We are ON THE LIST!!!!

We got our immigration form today!!!! FINALLY!!! I called my case worker at WACAP (our adoption agency) to tell her the good news, and she was equally as excited for us. She put us on the list, and says we have about 45 to 50 families ahead of us. She says this number varies because it includes families that are open to either gender, requesting a variety of ages, requesting either a single child or a sibling group, etc. The agency tells families in the Ethiopia program to expect a wait of 0 to 10 months for a referral (or a "match"). (Kind of a big range, huh?) We will be on the longer end of that wait. (Those on the shorter end are usually requesting an older child or a child with special needs. We are requesting a healthy girl age 9 months to 3 years.) The good news is that our agency is starting to work with several new orphanages in Ethiopia. One of these new orphanages provided a group of 15 children for referrals a few weeks ago! That's awesome! The agency won't give you an estimate of how many children they get a month, because it can vary a lot. (Trust me, I asked!) But at least we are headed in the right direction! So what happens now? Well, we wait some more! But while we do this, we continue to pray for our little girl. Chances are, she is already born and living on the other side of the world. Jason, the kids and I pray everyday for the Lord to keep her safe and healthy until we can bring her home to her new family. I am also praying for her family that she is with. I pray that they have a tender heart for her and put her needs first, as they may be relinquishing her to an orphanage. We appreciate your prayers as well, and are thankful for your support during this journey! I will keep you updated!
Oh, and one more thing! We are already taking donations for a spring yard sale. If you have anything around the house that you were planning to get rid of, we would LOVE to take it off your hands for you! Just let me know and we can pick it up! Thanks!

God's timing....

Now that I have had a few days to calm down, I can finally blog about what has happened recently in our adoption. After 7 long weeks of waiting for our immigration form, I contacted our social worker once again about checking on the hold up. She contacted the USCIS office in Memphis. She found out this week that USCIS never received our homestudy report. However, our case worker has the confirmation email saying that USCIS did indeed receive it. So obviously someone dropped the ball, and my almost two months of waiting has been for nothing. Once I found this all out, I was VERY upset, of course. My head tells me "I stayed up so many nights rushing through all of this paperwork so we could get our immigration form and be 'on the list' by the New Year. How could this happen?!?!" But then, my heart speaks up and God reminds me that this is all in HIS timing. And if God needed to put this ''hiccup'' in our adoption process to match us up with the precious little girl that He has chosen to be our daughter, then I will not fret. HE is the one in charge here. So, the waiting continues. Our homestudy has been resent (won't arrive in Memphis until Monday, thanks to the holidays) along with a note requesting for it to be expidited. It will be at least a couple of more weeks until we receive that long-awaited immigration form. God will be sure it arrives not a day too soon, and not a day too late...because his timing beats ours any day.
During the "drama" with our immigration form, we have also been informed that the adoption process from Ethiopia is changing. Our agency says that so far they are pleased with the changes, but there is still a lot to be ironed out. With these changes can come delays, changing policies, etc. But Jason and I have decided not to worry about any of this. Again, God knows exactly when we will add baby #4 to our family, and we are just going to have to trust Him.
I hope you all had a wonderful New Year. We look forward to what 2010 holds for our family!

It's the MOST wonderful time of the year....

December is a VERY busy month for us! We celebrate our anniversary (5 years and we still haven't killed each other!), Houston's birthday, Hannah's birthday, and of course Christmas. (So not only are we busy, but come January we are totally broke! Ha!) Ohhhh... but what fun December is! We had our joint birthday bash for Houston (1 yr) and Hannah (3 yr) this past weekend. You have never seen so many presents and chaos. And it's a birthday, not even Christmas! I can't even imagine what Chrismas morning is going to be like. (And thinking about where we are going to put all of these toys just about sets me over the edge.) Our joke is that Macy will probably have been born in December, just for God to show us His sense of humor! We are enjoying lots of fun Christmas activities. Our favorites are driving around searching for the best Christmas lights, drinking hot chocolate out of sippy cups, and watching The Polar Express about 14 times a day. And of course Houston's favorite Christmas activity is removing my ornaments from the tree.

Update on the kiddos: Aidan is very into the Christmas spirit. He is quick to remind you that the season is all about Jesus' birthday, but also has a list of about 450 presents he expects Santa to bring. He's too smart for his own good, and has learned how to "pursuade" Hannah to do stuff for him. That kid is a total "Botts", and I refer to him as my "mini me". He is going to be a senator or some kind of politician when he grows up, you just wait and see! Now when Hannah is asked what she wants for Christmas, all she says is "a baby doll". Seriously, how many baby dolls does one kid need? She is drowning in them up there! She is a total "Humphrey". As in she is dramatic and freakishly athletic. And she has started calling Aidan by his full name when she is angry with him, which is quite funny. And then there is my sweet, precious, perfect Houston. (I think I refer to him as perfect because he can't talk yet. Once he does, it will all be over.) We are still shocked that he is already a year old. He is trying to walk, so I try to push him down when he does. (Not a hard push, just a little shove.) He is my third kid - I have totally figured out that once they start walking, it's a whole different ballgame! (Okay, I am totally kidding about pushing him down. Stop freaking out.) His favorite thing in the world is me. (Which I don't mind one bit.) Followed by food, then his brother and sister. Jason is somewhere down that line. And now for the Macy update....drumroll please.....nothing. NOPE! We still don't have our I-171 immigration form, so we just wait. I make a mad dash to the mailbox everyday, usually barefoot and once in my bathrobe, but it still hasn't come. I am expecting it this week or next week. Just a reminder, once we get that form we are immediately on "the list". God's timing is always perfect, so I know we will get it when the time is right.

We appreciate all of your continued prayers and support. We have felt Satan attack this week in some very unexpected and cruel ways. We knew that when we chose to follow God's Will for our family by adopting a child, that Satan would try to beat us down. But he has failed. And Jason and I are stronger than ever. Praise be to God for His neverending faithfulness!

Check out the pictures....they are from the kiddos bday party, and from our visit to Santa. My intention was to use the Santa picture as our Christmas card and put the caption as "Even Santa needs some PEACE this holiday season!" but ended up going with a different picture that didn't picture us as such a crazy family. Heck, who are we foolin'?!

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season. I'll let you know as soon as something changes with the adoption!

GOODBYE, PAPERWORK!!!!

The 2 pounds of paperwork has been shipped! The kids helped me send it off, and in Aidan's one-sided conversation with the UPS man, he said, "Those papers are going to go to Africa to tell them I need one of their kids to be my sister." Now we just wait for our I-171 immigration form to come in the mail. Once that comes, then we are officially "on the list" for a baby girl between the ages of 9 months and three years. Our case worker told us yesterday that the list right now for ages birth to 4 years is 50 families long. But she said in that 50 families, some are requesting only a newborn, and some (although few) are requesting a boy. (For some reason there is a higher "demand" for girls. I found that interesting.) Once we get our immigration form and are officially on the list, then we will find out exactly WHERE we are on that list. So, I am currently stalking my mailman for that form.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we have so much to be thankful for this year. Our precious Houston will be a year old next week. Jason and I are reminded daily how lucky we are that we "beat the odds" with my pregnancy, and that he is a healthy, beautiful addition to our family. Aidan and Hannah suprise me on a daily basis. Aidan is our little genius, and Hannah is our drama queen. They both have such sweet hearts, and pray many times a day for Macy to be safe while she is in Africa. We are also so thankful for our extended family and friends. We have had an outpouring of support with our decision to adopt. Their love is what gets us past the "nay-sayers". Thank you to you all! We hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

The paperwork is DONE!!!

This morning I made the very scary trip to downtown Nashville to have all of our papers verified by the Secretary of State. I say that it's scary, because I don't do well driving to Nashville on my own. My knuckles were white and my heart was pounding as I stopped before each turn to make sure I wasn't turning on a one-way road. So despite Mapquest's plans to get me eternally lost, I finally found the building. And, of course, the only parking at the building was "private parking". It was like an ENTIRE garage for private parking. I mean, SERIOUSLY! So I ask the security guy (the one who informed me I could not park there) where I was supposed to park. He directed me three blocks down the road to a lot with about 2 million cars in it, all double parked. After searching through two other lots, I finally squeezed my sweet little mini-van into a tiny slot. Of course, I have never had to use one of those parking machine things that take your money and give you a ticket. I am sure I looked like a total moron reading all the directions on what buttons to push. And then I started walking...no, hiking....the four blocks to the ginormous building. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it was FREEZING and I was wearing a shirt with sleeves to the elbows. And no coat. So, once I get to the building, the security guard took my picture with this machine. Kinda weird. But from there - it was smooth sailing. And all of that to say, that our paperwork is now all filled out, notarized, certified by our County Clerk, and verified by the Secretary of State. I smiled the entire walk back to the car and on the way home. Except when I hit the curb that sounded like it took off the front end of my car. (I have actually done that - taken of the front end of my car with a curb.) But after some inspection, I found that the sweet little mini-van was just fine, and started smiling again. Having our paperwork done is such a HUGE weight off of me. I can send this gigantic packet of paperwork, also known as our dossier, to our adoption agency in Seattle tomorrow. All we need now is a certain form known as our I-171 from the government. I am currently stalking our mailman until it arrives.
So YEAH FOR US!!!! We are that much closer to bringing a little girl home! And now I think I will go join the kids for a nap. I am mentally exhausted.

A Different Kind of Overwhelmed!

I am sitting here at my computer completely overwhelmed. But, for a change, it's not overwhelmed in a "bad" way. It's overwhelmed as in a "I am so happy I am about to bust out of my seams" way. It is 2:26 in the afternoon, and I have had NINE emails and phone calls TODAY about setting up photo sessions. The majority of these people I have never even met - they have just heard about me and our mission to bring home a little girl from Africa. I mean - I can't BELIEVE I have had this great of a response! All along Jason and I have said that God will provide the finances to bring this baby girl into our family. But it is SOOOO incredibly awesome to SEE Him do it. I mean - the weather this weekend - could it have been any more perfect for the six photo sessions that I had? And I have sessions booked for the next four weekends! (Lots of times are still available though - if you need a session!) Wow! Praise be to God for being such a faithful provider! This past week was filled with ups and downs with finances - with work, with Christmas coming, with TWO kids birthdays in the month of December (I won't even mention our 5 year annivarsary in December - those presents aren't even going to exist this year!). But we know we are going to make it all "happen", and to see God's provision with money going straight into our adoption account - whoa! Okay....enough gushing for now. I gotta get back to work on editing some photos! Another huge THANK YOU to all of you who are referring your friends and family to me! Keep 'um coming! (P.S. Oh yeah...and check out the pics from this weekend of my own beautiful children. I really must be the most blessed Momma alive!)

Ethiopia grows GREAT coffee and SWEET babies!

We have an awesome fundraising opportunity, and I hope some of you are interested! After recently adopting his own child from Africa, a local man has just opened an online coffee store to help other families in the adoption process. I went onto his website, set up my own "coffee shop" for free, and when anyone visits the site and purchases coffee from my "shop", $5.00 of each bag sold is sent directly into our adoption fund! Pretty cool, huh? And this isn't any ole' Folgers coffee...this is authentic African coffee! It would be great to serve while entertaining for the holidays, or better yet, a wonderful gift for a teacher, boss, secretary, etc... or awesome in a themed gift basket. So buy some coffee and help us out! The site to our "store" is www.justlovecoffee.com/TheHumphreyFamily
Things are still moving right along with the adoption. We were notified today that the adoption agency has received our homestudy from the social worker, and is reviewing it to see if we need to make any revisions. My goal is still to have all my paperwork on the way to Ethiopia by the end of the year. I have high hopes that goal will be accomplished!
I am staying very busy with photo shoots. So far this has raised $460 toward our adoption, and I am booking more appointments everyday. The leaves right now are SOOOO gorgeous - so let me know if you need my services!
Have a great week!