A "Sorta-Silent" Auction"!

One year ago today, after a moving service at our church prompting us to do something CRAZY for the Lord, Jason and I got in the van and while sitting in church traffic, Jason turns to me and says, "I think we need to adopt". My first response was, "You realize that we have a just-turned 4 year old, a 2 year old, and an 8 month old". He says, "I know, it's crazy". I said, "Okay, let's do it". And we jumped into the adoption-world with both feet.
Now exactly a year later we have been matched with the most precious little Ethiopian girl. And in ONE MONTH FROM TODAY, on September 30th, we will stand in an African court stating why we want to bring this precious child of God home to our family. Forever. And there will be ONE LESS orphan in the world due to us deciding to do something totally crazy one year ago. THANK YOU, God, for breaking our hearts for what breaks yours! It hasn't been an easy year (but that's a whole 'nother blog post!), but it has been worth EVERY single second!
So to celebrate, we are gonna do a "Sorta-Silent Auction"! I have had three people/companies very generously donate gift certificates. I will have a "starting bid", and then the person with the highest bid on Friday at 1:00 (that's naptime in the Humphrey house!) wins! Okay, I say "wins", but I really mean "gets to make a donation to our adoption account with their winning bid". :) Just leave a comment on our blog with your bid. You can check back to see if anyone else has outbid you.

Sooooo....the first item up for auction is....



A $25 Gift Certificate to Nana Rosa's Italian Food and Market in Hendersonville. YUM YUM! Check out their menu at www.NanaRosa.com
Starting bid - $15.00

Also...



$40 worth of Mary Kay gift certificates, courtesy of Jennifer Green.
Starting bid $20.

Also...



A $50 gift certificate for AB Recyle. This is that service with the red tubs all around town. This covers 3 months of Recycle/Pickup service. Check out their website at www.abrecycle.com Gift certificate courtesy of owners, Stacey and Julie Hull.
Starting bid $25.

Let the bidding begin!

I am also determined to sell our last four t-shirts. (See picture to the right!) I am sold out of the adult shirts, but have three kids pink ones (sizes Youth XS and Youth Small), and one kids blue one (size Youth Small). I am marking them down to $10 each. (Will add shipping charges if needed.) Get yours now!

More BANG for your buck!!!

First of all....ONE MONTH FROM TODAY WE WILL BE ON A PLANE HEADED TO MEET OUR DAUGHTER!

Secondly - we have been approved for a matching grant through the Abba Fund! Wahoo! Okay...so what this means is that if you donate, say $20, then the Abba Fund matches that donation, and we get $40. If you donate $500, then we get $1,000. So we are getting more BANG for YOUR buck! SERIOUSLY! This is GREAT news for us! AND your donations can now be TAX DEDUCTIBLE! So what you do is make your check out to Abba Fund, print off this easy-breezey donor card, and send in your donation. You will mark "Humphrey Family Adoption" on it - and "walllla" - the donation gets doubled! And then Abba Fund will send you a receipt thingy for your tax records. If you do this pleeeeease let us know that you are donating to us. That way we know how much $$$ the Abba Fund has in our name and that we can withdraw.

And folks, we neeeeeeeed some moo-lah, cold hard cash, MONEY for our travel! We have TWO trips to Ethiopia to pay for, AND LOOK AT THIS.....



Yes, that's the donations I have collected so far to take to Macy's orphanage. My plan was to count up how much formula, granola bars, shoes, pacifiers, shirts, pants, etc. I had to pack - but honestly, it's just too overwhelming. Since taking this pic tonight I have crammed and stuffed two bags to the 50 lb. limit, and I have several more bags to go. And folks - these bags aren't flyin' for free. I would like you to guess how much it costs to ship an extra 50 lb. bag to Ethiopia. Well, you will guess totally wrong, so I will tell ya. The first bag is $150. For two bags it's $400. For three bags it's $750. And the price just keeps drastically going up with each bag. Apparently Delta Airlines isn't too fond of extra baggage. So PLEASE consider making a donation so we can bless some orphans with all this stuff that so many of you have given. I am gladly collecting, organizing, and packing - but if it comes down to paying for a plane ticket to bring our baby girl home or shipping this stuff over - I think you know which one I will do.

ANY donation is appreciated - as it gets DOUBLED! Again, please remember to let us know if you do send Abba Fund a check, as we need to keep track of how much they have in our account. Again, here is the link to that donor card!

Thank you so much! These kiddos are ready to meet their sister!

"Take me out to the ballgame..."

Aidan is playing Little League baseball this fall - and this mommy just couldn't be happier! This is our family's first experience with any kind of organized sport, and I gotta tell ya, I just LOVE a kid in a baseball uniform! I mean seriously...be.still.my.heart. Could he possibly LOOK any cuter? I mean, before the dripping sweat and Gatorade mustache and all. He had a HUGE cheering section - like 13 screaming, cheering family and friends - and that was his FAVORITE part of the experience. The fact that he made a couple of hits was just a bonus.

COURT DATE!!!!!

WE JUST GOT OUR COURT DATE!!!! I was fixin' the kiddos lunch and that "special ringer", the one that only goes off when our adoption agency calls, rang on my cell phone and I started screaming, "It's Macy, It's Macy!". So then Aidan says - "Oh, I wanna talk to her!". Sweet boy!

Jason and I were getting bummed over the weekend because we knew that Ethiopian courts closed on Friday, and we still hadn't heard any news about a court date. Which means we wouldn't even be assigned one until October (when we thought courts would be reopening), and then we wouldn't be traveling to meet our sweet girl until the end of October, at the earliest. WELLLLLLL.....courts actually reopen at the end of September, and our court date is SEPTEMBER 30th!!!! We have been told that we need to be IN Addis (capital of Ethiopia) by the evening of Sunday, September 26th. The next day we will travel 8 hours to Ajuuja, where Macy's orphanage is, spend two days with her there, then travel back to Addis on the 29th, and have court on the 30th! Whooop whooop whooooopie! I asked when our caseworker thought we would be returning to pick her up, and she said that if everything goes as planned, (court doesn't get delayed) then we should be back in Addis for our Embassy appointment on either November 2nd or 16th. WHOOOP WHOOOP! My girl should be home for her 3rd birthday!

So folks, here's the deal. We DO NOT have enough money to travel to Ethiopia two times. So, if you have told us "We are going to wait closer to your travel date to donate money" - NOW IS THE TIME!!!! We need to raise several more thousand dollars before we lay our eyes on our little Ethiopian princess! I am also going to talk with our travel agent about how/if people can donate airline miles to get us to Africa. I'll let you know what I find out.

I am still booking lots of photo appointments! Spread the word! That's a great way to donate to our cause, and get some portraits in return! $80 for the session, an edited cd with all of your images, and the copyrights to everything on the cd. Give me a shout if you'd like to set something up!

Thank you SOOO much for sharing in our joy! The Humphreys couldn't be happier!!!

Look Who's FIVE!!! (Be sure to pause my music at the bottom of this page before starting the video!)

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Still in disbelief!!!

WOW! I am just still in complete SHOCK that we received our referral. A perfect, precious little girl! Jason and I have been grinnin' from ear to ear since we got the call last Wednesday. We are SO thankful to our wonderful God. Tonight we realized that if our immigration forms hadn't been delayed due to our lost homestudy, we very well may not have received this particular referral. Sure, we would have loved whoever they had called about - but it wouldn't have been THIS precious little girl. She just entered the orphanage in June. Our paths could have never crossed. When we look over her paperwork and stare (and stare, and stare....) at her pictures, we know THIS is the little girl God has chosen for our family.

So - now what? Well, we had our pediatrician look over all of the medical information we received, and he gave us a big THUMBS UP regarding her health. Yes, she is malnourished. Although she is a year older than Houston, she is much smaller than he is. But she just needs some good ole' southern cookin' to help that. We received our official acceptance packet in the mail on Friday, and I have it ready to be notarized and shipped off first thing tomorrow morning. Once WACAP gets our paperwork and $$$, then they will be able to start the process to book our court date. Our caseworker says we should know our court date by the end of this month. We can then book our travel arrangements and HOPEFULLY travel in early October.

When we travel, we want to help the precious kiddos in the orphanage. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE consider helping us do this! We need: formula, diapers, blankets, protein bars, over the counter medicines, vitamins, toothbrushes, underwear, bandaids, toys, shoes - all kinds of stuff! Anything you can give would be MUCH appreciated! I received a $20 donation in the mail the other day, and with that I was able to buy 2 cans of formula, 3 pairs of tennis shoes, and 2 pairs of flip flops. All for $20! I also found out over the weekend that although the orphanage that Macy is in RIGHT NOW is excellent in the way of care from the nannies, there are very, very few toys. (In one of Macy's pictures, she holding the rattiest, nastiest looking My Little Pony you have ever seen.) This is a new orphanage, and is not yet equipped with things for the kiddos. So there is a small television that all the kids sit around. How sad is that? An adoptive Mama that just went to pick up her child said that the orphanage really needs some well made, quality toys. All she could find in Ethiopia to buy is super cheap, plastic ones. And think - these toys are being played with by a BUNCH of kiddos. So if you have any toys you could donate, that would be AWESOME! Puzzles, art supplies, soccer balls, blocks, etc. (Nothing with batteries please, as they can't replace them.) Or if you would like to donate $$$, I can buy the items myself and save you the work. :)

Thanks for all of your sweet comments and emails. We love sharing our JOY with you!

THE WAIT IS OVER!!!!!

Forty-five minutes after I tearfully typed that last blog post, we GOT THE CALL!!!!! We are still in amazement. Jason and I just can't stop smiling. (The above picture is of us seeing her face for the first time!) Okay, okay....here's what happened:



As you could probably tell from the previous blog post, I had a HARD time today with WAITING. It's just rough. I don't know why today was harder than other days, but it was. So after I typed the blog, I emailed our case worker at WACAP just to see if she thought there would be any more referrals before courts reopen in October. I pretty much just BEGGED her for any kind of info she could give me. I pushed *send*, closed the computer, and headed to the kitchen to cook dinner. At 5:38 I had my hand in a hot oven trying to rearrange my pork chops, and I heard this weird sound from behind me. Since we have about 5 gazzillion toys that make music in this house, I figured it was one of them. Then I realized I didn't recognize the tune. (A momma knows what music goes with which toy.) So I glanced down at my phone on the kitchen counter and realized the music was the special ringer I had set for when we got "THE CALL". I started screaming for Jason, answered the phone, and the tears began to flow.



We were then told about a precious little 2 and a half year old girl. Our case worker, Rachel, told us she was born on December 8, 2007. Jason and I IMMEDIATELY started laughing. You see, we were married on Dec. 3rd. Hannah was born Dec. 11th, and Houston's birthday is Dec. 2. And, of course, there's Christmas. We are SO broke in January! And through the adoption process Jason and I have said repeatedly, "I bet you anything Macy's birthday will be in December". And looky-there, it is. We were then told that she was just brought to the orphanage on June 14th by her mother. Which makes THIS momma very happy that my girl has been loved on for the first two and a half years of her life. We were told about her family, which I feel rather privileged to know - as I know one day she will ask. We received all of her lab reports and developmental assessments - which were all perfect. She has "mild malnutrition", but show me an orphan in Ethiopia who DOESN'T.



Ohhhh how I wish I could share the ten pictures we received of her. But due to privacy stuff, the Ethiopian government asks us not to post pictures of her on the internet until she is officially "ours" after court. BUT, if you see me out and about around town, you KNOW I will show you a pic! I'll describe her: she has the biggest, hugest, most gigantic brown eyes you have ever seen. And her eyelashes are absolutely ridiculous. Insane long lashes. She looks very sad in all of her pictures, but that is understandable since she had just been relinquished 11 days prior to the photos. Did I mention that she is precious and perfect?



So what happens now? Well, our caseworker said there is absolutely no way we can make it to court before they close down for August and September. BUT she said they may be able to go ahead and schedule our court date for the beginning of October. This is huge because if we had gotten our referral much later, we would have had to wait for them to reopen before we could even schedule one. We will travel to Ethiopia in October for court, then come home, then head back 4 to 5 weeks later for the embassy appointment and to BRING OUR GIRL HOME!



THANK YOU for all of your prayers and support. We now ask you to shift those prayers to our sweet girl. It's gonna be 2 and a half to 3 months before we can lay our hands on her. We want her to remain safe and healthy.



And thank you, my Precious Lord, for showing me that YOUR timing is always better than mine! Your grace, your love, and your timing - all amazing.