Merry Christmas

I hope that you all had a Very Merry Christmas! Ours was good! Blessed with busyness I guess you could say :) Sorry I have been "M.I.A." on blogging! I was thankful to get back to a routine this morning and am hoping to pick back up this week with some blogs.

We have a new number on the Unofficial waiting list.......



for an infant boy!!

Our number for toddler boy hasn't moved in a while, but we are thankful to see any movement!

I also wanted to share this sweet, sweet gift that Lee's sister gave us (Malachi) for Christmas! I absolutely LOVE it!! I cannot wait to put it up in his room.

I love how it has all of the countries, major cities, etc. It even has Addis Ababa (which is the city where our agency's transition home is located). This is where we will meet and pick up Malachi, but he may be born in another town or village in Ethiopia.

Honestly, it seems surreal. I was sitting there looking at that map tonight thinking "God, is this ever going to really happen? Will I ever step foot on Addis Ababa soil?"

And the answer is... yes! This will happen... one. day.

One, Two, or Three years from now?    Probably.

Will we still be waiting and ready to meet little man?  YUP!!

Do we think of him often??   All the time!

I remember a time when I waited 7 years for something. I never thought the day would come when I would finally marry Lee :) Then... One. Day.... it happened!

I think he was worth the wait :)

Thanks for following our journey!

A Walk Down Christmas Card Lane

In 2009, the year that Lee and I were engaged... I decided that I wanted to keep record of our Christmas cards. I began a scrapbook that was very, very bare for the first 2 years... but I pulled it out today and my, oh my, how time flies!

Here is our walk down Christmas Card lane (spoiler for my 2012 cards because they haven't been sent out yet :)) So don't look if you love a surprise!

Oh and DO. NOT. JUDGE. the lack of creativity with each page. I vowed to make it SIMPLE so that I would actually do it every year! It's a guilt free book :) I do reserve the right to go back and edit pages when time allows... you could do the same!

2009

2010

2011

2012

I love how my sloppy handwriting is making all of you OCD people cring right now!

Oh. If you know this Santa in "real" life, I apologize if I have come across as offensive. I think he was just tired by the end of the day :) It gave us something to laugh about.

Merry Christmas guys!
Enjoy your holidays!
Fashionably, I have not even BEGAN my Christmas shopping yet!

Good & Bad News

Well... The good news is that we moved up another spot on the waiting list!! Now for an infant (0-12 months) we are number....

And for a little guy (18-24 months) we are number...

We are so thankful to have moved up so many spots in the month of November. Our agency issued approximately 12 referrals in the month of November, which is awesome!

However, (oh the dreaded "however"), overall the wait times continue to increase. The families that received referrals this month had been waiting 24-25 months. Because of this, our agency sent an email today saying that families should "currently" expect to wait 24-30 months before a referral. The "old" estimated wait time was 18-24 months. When Lee and I started this process, the estimated wait was approx 12 months :( so you can see how much things have changed.

Paperwork continues to be the hold up. By "paperwork" I mean the children's paperwork. The Ethiopian government has to issue clearances for these children to be adopted and with the new guidelines in place (in effort to make sure all adoptions are completely ethical) it is taking increased time. Our agency said that "the final clearance could take 1 month or 1+ years to obtain."

Please pray that the Ethiopian government finds a more efficient way to process these clearances.

For now... We wait! We wait in expectation and we rejoice in the Lord's continued work in Ethiopia.

The sad truth: We have been officially waiting 3 months. So, 30-3 = 27 more to go (if things don't change again). Geez that makes me sad to type!

Please keep following, encouraging and praying! It means a lot guys!