I made this today to make the task of hanging up laundry just a little more enjoyable. I have been meaning to do this for months and finally did it while Caleb was sleeping this afternoon. I just took my old, boring, ugly bag and made a new one that is fun! It has given me a new idea for the Etsy shop...I think I'll try to make some. I definitely will improve the design of the bag a little bit, but who knows! Maybe there are other folk in the market for a clothespin bag!

It finally happened. He cut his hair. The result? A new haircut that makes him look more like Daddy!

I finally finished making my apron. It took a while as I was not in the sewing frame of mind for the last several weeks. I think I spent so much time sewing for each of the Hilary's Hope shows that I didn't want to sit down to the machine for a bit. But I am glad to finish the apron and it is reversible! It is pretty neat, found the pattern at this link. They have some other really neat patterns available as well.

I am working on photographing (or Jacob is) my remaining bags so I can post them on an Etsy site. Jacob signed me up for one, I hope it will be a good way to sell some things on the side. It seems presentation is quite important in the Etsy world, so I am glad Jacob is a decent photographer. We've really been blessed with how we've been able to raise some money for our adoption through Hilary's Hope.
Jacob spoke with our family coordinator this week about some financial things. Since Jacob is self-employed we do our taxes differently than other folk. I had some nightmares that we had finally made it to the top of the list, only to have to drop out! But our coordinator was very reassuring and helpful. During those days of not knowing what was going to happen I kept reading the Psalms. David always talks about waiting quietly on the Lord. My question I kept asking myself was, "how does one wait quietly on the Lord?" Each day that passed without hearing from our coordinator was about to drive me crazy...I kept telling myself to wait...and to have a quiet spirit too. Easy to type, hard to do!
He did tell her that we are prepared to continue waiting and that for the time we probably would not like to have a single child referral. We will see what the future holds! I am so grateful the Lord sees our children and knows where they are!
The Gibson family is off to Dubi and then Ethiopia to pick up their babe Zoie. There will be some other families traveling in the near future as well! I will post their links when they leave. I think the Gibson's will do a great job of posting, so enjoy!

While we were in New York I finally called our family coordinator to get an update on our adoption. I knew we were nearing the top ten or so but I wasn't sure what to expect as we were getting closer. I kind of wondered if we would hear more often from our agency and I just wanted to hear from her what she thought about our request for two children at such a young age. I was excited to hear that we are currently #1 for siblings!!!!!!!! It has taken 6 months to get to this spot. But that means we NEED PRAYERS!!! We are asking for 2 children under the age of 2. This is extremely, extremely, extremely RARE. Our agency has never seen twins or a sibling group of that age. Please pray with us that the Lord will work a miracle and bring the right children to our family.

Our coordinator said that it is likely they will refer to us a single child because she just hasn't seen two young children yet. In that case we'll have to pray about it and if we still feel the Lord directing us to adopt 2, we'll have to say No to that referral. We'll still stay #1 for twins/siblings 0-2 but we could wait....for however long! :)  I know beyond a shadow of a doubt if the Lord has two children for us He'll bring them in....the thought of having to say "no" to a referral is just heart breaking. Jacob and I are praying the Lord will give us a referral we have a peace about the first time around.

Even if we DID get our miracle referral, we would actually still have to wait 4+ months to have our court date and travel to get them. Things in Ethiopia have been really slow due to drought and other things. Power in the country has been rationed and that means communication is shut down, papers don't get to courts, referrals and medical information can't get out as quickly, etc. PLUS, the courts have recess from Aug 7-Oct 7th (roughly) and so nothing can happen during that time. So that is a something that would/will be hard to deal with. Looking at their picture and knowing everyday that passes that we're missing that time with them....once again, the Lord knows!

We appreciate your prayers! This has been a growing process for us, but an exciting one as well!

We really had a great time in New York visiting Jacob's family. His Aunt and Uncle were surprised about their anniversary party...it is hard to keep a secret for many months! We were also able to get together with the Carpenter family. We met them the first time soon after they accepted their referral, so it was a joy to meet their two adorable children. Penelope and Gabe are wonderful, loving parents...they are naturals! :) We talked late into the evening of traveling to Ethiopia and their personal experiences. We are so thankful for their encouragement and all the wonderful things they gave us, like their pictures from Ethiopia, gifts for our children and some great canned fruit!

Let me finish by suggesting you visit the Kidd's site. They just returned from Ethiopia and posted a beautiful video!

Sweet flowers given to me by my dear one. Set against the beautiful new bedroom color.

Sunday afternoon we were able to experience a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony right in our local mall! We have a local coffee stand outside of the Belk store that really cares about good, quality coffee. The owner likes to educate people about coffee besides making the best coffee in the area. Not too many months ago he hired an Ethiopian woman, named Tigest, to work in his shop and that brought on this simple ceremony.

Tigest sat on a little stool with a small gas burner outside the perfume section of Belk. We gave them a run for their money as she even roasted some beans! If you have never experienced what the smell of roasting coffee is like, you won't be able to imagine what I am referring too! She also burned some incence which I guess is traditional as well.

The ceremony goes something like this: First they wash the coffee beans and then roast them in a roasting pan on a small open fire. The pan is shaken back and forth so the beans don't burn and then they start to pop. This sounds like popcorn popping. Tigest then took the beans around the group so we could smell them. The coffee then is ground, for the sake of time, Tigest used the shop's grinder. The traditional pot they use to boil the coffee with is a called a "jebena". They serve the coffee in little cups called "cini".

At this ceremony we had three rounds. The first round is called "abol" (first), the second is called "huletegna" (second), and the third is called "bereka"(ironically, does not mean third but something like "good-luck"). Tigest also served us popcorn which she cooked on the burner at the very start.

Tigest said that they do this process several times a day and whenever you visit someone's home. It was a very enjoyable experience, but as I kept watching all the people skirt around us, or stop to stare for a few minutes, with their shopping bags all about them I couldn't help but think of the irony of the setting. Here in America we have the ability to spend our extra dollars on expensive coffees at the mall as we shop and in Ethiopia there is the looming famine and the thousands of children about to perish for lack of water and food.






If you want to enjoy a coffee guru's take on the event, head over to Chemically Imbalanced.

This is a pretty poor picture of my last visit with my Grandmother during Christmas time. It also has my brother, Ian, in it. Late in the fall of last year my Grandmother suddenly declined mentally and after several tests she was moved into an alzheimers unit. The Lord graciously has brought back most of her thinking and memory; she is now on medication to slow the process and is doing well. At the time is was a very emotional process for my father and his brothers. Especially as they had to carry out her will in essence when she moved into the home.
Last night I sat down to organize my Grandmother's sewing box that I inherited when she moved into the nursing home. Even though she is still with us here on earth it was a rather sentimental time as I went through her old box. I kept thinking to myself, "my Granny put that needle in that spot. She had a reason for saving that little piece of trim off something...what was she going to do with it? I wonder if any of these items were given to her by her mother? I wonder what projects Granny was working on?"
In my memory, I don't remember this Grandmother sewing much. I have more memories of my maternal Grandmother sewing. It was really neat to see the old buttons and trimmings. She had several pretty threads on wooden spools that still are bright and cheerful. I had to put all those in an old canning jar to decorate my fabric shelf with! I think as I get older I hold onto to the things that are passed down to me more tightly. I now start to imagine how they used those items or wonder what ran through their minds as they put their hands to work with those items.

One of the donated items for our yard sale that I pulled out of a bag was this toy. I was quite surprised to see this and at the same moment a flood of memories came over me as I realized, "I had one of these!" I immediately decided that I could not possibly sell this, I felt like it was a part of my childhood! My friend allowed me to keep it so I washed it up and now Caleb plays with it. It brings a happy smile to my face to see it and to see my son playing with it. It is missing a few letters...hmmm...I wonder if Grandma has some extra letters we could use as replacements? :)

Later on today:
I was going through boxes of stuff that I have kept over the years and found this card from my Grandmother I spoke of above. The neatest thing about the card was the handwritten note inside. She says that when I was turning one (30 yrs. ago) she had found this card and it reminded her of a card she got for her 16th birthday. So she bought it and prayed to live to the day when she could give it to me!! Wow, what a great find!

Our prayers have included a plea for rain in the last few days. Ethiopia is experiencing a drought and as a result the capital city, Addis Ababa, is having forced power outages. The power outages could last until the month of June and they occur up to three days a week. Normally, something like this would fail to capture my attention. I have the luxury of turning on my lights and watering our plants without much thought to the source.
However, now that our focus is on Ethiopia and our children there, I realize what no power means. It means that our agency is not able to communicate well with the base in the capital city. It means that the courts are not able to function properly and papers for court closings are not getting to the right place at the right time. It means email and other communications are down. It means a whole lot to the people, more than I can imagine. For us, it means a slow up in the adoption chain of events. There have been several families affected by the slow up in communication and many hearts here in the US are hurting and aching to be with their children.
Please, please, join us in prayer as we fight against the evil one who is trying hard to cause heart ache and to stop these precious ones from joining their forever families!

If I had one word to describe the last two weeks it would be "overwhelmed". In some cases in a weary, bad way; and in other ways, a wonderful way!
I was blown over by the amount of things that our dear friends and some people we don't even know as well poured out upon us for our yard sale. I was so grateful people gave of their belongings to benefit our adoption. I am a person who has in recent years become a purger. I love to go through our things and weed out stuff that we no longer wear or use. I still have a lot of sentimentality towards certain objects, but living in a thousand square foot area has limited my attachment to various objects or clothing. So I went into the sale with not much to donate to it myself! I would say for certainty that about 98% of the stuff we sold was not ours to begin with.
Right on the heels of the generosity of friends came the intense feeling at times of having too much stuff to sell! I tried to keep ahead by pricing things as I received them, which was helpful. But more than that was the help of my before mentioned friends (previous post). Even with their help there were times when I felt as if I would never be ready. I am not often overwhelmed by events of life, but this sale somehow sparked new feelings inside me.
However, I am happy to report that the sale was a HUGE success! We met our goal (actually I never had a goal, my husband did). And that was so amazing to me! I was just praising the Lord that we had great weather, made some profit for the adoption, and most of all that I didn't have a ton of stuff left over! I initially thought before I really began the process that I could do another yard sale on another weekend if I had tons left over. But praise Jesus, I don't have to! The bit that was left over in the end we donated. I even saved out some clothes to donate to our transition home in Addis.
So thank you friends for prayers and help! I am so entirely grateful and happy for the outcome. Just don't ask me to do another yard sale for a long time! :) LOL

Tomorrow it is...the day has finally arrived where we'll try our hand at yard sale fundraising! I am exhausted, and poor Jacob has a sinus infection that he has been battling. I started pricing things about 2 weeks ago as we received items, but there is always the last minute drop offs and then just putting it all together. If some of my dear friends like Carolyn, Michelle, Katy, Paula and Leslie hadn't helped me by pricing items and organizing I think I would have broken down. Of course my brother and sister-in-law have extended great hospitality by letting us take over their garage and using their yard as a sale spot.
So I'll give an update when all is said and done. If you are close by, drop by and say hello!

It is Good Friday in Ethiopia. It is the Pascal week in the Orthodox religion of Ethiopia, where they celebrate the week of Easter. For more information you can visit Yellow, Black and White where they summed up the week. But it was also a good Friday here in America! Four families received referrals today and there are hopes of at least one or more next week! The Gibson Family (girl 3 1/2 months), the Cox Family (baby boy), the Ducommun Family(girl 6 weeks) and the Ord Family(2 yr. boy) had very, very happy news! For several hours I just kept hitting refresh on our chat group page...it was a nice ending to our week.
Sometimes the adoption is so overwhelming. Every aspect of it. From raising the funds, to filling out all the paperwork, to the long months of waiting...and waiting some more. Then when we'll finally be able to travel and pick up our children we'll be learning to adjust to three children and attaching to our two new ones. Sometimes I think we are totally crazy and wonder if this is all a mistake. Our life is great now with one, wonderful child. Could we have read all the signs wrong? How are we going to attach to two new kids? Most of all how is our extended family going to attach to them?? Our grandmothers grew up in totally different times then we did. And how are we going to keep the Ethiopian culture alive and special to our kiddos? I could go crazy with all the questions that pop into my mind.
And then I remember, as my new friend Patty from Maine, reminded me...God made the entire universe and all these details are probably not a big deal for Him. He is totally capable of working out all this. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has called us to this adoption. No matter which way we turned it seemed like we were being nudged towards it. God is working out His will in our lives and His grace will sustain us!
Here is another video from a family who adopted two children just a couple months ago!

Jacob went out the other night in our yard and took some photos of Iris (plural). They happen to be my favorite flower, and I think they look really neat in the dark night! It has taken a few years for our Iris population to grow, and this year they are quite lovely.
This post is not about flowers though! Tomorrow some families in our agency are traveling to pick up their children! These are exciting times to follow their blogs as they will likely post some photos. The Harbaugh family and the Coen family have blogs. There are two more families traveling as well, but they do not have a blog to follow. The Harbaugh's are the family who are adopting two and waited nine long months until they received a referral.
Summer is quickly moving upon us, weather wise it feels like summer is here! I have been trying to focus more realistically on when our children will be referred to us. If you recall, I had hoped that we would have a referral by the summer...which I am not saying isn't going to happen, but it sure doesn't seem too likely! I have kind of changed my prayers in recent days to "please, Lord, before the courts close in August!" The courts in Ethiopia close roughly between the months of August and October. Last year this caused a huge backlog, plus there was the holiday of Ethiopia celebrating the year 2000. Yes, they are 8 years behind us! :) Ethiopia works on a different calender then we do.
So once again, there will be those who will be caught in the court closure. Our agency has said they will keep giving referrals during those months, however, the families who do receive referrals will not be able to travel and pick up their children until they have a successful court date after they reopen sometime in October! Whew, that is a lot to explain!
This week has been a time to relax some after sewing for the show. I have also been going through the house and looking around..."Hmmm...what can I sell in our yard sale!?!" Many thanks to those of you who have donated items for our sale or have been setting things aside for it!

It has been a while. I appreciate all those out there who have continued to check our silent blog! :) I have been sewing, sewing, and sewing some more! I was able to have more bags this show than I have ever had and initially I didn't feel the last-week-before-the-show crunch. I think it set in Thursday though! Friday morning I decided to make just a few more clutches...and bit off a bit more than I should have. But it all got done!
Katy, the sweet friend who opened her apartment for us did so much work! She made delicious food and amazing little cards. Her cards are made of old hymnals that she stamps words on. I personally saw the hard work she put into them. I stayed the night with Katy and she sat up Friday night into the wee hours stamping, gluing and sewing her cards. Thank you Katy for all the hard work and for putting the profits of your cards towards our adoption. You have contributed much and we appreciate you!

Our show was a bit slow, but in the end we were able to raise a good amount towards the adoption. At times I feel like we are squeezing the generosity out of our dear friends. Yet each person seems so happy to be a part of bringing our children home! After all, each friend who has sacrificially given to us will play a small role in our family's life. They will be the ones on the sidelines encouraging us, helping us when the times are good and bad, teaching in Sunday School and just day to day life! Thank you dear friends!

We have also decided to do a yard sale fundraiser. This will take place May 9&10 at my brother and sister-in-law's house. We are happy to have the opportunity to try another avenue to raise money. Initially I never planned on doing a yard sale because I know the amount of work that goes into them! But our family lives in a nice neighborhood that has a great community yard sale day that I think will have lots of traffic! So we are taking the plunge! We are taking any and all donations between now and then!

I will post some pictures of the show for those of you who are interested. The pottery is from my fellow college friend, April Schwingle. The jewelry is from Lily of Lily Pottery. Lily has also graciously taken all the remaining bags from this weekend's show with her to Cincinnati to do a show there this next weekend.

I have been busy preparing for my fourth Hilary's Hope show. This one will be held at a friend's apartment from church. She is in her final year at Clemson. Here's hoping for lots of college students who are interested in art shows! Joining me will be Lily from Lily's Pottery and April from Willow Mill Pottery. So far I've raised about $2500.00 from making and selling handbags. It really has been a lot of fun, but also a lot of work! Sometimes the amount of time I have put into it isn't worth the profit...but I do love to sew! This time around I have even made a bag for myself!

Living in a 1000 square foot house and having my husband working out of our closet and my sewing in our bedroom has been a crazy adventure! But recently I have upgraded my storage for fabric (since I love to buy it!). I found this neat shelf at Lowes and then my husband made some great bins to organize the fabric in! He worked really hard to make them and then I spray painted them black to match the shelf. Here is a picture of my old, sad shelf.


Then the new and improved shelf! As well as some of the bags I've been working on.


I have been considering doing an Etsy shop after this show. I do not have any other shows lined up at this time. Truthfully, I will be glad to have some time to make some things I've been wanting to sew. Like an apron pattern my husband bought me. And possibly a futon cover??!! We'll see. I am a bit nervous to do such a large project. I've also thought of doing some wall art with fabrics. So I was thinking if I had an Etsy shop it would take a LONG time for anyone to find me and then I could post stuff as I have it to sell. Then maybe I won't have pressure on me to do projects to sell all the time and I can do other fun stuff that comes along. We'll see.

The AWAA Yahoo chat group went crazy this week as apparently 9 children were referred to families. The first two I shared with you on Monday's post. So the stats are as follows:
2 Infant girls (Cordell and Kidd Family), 2 Infant boys (West Family and a family I do not know), mystery child, sibling group of 5 & 7 years, sibling group of 6 & 9 years. Ironically, the dossier of the family who is adopting one of the sibling groups traveled with ours to Ethiopia! When I saw their DTE (dossier to Ethiopia) date as 12/07/07 (same as ours) my heart did a flop! I realized once again that someday this will happen to us! It was an exciting moment.

We also were notified that instead of waiting 90 days for a child who is abandoned at an orphanage to be released for adoption, the country of Ethiopia has changed it to 60 days! This will allow children to be adopted sooner!

The final news is that AWAA has now partnered with another orphanage! They have only been working with Kids Care in Addis Ababa. Now they are also working with Kingdom Vision International. Hopefully this will allow AWAA to keep up with the large amount of families now in the program who are waiting for their children to be referred!

We would like to offer a Congratulations to two families who received referrals today! The Cordell Family (for those at NCCF, this family is at the church where Jeff and Lisa attend) and the West Family. The Cordell's have a little girl coming their way, and the West's a little boy! How exciting!

These next three items are not as exciting in the adoption world! I finally found two tea cups at an antique store. I was so excited to find them both for just $15. On the day I found them I didn't have the right payment and the gentleman let me take them anyway. I was able to bring him his money later, which was so trusting of him. I have enjoyed using them!


I also found this yummy donut recipe on Soule Mama blog a while ago. My kitchen aid mixer hasn't been working properly so I haven't been making anything that requires kneading. Jacob repacked the grease for me and I was able to make them this weekend. Unfortunately, that was the only thing I made with the kitchen aid. I think it needs a better doctor than my handy husband! Anyway, here is a picture of the donuts. I recommend cutting out the center of them because they were a little too bready. Since I do not have a donut cutter I will make them smaller next time. My sister in law recommended using a bottle cap to cut out the center which I thought was a good idea. They were fun to make!

Finally, I told my parents that I would post some of Caleb's art from his first official art lesson with Mommy! Enjoy. P.S. Mom and Dad, if you click on the pictures, you can see them full size.

Today we had a little egg hunt with Caleb. At the end of his egg hunt he got a tee ball set. So here are some photos of the day (for the Grandparents). ;)

Well, I have officially been tagged by Shari! Here are the rules:
You have to tag 5 people and you can't tag the person that tagged you. You leave them a comment on their blog letting them know you are tagging them and why. Also, direct them to your blog for instructions. It is also asked that you notify the tagger when you post your list so that they can enjoy reading the responses.
So, ten things about me...wow. Here it goes...
1. My husband and I never dated. I lived in Hawaii (teaching), he lived in South Carolina. We saw each other a total of 22 days in a two year period between college (where we were friends) and our wedding day.
2. My first year as a teacher, I taught in Saipan. I taught 3rd grade to a bunch of ESL students when my degree was in art education!
3. I hated babysitting growing up...the birth of my son Caleb turned my view of children totally around!
4. When given a choice, I'll always choose Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream.
5. I LOVE to buy fabric!
6. We haven't had a TV since married 4 years ago...I still don't miss it.
7. We have a cat named Ophelia. Hopefully she won't take after her namesake! ;)
8. My husband buys green coffee beans, roasts them at home, and makes yummy drinks in his cappuccino machine. (We even take it on vacation with us)
9. Much to my husbands dismay, I inherited from my Mom the tendency to move furniture around...a lot!
10. I love antiques
SO, now I have to tag 5 people. I am going to tag Addy, Kerri Anderson, Penelope, Anna and Lori (since our dossier's traveled together! :) )

Several months ago we were sent an email by our family coordinator about a particular baby who needed adopting from Ethiopia. The agency sent the email out to all the families who had their paperwork already in country. As I read the email I learned this baby girl had HIV and the agency was asking us to prayerfully consider opening our hearts her. Inside me fear struck and at the same time a feeling that no, this child was not what God had for our family. The fear came from the idea of prayerfully considering this child! While I really felt this was not the situation for our family, I felt I did need to bring it to my Father in prayer.
Have you ever prayed for something and been afraid of what the answer may be? I confess, I did think of several things. What if God wanted us to adopt this little girl? She is, after all, a soul who deserves to be loved by a family and given the opportunity to come to know the God who created her with this disease. If God led us in this direction, could we handle the task set before us? What would our family and friends think? I was fearful that maybe God would change our hearts...yet I had to pray and ask. I have lived enough to know that sometimes God does have us do the unexpected, and sometimes we are put into uncomfortable circumstances to bring Him praise and glory and to draw us ever closer to Him.
As time went on, I knew that God did not have this precious girl for us. I want you to read the rest of her story (at least what we know so far). Please click here and read on!

This afternoon I was on a mission to find a tea cup. I have decided that I enjoy drinking tea from tea cups. I never registered for china when we got married, preferring the handmade pottery over store bought dishes. You still will not find one mug in this house not handmade, and I intend to keep it that way! However, there is a part of me that has recently surfaced that admires the tea cup. I have one set of teacups that I do use when I have ladies over. My mother gave it to me, and I think her mother gave it to her. It is pictured above with half a cup of tea remaining!
Since I have one little one running around, and soon to be three, I decided to find some tea cups at antique stores that I don't mind so much if they break. The set my mother gave me has sentimental value and I would be quite sad if one of those came to an end. So this afternoon, around nap time I set out with my three year old to the antique stores.
In the first, he almost had a melt down when I made him hold my hand. I was moving quickly through that store, nothing had caught my eye. I did see one neat one that was under $10 but decided the cup was too small. This is going to be harder than I expected! I had a quick stop in between stores at the local Hobby Lobby because it is that time again...yes, I have another show coming up! I am sewing away.
At the final antique shop I was a bit wary of how my son would act since nap time was slipping away...with no nap. I stopped to look at some really neat linens and handkerchiefs and that was when Caleb began picking things up. He grabbed a little figurine and I stopped breathing while he safely put it back. Phew! Then he grabbed another. Oh dear...I needed to keep moving. Before I could move along, I heard something hit the floor. I quickly looked down to see it wasn't broken...it was plastic! At least he choose that one to drop. So I picked it up and leaned over to whisper a threat in his ear when the store owner came over. "Did something drop?" she wanted to know. Wow. She had good ears! Either that or when I walked in the door with my son terror struck her heart and she decided to keep a close watch on us!
We made it through the store with no more close calls. No tea cup could be found, but I was able to settle on some really neat buttons! The red ones look like old fashioned lolli-pops! What great fun they will be to add to some sewing project!

I have my fourth Hilary's Hope show coming up the third weekend in April. A lovely girl from church is hosting it at her apartment, near Clemson University. I am looking forward to it now that I have really started back into sewing this week.

Oh! We finally have birds visiting our feeder. Suet was the key to luring in our birds. It has been fun to watch them...and try to capture them with photos!

Today I had a two hour conference call with our family coordinator. There are 53 families in the "waiting for referral" stage. 53 families whose dossier has been sent to Ethiopia. I have learned some interesting facts that I'll share for those of you who are interested in the nitty gritty! :)

The wait time for children is as follows:
Infant boy: 5-7 months
Infant girl: 7-9 months
Toddlers: 7-9 months (approximate)
2 siblings under 5: 9-12 months
Siblings over 5: 2-3 months (approximate)
Twins: miracle (no time frame)

The agency currently works with one orphanage, but by the end of March they will be working with two more. Lord willing! Our agency signs a contract with each orphanage and then they have to help support that orphanage in some way. The agency is trying to work with orphanages that only work with AWAA in the US and then with other countries like France, etc. AWAA does not want to work with an orphanage that works with other US agencies.

The court closes from August-October. This will possibly affect those who get referrals in June and esp. July. Likely they won't get a court date until after the courts open again. So those families will be in for a long wait to travel.

There were lots of other things spoken of, obviously if it was two hours long! But these are the most interesting facts I thought. How does this affect us? Our log in date (time that dossier was sent to Ethiopia) was at the start of December. So we won't hit the 5 month range until May. We are asking for two children under two so that means we likely won't hear anything until after the courts open in October. If we have been waiting a year then we can consider changing our request to one child. When we are near or at the top of the list we should know about what children are available and the agency will ask us if we are interested in a different request. So that does make me happy to know that they won't ignore us indefinitely while they wait to have twins or a young sibling group is available.

The thought of twins being referred to us has practically been all but eliminated. It would truly be a COMPLETE MIRACLE if this happens!!! In some ways I am sad by the call because I feel we are in for a LONG wait. Our request is so rare and short of a miracle it may not be what the Lord has for us. Will we have to consider something totally different, I don't know? It was good though to hear people's voices and get some questions answered! Pray the Lord will give us discernment when we need it!

March 24, 2006 - Doctor visit reveals that conceiving would be highly unlikely without fertility drugs
October 14, 2006 - First adoption seminar held by a local agency. A information gathering experience.
December 2006 - Begin to consider adoption seriously, focus on South Korea.
February 19, 2007 - Local agency asks us to consider a domestic adoption opportunity. Over the next week we met the birth mother and went through some waiting periods. In the end she choose another couple.
May 26, 2007 - American World Adoption Seminar; Jacob notices Ethiopia and can’t get the country off his mind.
June 1, 2007 - Another domestic opportunity arises
June 2, 2007 - We have our home study, expedited due to urgency of adoption opportunity
June 4, 2007 - After a very strenuous weekend anticipating the adoption being complete very rapidly, we are told that we should not pursue opportunity any more due to several factors. Praying for direction.
June 14, 2007 - The Lord lays Ethiopia specifically on Hilary’s heart. She immediately shares with Jacob (he hadn’t told her - until now - that he felt the same!)
June 20, 2007 4:30PM - Send in application to AWAA
June 25, 2007 - First doctor appointment for home study
June 29th - Received call from AWAA saying we were accepted into Ethiopia program
July 16, 2007 - Mail in initial payment and acceptance letter
July 27, 2007 - Assigned family coordinator
August 2007 - Begin collecting dossier papers
August 15, 2007 - Send in I-600A form
August 31, Sept 1 - First Hilary's Hope Show, raise just over $600
September 7, 2007 - Receive fingerprinting appointments!
September 11, 2007 - Home study completed
September 21, 2007 - Fingerprinting completed
October 25, 2007 - Received I-171H (I-600A)
November 2-3, 2007 - Second Hilary’s Hope show, raise just over $700
November 15, 2007 - Dossier certification is complete
November 16, 2007 5:52 PM - Dossier is sent off!
December 7, 2007 2:30 PM - Dossier is sent to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
December 11, 2007 - Dossier arrives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!!