Planning a Winter Camping Party! November 24, 2008

I just found out that my sister’s family is able to come out for Christmas this year from B.C.!! We are so excited and can’t wait! So I’ve decided to plan a party – these cousins only see each other once or twice a year, so it’s super special. 

I’ve decided we’re camping! Our newly demolished rec. room is now a huge empty space – big enough for our gigantic tent! Auntie Jenn is planning for roasting hotdogs and smores in the fireplace, eating cookies and making hot chocolate, rock painting little critters (with googly eyes of course!), sparklers, camping songs, movies in the tent, and pin the tail on the grizzly bear (or antlers on the moose – I haven’t quite decided!) I’m also going to sew each child a special flannel camping pillow to remember all our fun. My brother’s oldest girl is now three, so she’ll be able to be in on all the fun and stay for the sleepover. I think I’m more excited than the kids will be – planning is always so much fun!

Ten months November 23, 2008

Wednesday we hit ten months. We’d been told by some very experienced “waiters” that ten months is a bit of a wall. yup, it is. I think it’s especially hard as Christmas nears. Even though I’ve been trying to prepare myself that we wont have a referral before Christmas, I know that I still hope. (because everyday I’m still a bit disappointed) 

More than anything I just want to see some movement and some referrals coming in!! When we were seeing referrals I felt so much hope for us and other families. Now we haven’t had any referrals for weeks again and it is so much harder. Our agency has said different things to different people – some have heard that the referrals keep coming in all the time and others have been told that they come in batches when the staff travels to Ethiopia. I have to admit that a steady stream is much more encouraging than a huge batch with long lulls in between, but my preferences don’t dictate what actually happens! I’m praying that some sibling groups will be referred this week to give us all some hope.

Planning ahead for January and February November 16, 2008

Well, all my adoptive friends, I’m finally facing reality. We most likely will not get a referral before Christmas. I have to admit that mentally I had Christmas as my “make it to this date”. (that was after I moved it from “we’ll get a referral this summer which was my marker when we started this process) I’m not worried or even distressed about this, but I do want to be realistic. For those of you who are adopting, you know what it’s like. You place a date to look forward to – a mental marker. The only hard part is that our markers have been set very realistically with what our agency had been saying.  It’s been difficult when the timeline moves every time you get to the referral “window”! My new “make it to this date” is now the end of school in June. That would be 17 months of waiting since our paperwork got to Ethiopia – plenty of time to find our children!!! I have the privilege of being my sister’s matron of honor in her wedding on July 4th in B.C. Although what I’d like more than ever is to bring all four of our kids to the wedding, I may have to settle for pictures of two of them. I really don’t think it will take that long, but I have nothing to base my “feelings” on. We’ll just have to see.

Christmas preparations November 15, 2008

We’re still up to our necks in renovation here, but I decided to do some Christmas baking today and set up one of our Christmas trees. I have two batches of cookies finished and a third dough in the fridge! The shortbread were easy, but the iced cookies with sprinkles were very time consuming. They are a family favorite (even my nieces and nephew were asking about them) so it was a labour of love. Tanna and Gracie, I made some purple icing just for you!! If the kids have their way, I’m not even half done all the baking that will be consumed over the holidays. 

Adoption news. Well there isn’t much. We have heard of three sibling referrals lately (one with our agency and two with the other Canadian agency) and that gives us hope that the trend of no siblings may be changing. Pray with us that the siblings in Ethiopia who need to be adopted will find a way to the orphanages that have families waiting. Different agencies work with different orphanages. Our agency can not just go to any orphanage and request siblings. They must be approved to work with the orphanage first. We do wonder some days at the lack of siblings. We felt so strongly led to adopt siblings (there were many sibling groups waiting for families when we started) and we still feel this way. It seems that it may be very unrealistic for us to hope for a referral before Christmas this year based on other family’s wait times. We do have a very open age range however and could “sneak” in if just the right siblings were available. At this point I pray every day that the gates of bureaucracy  would be opened wide and that all children who need families would be matched quickly. We know there is still a tremendous need. The long wait times confuse all of us. Yes, there are more families adopting out of Ethiopia, but there are still many children who desperately need families. It seems to us (who aren’t there and are only speculating) that it is paperwork or inadequate supply of workers who must be slowing down this process. They were probably not prepared for the shift in international adoption that put made them so desirable to so many families.

The renovation has really started!! November 11, 2008

After months of discussing, debating, procrastinating … you get the idea – We started on our renovations today!! With the help of some amazing friends we tore down a huge wall and started taking all the carpet and old panelling out. -I HATE panelling more than anything right now!! I injured two fingers, stepped on a board with a nail and took the board with me as the nail had gone right through my shoe, and managed to shock myself silly trying to move an outlet. (don’t worry, my tetanus is up to date! It will take awhile to get everything out, but right now our dumpster is full so we are quitting for the evening. Tomorrow night we’ll get to fill it again!

Now I can start to see what it will look like and I’m so glad we pursued this before the kids come home. I’m also very glad we don’t have our referral yet. We have lots to do in the kids rooms and buying them clothes etc. and this project might have been put off. 

Tomorrow it’s back to work and busy life!

nothing to say November 6, 2008

Too busy to catch a breath… but nothing out of the ordinary. 

I’ll try again later to be more inspired.