Thankfulness

I have so much to be thankful for & lately I've been bubbling over with joy. Since Riley and I decided to start the international adoption process we've been plowing forward full speed ahead. And I'm thankful for efficiency right now! I know there will be a time in this process where there will be nothing left for us to do on this end but wait, but until then, God has been clearing pathways for us to get this paperwork done at lightning speed. Our home study is well on it's way to take place at the end of this month, our immigration forms have been sent out, and we're quickly gathering necessary documents for our dossier. We've gotten our physicals, copies of birth certificates, marriage licences, and we're reading like I haven't read in months. All is good and I'm bubbling over with anticipation as my heart grows for this next child in our family. Has he/she been born yet? What will his/her story be? How is are our hearts going to ache and rejoice with change?

I'm thankful for the unconditional support we're receiving from family. Although there are lots of questions and unknowns in the hearts of so many people who care about us, we know it comes from a place of love. Thanks to all who are standing with us during this exciting, pivotal time!



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Ohio Cousins

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We Are Expecting!

We are happy to announce that we've officially started the international adoption process through Christian World Adoption. We say officially because this process started in our hearts years ago but as of this week we have submitted our first applications. Many of you have been praying that God would open and close doors for us as necessary to ensure we are matched with the right child at the right time. In answer to those prayers, we experienced God's visible hand in this process as we received confirmation and encouragement during our initial meeting with a CWA representative, Joyce, on Saturday. As she told her own adoption stories (she and her husband have 9 adopted children), she unknowingly addressed every question/concern we had identified as we prepared for the meeting.



God spoke to us both differently during the meeting but we both left feeling that CWA was the organization for us and we were in agreement that our next child was (or will be) born in Ethiopia. For the first time, Michelle felt a strong emotional pull to a country and when Joyce showed pictures of the Ethiopian children her eyes began to water. Riley, ever the rational one, felt that Ethiopia made the most sense given all of the information available (God can speak in boolean logic and mathematical equations, right?). Neither of us started this process with either CWA or Ethiopia on our hearts, which makes us even more firmly convinced that we are hearing God's voice in this.

We both have so much to learn about this process, but we are excited to have officially launched. We are still prayerfully asking God about timing, gender, special needs, etc... and we ask all of you to do the same. We feel like we could write about this for days, but there will plenty of time for that in the future (this will likely take 12 months or longer). In the mean time, if you are interested in reading about some of God's work in Ethiopia through CWA, check out the Acacia Village project.

Thank you for all of your support and prayers thus far. We can't wait to share God's blessings with you as we move forward.

Riley and Michelle

Tomorrow

VACATION STARTS TOMORROW! We're thrilled to have some quality family time in Tampa for the next few weeks! We'll be staying with Lacey, Aaron & Miss Addi most of the time, but Kyle also hooked us up with a fun stay at the Nickelodean Hotel in Orlando. We're also going to spend a day touring Disney with Kyle and Stacey as they're in the middle of their 67daysofsmiles.com Orlando gig. What we're equally excited about though, is that we're meeting with our first adoption agency tomorrow down in Huntsville, Alabama! That's right...adoption! It's something that has been stirring in our hearts for over a year now, and we feel like God's timing for us to pursue this is now. We've yet to choose and agency or a country (although we know our heart is for an international adoption) so we're thrilled to pick the brains of an agency that is at the top of our list. Riley and I spent an hour at Borders tonight compiling a list of questions we have for this agency and we're praying for God's direction in this exciting endeavor. We'll keep you posted!

1st Day of School

One very proud Ellie on her first day of preschool

The Girls dancing in the driveway before we loaded up in the car

Miss Saedi happily entertained while Big Sister is away

Saedi Update

Results of Saedi's biopsies...she's fine! The only thing all that testing showed was that her esophogus was slightly inflamed. The doc believed this was a result from reflux, which over time had caused inflammation. We're extremely thankful & we've learned a lot from this experience (more on this later). I'm proud of myself for following my mother's intuition and getting her checked out even when I felt like a weirdo. Because of people's encouragement and a gracious doctor, I know longer have doubts about following my instincts, even though Saedi is A-ok. She's taking a prescription anti-innflamatory and the Dr wants to see her in a couple months to check on weight gain progress, but in the meantime she has no crazy allergies, no scary diseases, no malabsorption issues.
*I planned on posting pics with this blog, but I forgot to get them off the camera that Riley has with him this week

Friends

Thank you all for your prayers and messages regarding Saedi and her endoscopy. The procedure went well, and she was a champ. While her esophogus, stomach, and small intestine looked great to the naked eye, we should hear the biopsy results in less than a week, so I'm going to wait to get those results before I post about that experience. In the meantime, here are some fun pics from a few weeks ago. The weather has been terrific lately- sunny and lower 80's so we've spent a lot of time outside at parks and playgrounds.
Ellie, Brooke, Saedi, Emmy & Meadow feeding the ducks


Silly Ellie and Emmy