New music

I changed out my music on the blog too. There are only three songs right now but they are fitting to our time of "waiting". Let me know if you have any other songs about waiting that you think I would enjoy. Thanks

Nesting??

My house is so cluttered and all of a sudden it is driving me crazy. I spent the whole day cleaning out my closet and moving summer clothes out. I am also trying to figure out how we are going to do bedrooms, who is going to share, how we will arrange all the rooms and baby items, etc. It is fun and exciting but I don't want to start spending any money until I figure out exactly what the final decision is. All of this on top of not knowing when our son is coming home or how old he is makes it difficult when you are a planner by nature (and/or nurture).

There has not been much word on the progress of where we are on "the list". We do have a conference call on Wednesday with the agency and I am looking forward to getting a little more info then.

The kids are out on fall break this week and next and it is so nice to move a little slower. We are staying home and cleaning out and hopefully cleaning up. We have also planned some local outings and a trip or two to a UT football game. I treasure this time so much with the kiddos now that I am at home with them and can play, read and talk - it is a treasure.

I will update anything I find out Wednesday on the conference call!

One month down....

Things have been extremely quiet on the adoption front so I am having to make my own little celebrations! We have now been on the official waiting list for one month which if you take the middle point of the wait time (6 months) means we are 1/6th closer to bringing home our sweet son. Can you tell I have too much time to think about the wait? Actually I have done pretty good.......not too anxious yet and have now made a list of everything I would like to get finished before traveling to Ethiopia. I am in the middle of a bible study with our church and have just joined BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) which is quite a commitment and will keep me busy in prayer and studying the bible.........definitely the best way I could find to pass this time.

America World usually posts referrals every 2 weeks or so and there had not been any referrals announced for almost six weeks until this past Friday. There were not infant boys referred but 6 other sweet children. Courts in Ethiopia open back up in October and the lady who handles a lot of the referrals for America World has just come back from maternity leave so I am hoping as I know many others are that there will be lots of referrals flowing soon.

Hope to be able to update more about our adoption but right now it truly is pretty quiet. I plan to check out Vanderbilt's International Pediatric Unit, begin planning on the switching around of bedrooms and Oct. 1st I usually start on Christmas----can you believe it is coming up so fast. It is amazing how time can move so slow and so fast at the exact same time.

147 Million Orphans by Brooke Connelly

My children make me very proud all the time and I love them so very much. Not to show off too much but I have to share one story with you. My oldest (Brooke, 12) had to write a poem in one of her classes...they had been discussing the president and his campaign being about "change". The teacher then asked them to take the topic of change and the lesson of poetry and write a poem. Brooke did not tell me about this assignment until time to turn it in. When I read the poem I couldn't believe how good it was, how heartfelt it was and that our family deciding to adopt has really made an impression on her to help orphans. Can you tell I am a proud momma!! Here it is:

147 Million Orphans

Do you care
I want a home
I want a family
I want someone to love me
There are 147 million of us
We don't have anyone to call mom
Please don't be selfish
Love me and I will love you
Do you care?

God has a plan for me
I found my home
I now have someone to love
There are 147 million orphans minus one
My family was very unselfish and chose to take care of me
They love me and I love them
God has a plan for me

Isn't that incredible! I am so PROUD of her. Another bragging moment and I will stop....Brooke has been so unselfish and sweet in regards to our adoption. We have been fortunate to have a house where everyone has their own room but with the addition of our son we are one bedroom short. After some discussion and brain storming Brooke offered to let her little sister who is only 6 move into her room so that the baby can have his own room. It will be such an adjustment and sacrifice for Brooke and yet she very sweetly and willingly offered to do this.

I have so much more to post and update but have to go for now.........

Waiting is not very exciting...

I am sure you saw in my previous blog that we are DTE 8/20/2009!!! There was so much to do in the paperwork part of our adoption that I literally worked on it everyday. Although I am glad that part is over it is a bit odd to now just wait and not be doing much. I am not impatient (yet) about the waiting it is just hard to update much on my blog because really there is not an update except that we have now been waiting 2 weeks. There is a great "unofficial" list on a yahoo group that keeps things updated but we are not close enough on the list to make the list yet. The yahoo group however, is so helpful, kind, informative and supportive. It is nice to have friends going through the same process even though we have not met in person and actually might not.

One update is that a very dear friend of mine that was following God's call to adopt is home with her baby! It is an incredible story and has God written over every part of it. They were starting the process to adopt from Ethiopia and then God redirected them to a domestic adoption and ONE week later they were bring a precious little boy home to their family. If you would like to read this inspiring story you can go to Karen's blog at www.followingthephillips.blogspot.com

Russ and I are headed on a "grown up" trip this weekend which I am looking forward to however, Caroline cried when I dropped her off at school this morning and I have been crying since........it is so hard to leave all 3 of my precious children even for a weekend. We do figure however that this will be our last trip without kids for a while. Hopefully our next trip will be to Ethiopia!

Hope everyone has a great Labor Day...