Melkam Gena!

Christmas is January 7th in Ethiopia, so we decided to have a celebration of our own. We made some yummy Doro Wat (traditional Ethiopian stew). It was really spicy, but we enjoyed it! Lilli even ate some.

Even though Ethiopians do not give gifts like we do in America, we received a great gift today...our CIS fingerprint appointments! Yea! It looks like we will have all the paperwork done by the end of the month and will just need to complete our home study and wait for our I-171H to come.

So on that note, I wish you a Melkam Gena (Merry Christmas)!

some of the most important sentences I've ever read

"America wrestles with its obesity crisis to such an extent that Americans forget there are worse weight problems on earth than obesity."

"For every orphan turning up in a northern-hemisphere household--winning the spelling bee, winning the cross-country race, joining the Boy Scouts, learning to rollerblade, playing the trumpet or the violin--ten thousand African children remain behind alone."

- Melissa Fay Greene, There Is No Me Without You

Happy Anniversary!

Five years ago today we were married, and what a five years it has been.

A few memories from the years....

our car getting broken into the night we returned from our honeymoon

applying to pharmacy schools, and deciding not to go

moving

changing jobs

graduation

changing churches

changing jobs again

Nancy starting graduate school

having a baby

changing jobs...again

moving...again

Chris starting graduate school

whew!

I can't imagine doing it with anyone else.

Chris, you are my rock. You are a wonderful husband and father and I couldn't ask for anything more. Here's hoping the next five (and ten, fifteen, twenty......fifty) are even more exciting as the first five.

I love you!

Swimming....

in a sea of paperwork!

Whew! I am finally starting to make heads and tails of all there is to do. And I think I have sent off for everything there is to send off for. Now we just have to get a letter from our employers, and a letter about life insurance, and a letter from the bank, and reference letters, and....and...and...

But the upside is that last night I sat down with the Gladney checklist and realized we have everything done for the first of three sets of paperwork. Yea! It was nice to see that we are actually making progress.

Here's to having another set of paperwork done the next time I check in!

We've got big news!

Check out our big news at our new blog!

We're Adopting!

We are excited to announce that we are adopting! For quite a while now, we have talked about adding to our family through adoption. At times we thought we would have another biological child first, but a few months ago that changed.

Around the middle of August, God really started working in my heart that our next child should join our family through adoption. I started quietly researching agencies, and after lots of prayer, and a few weeks, I brought it up to Chris. He listened to everything I had to say and began to pray about it himself.

In the meantime, we went ahead and requested information from various agencies, talked about different countries, and participated in various webinars to get more information.

We finally decided that we wanted to adopt from Ethiopia and we narrowed it down to two agencies.

And then ... we waited. We kept praying about it waiting for specific guidance.

One morning Chris was listening to the radio and they were discussing a new show on TV. They asked the question if you could flash forward six months from now what would the perfect scenario be? Chris realized that for himself and our family that included a son or daughter from Ethiopia.

A few days later we officially decided on Gladney as our agency and requested an application. Since then we have been busy filling out forms!

We are so excited to start this process. We will be requesting a child of either gender between the ages of 0 and 18 months (and we are open to siblings if they become available). We feel like God has really prepared our hearts and our family to begin this process. We know there will be ups and downs, but eventually our child will be with us.

Please be in prayer for us, and for our child (who is probably already born, and could be nearing his or her first birthday!) We are looking forward to this lifechanging journey!

I've been missing you

Ok, so it's been a really long time. Life has been...let's just say crazy. We sold our house, moved in with Chris's parents, bought a new house, and are now trying to get some work done in the new house before we move in. 

We went on vacation - Lilli's first trip to Disney, and we had a blast!

Speaking of the babe, she is getting so big! She had her 18 month (really, I mean come on, I just had her last week, right?) checkup last Friday. She weighs 26 lbs and is 33 inches tall. Her hair has really started to grow, and she has the most beautiful blond curly hair. I dread the day that it has to be cut! Lilli's vocabulary has really increased in the last few weeks and she mimics just about every word we say. Her current favorite words include: cheese, juice, raisins, up, stay, mommy, dada, nana, poppa, gigi, oh no, puppy, bear, fly, bailey...oh the list goes on. Really the child has been nonstop lately. It's like having my own personal tasmanian devil most days (just with a much better temperment!).

OK, I promise to update more later!