How I feel today

We have so much to be thankful for.

I've had an interesting week in the world of adoption thinking, big transitions coming up at our church, and family dynamics. It was a bit overwhelming... I got a bit whiny about it. As I sat there last night at a beautiful park in Kansas City.. (the most DIVERSE cultural park I've ever seen where the "whities" like us are the minority).. I was reminded of how fantastic my life is. How much I have been blessed. Do I long to have my son home? Do I wish that the financial obligations involved in adoption didn't exist and someone wanted to buy my plane tickets for me? YES. But that doesn't change how blessed I am in reality. In reality, I am a mother sitting on a bench watching a happy little boy do the slide about a hundred times. Erin of 2007 (who was not happy.. down right angry and whiny) would have smacked me to have the gull to whine because my beautiful 2nd child wasn't here yet. The fact that he exists, that God was with him in the womb and at his birth was not enough for me??!!

Let's not even get started that the whole adoption isn't and shouldn't be about ME. Gasp :-)

It's about our omnipresent and magnificent God holding out his hand over an unborn child in Africa. Perhaps saying "It's okay. I have you." He led a woman and police officers to a school yard where a newborn was left screaming on the ground. He was wrapped up, and placed in the care of a center in Durame where he would be safe and warm and fed. Not only that, but God did not stop there. He cared for the documents of that unnamed newborn so that he could be processed and assigned a forever Mother and Father; a Mama and Daddy that wanted him so badly.

I know horrible things happen in the world.. and millions of children are orphaned and don't live in the ideal circumstances that we wish they did.. BUT when God moves for even one child in the way He has I will stand back and praise Him. Even if other people don't agree, I will praise Him.

Baby Boy and Show Hope Shirts update

So in terms of our little guy, the only real update is that he is now 3 months old. As far as we know right now, he is still in Durame and doing well. The courts re-open on September 28th, and we hope to have a court date assignment soon after that. We are also hoping that baby boy bill be moved to Addis Ababa to the transition center soon as well.

Our friends have court dates booked up through the 3rd week of November, so we believe we will HOPEFULLY be flying for court in December.

We are still working on our fundraiser partnering with Show Hope to sell shirts. We have a few slots left in our first bulk order before I can send it on its way. If you are interested in any of the designs, please let us know!! You can pay via credit card (Paypal) to the right of the screen. If you would like to look at the styles, you can either scroll down or view them in our archives.

While we continue to wait for news, please pray for baby boy's health, the legal process, and the final $6-8,000 we are attempting to raise.

Thank you for following us!

Ted's August Vacation

So one of the crummy things that happened during this adoption process has to do with Ted's vacation time. The hospital wanted us to tell them when placement would be happening clear back in February- before paper was done, back when there was zero wait for referral, and before the two trip process began.. THUS, he is being forced to take vacation in August, September, and October. We tried to get out of it a long time ago, but it looks like when we actually do need to travel for court, we will have to take unpaid leave which stinks ;-( Pregnant people can ideally at least tell you what month they will be delivering in pending no emergencies.. us? Not so much. It's just the way it is.

So, rather than grumbling about what we weren't able to change, we decided to make the best of it! We enjoyed a short camping trip and family time in August, and plan to make a short trip to the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri next month. In October, we will be traveling to Minnesota for Ted's brother's wedding.

So back to this vacation!

First of all, we did waffles pretty much every day.



We spent lot of time again at the Kansas City Zoo. Here are some pictures of Lucas' favorite friends. Below is a video of the new polar bear exhibit also :-)











On Sunday, we traveled to Gardner, KS for a get together with another friend from the Holt Ethiopia adoption group. We spent the evening learning more specifics about the travel and meeting some people currently in the process and some that have recently returned.

Here is Lucas with another little guy that just came home.



We left early Monday morning for Cutty's Resort outside of Des Moines which is where my Grandparents live during half of the year. We rented a small trailer that was really nice and spent our days playing and resting with Lucas.

We all slept in the same room which was a little distracting for Lucas during the night.. not a whole lot of sleeping happened for anyone on the first night..







We were having a great time...



but one of us is still "2"



We were very brave going up the big slide with Daddy.. but kinda lost our nerve at the top so Dad had to help get us back down





We spent a lot of time playing at the park, wading at the pool, showing us his muscles, and trying to throw us in..












He found some news toys.. such as my sunglasses..



and got to stay up late to enjoy some family time with the "big hot".







We came back home on Wednesday. With the exception of my high school reunion this weekend and Ted's brother's wedding in October, we can actually settle back in in Missouri for the beautiful fall :-)