Show & Tell Friday

For more Show & Tell sites, visit Kelli.

This is dd/6's pink "Hello Kitty" Room.

Here's a shot from the other side. We FINALLY painted her desk and put it in her room earlier this month. Right now it has one of our extra dining room chairs. Dh also painted an adorable chair pink to match but I'm waiting to put the cushion on it. One of my extremely talented sil's is making a cover for it to match her stocking & blanket.

Here's a closeup of the stocking she made for dd/6 at Christmas time.

Here's a closeup of the blanket she made for her last year. If you think these are beautiful, you should click here and check out her blog. She often posts pictures of her beautiful creations & decorations AND she has links to her Etsy & Ebay stores where she sells stuff too!

Thursdays Before the Throne

James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Please watch this video (it's about 10 minutes). Rick Warren speaks on this subject:

click on this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zQYA6OgyuM

Updates

I've been neglecting my blog! There are so many things that I should have been posting about this week...many that should have pictures but, between sick kids, sick dh & sore throat, I just haven't been able to find the time to load them all up. So....here's what's been happening:

Last Wednesday, dd/4 became dd/5. She has been talking about her birthday for a whole year and the poor thing got sick! She was feeling a little better on Wednesday so we went ahead with her birthday dinner, presents, etc. Thankfully, her "movie party" was scheduled for the following Sunday so she had time to get her energy back.

On Friday, she went to build-a-bear with dh's parents. She made a PINK bunny with rainbow feet & ears who's wearing a PINK outfit & PINK sandals and carries a PINK purse. Why is her room BLUE? LOL!

On Sunday, we picked up her friend and headed across the ferry to have her "movie party." The ferry dock was under repair so we ended up sitting in line for over 2 hours! The girls had been looking forward to it for so long that we didn't feel we could postpone so we sat. I told dh, "chalk it up as one of those things we just do for our kids because we love them! :0)" When we FINALLY got across the water, we went to see "Horton Hears a Who" and then ended the day with dinner at IHOP with their "Horton Hears a Who" menu items. Unfortunately, the family we were going to meet on the otherside had come down with the "crud" that's going around and weren't able to join us. Overall, though dd/5 had a wonderful time and definitely felt celebrated!

Saturday was our day of Awana competition. Dh & I coached both the Sparks-A-Rama team and the boys T&T team. Both teams took 3rd place on their circle. The kids all seemed to have a great time. Due to the "crud" that's going around we ended up short a few players for each team. Thankfully the ministry team were able to get a couple kids to join our teams allowing us to compete.

My brother & his family were there as my niece was competing with her church's club so it was fun to see them. Her brother, my nephew, had just flown home from West Point the night before so it was a real treat to see him too! S (my niece) was competing for her last time in the Awana games so it was extra special to see her team take 1st place!

Another exciting thing happened this past week. One of the boys in Ethiopia that dh & I have been praying for has a family! My friend in NC and her dh were led to adopt this particular child and my prayers have been answered exceedingly, abundantly above all I could hope or imagine for this child. It would be SO neat if we get to travel to Ethiopia to pick up our sons at the same time!

On our end of things, paperwork is moving! We received, signed & sent back our placement papers for MAC. The immigration papers have been sent out and our dossier was being assembled for delivery to Ethiopia. We just found out that a boy in MAC's class at Layla has been adopted by a family that lives about 2-3 hours from us so we're hoping to plan some get togethers once they're both home. Now, we're waiting on paper processing, group assignment, court date, etc. It'll be fun to get MAC & ds/8's room ready, while we're waiting. I have SO many things I'd like to get done. Hopefully, it will help make the time go by fast.

Oh...I should also mention that dd/6 FINALLY has her desk in her bedroom. Dh put it in her room on 3/9 and she's VERY excited!

Whew! I think that's everything I wanted to update for the week. If there's something I forgot, I'll be sure to blog later! :0)

Families Needed

As I was reading a couple of blogs today, I ran across this post of a gentleman who is currently in Ethiopia picking up his children. Please read it and remember to pray for all the "have nots."

I don't have a family

Welcome Bag

Today I mailed MAC's welcome bag to our agency, AAI. This is our one chance to send him something besides a picture and stickers. Our agency has well thought out guidelines regarding this for the purpose of making things as fair as possible for all the waiting children.

This is what we included:

A welcome letter to introduce him to our family.

A photo album with pictures of each of the kids (a drawing from each of them), our family, our home, the basketball hoop, the swingset, our classroom, etc.

A t-shirt for him to wear with a picture of our family. This is the children's way of announcing that they have a family.

A sheet of stickers

A small ball that lights up when you throw it

A 3 in 1 lego set. Ds/8 insisted that we put one of them together for him so we assembled the propeller airplane (if it survives the trip). He can take them apart and make a jet or a helicopter.

A disposable camera with our name and address on it. I can't wait to see the pictures he takes!

Everything must fit easily into a gallon size zipper bag and weigh less than 3 lbs. I was nervous that the camera was going to add too much weight. I shouldn't have worried! The whole thing weighs 1 lb 2 oz. I sure hope our agency is able to send it to him this month and that someone will snap a picture of him opening it.

It seems like so little but as our agency says, we'll have plenty of opportunity to spoil him when he gets home!

We know who MAC is!

Oh, my heart! I've TRIED not to get too attached. I've TRIED not to fall in love. But it happened. I'm attached, I'm in love, and now I can admit it because we know he's ours, or he will be once we pass court.


I wish I could post a picture but he's not "officially" our child until after we pass court and we don't want to do anything to jeopardize the process.


But for all intense purposes, we know who MAC is. We know where he is. We know a little tiny bit about his history. And for now, that is HUGE.


We're putting together a welcome bag. We get to send him a bag w/ a letter, pictures, etc. to introduce him to our family. Hopefully, we'll get to see a picture of him opening it. I wonder what he'll think. I wonder if he'll be excited to have siblings.


I'm sure it will start to seem real to him that he's coming to America. I can only imagine his apprehension.


He's suddenly SO real to us.


I showed dd/4 his picture when I picked her up from preschool today. I asked her if she knew who it was. She said, "MAC?" hopefully. When I said, "yes!" she beamed with excitement and asked if she could show his picture to her teachers. "Will he be here for my birthday?" she asked. (her birthday's in 9 days). "Ummmmm, no, it's still gonna be a looooooong time sweetheart."


I don't think she cares....she's just so excited to have a picture to hold & to know who he is. We all are!