We're off....

So yeah, this hasn't been updated lately.... again..

But, got the call today and I'm (Matt) traveling on Friday to get our new baby girl from Ethiopia.

I'll figure out how I'm going to update folks, but thought you should know. Thanks for your caring and thoughtful prayers through this time. It's been a long wait, but we're close, and feel blessed that this time has come.

Matt

Way to keep us updated..

Well, if you haven't noticed, neither one of us have been very good at keeping up to date with this blog. As is life, things sometimes get set aside.

That isn't the case for our adoption, or the fact that we don't want to keep you up to date.

This being just a few weeks before Christmas, I thought it best to spend a little time to let you know where we are at.

Still waiting to put it fairly blunt.

We had hoped that by now we would be sending out invitations announcing what an exciting gift we had the opportunity to bring home and share with the world, but we can't, quite yet.

All of the forms, fingerprinting and information required of us has been supplied to our agency, the Ethiopian government, as well as our government (We have been cleared by the FBI and Homeland Security to be parents....that's reassuring). Our information is in Ethiopia, we believe, and are currently in line waiting for our referral. We had recieved information from our agency that the process had slowed slightly in October, and that it would mean that we would have an additional 3-4 months of waiting, not what we wanted to hear obviously, but it's not our plan, it's God's.

Right now we are hoping for a referral sometime in the March/April time frame, with travel to happen shortly after. Again, we don't know when any of this will occur exactly, but we certainly hope to have it happen sooner rather than later. Austin is anxiously awaiting Baily and Emily, yes he is now convince he has two sisters in Ethiopia, and that they should come sooner rather than later.

I will try to be a little more diligent in updating this blog, and obviously will use this as a source of information when we have more information, and especially as we get closer to the referral and travel phase of this incredible journey.

For better or worse, we sit and wait, continue on with our lives, and pray daily for the health and security of our child or children that are waiting for us. As Leigh so eloquently says, it's a different kind of pregnancy when you aren't in control. With Austin we controlled his safety and well being from his first minute in the womb. With this, we have to have faith that God has provided careful hands to watch over our child(ren) and to ensure their safety and security. Trying to imagine Austin in that situation, only makes us want moreso to be united as the family that is intended for us.

Thanks for your patience, your thoughts and prayers, and let's celebrate this Christmas season in a joyful chorus celebrating the birth of our Lord.

Matt and Leigh

Merry Christmas. Celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Merry Christmas. It is a great day, and we should focus on the birth of Christ and the gift of eternal life that he provided through his birth and death.

We focus on faith, but as with all families, it is a celebration for the children, and while we love our time with Austin, we also pray for our daughter who is not with us yet, hoping that she is being loved wherever she is today. At Christmas Eve service last night we had the opportunity to light a candle and pray, and we as a family prayed "to Jesus" (Austin) for Emily. Though she isn't with us physically, she is with us in our hearts.

Our Christmas morning was the normal 5:30 wake up call from Austin. We made it until 6:30 until we had to get out of bed, and had a great morning. Sometimes we as parents make great decisions, and sometime we make 'bad' decisions, and sometimes it is all just perspective. Austin views his present as great, and Dad may view it as 'bad'... but sometimes we as parents need to make sacrifices. You decide if we made a good decision or not.




Austin's quote to Grandmommy and Grandaddy for Christmas: "Thank you for the Gator and just Thank you"

Back home from Texas.

We spent the weekend in Texas with the Stanley Family and celebrated an early Christmas. Unfortunately, the 80 degree temperatures that had been hanging around for the last month decided to evacuate upon our arrival. Still 50 and some sun wasn't so bad compared to 9 degrees and freezing rain. It's amazing how much perspective can affect our view on the world.... Christmas, as it should be, focused around the young, and for us that meant Austin. As always, he got more gifts than a kid deserves, but was very appreciative. We were planning on driving, but at the last minute used priceline to purchase some tickets. With all of the snow and ice that had been flying, it only seemed to make sense. We had a great time, but it's fun to be home as we have already napped and Austin, Dad and Fred went outside to sled, something we are quite accomplished at if I do say so myself (matt).

On the adoption front, I guess that we haven't really provided a timeline to let you know where we are. Here is where we are at..

We have selected the agency that we are going to work with, Children's Home and Family Services out of St. Paul, MN. We learned of them through Troy Nesbitt as their family used them to adopt their two boys from Ethiopia. Once we decided we were going to work with CHSFS, we had to complete our application, which was pretty thorough, including the fingerprints for the FBI ( which we might have to do again??). After that we attended a Pre-Adoptive Class in St. Paul that lasted two days. Now we are working on our homework, basically a self-evaluation report, and hope to have that completed in the next week or so. Next will be the home-study with our assigned social worker, more paper work, and then our information is submitted to the officials in Ethiopia. A child will be selected based on our requested criteria, we accept, wait.. most likely wait some more, and then travel to Addis for the great day.

FAQ: No, we don't know who she is yet, but we know she is out there, somewhere... Yes, we do plan to travel to Addis Ababa, we think that is pretty critical. Those are some of the easy ones to answer. We'll try to answer some of the harder ones later.

Go Cyclones!!

As I hear this being "pronounced loudly" through the new megaphone that we recieved at the ISU Womens game vs. Iowa. This is the coolest new toy, and something that the ladies who sat in front of us at the game weren't quite sure was the best idea.

Before we get too far, there is a video that you must see. As we explore for more information via the web, I found this video the other night on youtube, and you have to watch it.....Neat video about a wonderful adventure.

Here is a video we took of Austin the other night. His latest treat for us is singing to the pamphlet with a picture of an adopted girl from Ethiopia.. he is calling her Emily. He loves his drums, and he will play the drums, while holding the picture of emily, and singing to her.



We are getting ready for Christmas, and will be visiting Grandmommy and Granddaddy in Texas shortly.. and dad will get to play some golf!!

Here is a picture of the class of 2023 at Baylor...Mr's Randall, Brantley and Fatheree... Our only hope is that they all remain this cute and well behaved.

Call this a start....

We hope to keep you updated on our progress of adoption on this site.. We'll see how it goes.