Adoption update.

Not too much to report. But for those of you in the "adoption-know" you will realize what this all means! Our dossier is in Ethiopia! So we are waiting for our official referral and our court date. It has been implied that our court date will most likely be this summer. The biggest change is that we will need to travel to Ethiopia twice to complete our adoption. We will need to travel for the court date and the embassy date. For Sabrina's adoption we were not required to travel for the court date. So we need to get the kid's passports updated so that they have the option of traveling with us. Now that I am finally blogging again I will try and update more often. We appreciate your prayers. Adopting an older child is fairly intimidating!

Easter

Al, Scott's dad, his sister Rachel and her daughter Holly joined us from Thursday through Sunday. Then my mom, dad, sister Karen and her family joined us for Easter dinner. I didn't do a great job with pictures.

I felt kind of like we lost the spiritual significance this year. We did not attend any holy week services. We are kind of between churches. Then we attended a new church, being held in a school. It was OK but I very much missed the traditional Easter lilies and the "HE IS RISEN"!

Not very sure about the hat, so most of the morning it was on the floor!

I like this picture. It is so seldom that I get a picture of all three of them:)

Sabrina and cousin Christian, both turning 3 in June!

Noelle was in charge of dying the Easter eggs.

She did a great job while I got things ready for dinner.

Spring Break

We rented a condo in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The girls and I went down on Saturday and the boys joined us Tuesday night. They felt the need to hunt part of the week. The weather wasn't great but we had lots of fun.

Yes, they are that weird, silly, naughty:)

Isn't that sweet?! The water was freezing.

Shortly after this my son proceeded to throw me in, shocking everyone at the pool.

For some reason, Scott did not save me. I believe he was laughing too hard!

On the ferry. Not so sure about this!

About time for that first ferris wheel ride!

A budding artist at the art show in Orange Beach.

More firsts!

Our first haircut and our first cornrows! Bummer they only lasted about 3 days. I think she was afraid to do them too tightly since it was Sabrina's first time. They sure were cute. I really want to learn how when her hair gets a little longer and/or even. Her hair is very sparce around her face.

Lessons I'm learning

Some days the lessons our Lord has to teach us are so hard. Lessons about loving and being joyful. Lessons about patience. Those are the lessons I am learning.

Patience is a long battle for me but with adoption it takes on a different significance. Things are moving very slowly with the pursuit of our second adoption. We have sent our application and updated our home study. The agency however would like to gain a better understanding of our son's situation before we proceed. The adoption laws in Ethiopia have been changed since we adopted Sabrina. Probably these changes were needed but they will most likely slow things down. So pray along with us that these issues are resolved quickly and that T doesn't have to wait any longer!

The lessons on joy and loving are harder. They reach into me and make me squirm. I don't feel unhappy, but certain people in my life say I come across that way. That saddens me so much. I want the joy that Christ offers me to be so obvious! And the impatience that plagues me causes me to come across as unloving. Yuck! So these are the things I will be pursuing...JOY, LOVE and PATIENCE. If you have any great places to start in the Word, let me know.

Holidays

OK, how domestic is this? Family Fun magazine comes through with an idea to occupy the young ones while Thanksgiving dinner is cooking. Yes, I said Thanksgiving. Al, Scott's dad, and the Daigles (Scott's sister, Christy's family) came for Thanksgiving. We threw in a little Christmas while they were here.

This is Naomi, Christy's middle one, playing dress up with Sabrina.

Now it is really Christmas, with Diane's family. This is Elizabeth, and Christian. Believe it or not Christian and Sabrina are only a couple weeks apart in age. His dad always jokes that Christian shouldn't eat his cousin!

Princess Sabrina, Christmas eve!

On the way to Grandma Mary's with stocking goodies in our lap.

This is the best I could do with a Christmas morning photo. Rather pathetic considering the ages of the older two. Mostly it was the uncooperative oldest!

Oh, yeah, she's a tool girl!

Even if it is a little late...

remember, JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!!

Sabrina update!

Sabrina has officially been home a year. WOW! Cannot imagine life without her! She is finally growing a little. She is about 24 pounds and 331/2 inches tall. She still mostly wears 18-24 month clothes. (Jake wore that size when he was less than a year old!) She is walking really well, but still with a little swing of the hips. The doctors think she will out grow this. Our big news was that Sabrina has latent tuberculosis. This means she has no symptoms and is not contagious but could one day develop TB so she has to take 9 months of antibiotics! She did have a chest x-ray to verify that the doctors didn't see anything suspicious. We joked with her that she was getting a picture of her boobies. Anything to distract her. She continues to have an amazing vocabulary and is adding 3 and 4 syllable words like comfortable, tomorrow, and together.