Home for 3 months!

Miya has been home for a little over 3 months now. The time has gone so fast!! She is such a happy girl and has adjusted so well! She amazes me all the time. The thing that amazes me the most is the way she has picked up English. I know they say that kids can pick up a new language very fast, but to see it first hand is awesome. She is completely communicating in English and it's only been 3 months! She still has her cute accent and I know that's the next thing to go (which is sad). Sometimes I wonder what her Ethiopian father would think if he could see her now. The things she's done, the things she's seen, and the things she learned would probably blow his mind. She's in a completely different world and has taken to it so well! So maybe the language thing isn't the thing that amazes me the most, it's her ability to adjust so well. To come home with complete strangers, to a place that is completely new and different, where no one speaks your language and be able to fit right in. She learned to trust us and learned that she belonged to us incredibly fast. She loves her new sisters and they loved her back right away. Yes there have been times when she gets mad and upset, but that's just normal kid stuff. Overall we couldn't have asked for things to go more smoothly!

Ethiopia

So we've been home almost 3 weeks and I haven't posted anything about our trip yet!! I'm so bad at this! But I guess I can use the excuse that I've been really busy since we got home, right? Anyway, we had an awesome trip to Ethiopia. I love to visit other countries, but have only had the chance to do it a couple of times. We arrived in Addis Ababa (the capitol of Ethiopia) on a Thursday night, late. So the drive from the airport to our guest house was in the dark, but the first thing we noticed were the people everywhere! All over the streets and in the shops. The next day we got a better picture of the city in the daylight and again there were people everywhere! It's just so different than around here. And the next thing you notice are the animals everywhere! Donkeys, cattle, goats, and chickens are all over the city!




That being said, you can guess that the city isn't very clean! There was a smell in the air of all the animals and the constant smell of diesel exhaust. I had a sore throat almost every day and I'm pretty sure it was from the poor air quality. The poverty is also unreal!! People are living in tin shacks with dirt floors and there are probably numerous people living in one shack. I had seen poverty like this in Jamaica, but Addis has 5 million people living in it so the size of the poverty was so much larger. It's hard to go to these places and not feel guilty for all that you have. But I've learned to be thankful instead of guilty! The day after we got there we were able to meet Miya for the first time. We were able to spend about an hour with her at the orphanage.



We felt bad leaving her, but she couldn't come with us over the weekend when we were traveling to meet her birth father, so she needed to stay at the orphanage a couple more days. We left the next morning to meet her birth father. The city she was from was about 300km south of Addis, but took 6 hours to get there. The road was actually nice and paved. What made the drive so long was all the people and there live stock in the roads. Seriously, the whole way there there were people walking in the road and herds of cattle and goats that we had to watch out for. It was crazy! But so cool to see this part of Africa! The country was beautiful and so green.




We met with her birth father at the first orphanage that he brought her to. They didn't let us take any pictures inside the orphanage. We got to spend about a half hour with her father and ask him all kinds of questions. It was a great experience and a sad one. You could tell that his decision to bring her to the orphanage was heart breaking for him and he misses her very much. We were able to give him a small photo album with pictures of her and our family, he was so grateful for this! He also said that he hoped she would have a good education and many opportunities here in America, something that she would not have in Ethiopia. We were able to tell him that she would be well cared for and have all her needs met here. He is also a believer and was excited when we told him we were also. Overall it was a great experience and well worth the 6 hour dive!! We spent the night there and headed back the next day. On Monday we headed back to the orphanage to get Miya and attend her going away ceremony. The nannies make a cake and all the kids sing to the ones that are leaving. They also dress the kids in traditional Ethiopian clothes for the ceremony, it was very cute!



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After the ceremony she came with us and we spent the rest of the trip hanging out with her and allowing her to get to know us. She did really well and was never afraid of us. She also did great on the plane ride home, better than me!! She's also done really well at home and with her new sisters. They only time she seems to be sad is at night when she cries some. Other than that she is doing great!! And adjusting to American life really well. She loves water and playing outside! Her English is coming along and it amazes me at how much she understands us already. So here is a new family picture of us!!

Ethiopia...Here we come!!!

So we leave on Wednesday morning from Grand Rapids. We need to fly to Chicago and then to Washington DC before we are actually on our way to Ethiopia. Once we leave DC we have a 16 hour flight to Ethiopia. We will stop in Rome to refuel, but we won't get off the plane. I'm hoping I'll be able to sleep a big portion of the flight there! I don't really like flying either, so I'm also hoping and praying for smooth flights!! :)

Everything has happened so fast since we got our referral. I really didn't expect to be traveling this soon, but I am glad we are! I'm happy that it will be summer time when we bring her home and happy that we will have a big part of the summer for her to feel comfortable here before the crazy school schedule starts! (not happy that we had to pay peak airline prices!! yikes!) But God has provided all we need! God also provided a free mattress for us this week, it's awesome how everything has come together!

Please pray for us this week as we travel and as we meet our little girl for the first time! (I promise she'll has a name soon!!) And for our girls as they stay with my parents while we're gone. They are not too upset about us leaving, they are actually very excited because they get to play with their cousins almost the whole time we're gone. Today they said they wished we were leaving now so they could go to the cottage for the 4th of July! I think they'll be fine!

My next post will include pictures of our trip! I won't be able to blog from Ethiopia, so I will post pictures when I get back!

She's ours!!

I got an e-mail this morning that said we had passed court today in Ethiopia. Which means she is leagally ours! We now have to wait AGAIN for more paperwork to be finished. We need to wait for her to get a new birth certificate and a passport. The e-mail I got stated we should plan on traveling 1-3 months from now, but the trend seems to be to travel 6 weeks after court. So we will see!! I'm just glad this part is done, just one more step to go!! Yay!!

Olivia is 4!!

My sister took some 4 year old pictures of Olivia recently. (a little late) Olivia did really well.

Waiting stinks!!!!

I really am not a very patient person and lately I'm feeling especially impatient! Our court date is on Monday and I am praying really hard that we pass the first time. I'm praying that all our paperwork will be there and that our little girl's birth father will be able to make it to court. (He needs to be there in order for us to pass) When we pass we will only have one more thing to wait for, and that is to travel. It's been over a year of waiting for appointments and paperwork and this and that and whatever! Now I just want to go and get this little girl!

I met with a group of local mom's last night who have adopted from Ethiopia or are in the process like we are. Some of the mom's had their little kids with them and they were so cute! Hearing their stories was great and made me very anxious to travel. I got a lot of info about traveling and feel even more ready to go now!

So Monday can't come soon enough!! :)

Court date

We got an email from our social worker this morning stating that we have a court date for June 7!! We are praying that we will pass court the first time! When we pass court, our little girl will legally be ours! Then we wait to travel for an embassy appointment which is usually 1-2 months after court. Really hoping all this happens quickly!!

Once!!

Our social worker called on Friday to let us know that we beat the deadline and will only have to travel once to Ethiopia! This is a huge answer to prayer and a big relief! Now we wait for a court date and hopefully we will pass court on the first try. Sometimes things don't come together and families don't pass court on the first try, but we're hoping for the best!! Families usually travel about 6 weeks after they pass court. I'm hoping to have her home before August, but we shall see!!

Once or twice...

That is the question. By the end of this week we should know if we will have to travel once or twice to Ethiopia. Praying that it is only once, but we'll see. If we end up going twice we will be one of the first families to have to do this, so it will be a learning experience for everyone! Kinda scary! Oh well, by Friday hopefully we will hear some news!! I'm having a garage sale next week to help raise some money for our travel expenses, so if anyone has items they would like to donate, let me know!!

Adoption!

So I am really bad at updating our blog!! And for the most part I just use it to post pictures of our girls. But I love reading everyone else's blogs and hearing what's going on in their lives! So I've decided to try and be better at just journaling on our blog also!

As many of you know we are currently in the process of adopting from Ethiopia. (I read a lot of blogs that are about adoption also and that has made me want to blog more about this part of our life.) A week an a half ago we received a referral for a 3 year old little girl! She is so cute and looks like a little sweetie! We are excited to go and get her, but don't know when that will be yet. Patience is not something that I'm good at, so this is hard for me :)

So I thought I would share a little about why we chose to adopt. Adoption is something that has always caught my attention, but having our own biological children I never gave it too much thought until I became involved in the orphan ministry at our church. Through this ministry I learned more about the orphan crisis in the world today, and it truly is a crisis! I learned even more by going to some Bethany (our adoption agency) dinners and meetings. I learned that there are more than 143 million orphans in the world today and that as Christians we are called to care for these kids! Christ tells us over and over to care for the orphans, the fatherless, the poor, the helpless. He tells us that whatever we do for the "least of these" we do for Him. And to me no one is more helpless than a child who has no one to care for them. I was convinced right away that adoption was something we needed to do, it took Tim a little longer :) We've just realized that we have so much! God has always provided what we need. We knew that if we could help just one orphan that was something we needed to do! In August 2008 I was able to go on a mission trip to Jamaica and work with some orphans first hand. While there I was surprised at how much these kids had. They had phones and access to the internet and we brought them so much stuff! Yet with all this "stuff" they still were hurting. All they wanted was a family, someone to take care of them! So after that trip we filled out our adoption application.


So here we are today. Things have actually happened faster than we were expecting. We were told the wait would be about 12-14 months before getting a referral and we only waited 6 months! Ethiopia is changing the way they do somethings, which may require us to travel twice. I'm praying that we will make the cut off and only have to travel once, but we will see what happens! Whatever happens, we know that we have a little girl waiting for us to bring her home! And we are so excited! So there we go.....my first attempt at being a better blogger! We'll see how it goes!

Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas! We didn't get a Christmas card sent out this year, so here it is! Please ignore Olivia's hair :0 Hopefully her hair will start to thicken up soon and be more manageable!! Anyway, we had a good Christmas this year. We celebrated with my family the week before and were at Tim's parent's on Christmas day. The girls were once again spoiled with all the toys they got! We just have to find a place to put everything now!! Hopefully by this time next year we will have our adopted child home with us or atleast have a picture of the child! We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!


Above is a picture of the girls and their cousins on my side of the family. It's unreal at how much they are changing. Abby and Austin are looking so much older! They still have lots of fun together and hopefully they always will!!

First day of school!!

So here we go again! Another school year has started. I can't believe how fast summer break went! We had a lot of fun camping and everything this summer, but I could tell the girls were getting board and ready to get back into a routine. They were very excited this morning as they got ready. Abby is in 1st grade and Brooklynn in kindergarten. Abby was a little hesitant this morning, but as soon as she saw her friends on the playground she was gone and I never saw her again (til after school anyway). Brooklynn did very well and was most excited about getting to ride the bus home after school. It helped that she knew 4 kids in her class already. She has the same teacher that Abby had last year, so she feels like she knows her a little already. Abby has a male teacher this year and told me after school today that he is a very good teacher :) They are very excited to go tomorrow and are having a giggle fest in their room as I write this!! I'm so glad they like school, I know this will probably change the older they get, but it makes it really nice right now!!

Our summer so far....

Well, I can't believe it's already August. Summer has gone really fast and we've been very busy. I thought I would add some pictures from what we've been doing this summer.


In June we went camping with our small group from church. We went to a park in Muskegon, Pioneer Park. This was the first time we had been there and we had tons of fun. The lake was a little cold, but the kids still loved it! We survived some strong thunderstorms! And I realized one of my favorite things to do is watch storms come over lake Michigan. It was pretty amazing!!



We spent the 4th of the July at the cottage as always. It was really cold this year though, so we spent a lot more time inside. The kids did some crafts and we went to the local carnival one day. The kids still had fun hanging out with their cousins though!!



We have been watching Madison every other wednesday this summer. She is getting so big and smiling all the time now. Abby especially loves having her around. The girls tend to fight over who gets to hold her and feed her! Atleast she is well loved!



Brooklynn turned 5 years old at the end of July. I can't believe she's that old already. We had two parties this year, one with each side of the family. She got lots of new clothes for school, which she is very excited about! She will go to kindergarten this fall as she can't wait!



We went camping at Silver Lake at the end of August with my sisters and thier families. This is one of our favortie places to camp. The kids love the dunes and there is plenty to do there. Again the weather was not as warm as normal, so we didn't do a lot of swimming. The kids kept busy riding bikes and we spent two days on the dunes. It was lots of fun!!



So Abby and Brooklynn got a hold of the camera and took some pictures of themselves. I thought I would post one of their pictures to show what wonderful photographers they are!! They thought they did great!!

We are going to try and enjoy this last month of summer by spending as much time outside as possible. We have one more camping trip planned and hopefully we will get to spend some more time at the cottage. Hopefully the warmth will stick around for awhile now! The girls are excited for school to start, which is good, but I enjoy having them home too!!

Pics, just for fun!

We have been busy the past couple of weeks running to soccer and t-ball!! The girls are having a lot of fun and getting lots of exercise! Here are some pictures, just for fun!

Mother's Day

Abby came home from school today with some gifts they had made for Mother's Day. She told me that I had to wait until Sunday to open them, but after being home for only 2 hours she told me she couldn't wait any longer and that I could open them. One of them was a necklace she had made in art class. I told her how pretty it was and then put in on. She looked at me and said "Ummmm...you should only wear that IN the house." I laughed and asked her why and she said it looks like a kid's necklace. I asked if I could wear it on Sunday and she said no cause people would laugh at me!!! She is so funny! Most kids would be heart broken if their mom didn't wear it and she would be if I did wear it. So, I posted a picture of it below since I won't be wearing it anywhere!! (and that's really ok with me!)

Lots of cousin time!!

My sister(Laura) and brother in law are in France for a week. So, their kids are over here while they are gone. Austin is not here yet because he had to go to school. Our kids think it's great to have their cousins here to play with. We went to the mall on Friday and then stopped at the movie store on the way home. They all fit on the love seat to watch a movie (they were a little squished!).



Today we headed to the zoo. We figured it might be the only good day to be outside for awhile. The kids had fun and were very excited to see the lions!! The above picture is in the aquarium and as you can see Tim was VERY excited to be there!! He just loves going to the zoo (ok, not really) but, we all had fun and it was good to get out of the house!




And this is Madison, it was her first visit to the zoo and as you can see she was in awe!! She just liked the lights in this building!! I just had to include her because she is cute.

The kids will have lots of time with their cousins in the next week. Hopefully this will help pass the time since it's not going to be a very nice spring break (weather wise).

Birthday Girl!!

Olivia turned 3 years old this past week and like always we celebrated with her cousin Adia! Adia is only 3 weeks older than Olivia so they always have fun having a party together.

They were both singing happy birthday along with everyone!



Of course they had fun opening their presents!! (It's almost impossible to get both of them to look at the camera at the same time, oh well)


We had to get a new picture of all the cousins now that there is a new one!! Madison makes grandchild #7 for my parents. The house is getting very crowded when we all get together! But all the kids love having a new cousin. Abby especially loves to just sit and hold her. We have one more birthday party tonight with Tim's family!! More cake :)

A new niece!!!

Jessica had her baby early this morning!! We went to visit her in the hospital after the girls were done with school. She is very cute! They named her Madison Grace. Olivia's middle name is Grace also, so she thinks that it's pretty cool that she gets to share part of her name with the new baby! Jessica and baby are doing great.

Wildlife

We always have some sort of wildlife in our backyard, atleast it seems that way. Last week Tim looked out the back window and there were three deer walking at the back of our backyard. You can only see the two doe in the picture, there was also a buck (he's behind the trees). He moved before I got the camera. This isn't the first time there have been deer, but it's usually just one. We see a lot of wildlife for living in the middle of Jenison. The girls love it!!

Who is this little girl?

Brooklynn has been asking to get her hair cut for about a month now. I've been putting it off because I knew her curls would be gone once it got cut. (that's what happened with Abby's hair too) But this week she was driving me crazy about it so we went and got it cut. She looks so much older!! It is crazy! And yes it's pretty straight now. She is very proud of it! And she does look very cute.