Sisters, Daddies and Slides - What could be better?

100th post

Homeschooling can get pretty monotonous so we are getting creative. He is doing the homeschool swim lessons now offered at the community college. Loves it! He is reading my sister's favorite book as a child, "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry." He doesn't enjoy book reports so we are spicing it up a bit. He has to write a commercial for the book, film it and put it on YouTube. Now he is really excited about it and hopefully paying more attention when reading the book.

The girls played dress up today and it was funny to watch Nyah waddle around in Makaylee's dress. She didn't even trip!

My heart goes out to the families in the process of adopting from Ethiopia. Adding a second trip to the requirements adds considerable costs to already strained budgets. I am praying for you
that this extra trip ends up being a blessing rather than a burden. Jehovah Jireh is our provider!

We got a call on Tuesday saying the adoption committee

just got out. What???? I thought it was on Thursday.

Oops, miscommunication. Which is great. Two less days to

stress out! Except that we still don't know anything. They

are going to send out letters to each family with the decision.

Thank you for your prayers. We are honored that you take the time

out of your busy lives. Some of you I have never even met. The family of

God is incredible. There is nothing else like it!

One More Time Around

(For those of you who don't know, there was an adoption committee for our daughter's little 2 year old sister a couple months ago. We prayed for months that they would choose us. There were 3 families to pick from. They chose a single gal with the child's half sister. Reason: large family bias. This gal would have more time for her, they figured. Really? I don't think working mothers have more time than a stay-at-home mother. But we tried not to sweat it too much. There were so many prayers that went up over her; I trusted God. But we had already pictured her as part of our family. My mom had gotten her Christmas dress for next year already. I had matching jammies with Makaylee and Nyah for her just waiting on the bed...)

Okay, I know this is going to sound crazy, but they are redoing the adoption committee over again for Makaylee's little sister. There was an appeal made by another family and it was granted. The committee is this Thursday. In like 50 some hours. Can you tell I am getting antsy?! Why did they have to bring this up again? I was okay with God's "no" answer last time and was doing well with healing and moving on. Now its like the band aid was opened up again. If they don't choose us again this is going to seriously hurt. I am not telling Makaylee again this time. I don't want her to be hurt again if they don't choose us. I can't do that to her again. She has recovered so gracefully. Her resiliency is amazing and I would be pushing luck to expect it to last forever so we will just keep praying and maybe on Thursday we will have a surprise for her.

So please, would you join our family in prayer during the next few days? Maybe God's answer wasn't "no" last time, maybe He was just testing us to see if we trusted Him. Either way, we will trust Him again on Thursday no matter the outcome and rejoice! Because God is good, all the time.

My Girl

Makaylee has so much fun at her basketball games that it is hard to keep her focused. She is one big ball of silly wildness...

playing on the sidelines as they wait for their rotation to go in

This special little girl is Biruktawit. That is Nyah's Ethiopian name, too. They both came home from Ethiopia within a month of each other. Makaylee and her have formed a fast friendship and have a unique bond. She can't wait to go to her house today!

I ended up sending Makaylee to school yesterday with a picture of herself when she was 2. That is the earliest picture we have of her. She said that her teacher thought it was so cute. And it was! She could have done Huggies ads she was so adorable. I asked her if she saw her classmates pictures and she said "Yeah, they were so cute, too!" She didn't even notice the age difference. Whew! That was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I shouldn't have been so worried, I mean, nothing phases this girl. Nothing gets her down.

The Dreaded Assignment

I knew this was bound to come someday, I just wasn't prepared for it yet. The assignment adoptive parents dread. The note home from the teacher. "Parents, please send a baby picture of your child to school for a project." Poor Makaylee. She'll be the only one in her class without one. Orin said to cut one out of a magazine. Maybe.

Love

Talking

Nyah's really talking up a storm at home. The sixteen month marker has been a huge vocabulary explosion for her!