Exciting!

I copied this idea from a fellow blogger! Isn't she adorable! She is even wearing the outfit that we sent to her. I can hardly stand it that she is halfway around the world. We received 13 pictures of her! Thank you, Michelle! And the other exciting news is that our dossier is in Ethiopia! Our agency will be requesting a court date next week. Hallelujah! I am so excited. I have read of many families having to go through more than one court date. I do not know how common that is, but it is scary with the courts closing August 7th.

Turning twelve in Chi-town!

Noelle and Hailey at the Shedd Aquarium!

Cheesecake Factory, YUMMY!

Much better than a taxi!

The birthday girls at Wicked.

We love theater! And it was AWESOME!

Tornadoes

Tornadoes struck the Midwest with a vengeance. We are fine, as is our house. One of Noelle's teachers lost her home and a family that formally attended our church also lost their home. Both families are alright. However, seven people have lost their lives. Please join us in praying for their families and communities. Scott is joining some clean up efforts. It is so hard to know how to help. It seems like disaster after disaster has struck the world lately.

Matthew 24:6-8, "And wars will break out near and far, but don't panic. Yes, these things must come, but the end won't follow immediately. The nations and kingdoms will proclaim war against each other, and there will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this will be only the beginning of the horrors to come."

Are you ready? Is your neighbor or friend or family member ready? We do not know how long we have here on this earth.

2 Peter 3:15a, "And remember, the Lord is waiting so that people have time to be saved."

John 3:3, "Jesus replied, 'I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God.'"

John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life."

Our dossier has left the state!

Our dossier is finally on its way to Washington D.C. There it gets notarized again and authenticated. Then it goes to our agency on the west coast, where they send it off to Ethiopia. I did each of those steps "Next Day" so that should go pretty quickly. I really have no idea what happens then, but hopefully we get a July court date!!

As I was getting papers notarized, the notary said to me, "I bet Angelina (Jolie) didn't have to do all of this!" Makes you wonder doesn't it. At the very least, I am sure she paid someone to get all of this together.

It feels so good to have the responsibility be someone else's for a little while. Now I have to work on Jake's travel papers for Argentina. He is going on a missions trip with Global Expeditions/Teen Mania. Then, I need to do a little Spring gardening.

May flowers and redecorating!

Every time I drive up to my house, this is what I see. And it makes me smile! Isn't God a wonderful artist! This weekend it was 50 degrees and today it is over 80. Iowa weather is crazy!

This weekend we were at our cabin Friday night and Saturday. Jake shot this huge turkey!
Here's some shots of the new rooms. First the former guest room, now Jake's room. Sorry, Larsons, and other guests. As you can tell he loves hunting and golf.

This is Noelle's room, formerly Jake's room. I am praying the new room causes some cleaning fairy to overtake her body. She insists that she wants it to be less cluttered, but she loves her stuff.

I found Jake's dresser at a garage sale for $40 and Noelle's set at a vintage store called Good Things. It is art deco and so cool!

Without going into detail, we had an update on our daughter and she is doing well. We are just waiting for a couple things to come in the mail and hopefully our dossier will be off to D.C. next week. I spoke with both governmental agencies last week and they said we should receive our documents soon.

Daniel Fast

I think I mentioned that I was embarking on the "Daniel fast". (http://www.danielfast.wordpress.com/) I did a partial fast for 21 days. There are so many reasons that it was a great experience. I learned a lot about health. I was able to concentrate on God and building our relationship. I really wanted to do both of those things before we brought our daughter home. When I thought about things I might want to change in my parenting a young child this time around, nutrition was a big one.

So, since I ended my fast I have been struggling with what foods to add back into my diet. I have surprisingly liked have vegetarian meals, but wasn't sure that I wanted to try and live a vegan lifestyle. For a week or two I have done so well, but this weekend I have just collapsed in my efforts. I haven't had pop yet, but I have had dessert and meat, though it was venison which is at least healthier.

I need to get back to my original desires. I also need ideas for snacks and drinks that are healthy. I am getting tired of just water, and I need my snacks. Especially when I am out and about, what do I eat and or drink? Any ideas?

Nesting

I'm not sure that I even nested this much with my other two children! We are having to switch bedrooms all around. We painted our downstairs guest bedroom orange to house our son. Yes, that's his favorite color. Then we sorted through every item in his room, I think it was like four trash bags and three Goodwill bags. Then we hauled it all downstairs. We need to hang all of his favorites up on the wall and then we're done.

So that room went from green to orange, now his old room will go from orange to green. Go figure. Then Noelle will move in there and her room will go to number three! She is in a hurry for us to get started but I said I needed to take a break and work on adoption papers. I really thought that I would be able to just stick that Liberia dossier right back in the mail. No such luck! Some of our documents expire in July- September so we are being asked to completely update our home study. Also, the dossier, in general, for Ethiopia is much more involved than for Liberia. I just mailed off to documents to be authenticated by the secretary of state! We are still waiting for our I-171H to be returned reading Ethiopia not Liberia.

This process seems even more intimidating than before. I suppose it's because #3 is waiting for us, and we are so waiting for her!!