Since Monday....

WE ARE NUMBER ONE!

Now we wait some more...with even more anticipation knowing we really are next....our baby boy is out there...we are here, ready and waiting for that phone to ring!

Oh and happy Thanksgiving!...I am sure tomorrow will be too busy to blog! Hopefully though, I will have a HUGE reason to make a new post :)

I can wait...

WHEW I have to get this out...
Last night I was convicted in the most precious way,
I was reading a blog post from another waiting family (Thanks Amy) and she had wrote about her child's birth mom, it was sweet and heart wrenching.
While I pray for our future son's birth mom several times a day and have cried when thinking of her many different times, I have not REALLY GENUINELY been thinking of her lately and what she may be feeling. I have been so caught up in waiting for the call about our son that I have simply just thought only of us and our excitement...when on the other side of the world she is experiencing pain and sorrow. We don't have to know specifics to know that she is in a horrible situation if she has to, out of the deepest love one can have, give her child over to another. I can not fully grasp this, but I am forever thankful that she carried him and loves him and is acting out of love for his behalf.
So right now she may be having her final days with him...I can see her nursing him and wishing things were different. (One sweet day there will be no more poverty, illness, orphans, or sin). She may be sick and with the only strength she has left, is holding him in her frail arms for small precious moments. I no longer am wishing the days away, praying for the phone to ring, but instead praying that our son's birth mom is getting the most precious time she can have with her son. God please comfort her and let her know and feel the love You have for her and her son and the love we have for her and her son.
Should you read this, please pray this with me.
Our call will come when it's suppose to, until then, I CAN WAIT!

My little man enjoying the weather

These are a few pictures from the impromptu photo shoot Ty inspired me to do today! He was playing in the leaves and looking so cute I had to grab my camera! :)

Oh how I cherish that crinkle over his nose when he smiles real big!

I read this on a blog I love to follow of this amazing, young, powerful girl...this is just a portion from some of the most wonderful things she writes, which all stem from her life in Uganda. You don't have to know her story to understand this piece. You can follow her at www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com


We are but a vapor. I think we know that we could die tomorrow, or worse that our children could, but do we really KNOW it? You know, LIVE as if we know in our hearts that we are just a breath, that we will wither and fade like the grass and the flowers... I know there are days when I don't. I am not meaning to be morbid, simply realistic. Because I know that if I lived like I really KNEW this truth, if I treated everyone as if they were David and might be taken tomorrow, I would love better. I would hug my children tighter and hold them longer. I would tell people thank you more often and I would tell God thank you more often. I am thankful that as I care for sick children often, this is something I am reminded of often, and I pray that it would change the way I life my life.Francis Chan wrote, "How we live our days, is how we live our lives." I had to read it several times as I let it soak in. Because it is true. So often we find ourselves waiting for a specific moment, a specific call, something special. For what? How we spend our days... that will be our LIFE. Because today could be it. If Jesus came back today and said, "Let's go!" would we be ready? Would we be doing what we want to be doing when we meet Jesus? People say to me often, "You are so lucky that you found your calling, that you know your purpose in life." This statement boggles my mind. I AM so blessed to live the life that I do. But it isn't rocket science. God did NOT part the sky and shout out to me, "Katie! Serve my people." I read it in His word. You can too. We can all see as plain as day that Jesus says the number one commandment is to love the Lord and love your neighbor. I happened to move to Uganda and love those neighbors, but that is not the point. As believers, we should already KNOW our calling; it is to love the Lord and love our neighbors by caring for them in whatever broken state they are in. When He said that "the poor will always be among us" I don't think he meant that as an excuse not to worry about it but as a reminder that there is ALWAYS a neighbor, no matter where we are, in a worse condition than we are. I can only believe that God created us to make this world a little better. That he designed us in love to show that love to others. I just don't know what everyone is waiting for.

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.


I am so thankful for this verse God lead me to today...and it stirs up with great understanding the prayer in my heart...

"God my hope IS in YOU, and I pray that you will fill us with joy and peace as we trust in you and your perfect timing to reveal the new son you have chosen for us. YOU know him, YOU know where he is, YOU know how he is, and YOU know when we will know all this too, and that Lord is enough. May our hope overflow by the power of the Holy Spirit...my hope is in YOU!"

Getting ready....

Even Tyler is doing his part to get ready for his new "brudder".
He started to give the baby doll the bottle all on his own, it was sooo cute! I have slowly started cleaning up the extra room that will become Tyler's "big boy room" and am going through clothes and saving all the clothes that are too small for Tyler now....It's nice because I don't have to be sad that Tyler has outgrown so many clothes since we will get to use them...soon hopefully!
I am preparing myself to not get our referral until after the first group of families to travel get back home since the courts reopened, which they won't be back until the end of Novemeber. So by early December surely we will know who our new son will be! God knows how badly I long to see his face before Thanksgiving though...so we will see! :D Untill then I am doing my best to stay busy...the house has been kept clean more lately then ever before! :)
I might not post much until the call just because not much is changing, but oh when the call comes....I will be posting like crazy!!

WAITING!!

OK so we know we are now unofficially #2!!! This is so exciting but it's like that last month of pregnancy that goes by sooo slow! I am enjoying where we are right now but I just want to see our sweet boy's face! The call about him could come any day now, but there are alot of children at the transition home where he will be, due to court closures over there, so they aren't able to take in as many orphans as normal until more families are able to come and pick their children up to go to their forever home... which I just found out that there is a group of families going the 2nd to last week of November to bring their children home...SO definitely by the 1st week of December we should know who he is..............BUT I WANT THE CALL TO COME NOW!!!
Oh I am doing my best to be patient...my impatience isn't out of unbelief in God but out of pure anxious excitement! The whole world will know when the call about our boy comes!!
Please keep praying for his health and happiness and comfort as he experiences so many new things soon and for his birthmother as she faces somthing no one should have to face.
Until then....we'll be WAITING!

Our adoption agency called today....

But it wasn't THE CALL!
That's Ok though, I know God's timing is perfect! So anyway she was calling to give us our monthly update and tell us our new number....
She (Christy) said we were officially (this is important to remeber) #4! In case you are wondering...I posted we were #3 a little over a week ago (unofficially). This is because when we were at #5, in the Bi-weekly email update they send out it showed there had been 2 boy referrals during those last 2 week....so yes were really were #3 just UNOFFICIALLY.
The difference is that the families who have recieved a referral or have been matched with child, haven't yet sent in the contracts/fees/etc that make it an OFFICIAL acceptance (which is how they base the official waiting list numbers). Theres more....
Christy also said "families ahead of you are currently in the refferal process so that number will be changing very soon" ~ I don't remember if she said "all the families...a few of the families or some of the families" but I definitley heard familieS (PLURAL) so...(with the help of my smart sister-in-law) that means we should AT LEAST BE AT #2 unofficially ( if we're at #4 that if more than ONE family -like she said- is in the proccess or has received a referral then we're surely at #2) ...which means we could get our call any day now!
Am I over analyzing??? :) I can't help it! This is our SON I am talking about not just some number!!!!
OH yeah and at the end of the call she said, "I hope to be calling you again very soon!"
And I replied..."OK! We'll be ready!!!"

This weekend!...

Saturday we FINALLY got our USCIS (immigration) approval!!! "It has been determined that we are able to furnish proper care to an orphan"!! WHOO!! We applied back in July so I was getting nervous since it was taking so long...but now we are definitly ready to recieve our referral! All of our ducks are starting to really be in a row! :)

Then it was time for Trick or Treating! Our little man was a doggy or "woof-woof" as he says :)
And oh he is sooo cute! He loved the candy!!!!!

Here he is all hyped up from the candy once we got home...I think he went to bed at 11...normally he is down by 8:30 or 9! He was sooo wired it was hilarious!

Then Sunday (today) we had a luncheon at church that was headed up by some sweet sweet ladies in our church. One of them has seen us literally grow up in the church so it was a full circle thing for her. The other, has only known us a short time but it was her idea to do this for us...we are so blessed! This was in the bulletin...

I thought it would be good for people to see pictures and facts about Ethiopia since so many people are still unaware of the orphan crisis so I made some posters to put up...

This next sign was outside the door with the donation box. I thought the box was such a great idea and worked perfectly! (these ladies had it all under control!)

These wonderful women (and many more) made this luncheon possible!!! During church I was actually figuring numbers up in my head thinking "well if we max out our credit card (our very first one that we opened for the adoption), along with the money we have saved so far...we ABSOLUTELY would need $800 just to make the referral possible "Please God let us raise $800"...travel would have to wait but we would have time to come up with that....well lets just say that God TRIPLED my request!!! He truely is the the God "who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20)

Thanks to these ladies and our wonderful church family for letting God's grace be shown to us through them!!! TO GOD BE THE GLORY!!!

So behind!

Well I am so behind on "blogging" that I am not really sure where to start!


I guess we have just been busy doing the day to day thing and by the time bedtime rolls around...I am ready to collapse, not blog! But anyway alot has been going on....Tyler's been sick but is finally better, I wrecked my car on Monday on the way to his Dr appointment...it was crazy and deserves a whole post by itself but I will just say that God was completely with us the whole time! I had to write everything down when I got home because over and over during that time frame there was just one thing after another where I was just like "wow God is right here with me"...we swerved really bad and I lost control on a busy road yet no other car was involved, the police were very nice, played with Tyler and even called to verify my insurance since the only paper I had was expired...we came inches away from a light pole, but instead took out a sign that collapsed when I hit it...a back window was blown out but not a speck of glass was anywhere near Tyler...moments after I got home both my brother and my cousin called to offer me their cars for as long as I needed it.......I know there is more but thats the highlights. God protected us completely and while Satan may be trying to discourage us through this, we won't let him. Actually God is turning it out for our good as always, someone is already interested in buying the wrecked thing (our insurance won't cover enough for us to fix it) and so we will have more money to put towards the adoption... here are some pictures of the damage :)

Besides that...I can not get this baby I have never met off of my mind! I kept thinking of Tyler's ultrasound pictures the other day and how exciting it was to get those first glimpses of him and how I can't wait to get our first glimpses of this baby ~growing not in my womb, but in my heart...so I tried to paint our newest son his own "ultrasound image".....

We are also getting ready for the big call...when we will actually get our first glimpse at this little boy God has hand-picked for us, so the video camera is sitting on the mini-tripod in the kitchen, just waiting to catch us on the phone when we get "the call"!!! This week we should recieve our "number call" but I am hoping that the number call will actually be the call about our little boy! I can't wait!!!

Here is some pictures of Tyler putting away change in the piggy bank we have for his little brother! I thought it was soo cute to see his little hands "feeding the piggy" so I had to get a picture of it! I was cheering every time he put change in...saying "yeah Brother!!" He loved it!