Whats Next....

We are waiting on one final piece of paperwork (medical report) and then our file will submitted to the US Embassy! The Embassy only accepts files on Wednesdays....so every time we miss a Wednesday, we have to wait an entire week to be submitted.  Please pray that we receive the report on either monday or tuesday or this coming week and are able to be submitted on the 19th!  Once our file is submitted we COULD be cleared to bring her home in as little as 4 weeks! It may be 6 weeks or more depending on how "clear" our file is,  but we are continuing to pray hard for every step in this process! Thank you all for your prayers!! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Levi is TWO!

Our little TWO YEAR OLD is as busy as ever! Making us laugh almost every second of every day and also testing our parenting skills! For some reason, we cannot convince Levi he is TWO. He thinks he is three and a half! I have no idea....I would understand if he said he was four and a half like Brody. When you tell him he's two, he gets mad and yells "THREE HALF!!" Of course, we torture him with this all of the time, because its absolutely hilarious!

At this point he is pretty much potty trained, he and Brody are sharing a room, and he is sleeping in a big boy bed! We made all of these transitions as soon as we got back from Ethiopia. He has done GREAT...way better than expected! When we came back from Ethiopia a month ago, he was talking up a storm, carrying on full conversations and talking in complete sentences! I guess he knew he was officially no longer the baby of the family:) He loves his big brother more than ever and they are really starting to be buddies and playmates!

As far as the potty training goes, he is doing amazingly well! He LOVES it! The first day of potty training, he spent the morning having lots of accidents.  But then the first time he figured out how to actually go by himself, he was so disappointed when all of his pee pee was gone! He looked down and said, "More pee pee, please!!" Hilarious! He is obsessed with going pee pee outside, so thats where he goes most of the time:) Oh the joys of living on a farm!

Moving him into Brody's room went better than expected as well! He still takes some convincing to go to bed, but he doesn't get up once we leave the room, and he calls me from his bed when he wakes up in the morning. He is still napping in the crib in what is now Aven's room, but we will hopefully tackle nap times soon!

We talk all of the time about how our family would not be complete (or as fun!) without our Levi! He keeps us on our toes and keeps us laughing. He makes friends everywhere he goes and people can't help but fall in love with those big blue eyes and all of his sweetness!

WE LOVE YOU, WEE!  HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY!!

One month waiting

It has been one month since Aven was legally declared our daughter! Things have been happening WAY faster than expected! God is continuing to show his hand in this process! We have received the court decree, birth certificate, passport, 3 MOWA letters, and her embassy medical exam is scheduled for tomorrow! All of this has happened in ONE MONTH! After the report is written from her medical exam (which could take a few weeks), our case will be submitted to the US Embassy in Addis Ababa. Then ALOT more waiting! But we are on the home stretch! We have been praying all along that she would be home before her first birthday on December 19th and of course before Christmas. It looks like she should definitely be home before Thanksgiving and maybe sooner than that! Please continue to pray that things go smoothly from here on out and that everything continues to move quicker than expected!

Aven's First 8 months in Pictures

We have been SO blessed to get to see our little girl grow up through pictures while we wait to bring her home. We have over 100 pictures (139 to be exact! Not including the 500 we took while in Ethiopia.) of her since she was one month old and came into our agency's care. We are so grateful to all of the traveling families that have made it possible for us to see her growing!

One Month New

1.5 months old

  2.5 months old

(These are the pictures we were sent for her referral)                             

3 months old

3.5 months old

 4 months old

4.5 months old

5.5 months old

6 months old

6.5 months old

 7.5 months

All About Aven

Nothing can describe what it was like to see our daughter for the first time. Honestly, I was in a fog as we were driving to the care center. We had gotten in to Ethiopia at 1:00 am, had been traveling for 28 hours, and I think it was just all surreal that we were actually in Ethiopia and about to see this face that we had been staring at in pictures for 4 months. I wasn't sure how I would react. There are no words for what I felt when I actually saw her! The tears started flowing and it felt like a dream! She was more beautiful that pictures show.

Our week with her was so sweet. She became more comfortable with us by the end of the week, but did not love us:) She was not sure what to think of us, and we made her pretty nervous at first. We took her back to the guest house with us one day and then decided we would just visit her at the care center for the rest of the week. She rarely leaves the room she lives in, she has had the same nanny since she was four weeks old, and she doesn't see many other people besides her nanny, so you can imagine how scared she was to be with 2 people she had never met, away from her home, and in a place she had never seen. We didn't get many smiles while we were there, unless her nanny was playing with her. But we were SO happy to be there with her, learn about her personality, and see her get more comfortable with us. She fell asleep on me or Brian every day and we enjoyed that snuggle time while she napped.

I could not be more thankful to her nanny, Aberesh. Words cannot express the bond those two have!  Aberesh loves her like she is her own, and she is the only "mommy" Aven has really ever known.  Aberesh takes care of 3 other babies that are all newborns, so Aven gets lots of playtime and is quite spoiled:) Aberesh is one of the kindest women I have ever met. We are forever indebted to her for her care for Aven during this time while we wait and for being such a huge part of her first year of life. As happy as we are going to be to finally go get Aven to bring her home, my heart is going to break when we take her away from Aberesh. I hope we are able to communicate with her how much her work matters to the Lord and how caring for the orphans is something SO dear to the heart of God.

Prayer Babies

At the beginning of May, just a few weeks after we saw a picture of our sweet girl for the first time, a mom in our agency contacted me and asked if I would like to be part of a group of moms that were going to start praying each morning for the children we are adopting, and that the Lord would get us all court dates quickly! I started praying at 7:30 each morning with these ladies that were in all parts of the country. I asked anyone and everyone to join with us in setting their alarms and praying each morning at 7:30 that we would get to court before August 15th when the courts close for 2 months. So many people joined in, and told me that they were praying every morning with us!

There are 6 of us mommies, and we have become so close. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I had never met any of them, but the Lord bonded us immediately. Not only do we pray at 7:30 each morning, but we are constantly emailing back and forth with scripture, encouragement, and questions about this process. There is hardly a day that goes by that we don't communicate! These are my sisters, and this process has been so much easier because I have them alongside me. They get me and what I am going through. When it started getting closer to rainy season and none of us had any news of going to court we started fasting every Tuesday and spending the day in prayer that the Lord would answer our prayers.

By God's grace, FOUR of the six of us ended up being in Ethiopia at the same time. It was amazing to meet these ladies face to face. There were several other families there with us too and I know we will all be friends for life. Honestly, I don't know how I would have been able to get through those hours between saying goodbye to Aven and getting on that plane. That night was SO hard, but the Lord gave me such a gift.....5 ladies that sat downstairs in the lobby of the guest house with me and just had "girl time". It was so sweet and such a gift from the Lord on my last few ours in Ethiopia.

We are continuing to pray together as 2 of the ladies will be waiting 2 more months to have a court date for their babies.

"O LORD, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name; For You have worked wonders, Plans formed long ago, with PERFECT FAITHFULNESS." 

"The steadfast of mind You will keep in PERFECT PEACE, Because he trusts in You. Trust in the LORD forever, For in GOD the LORD, we have an everlasting Rock." 

"Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for Him."                      Isaiah 25:1, 4. Isaiah 26:3, 4. Isaiah 30:18