Making it Our Own

So.. when we bought our cute little house back in May, we were actually purchasing a foreclosure.    Looking back at the before pictures, I now think... "What were we thinking?!?" But we are slowly getting our house in order, and I wanted to show a few of the before and after photos for my friends and family to see!

Upstairs Bedrooms, ie Psycho Room Before
No we did not buy a house in the ghetto.. this was the children's room upstairs.  Apprarently some parents are ok with letting their children do this?

Psycho Room- In Progress

Psycho Room transformed to Tranquility Room!  :)

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom- In Progress

Master Bedroom- After

 

Kitchen- Before

Kitchen- Before

Kitchen- Still in Progress but Almost There!

Still in Progress (Disregard the hanging light, Mike is installing a new one today!)

We are still working hard on the kitchen, we have to install new tile, a new back door, take the brick off from over the cabinets, and install a new light.  We just began working on our living room and have much to do, but we are excited to get started!  So... I will have lots more photos to show soon!

Feeling the Love in Paperwork!

So, we have been as busier as ever updating adoption paperwork because of our move, and also because our dossier (or huge packet of paperwork) has expired.  Once a document is two years old, it is no longer considered valid in Ethiopia.  That means birth certificates, marriage licenses... EVERYTHING... must be reordered, notarized again, and state sealed.  Imagine doing this for say... 22 different documents.  And that is just for the international side!

 

I really don't mind doing it, in fact I really like it in the beginning.  I feel as if I am doing SOMETHING to help the adoption process along.  Usually I am just sitting around waiting, so it helps a lot.  That is, until we have a paperwork issue that causing us to pay, repay, and redo a document several times.  I was  little perturbed, to say the least, about a few documents we had to redo for the fourth time!  But then it hit me.  Mike and I are not the only ones working diligently to help bring our baby home.  The nurses for our wonderful doctor, Dr. Caulfield, who have been so kind and so patient with me.  They have returned, I would estimate, 10 phone calls and have redid 5 medical letters without so much as a sigh of annoyance.  Rose Cooper, a new friend I have made at our new church, will be going with me to the medical clinic AGAIN to notarize a letter from my doctor.  Robbie Roberson, our accountant/notary/friend/past coworker, has notarized more than 35 documents for us FOR NO FEE!  Mike's coworkers at Winco Fireworks have overnighted documents to us that we have asked for and have went backwards and forwards to help with his employment letters... and the list goes on and on. 

 

I have never felt so loved and so cared for by so many people.   I hope to one day show my son the long list of names of friends, family, and strangers who helped to bring him home.

Update- Still Waiting!

Ok... so it has been over a year since I have posted on our blog, so here are a few bullet points to sum up our lives since then:

• We moved to Louisiana! 
• We bought a house!
• I changed jobs!
• Mike got a promotion!

There is a lot more that could be said in each of those bullet points, but if I tried to expand this post would be about 20 pages long!

I can say, however, that we are really enjoying our new lives in Lousiana.  Do I miss Hattiesburg?  Yes, yes I do.  The person who left Hattiesburg this past year is not the same one who moved there back in 2007.  I made some wonderful friendships there that I hope last a lifetime and met some people who dramatically changed my life.   I miss them all terribly and try to go back there as often as I can!

The move to Louisiana, however, has been a great one.  Within a few weeks of moving here we met a couple who is also adopting from Ethiopia and have become quick friends.  We have had to do quite a bit of adoption paperwork recently (because of the change of address and also because we have been waiting so long for a referral!) and the pain of waiting has become more raw.  Through this time I have realized that I have been neglecting my relationship with God because I was not wanting to acknowledge the painful feelings I had about the abscence of our baby, but He has been showing me that, even though I was ignoring His presence, He was always there.  We have such a wonderfully constant God who is so good and it humbles me to know that He too was waiting many many years to adopt me as His child, but I was not ready or willing to come to him.  Yet He was patient and ever ready to pull me close to Him when the timing was perfect.  Our baby is out there.  He is the son that God has chosen for our family.  If I tried to rush the timing, or make the timeline fit mine instead of God's, I may lose the opportunity to adopt the perfect son who was created for our family.  I am trying to reflect on this during my times of impatience and pain... that as my Savior waited to adopt me as his own, I will wait for my child as well... for as long as it takes.