Today is the day!

What a year 2013 has been for our family.  We are so excited to see what 2014 has in store for us and for you!  

If you have felt moved to donate to our adoption fund, I hope you might consider making a year end tax deductible donation today.   Please know 100% of your donation goes directly to our adoption fees.  Village to Village is an amazing organization that keeps 0 of your donation and sends it directly to our adoption agency Holt International when we have fees that are due.  {If you have any questions about your donation or how this works, please feel free to email me.}

Donate to our Village to Village fund

Our next BIG hurdle will be our country/program fee - which unfortunately has gone up another $6k since Luke's adoption. We will also be making 2 trips again to Ethiopia as required by the Ethiopian government. 

Thank you so much to all of our friends and family who have given so far.  We can't tell you how much we appriciate it!  There is no way we could be on this journey again without the support of so many of you!  Praying that in the coming year we might have a name and face to share with you.  Please continue to pray for our little girl, her birth family and all those who are touching her life.

May your new year be filled with endless joy and blessings!!!

Little packages

I mentioned to Ryan the other day while at Starbucks that I just loved this little bear.  As a little girl I loved collecting teddy bears, many of them I have passed onto B and others remain boxed up with other keepsakes from my childhood.  Ryan thought it was funny I was even interested in it.   I left with my non fat, no foam peppermint latte and no bear, forgetting about our conversation.

Ryan and I had both agreed not to exchange Christmas gifts with each other this year and to try our best to stay on budget....sorry kids no iPod's, "i" anything, game systems or heaps of toys coming your way.  Between pinching pennies for the adoption and plugging away at our Dave Ramsey plan, we were both fine with our plan.

Unfortunately, a few weeks before Christmas Ryan tossed his 2 nicest sweaters into our laundry basket which I then tossed in the washing machine.  Woops!  You can probably guess what happened to those sweaters, one now fits L and the other fits N.  I decided to break our little rule and take advantage of some super deals at the store a few days before xmas with my bday funds and replace his now extra small sweaters.  I wasn't expecting anything from him.   To my surprise he told me to check my stocking, in it I found the bear I had seen at Starbucks.  It truly was one of my favorite gifts I have ever received from him.   It wasn't expensive, sparkly or big yet it was packed full of love and hope.  This was truly a gift that blessed my heart, I believe the best kind of all.

This cute little bear will now be saved, in hopes that someday we will have a little girl to give her too.   What a precious reminder to me to not get so discouraged about the process (aka all those adoption fees) and know that He will lead us.

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!!!

Prayer request: Please pray for positive news from the remaining grant organizations we are waiting to hear from.  May they feel moved by Him to assist our family in this journey.  We anticipate hearing in the next few months about the remaining ones.  

Giant THANK YOU'S to Village to Village for partnering with us.  Their encouragement and help means the world to us!!

I love this time of year! 

Thank you!!

Feeling so thankful today for the friends who over the last few days have purchased almost 20 key fobs!  Thank you so much!!!!!   As many of you know I had to shut down my Etsy site because I was starting to get a little stressed out about all my bag orders.  Well, just as things calmed down around here, God seemed to bless me with a few uninterrupted hours (packed full of motivation!) to make a few key fobs.  I wasn't sure what the response would be when I tossed them on facebook, to my surprise it went really well.   It's been such a blessing to our family and the little girl we someday hope to bring into our family.  Thank you so much!

#37

Today we found out we are #37 on our agency's waitlist! It seems a bit surreal to be back in this place we were almost 3.5 years ago.  Unfortunately there is no way to know how long it will be until we receive a referral.  For now we celebrate having this latest papercase done and pray for our sweet little girl.  May she and those who love her be protected and cared for the best they can be. 

Another first....

It didn't dawn on Ryan and I until we were walking around our local Christmas tree farm today, that this was the first time Luke had been with us to pick out our Christmas tree!  This is a normal occurrence for those of us living in the Pacific Northwest.  I can't remember a single Christmas growing up that we didn't head out as a family to a farm to pick out and cut down our tree.  Ryan even grew up on a Christmas tree farm.  Luke spent his 1st Christmas with us in Colorado where we picked up our tree at our local Costco (super unOregonian).  Last year, his 2nd Christmas Ryan picked one up at lot.  

After almost 3 years home we still had another first to share together.

Lily's first time helping up put up the Christmas tree!

The joy and excitement on Luke's face today while walking up and down the hills through the mud and muck was precious.  The 3 kiddos had so much fun together, they even all managed to crack just a little smile while sitting with Santa.