No sleep for the mommy who can't find her black skirt!

Last night I slept 45 minutes and honestly that may be a generous estimation. How can a person sleep the night before beginning a journey that began in my heart 12 years ago. We packed up our bags, picked up the house and set our alarms for 4:15am to get to our 7am flight out of IAH on time. 

I was actually pacing the living room until about 12:45am watching episodes of Orange is the new black. Around 1am I layed in bed and easily drifted off to sleep and as I was about to fall asleep I realized I didn't pack my new black skirt. The one I specifically bought for Ethiopia. Oh, and I think I have clothes in the dryer. And DANG I'm not sure if I packed my hair straightener. What bag did I put the converters in? Yes this was my "non" nights sleep! 

But we are currently about to touch down in DC and then get ready to fly straight to Ethiopia tomorrow. We will get into addis around 7:15am and go see our girl!!! 

Tonight I will not be messing with another sleepless night. 9pm bedtime and a healthy dose of unisom for me!! 

And check out Lance in the top picture. Such a sleepy head! 

Me? I think my foot has been tapping this whole flight. I'm pretty sure I'm even typing fast right now!! Eeeeeek!!!!! I will be holding my baby TOMORROW!!!!

Finally in that third trimester.

As I was talking to a friend of mine who is due just about the same day we go to court in Ethiopia, it struck me that it's HERE. Just like her labor is coming, we are about to sit in a court house and promise an Ethiopian judge that we will love this little girl forever. She's then born into our family. Just like that. Fastest labor ever. Well, plus 3 years of waiting and about 62 jillion times more expensive than childbirth, BUT the same end result. A new little Agan baby! 

I'm feeling so lucky that the Lord has allowed us to experience these two different kinds of childbirth. Different, but all with the same ending. All ending is so much love. 

As we get closer to this "due date" I'm so curious about her. This time around I've been looking at a little face frozen in time for months, not a fuzzy ultrasound where you guess who has whose eyes and nose hands. But a little face where you guess "do I see little bottom teeth!?" Or "is that hair as curly as it looks?" I'm also so excited to learn her temperament, to see what her little skin feels like and smell her little head. I'm excited to rock her and sing to her and watch her learn how to be a daughter and sister. 

I don't want to say I'm more excited about this "birth" than I was the others, but it's so different. And in some ways it is more exciting. I know adoption comes with extreme grief and loss and I'm aware that hard times lay ahead. But just like walking into the operating room about to burst with twins, the "what ifs" and anxiety don't even begin to compare to the joy and excited anticipation and the good "what ifs!" Like "what if she loves to be rocked!", "what if her sisters love to help take care of her!", "what if she sleeps peacefully in my arms all night long", "what if she learns to love us quickly!" 

I'm just so flat out excited to meet her. To pick her up and squish that little brown cheek up next to mine and tell her that "Mommy is finally here." That she will never wonder again if she is loved and cherished and chosen. She has found her forever place. No matter which "what ifs" come true. She will be ours. ❤️

We are coming for you angel baby!!!!

(Night of the call!!!) 

I've got about two minutes to post because we are leaving town in a few hours for our last ever family of four trip! 

But we finally got the sacred call saying we have a court date in Ethiopia and will be leaving soon to meet our girl and go to court to officially make her an Agan always and forever!!!! 

I am on cloud 9. However, I am also kind of a mess trying to figure out how to coordinate a week long trip last minute out of country with two toddlers who definitely don't add much to the ease of planning. 

But, we will make it! We will be holding that sweet angel child so so very soon! I really cannot believe it. And as long as the wait has been, honestly it's been pretty seamless since our referral. We've miraculously gotten in before courts close and will have waited a little under 5 months post referral to going to meet her. We are definitely blessed!! We know others have not walked as easy of a path. We still have a few steps to go to finally have her adorable little chubby feet firm on the ground in Houston, Texas, but we are just so darn close!!!!

Thank you God for starting this story and now bringing it to completion!!! 

Beach trip

This weekend was wonderful. We rented a little beach house with a few other couples and it was just the perfect little mini vacay, and gave us some much needed family time!  

The house we rented was a tad misrepresented in my option, aka the advertised "third bathroom" was in fact a shower outside. But really, I was surprised how 4 couples and 8 kids did just fine in two bathrooms! 

The first night and morning were a tad rough. The girls went to bed at 11 and then woke up for the day at 4:50 asking to go see Dolphins! Then at nap time Nora mastered escaping from her pack and play and literally appeared standing over me just as my eyes were closing out on the deck for a little nap! But I'm happy to say by that night they decided they were over it and slept great the rest of the trip. 

This trip was really nothing fancy or special, but it will always hold a special little place in my heart. I've talked a lot about how God has mapped out this adoption ever so specifically. This weekend gave me so much time alone with my girls, away from laundry and groceries and just life. Even Nora's little nap refusal gave me two solid hours with her alone on the beach and then 2 solid hours with just Zoe. It was just time to be still, time to enjoy my little family the way it is right now. I would be lying if I didn't admit that I teared up a few times as I sat with my two babies, watching the ocean and talking about the waves and fish, very aware that this season is ending. 

But I feel like God stopped life this weekend and let me just soak in our family of four and regroup before starting this new chapter. We all four rocked each night before bed on the side of the bed, or as the girls called it, "family rock." We sat for hours and built sand castles and then ate hotdogs and played with friends all night. No one got in trouble for just eating queso for dinner or skipping brushing their teeth. We just enjoyed each other! 

I feel ready to take on this next task. I have a lot of peace about it! Sure, I am drowning under piles of sandy laundry, but I am uncharacteristically calm about it all. So far no worries about traveling across the world. I am starting to get a little knot in my stomach about leaving the girls for a week, but aside from that, I'm excited! It's finally the right time for us to add Jane to our little family. 

Thank you God for giving me 3 days at the beach with wonderful family. This no frill, little Galveston vacation may be my favorite one so far!

Eventually all two year olds give in. Even mine 

The aquarium. Every time we ask them what their favorite thing about the trip was Nora says, "the man washing the windows." She was obsessed with the guys in scuba suits cleaning the windows in the giant tank at the aquarium. Never mind the Sharks and stink Rays and giant sea turtles swimming by! 

Sand fun! 

Busy playing. 

Levi worked SO hard to dodge this photo. Can you see him!? ;) 

Worn out wet baby girls! 

Just a little sand fun. 

She's all ready to go "count Dolphins." And count Dolphins she did. Did we ever see one? No! Oh but Nora put in some good work counting them at the beach. It was actually kind of strange. My little goof. 

The letter.

Adoption update:

So no real update. But I just wanted to clarify what I'd love people to be praying for.

We need a group called MOWA (kind of equivalent to cps here) to write a letter of approval on our case. Every thing else is done. Every person has been at every meeting, we have been cleared 100x over and now we just need this one more teeny, tiny, but CRUCIAL letter. Once they say OK we get a court date. 

Since the courts close in Ethiopia in mid August, we need it this week or next most likely in order to get squeezed in in late July or early August. 

And I refuse to accept this yet, buuuut if we don't get in before the closure we could move from meeting our girl in a matter of weeks to 4-5 more months!!! Ok, no way Jose!! 

So please pray that our file gets picked up TODAY and that our case worker has a soft heart towards adoption and doesn't require any unnecessary "investigating" in our case! 

Thanks!! 

Wait for the Lord.

I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. 

To you, Lord, I call; you are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the pit. Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place.

Psalms 27:13-28:2

Nesting.....but a lot easier to move this time!

This weekend we sent the girls away to Lance's parents house for some Mimzy & Pops time so we could get things ready for baby sister's arrival. The weekend started off rough. Not gonna lie. I spent about 2 hours alone in the car in a fed ex parking lot outside of our neighborhood crying alone before going home. Really, sometimes the highs and lows of adoption just call for a good car cry. 

But I pulled it together"ish" and Lance and I had a great weekend spending time just the two of us. It's truly amazing the amount of productivity that can occur when you remove the twin two year olds from the equation. I was in nesting mode big time and cleaned every last surface of my house. I'm talking, under the fridge, oven, laundry room tile, you name it. If it was within arms reach it is now shining. Last time I was "expecting" I was waddling around like a gigantic whale and has to just dictate what needed to be done from the couch! This time I've been much more efficient! 

Lance worked away on little girls pink room and at night we went out to long dinners alone and slept until 10am in the morning. It was great. And now WHEN I get the call to go to Ethiopa THIS month, I will be ready. And my house will probably be even cleaner. See, I am a stress cleaner. So if you come into my house and it's all shiny and smelling like lemon and essential oils you need to be concerned. If you can't find us under the piles of laundry and all you can see is playdough we are all good! :) 

But little Janes room is coming along, just a few more little things, and her clothes are hanging in her closet and her Mommy and Daddy are ready!! 

I had to laugh as I walked through the back of the house that now occupies three cribs! When we bought the house we had it all planned out. We were going to just have one baby (jane) and make the other room a beautiful guest room and the front room (playroom) an office for me to work from home from part time. Ha! 

Wow, God has blessed our lives! 

My cousin text me tonight and told me to "Pray, Praise & Wait." So that I wil do. And I pray I wait more gracefully this week than I did last week! I have a good feeling. A good feeling about this week ahead. 

When God is silent

Today has been hard. Really, everyday since seeing that little girls face has been hard. But once our last hearing took place on June 30th leaving us with nothing left to wait for expert a call saying "come meet your daughter", the wait has been excruciating. 

Each Friday when the days ends and no news comes, it inches us that much closer to the courts closing for the rest of summer for rainy season. It closes the door on any hope of this week being "the week". So we start the next week, with extremely feeble hearts trying with all our might to be positive and expect this week to be "the week." 

This Friday was particularly hard because our little girls turns another month old. Another month without a family and suffocatingly close to being stuck in an orphanage for 8 extra weeks if we don't get a court date this month. 

Sometimes the weight of all of it feels like it is crushing me. The thought that she is thirsty or hungry or sick without her mama literally sits on my chest like a giant weight. I feel it lumping up in my throat. It's a constant burden. It grows everyday with the sadness of what seems like unanswered prayers. 

Right now I feel like God is silent. My deep seated faith allows me to know that God is working in this even when he is silent. But my heart and mommy instincts are sad, and confused, and just flat out mad about this long drawn out process to get a child that has been without a mommy for almost half her life now. 

Please pray for us. I know it's hard for someone on the outside to understand the fierce emotions that can come with adoption. That can come for a baby you have never met. I can only explain it as supernatural because I feel for her, pray for her and worry for her just like I do for the ones safely under my roof. Our hearts have been knitted together across the ocean. 

Pray we get the call soon! I know God calls us to pray boldly and expectantly. I am trying. I just need this little one safe in my arms. 

July 4th

We had a super 4th of July weekend! Anytime Lance has an extra day off we are all 4 very thankful! We spent a whole lotta time just chilling. Lazy mornings, long trips to the pool and relaxed schedules for all. It was perfect. We had a great night hanging with friends complete with, of course, hot dogs and hamburgers and some late night crazy neighborhood fireworks. Our neighborhood is a bit out of control each year, and the fireworks were literally going off in every direction as we unloaded the car on the night of the  4th. Nora was beside herself with terror Zoe thought they were "bootifult!" 

But the break was great and we are all back to the grind tomorrow. But happy to be going in happy and refreshed! 

Spontaneous sister snuggles with Daddy. They just love when Lance is home in the morning. It's such a treat for them. They just want to be near him. It's presh!

Their favorite activity while we wait for our food. Yes, eating sugar. 

Nora and daddy at our very short lived park outing. The actual park equipment was too hot to even touch and we decided nothing aside from the pool was a humane outdoor activity at this point! 

Thy girls ask for chocolate milk the second they get up and have specific requests for what cup they would like too! They are proudly showing Daddy here. 

I hope everyone soaked in some fun family time this weekend! Happy week ahead. And more to come soon on how we have reason to believe that it's almost time (hopefully) to start packing our bags to go meet Jane!!