Its so close I can smell it!!!!!

Courts are officially OPEN for business!!!!!!!!!! That means that any day now we should get notified of when we will be required to travel for court!!! For starters we got an email today from our adoption agency!! I about fell off my chair when I saw the title of the email "Welcome To Travel". They are requiring us to fax all of our required travel documents by this Friday!!!! They do not have a court date for us yet but they want us to be prepared if they do!! You usually are given very little notice ( 1 week or less! ) The anticipation is killing me!!!!! Check back often for updates!! Although I'm sure you will hear me scream from wherever you are!!!!

Our movie is Saturday hopefully we will have great news to share with everyone!!! Continue to pray that the theatre is filled!!! AHHHHH!!!!!! We are so close to holding our kids!!!

When we finally go..

When we finally get to travel to Ethiopia to meet our children...you will hear me praising God from wherever you live!!!!! While in Ethiopia we will go for our court hearing where our prayer is our adoption will be approved and our children will become legally ours forever!! We will get to spend a few hours a day with them but we will also have some free time. There are 2 places I for sure want to go when we are there..The Fistula Hospital and the Korah garbage dumps. To understand why... please take the time to watch the videos I have posted below.

http://vimeo.com/13948413 Korah and A Walk To Beautiful is posted below

A Walk To Beautiful

And the winner is....

Thanks to everyone who is sharing about our movie event!!! We have less than a week till the movie! Please continue to share about our event on Facebook or your blogs! We still have a lot of tickets to sell! My kids have been working hard to sell the tickets door to door plus recruiting all their friends at school. Our two trip to Ethiopia will cost anywhere between $10-$15,000. It will require 4 round trip tickets and 2 one way tickets plus 2 in country stays of 1 week each. We are having this to help raise some of the money needed for our 2 trips.If you would still like to buy tickets they are available at the door or presale! If you would just like to help out by making a donation scroll down to our "Chip In" button on the side.

We had a contest for whoever shared about our movie event on their blog, facebook or twitter...The winner will get 2 of our adoption T-shirts and 1 of our totes. Tonight we picked a winner...THE WINNER IS...

HEIDI BALLARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shoot me your address so I can send you your goodies!!!

I NEED GRANOLA BARS!!!

I need Granola bars!!! Actually I don't need them, the children in Ethiopia do! As I try to get prepared for our trip, I am trying to gather everything that I can think of that will be needed. We are hoping to collect donations to take with us. Clothes, medicine, toothbrushes, shoes, diapers, formula and GRANOLA BARS! Why Granola Bars? Many children are homeless and poor and to be able to have any food with me to hand them is priceless. I will have a bag with me at all times that will have Granola bars to hand out.

Our Adoption Agency has 2 homes in Ethiopia that house over 200 waiting children. Children waiting for their families to get cleared to bring them home. While they are there they are cared for by loving nannies, that only make $2 a DAY!! Yet they care for our children like they are their own. Our children also attend school and have access to a Doctor. The amount of money from our adoption that goes to our agencies home is very minimal. That is why they rely heavily on donations form traveling families. Our children come from orphanages into our agencies homes which are called Transition homes. One house for the babies and one for the older children. The come with only the clothes on their backs. So we are trying to collect anything that we can help bless them with. We were given a very long list but I condensed it to a few items that I thought I could try to gather specifically.We are hoping to travel by the 2nd week of October so I would need items soon! Thanks for helping and for praying for us and our children!

If you would like to help there are a few ways:

Start by scrolling down to my blog post "Orphanage Donations"

1) We will have a donation bin available at our Movie night on Oct. 2nd

2) If you are close we can arrange to pick it up from you, or you can mail it to us also!

3) You can make a monetary donation through our "Chip In" fund and mark it "Donations for Ethiopia", I will then use that money specifically to buy donations

Movie Tickets Update

We have less than 2 weeks till our Movie fundraiser...so we have been trying hard to sell tickets! My kids have been going door to door, we have friends trying to sell tickets at their workplaces,we are trying to sell virtual tickets and we are PRAYING!!!!!! It is not an easy thing to do..to ask anyone for donations. Everyone is trying to save money and we are asking them to give it to us. When we started this journey we new we would need to raise some money but not the amount we have been seeking. We tried many different avenues to try to generate the needed income. Like most people we did not have $30,000 sitting in the bank when we started out. We knew where God was leading us and we knew he would help us figure out the details. Sometimes you have to jump in with both feet and rely completely on your trust in the Lord!!! As I look at pictures of our children..I would beg..borrow...plead..do whatever I have to to get them home! They are sad, lonely, confused, they have lost their family and need us!! So forgive us for asking for donations but they are our children that God hand-picked for us and we want them home!

We are waiting for courts to open next week with high hopes!!! We are hopeful that we will finally get to meet our children in person by mid-October!!!! I want so badly to hold them and tell them we are their family and we are doing everything we can to get them home!!!

Their sweet hands!!! We can't post pics until we pass court hopefully next month!

Our current amount that we have raised is $1263, our goal for the movie is to raise $3000 but we would really like to raise more. Our total for both trips will be anywhere between $10-15,000!!! So please continue to share our story! Buy a ticket or two or make a donation to our "Chip In" button on the side of the blog. Most of all we ask for your prayers!! This is a long, hard journey we need all the prayers we can get!! Thank you to everyone who is helping us! Words cannot express how grateful we are! To everyone who might have happened upon our blog for the first time because our kids knocked on your door...Thank you!!! Please take sometime and read about our journey to our Ethiopian blessings!!

An Afternoon at the movies...well sort of and a Tshirt giveaway!!

So as you all may or may not know...Ethiopia adoptions now require you to travel twice to bring your kids home. When we started this process 14 months ago, it was a 1 trip country! This extra trip will cost us about $5-$7,000 depending on the airfare costs at the time. We have had very little luck with the fundraising that we have done so we are trying something new! A MOVIE!!! If we sell all 600 presale tickets we will make at least $2700! That will cover our tickets for at least 1 trip!!! They are only $5 each!

600 Pre-sale tickets

We know not everyone will want to come, or can because they don't live close or whatever the reason. We wanted to give everyone the opportunity to help us bring our kids home! $5 per ticket....buy 1 or buy a couple!!! All money is helping to bring home our kids!!! If you want to purchase some "virtual" tickets please scroll down to the "CHIP IN" button on the right hand side of the blog. Donate $5 for each ticket and we will mark you down for your tickets!!! We want to sell out the theatre!!! Please help bring our kids home! Please also help by sharing this on your blogs or on facebook. I know with a little help from our friends we can do this!!!! How many tickets Do You Want???

Only $5 per ticket and you can help bring home 2 Orphans!

To Help Encourage you to spread the word..We are giving away 2 of our Adoption T-shirts and a Tote Bag!!!!!! Share it on Facebook, Twitter, and your blogs!!! You will get your name entered once for each time you share this post!!! Make sure to leave a comment below of where you shared this post!! You can enter as many times as you can share it in the next 2 weeks! So make sure every time you share it you leave a comment! We will do a drawing on Friday September 24th at 9pm So share away!!!

I Will Not Abandon You As Orphans, I Will Come To You John 16:18

Waiting on a Court Date

My heart is aching for my children, so far away! There are so many of us praying for the courts to hurry up and open!! I've not checked lately but I think it is somewhere around 22 families!! Some of them got referrals for tiny little babies that are growing quickly, we so badly want to wrap our arms around them and bring them home. We look at pictures and we watch video that we are blessed to have other families give us. It is so hard knowing they are so far away. What if they are sick, what is they are sad? As a parent we want to comfort them but we can't! 20 more days till courts reopen, even then there is no way to guess when we might be able to go meet them. Adoption is not for the faint of heart..it is HARD!! From application till when they are home and even after it is HARD! These children are so worth every tear, every struggle, every sacrifice,every bit of waiting! So when we make very frequent posts on our blogs and Facebook, and we are constantly selling something;) we do it all for our children! What would you do for yours? And what would you do if they were thousands of miles away hurting, scared and lonely? You would do anything wouldn't you?!

 Mommy and Daddy are coming soon!

Time Flys When Your Having Fun!

Well another summer over....we are always so busy they tend to go quickly! We do cram as much stuff in as possible! I can't believe how quickly they are growing up! I tell them all the time to stop growing up but they don't listen! I feel sad that I wanted to rush the summer along all so courts can hurry up and open. This whole adoption process I have been wishing for time to go faster. Once we get the kids home from Ethiopia I really would like it to slow down! For all of us in the adoption process we count the days..the months while waiting at each stage of the process. Yet I look at my 3 biological kids and think where did the time go?? Next year I will have 1 in High school 1 in Middle school 2 in elementary and 1 in preschool! I want my other 2 kids home but I really don't want time to fly! Enjoy every second because boy does it go fast!

Softball..Baseball...soccer, boy were we busy but we sure do have fun! Now the craziness starts..back to school! Praying for a good year for all the kids!

ORPHANAGE DONATIONS

IN OCTOBER WE WILL BE TRAVELING TO ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA. WE WILL BE MEETING OUR 2 NEWLY ADOPTED CHILDREN. WE ARE HOPING TO TAKE DONATIONS FOR THE ORPHANAGE THAT TOOK CARE OF OUR CHILDREN. THEY ARE IN NEED OF MANY ITEMS! THESE ARE A FEW WE ARE LOOKING FOR HELP COLLECTING:



INFANT AND CHILDRENS TYLENOL

CHILDREN'S CHEWABLE VITAMINS

VITAMINS FOR CHILDREN OVER AGE 9

UNSENTED BABY WIPES

TOOTHBRUSHES AND TOOTHPASTE

LIQUID BENEDRYL

A&D DIAPER OINTMENT

NEOSPORIN

DIAPERS OF ALL SIZES UP TO 30LBS

MOUTH AND NOSE MASKS

DISPOSABLE LATEX GLOVES

IF YOU CAN HELP BY DONATING ANY OF THESE ITEMS PLEASE CONTACT US! WE ONLY HAVE A MONTH TO GATHER AS WE HOPE TO TRAVEL MID OCTOBER. THANK YOU

Monthly updates

So we got alot of questions answered this month about our kids...it left me with very few questions to ask this month! This will be our last set of questions till probably November as we hope to travel in October. We are allowed to ask 5 questions each child for the nannies to answer. Height and weight updates are included every month. So this is what we came up with..

Doe she understand she is being adopted and won't see her family again? if so how does she feel about it?

She does not understand it yet

What are thier bedtimes and wake times, do they both sleep all night or take naps?

She sleeps on early hours an raise late; they go to bed on 7:30pm and wakes on 6:00am

Is there anything they would like to know about us?

They want to know about their bedroom in their new family; how does it looks like and what things might they expect

What are her favorite foods? dislikes?

She likes injera and not interested in spaghetti and macaroni

Does she have a large vocabulary and understand amharic?

Not large vocabulary but she can understand Amharic

What clothes size and shoe size fits them best?

Clothing size is 2-4 and shoe size is 9

What is known about the region that they are from?

They came from the SNNP region of the country which is located in the southern part of the country. Its called Sidama Zone a few kilometers from a city called Awassa. Its known for its diverse historical and cultural heritages and even their own calendar. But due to the high population density in the particular place the people cannot share the resources in a fair and suitable way which makes the majority to be poor

Did he make any special friends this month?

Yes, c***** is his close friend

Are thier teeth healthy, do they have any cavities?

Yes they have clean teeth

Do they have any comments about us after seeing our pictures, or concerns?

They feel good about the pictures.

Tune in the end of September first week of October for the answers!!

An Afternoon at the Movies!

We are hosting a movie on October 2nd at a local theatre to raise money for our travel expenses! A friend suggested we show "Radio" starring Cuba Gooding Jr.so we are!!! We are hopeful that lots of friends and family will come! The theatre holds 600 people and we pray we FILL it!!! We are also hoping to do a raffle of some sort! Tickets are only $5 each so my kids will be knocking on some doors:)

Radio

Monthly update!!!

We recieved 5 new pics of the kids plus answers to our questions we asked last month!!! The kids are doing great!! I can't wait till we can share pictures with you all! Scroll down to my UPDATE post to read the answers to our questions!

27 days..

Well it is offically September! Courts reopen September 27th! What does that mean..well we are praying that after they get things running again we will quickly get a phone call! One telling us when our court date is! Right now all we do is wait..... We may get a few days notice or a few weeks notice before we have to fly to Ethiopia. At this point we are hopeful that we will get an October court date. When courts closed they were already scheduling October 1st dates so...we pray that we get a court date within the first 2 weeks of October. Again we have no clue when until courts reopen and they call us. It has been a very hard wait so far. We first saw our childrens faces on July 15th, the courts closed Aug. 6th. It has been comforting to have traveling families take care packages for us and take beautiful pictures and video. It is still so difficult..I want to hold my children, look them in the eyes and tell them Im your Mom and I Love You!! They have only seen us in pictures also. I can't explain how you grow to love children that you have only seen in pictures and video but..I do! God put these children in my heart long before I ever saw thier picture! We have been praying for them for years! Now that we have seen thier precious faces and know thier names it makes us love them all the more! 27 days....