were given.  This worries us!  With Jason's work schedule in the Spring, we are really hoping to have our kids home by March for sure.  It will be very difficult for him to travel after that. I may need a volunteer to travel to Ethiopia with me!  Only time will tell and I totally trust our agency.  They know more than we do about the process.  I hope they are right and we will still have a referral sometime next summer.