We have been hit by a huge ice storm.....the agency is down, so no word on a new court date. I have reason to believe it will be mid-March.....pray for a miracle.

Not a miracle for selfish me who wants to hold my babies....not for me who now thinks I need to return lots of winter clothes....not for me who is tired of telling people next month since summer.....not me who wants the children to be at church for adoption Sunday waving the Ethiopian flag......not me who wants to start new lifebooks (something that is new & fun for me).... seriously not for me!

Pray for a miracle for these boys....the boys have already had to move to a second orphanage since their mom bringing them in (so since August they have lived at home with mom and 2 orphanges).......pray that they have good care for the next few months.....pray for Yohannis we are still not sure if he can walk and getting him home at 1 1/2 versus over 2 to begin therapy could be a big difference....pray for the bonding process, the sooner the better for these boys as they are at a critical age for the bonding issues......pray that the boys have oppurtunities to bond as brothers, in the orphanage I assume they are in different areas and I think it is so important that they spend time together....pray for their overall health.

Also pray for the other children....every day that our 2 children are in that orphanage there are 2 children that cannot enter. Lastly pray for all the families in this process. 6 families from our agency have been affected by this delay alone, plus many other agencies families. Every delay that happens and every discouraging delay in the process gets told....and these negative associations with adoption or Ethiopian adoption can prevent a family from taking the leap of faith and adopting an orphan. Pray against the devil as he throws roadblocks at those of us following the word of God.

So pray...just not for selfish little me :)

this makes me smile :)

We recently spent a few days in Gatlinburg, we stayed in a new resort called Wilderness Lodge. While it is still under construction for all of the outdoor waterpark features, it has an excellent indoor water park. The indoor park includes a wave pool, childrens area, baby area, tube slides, family raft ride and the BEST of is the artificial wave machine thingy.....you can body surf or actually stand and surf. Can we start of saying this is CHEAP entertainment!!! A few of the men were talented enough to do a few board tricks and show off for the crowd that gathered around...a few ladies were nice enough to make it a bit R-rated by losing their tops.....and my dear hubby was nice enough to just give everyone a huge laugh!!! He attempted the standing surf option...the lifeguard works with the surfer until he gets out into the wave. Paul managed to stay on the board for what we assume was about 1/8th of a second!! At that time he fell off the board as was thrown around in the wave like a lifeless rag doll...then he proceeded to knock out the legs of the lifeguard (or doctor as Madelyn has told everyone!) they then swirled around together for a bit....then Paul attempts to stand up, which then knocked him back on his butt. If only I could man a camcorder and a camera at the same time....I did get some later trys on video, but none were as good as this one!

Here is Carsons poor wipeout....

It does not look difficult but many adults could not even do what he was doing below!

There goes my Madelyn...she is SO fearless! I had the camera on action for her fall so it was way too blurry :(

"I've got bad news"

....at this point in the adoption (well I guess at anytime) these are words you do not want to hear. But that was how the conversation went today with myself and the agency director. She had just been notified that the MOWA (womens affairs) group was moving their office this week....so NO court cases are being heard this week.

We are still unsure of what this will mean. If a case is reassigned (as ours was in Dec.) you are usually assigned a new court date about 6 or 7 weeks later. There are also times when cases are left open....neither of these happened today.

So please pray with me that they are not reassigned for 6 or 7 weeks from now...we pray they will hear them next week. This is getting hard. This is test of patience like I have never expierenced.

court info. again.....

It has taken me a bit to get to the blog....facebook is a bit better for quick updates!
So let me explain what happened.
Ethiopia is 8 years behind us.
Ethiopia is 8 days behind us.
Evidently between one continent and another, we had a communication breakdown.
So while we thought our court date was on the 21st in the US, it was on the 21st in Ethiopia...which is (are you still with me???) on the 29th here!

So yes, we waited and worried.....paced and fretted. Jumped through our skin everytime the phone ring only to find out we need to go through this all again!! So if you don't mind throw us a few prayers this week.

Court results...nah :(

Today is the 21st of January in the US. While we were sleeping it was the 21st in Ethiopia. While we were sleeping (well I must admit that I did not sleep much!) our court case was put in front of a judge. I was hoping to know the outcome of court today....early....I am still waiting :(

Our orphanage sends the information to Texas ( I believe, it is rather confusing!) and then they send the cases revelant to our agency to our director then she calls me. So never finding out today about our case made today the officially longest day in my life! I pray that I will have an answer first thing in the morning....

Okay I cannot lie....I pray that I have the GOOD news tomorrow! That they are my boys and that I can buy some airline tickets, figure out some names, share pictures and tell these 3 here that their brothers are coming home!

So seven children around the table does not seem crazy...is that crazy!? It was fun "trying on" a large family for a few days! I know Teaque will gag at these coats, but aren't they diva!?! I did order them a size larger so we can use them next year too.
My Annie loves to pose, kinda scary isn't it??
Carson is so crazy!
My precious Madelyn!
What I notice is that in every picture of the three children Annie is the odd one out. She is either pouty, or doesn't want to hold hands, or sits with a space between her and the other two and in this case she had to sit a step above the others!? Does anyone know what this means for her personality in the future??!?
I tried to catch this without the girls noticeing. Annie was giving Madelyn a back massage. So sweet!
My little African momma with her baby papoos! She came upstairs and walked around like this for hours. Carson had put the baby in for her!

Fun stuff!

Before I begin this post I think I need to tell you the names of the boys we are adopting. Originally I thought we were not supposed to give out that information. But is seems everyone else does and it is so much easier than calling them fake names or "the older one" and "younger one"!
So the older boy is Yesak, this is pronounced E-Sock (we think!) we have also been given a few spellings variations. Again he is about 3 1/2 years old.
The younger boy is Yohannis. He is about 2 years old now.
We will be giving the boys "American" first names, while keeping their African names as middle names. We have heard from many "experts" that the boys need "normal" names so that they do not have to tell their story everywhere they go and so they can feel a bit more "normal"!


So Paul ordered this for Yesak! It is especially sweet because Paul does not buy the children ANYTHING! I think he ordered Carson a jersey once but never anything for the girls. So anyway it was a big deal! Paul also orders me an ornament evey year with all of our names on it. This year he said we must have outgrown ornaments because he had to order the stand up/plaque thingy! He also was proud of himself for not ordering the snowman version as snowmen are white!!

I got these in the mail this week!! I ordered them from a booth at the Gift and Craft Expo at the fairgrounds. The booth offered other products and I asked her if she could do these on special order! So each child has a shirt with Africa on it and a little heart is stitched onto Ethiopia!

Look what else I got this week! Jody has been organizing the sell of these bags from a young man named Sheku who makes the bags in Africa. I have been on the waiting list for a month or so, which makes the arrival so much more appreciated!! I originally was planning on using it as a diaper bag...but it is so beautiful I don't think I can wait!! Email Jody if you want one!!

Here is the stack of clothes we grabbed on the clearance rack ot Kohls! I hope we pass court so that the will be home in time to use winter clothing!! We have been afraid not to get stuff now though, next week swimsuits will probably be out!!

My new nephew!!

Bryson Knox

8lbs

17 inches

My friend (who we have declared as family) gave birth to a beautiful baby boy today! The gender of the baby was a surprise. They have a 11 year old boy, a 5 year old girl, 3 year old foster daughter, 1 1/2 year old daughter and a 14 year old foster child...sooo they NEEDED a boy!!!
They made me wait until I arrived at the hospital before telling me (& the siblings) the gender. They walked in and said oh its a girl. Once mommy told them it was a boy they were SUPER surprised! Big sis Brianna!

I had to put this picture on here to show you how big this kids hands are!

He has daddy and sissys chin!

Merry Christmas to my boys!!

Today is Christmas in Ethiopia!! Wish I was there!

So sorry for the lack of posting...I have had a few emails from you guys asking if I was okay! So lets do an update so I can bring myself to current!

-We had a crazy Christmas Eve. My uncle who is fighting brain cancer was rushed to the ER . He was seizing in his home alone and called my mamaw, she could not get in so firefighters had to break in...they had to put him on a ventilator etc. Once he was off the ventilator they finished out his radiation treatments and sent him home. We are waiting to hear what the next step is from the doctors. Unfortunatly his tumors are growing in size and in number despite the radiation treatment (which has stunned the doctors). This is very hard on my entire family...from those needing to stay with him, to running his errands and getting him fed..etc. Please pray for "Uncle Bubby".....

-We did recieve the BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT EVER on Christmas Eve. The Scott family has stopped by our orphanage and took packages to our boys for us. So we recieved pictures of our boys wearing the outfit we sent, eating suckers we sent and playing with the toys we sent! Best of all we saw pictures of their referral day!!! They were looking at our pictures!! It was so emotional to see them holding pictures of their sisters!! We also got the first picture of them together. It has often saddened me wondering what their relationship is like at the orphanage becuase little one is in the baby room and big boy is in with the big kids! Thank you THOM!

-Our home is nearly busting at the seams with all of the Christmas toys...I am sure you can all imagine! We ended up not opening up gifts from Paul & I to the kids until this week!! It is pretty sad when there are gifts under the tree for days and they do not even ask for them!

-We saw The Tale of Desperaux (sp?) and Bedtime Stories over the Christmas break. Bedtime Stories was VERY cute and funny....just rent the other!

-Daddy did get a Wii for Christmas...and I am officially one of the terribly out of shape persons who is complaining of sore back, arm and shoulder from ONE game of tennis!! I also now will openly admit that my 8 & 5 year olds can manipulate any gaming system better than I can.

-I cannot fit into an XL clothing from aeropostle....Teaque can you? ughgh Juniors sizes!

- I have made much progress in my scrapbook room. I have made much progress in my scrapbooks!!YEAH! I am really bad about skippin' pages while scrapbooking or planning on going back to complete something , so I have been filling in the gaps....I like it! I made the mistake early on when I had one child to make him a book for every year of his life...plus making the normal family album..well lets do some math: Carson is entering his 9th year of life so he has 9 scrapbooks (plus the boy scout album) so 10 plus Madelyn has 6 plus Annie has 4 plus the family has 10 plus 4 Disney, 1 Cruise, 1 Up North vacation, 1 Arizonia vacation.....and 7 mini Disney autograph albums...... so that is a total of : 44 albums....so you can imagine the mess I have going on over here! And please no one remind me that 2009 is here plus I have one for each of the boys.....But seriously I LOVE it and the kid love it! We actually scrapped tonight while the boys watched the UL/UK game...Annie and Maddie loved it and they were actually good...looks like mommy got her 2 scrapin' buddies!!!

-Oh and my great friends the Sanders who we began the adoption process with back in March PASSED COURT yesterday!! They are now the proud parents of Mikias, a beautiful 5 1/2 year old little boy. We had hoped he could travel with Paul to pick up the boys together but now it looks like they will be traveling a few weeks before us :(

-I am preparing my home for my best friends 4 kiddos!! She will be induced late Wednesday night. We do not know the sex of the baby (I love that surprise!!) but I will be an aunt again soon. The cool part is that her younger two children are the ages of our two Ethiopian cuties so it will be fun to have a near 2 year old and 2 ,3 1/2 year olds in the house in preparation for our new indeavor!

-We start school tomorrow. We will be working on an Africa all month (unless it snows, then I like to pull out a snow unit!). Next week we will be attending our co-ops J-term which is on Africa too!! It should be amazing, we have speakers, missionaries and more coming in to speak to the children.

Oh and my next update will have pictures!