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!