Lilypie Waiting to adopt Ticker

Monday, August 25, 2008

I-171H Form Approved!

We received this form on Thursday! It was a sweet moment to see the envelope's return address from the government. When I opened it carefully, I pulled out the folded letter that officially states that Chris and I are approved to house an orphan from Ethiopia. It has taken about 8 weeks to get this once our homestudy was approved. This is the LAST document that had to be done before we could receive a referral. There is nothing holding us back now from getting the referral of our beautiful daughter except TIME.
Our friends from church leave in a week to pick up their precious son from ET. You can read all about their amazing journey here, The Putty Family. We are praying for them to have a fabulous and safe trip. I cant wait to see their pictures. She is a professional photographer by trade, so I am anxious to get their story told through the beauty of pictures. I am curious and excited to see the land and people where my daughter is coming from. I want to go there, now. I want to smell the land, the air, the foods. I want to hear the music and the voices. I want to see the eyes, the smiles, the faces. I want to touch the clothes, the water, the homes. I just want to be closer to her, to her heritage, to her family, to her caregivers. We pray daily for her. Our thoughts and prayers are never far.
Okay..I digress. The good news..the update...the moment we have been waiting for (at this stage) has come....We got the I-171H...and that is GREAT!!

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Our Dossier is Approved




These are the pictures of the night before we sent off our dossier. Obviously without a professional photographer we had to get creative to get all of us in the pictures. It was hilarious (atleast for me and Chris). By the end of the event, I think we were about the only ones not in tears! Needless to say, however, we were thrilled to pass that milestone of sending off our dossier. On Friday, we got the news that our dossier passed inspection. Our SW told us that we have been approved and we are OFFICIALLY on the referral wait list. She said that we now have about a 7-9 month wait ahead of us before we get the referral of our beautiful daughter. That means that around Feb-April is our estimated time. After the referral of course we would need to pass court dates in ET and then we would have a travel date about 2 months after that. Despite the appearance of a long wait ahead, I think the worst is behind us. We are thrilled!

A babe is born--our nephew!





This weekend, I traveled with the kiddos to the far side of the state to see our little nephew come into the world. My sister was brave and strong as he was delivered, healthy and happy on Friday, August 8. These are a few pix of our visit. I am a proud Aunt! Notice the cousins all lined up. They had fun playing together and waiting for baby Owyn's arrival.

Monday, August 4, 2008

134 copies and a couple of days later


TODAY, TODAY, TODAY, Our dossier was mailed off to the agency! Late on Friday, I missed a nap to make 134 copies! It took about an hour to stand in Kinkos and one by one make copies of everything in our dossier, including our passport pics, money orders, checks, birth certificates, etc. At one point, I thought, This is crazy! I am going to put these through the feeder instead of doing each page, one by one. However, THAT thought was the crazy one. On the first document as it went through the feeder,the copier stopped running for a second and made this strange sound and my heart dropped to the floor. I thought it had eaten the page. This was a certified, notarized piece of history. I quickly snapped into sanity and retrieved the document as fast as I could and went back to copying one by one. There is no telling what my face looked like on their cameras! Slight panic and fear had to top the list!
Anyway, last night after dinner, we put all the documents in their very specific order and crammed them in the best fitting Fed Ex envelope. We sealed it up and with tears prayed over that precious package. It was a sweet moment as all of us, including Liam, placed our hands on it and lifted it up to the Lord. Liam even had 3 special words over it. We are not sure what he said because it was in his own language, but he was quite serious as he bowed his head and bellowed out a prayer. Evan was so sweet as he lifted up the package in prayer and his 'little sister'. He talks so plainly about her as if she is already in our midst.
We are believing for some great things as we plunge forward. It has been a long time coming to this moment. As a matter of fact, it has been 7 months. Our preliminary thoughts were that we would have already reached this milestone by April. BUT...again, I know that God is in control. Only he knows the perfect timing of when our little one is to be in our arms.
Oh Joy...is all I have to say!!

Garden Glory, part 2



I took these pictures a couple of weeks ago. Our garden is even bigger and better than I ever imagined it would be. In my previous thoughts about our garden,Garden Glory I have a picture of the corn that we were growing from seeds. As you can see, we have corn! I plucked two off the other day and we plan on grilling them tonight. The greatest part is watching the kids light up as we bring in arm loads of veggies. They are not as excited when I cook them up for dinner, BUT we are working on that!