Green"ish" thumb

I must say that having a yard and planting flowers is one of my favorite things about being out of an apartment. Our back yard is still really struggling, but sitting in our swing on the front porch looking at all our pretty flowers is one of my favorite things. I know, I know I sound so old saying that! But I spend lots of nights swinging on the swing, chatting on the phone, watching the frogs eat the bugs. :) We were a little impulsive and planted tomatoes, pepper, basil and a cucumber plant in our front beds since our back yard wasn't ready for planting. Not the best idea, but I like the slightly wild look of flowers and plants. However, some of the plants are taking over and I just have no idea what to do with this much basil!!

 

I was WRONG adoption peeps!

So I wrote a post about slow downs in our process and I had some facts a little bit wrong. I said that we had to wait 4-6 months to travel for a court date post referral and this is not right. Our caseworker actually just told me that she always says "4-6 months" because the Ethiopian courts shut down for 2 months in the summer. If you get a referral right before this shutdown you may have to wait out those couple months and then wait a couple more to get a date once they open. However, she said the wait for a court date right now has been about 5 weeks.

I was also wrong about 1/2 of the orphanages shutting down. I was told today that the southern region of Ethiopia shut down their orphanages, which was about 20 orphanages. This means that the kids are still there but they are not processing adoptions (sad!). Lots of adoption agencies worked primarily with the southern orphanages. So, now that they are shut down, agencies are scrambling to partner with other orphanages. This is slowing down the referral process for Ethiopia all across the board and across all agencies.

The good news here is that once we are matched with our baby, it is looking like it will be a relatively quick process to get her home!! I am so thankful!!

Referral are still a bit slow, but we are moving each month! I am going to remain hopeful that we will bring this child home in 2012!!!!!!

I just wanted to clarify b/c I didn't want people to be getting wrong information from my blog!!! I was going off what I read on the agency site and have now had it all clarified for me!

Hurry home little Jane!! :)

Top 10 things on my mind.......

Work: I am struggling with the hours I work right now. I work 9-7 Monday-Thursday. When I took this job I thought that this would be an awesome schedule and that having Friday off would be worth the late evenings. I am finding that for me this is not true at all. I love being home at a normal hour and having several hours of day light to see friends, cook, clean and work out. I was much healthier overall when I got home around 4:30 or 5! Not sure the solution to this yet.......

Adoption books: I am so glad that there are so so many adoption books and resources available. Adoptive families have so much more available to them now and it is great. But on the flip side, sometimes my pile of "must reads" is so high that I get overwhelmed and pick up a magazine instead. Does that make me a horrible parent!?

Working out: Oh my! Like I said before, I am having a very hard time working out with my current work schedule. I miss the feeling of feeling "healthy" and sore from good workouts. I am still working on a solution for this as well.

Cleaning: I have developed a new mindset towards this task. Up until a month or so ago I would completely block out most of my day Friday so I could clean. I would say no to friends, family, visiting/taking food to friends with new babies or anything else fun to make sure we started the weekend with a sparkling clean house. However, I have now decided that I only have one weekday off and I want to sleep in and have fun with PEOPLE. So I now say yes to most social outings and have been doing much more on Friday's now that I am letting some housework slip. Its surprisingly ok too! :)

Cooking: I have started cooking more. I have also started doing lots of research on toxins in foods and would like to be an all organic family. We have moved in that direction for the most part. However, Whole Foods is just too expensive for me and our local grocery store just doesn't cut it with some stuff. Not sure what the solution there is either.

Time with friends: Since taking my new job a few months ago I have had to drop out of my bible study and several other opportunities to socialize with others. I am really trying to find a balance and find a way to enjoy my evenings with others. I have learned that I need a couple nights a week with the girls!!

Fostering new friendships: I have some of the worlds best friends!! I am so lucky and blessed. However, I also have a big family and my best friends consist of my cousins and sister. I am doing my best to make an effort to make some new friends and make an effort to spend time with people outside my family or invite others in! :)

Quiet time with God: This is slipping. And when this slips I feel it in every part of my life, job, relationships and personality. I have started doing a quiet time in the evenings after Lance goes to bed (I know we are awful....but I just can't go to bed as early as him!). However, I want to make an effort to get up a few minutes early in the morning and do it then too. I think it would dramatically change by day.

Prayer: I am constantly amazed at how quickly God often answers my prayers. I feel like some of my prayers are answered minutes after I pray them. So cool! I also feel like I have been praying for some things for years and God is waiting to give us to ok. But I know that's how He works. What can ya do!? :)

Baby Gender's: We found out this week that Betho is having ANOTHER BOY!! I laugh every time I think about it. I don't know why! I think I just imagine Lance and I's life filled up with all things girly and now I see Betho sitting outside at baseball games and getting little munchkins ready for boy scouts and fishing trips! I am laughing again typing it! :) But it is so exciting and I am glad little Jane will have two big cousins to make her tough!

Ok that's what is bouncing around my head today. :) I hope everyone is having a great week, whatever it is you are doing!!

I am so looking forward to our weekend!! :)

moving on down.....

Can't believe it is time to post this again...time flew by! Which is a good thing in this case! We are now #30 on the waiting list for our little Jane Jordan!

Like I said before, they have estimated about 9 months to be matched and we are about 3 in. So if things remain smooth we may just have our little ones picture in Oct/Nov! :)

More of my thoughts.....Is this getting old!? :)

I am an over thinker and I was laying in bed last night thinking about all my adoptive friends that I have met that now read my blog that have WAITED much longer than ours is looking. I wanted to clarify that I am still very thankful that things have been moving, even if they are slow! I want to be able to stop and thank God for the positive and not dwell on the negative. I know something good will come from waiting!!

So, to all of you out there that have had to wait and endure trimesters that aren't really "tri", but more like "oct-mesters"we are all in this together and I would never want my blog to be a source of negativity!!!

It gives me comfort to know I am not alone. I love all my new "friends" even if you are only my internet friends! As I was laying in bed feeling like a baby for complaining, I also thought how I would love to get together one day with all my new adoptive mommy friends, near and far, with our little babies one day. We can sit around and thank God that after the equivalent of about three pregnancies we finally got our babies home!! :)

On that note, and I promise my whole life doesn't really revolve around adoption, but I am reading an awesome book called Orphanology. It is all about the Gospel and the way it teaches us to respond to orphans and adoption. As I was reading last night one part really stuck out to me. It said something along the lines of....."People often act like churches or individuals who are embracing orphan care, adopting, or preaching about adoption from the pulpit are radical and are responding to the bible in a very radical way. However, in reality this is not radical at all. It is simply what the bible has said all along and a very basic, simple, command given to us in the bible."

I love this. Honestly, the deeper we get into adoption, the more scripture really comes to life. I will need to post all the specific verses this book outlines. It is amazing. Adoption is not new. Adoption is not radical. Adoption is not odd. Adoption is simply a very practical way to live out the gospel. Lance and I aren't doing anything more radical in adopting than we are by tithing each week, or donating food or clothing through our church. I think it is so nicewhen people tell me that we are brave or they seem impressed with the idea. But I want people to know that this is really just a way to care for the fatherless like God asked us to. Just like he asked us to do lots of other things that we do daily and talk about each week in church. Adoption is just the same. Its just a way to be obedient to God. The "radical" only enters when God starts doing his work in all of this. I am not radical at all. So if you aren't in a position to adopt, I would encourage you to find your place in addressing the orphan crisis in our world. You can do it!! You can be a tool in allowing God to start doing radical things!

There is a need everywhere and God calls us to address it. If people would start looking at orphan care the same way they look at lots of other commands in the bible the world we live in would look extremely different. I know we are not all "called" to adopt. But I also know that we are all "commanded" to care for the fatherless. Just something to think about. :) I know I will be. The need can be huge and overwhelming and when I try to think about where to start or how I can help I am often kind of paralyzed and don't know where to start. But what I have been reading and studying lately has encouraged me to just pray about our role in this crisis! There are so many children that are starving, hungry and alone and a huge majority of them cannot be adopted. This reinforces to me that adoption is not the only way to help. For some reason God has allowed some children to remain in thier situation and we need to figure out how to help them too. This is something I will be thinking about. Any ideas would be welcomed happily!! 

Ok tangent once again! That's all for now! :)

Waiting to wait and then waiting some more.....

So adoption is really not for wimps. I saw this on a t-shirt at a conference and I am now realizing that this is SO true!

We get our updated wait list number tomorrow but we have also been given some new, disappointing news.

First, we were told  by our social worker that a large portion of the orphanages in Ethiopia have been shut down, which is increasing wait times. Where these children go and what "shutdown" really means I don't know. But our wait for an infant has been changed from 6 months to 9 months. We have already been waiting about 2 months so I guess we can assume we have 7 or so to go.

Second, we were told that we would travel within the month, possibly the next month, following our referral to go over to Ethiopia and have a court date to take custody of our child. Well, that wait has also been bumped from 1-2 months to 4-6 months.

Third, we were told that the wait between our first trip (court trip) and second trip (bring baby home trip!!) was about 6-8 weeks. We have now been told 8-12 weeks.

So all that to say, this adoption that we thought was going to take about a year start to finish isn't looking so quick and easy at this point. In a best case scenario situation according to these new facts it will be about 13 more months until we are home with our baby and could even be more like 16 months.

I am doing my best to be patient and I KNOW that people have waited much much much longer than this. But I honestly never thought we would be 7 months in and still looking at 13-16 months left. But it is what it is.

The awesome thing is that we both still know that God knows exactly who our little Jane Jordan is and when it's time to bring here home it will be the perfect time according to His plan.

So in the meantime, please feel free to join us in praying about our child, the perfect timeline, and what God is calling us to do in this season of waiting. :)

Thanks!!

Oh little weltie!

Weltie, Boodleton, Maxweltieboo, Boo Boo, Baby Weltine, Wells, Terry, Well-Well, or Welton.

Poor little Max, you have adopted some crazy nicknames from your family. But we love you SO much! Can't believe your sweet little, crazy, fun, smart, CUTE self has been with us for a year! I had no idea I could love a little baby so much! I love stopping by most nights after work and playing with you, I love feeding you and rocking you and kissing your face as much as possible. I love swinging with you on my swing, chasing you around to change your diaper and I love your visits and sleepovers at my house! I love that when people walk into my office and see your pictures they ALWAYS say "Your son looks JUST like you!" I'm glad me and your mom are twins! When that happens in public I just say thanks and claim you as mine (don't tell your mommy!) Thanks for letting me get some good practice in on you. I didn't know a thing about taking care of a baby until you came along! Can't wait for your cousing Jane to get here so you can play with her and teach her all you know!!

Love, Aunt KK & Uncle L :)

 Then....

and now! :)