Brody is FIVE!

We surprised Brody and took him to the Great Wolf Lodge for his 5th birthday! My parents and Parker, Lindsay and Emme came along as well. We all had a great time...even the adults! It was such a sweet time with family the week of Thanksgiving!

It's Progress...

We finally heard from the embassy today......they sent our file to the USCIS office in Nairobi. Its not really a "good" thing. But its progress. So I will take it!

What does this mean? The US Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia decided there was not enough information in our file to approve us to bring her to the US. The US Embassy does not have as much authority to clear cases as the USCIS in Nairobi does. The Embassy has to have enough information to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the child is indeed an orphan before they send them to the US. I know...you are thinking, "its a little bit late for that, she is legally yours!" Yep, no one understands why the US decides to conduct their investigation AFTER you have already legally adopted the child. Anyways, thats beside the point. Because the Embassy could not locate the person in our case for an interview, and were unable to get any other information from the police officer originally involved in her case, they decided they did not have sufficient evidence to clear us to bring her to the US. I know this sounds horrible and depressing....BUT its really not. The USCIS office in Nairobi is able to clear cases without as much information because they are a higher authority. We are hoping and praying we are cleared quickly! We should hear something in 2-3 weeks. Thank you for continuing to pray our little girl home!

Halloween '12

10 years

I can't believe that Brian and I celebrated 10 years of marriage this month. I know people thought we were crazy when we got married....or maybe more thought my parents were crazy for letting me get married so young! Here we are 10 years later.....the first five years we spent just the 2 of us and the second 5 years we have added 3 children to our family. We always wanted to do something big for our 10 year anniversary. We dreamed of second honeymoons and tropical islands. A big trip full of relaxing.... just the 2 of us.  Well, this year we HAVE taken a very big trip to the other side of the world and will be taking another trip very soon! No tropical island or much relaxing...and we spent it with a very special little girl:) We decided we have and will travel enough in these months surrounding our anniversary! I wanted to make our anniversary special, and I have been dreaming up a plan for the past 6 months or so. I asked our dear friend Courtney to help me surprise Brian with me in my wedding dress and a photo shoot to celebrate our 10 years together. We have known Courtney for years and he has taken pictures of me when I was pregnant with Brody, and also Brody and Levi's newborn pictures. He was more than happy to help me:)

I told Brian he had to leave the house for an hour or so and told him what time to return. My mom showed up with my dress as soon as Brian left.  I laid Brian's suit out, along with a few things from our wedding, our old wedding invitation, and a new "wedding invitation" inviting him to meet me. Courtney and I went and hid down by the pond and waited for Brian to come. When he finally came walking down the path and saw me, he was pretty shocked. I think the first words out of his mouth were something like "where did you find your dress?!" Like I had lost it after all of these years:) Apparently he didn't even know I had it anymore! We renewed our vows together and then had fun with our photo shoot! Here are a few of our favorites!