"Nine Months Pregnant"

I have never been so ready for a weekend to be over and a wednesday to get here. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas....except I am afraid to get my hopes up and I am worried I will wake up to no gifts under the tree. Wednesday morning before the sun rises here in the U.S. we will hopefully receive an email from the US Embassy that says they have accepted our file and they will begin reviewing it for final clearance to bring Aven HOME! Needless to say, I probably won't sleep good that night and will be tossing and turning checking my email every hour. Our submission to Embassy (hopefully this wednesday) means we could be clear to bring her home in 4-6 weeks! We are praying for sooner, of course!

You know how in the ninth month of pregnancy you don't sleep a wink? You are so uncomfortable its impossible to sleep! Well, here we are in the "ninth month" (actually 12th month) of our "paper pregnancy". I will not be sleeping well from here on out. The US Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia starts their work day at 1:00 a.m. our time. So emails are usually received in the middle of the night. Forgive me if I am exhausted until I get that coveted email that tells us to come get our girl.......

Final Piece

And we have a medical report!! The last and final document needed! Our file is now complete and will be submitted to the US Embassy next wednesday! The Embassy only accepts files on Wednesdays, so I have to admit i was a little bit bummed when my adoption coordinator said we wouldn't be submitted tomorrow. I am still going to pray that we miraculously get submitted tomorrow, but am praising the Lord that we are almost a month ahead of schedule in the timeline that we were originally given. Whether its tomorrow or next wedneday, the Lord has had his hand all over this process and we are so grateful that Aven will be home SOON! Obviously we still have no clue when exactly, but we should be cleared to go get her within 4-6 weeks! And then its just a matter buying plane tickets and jumping on a plane as soon as we can:)

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