We are now 3 months post DTE day! The typical referral wait (before the proposed changes in Ethiopia) was 5-8 months for a baby boy. We are excited that three months have passed already, but we are really trying to enjoy our time together to the fullest. We want to hold our baby boy so badly, but we don't want to wish the remainder of our "just the two of us" time away. I have taken up scrapbooking - something I never thought I would enjoy or be good at! I'm not very crafty, which is odd because my mom is super-crafty! I am working on our "While We Waited For You" scrapbook, which will chronicle all the stuff we did in the wait.
Here are two of the pages I have done so far of our trip to Chicago:





I also planted some sunflower seeds two days ago. I love sunflowers! Once they grow out of their tiny pots, I am going to transplant them by our back fence. They will be a beautiful reminder later of our wait and how far we have come. I am amazed by God and how He makes things grow - in just two days, my little plants have already sprouted! Reminds me of the hope He keeps planting in my heart and allowing to grow. God is so good, and His mercies are new every morning!

Update

We're so sorry it has taken us several weeks to post on here about the changes in Ethiopia. At first it was just painful to think about or talk about for us. More recently, it has just been because of lack of information! Basically, on March 10th (Shane's birthday), the Ministry of Women's and Children Affairs (MOWA) in Ethiopia announced that they were cutting the amount of approval letters they write (which a family has to have in order to pass court and bring your child home) by 90%. When I first heard the news, this basically translated in my mind as "you will not bring your son home for years". We were shocked at this sudden and drastic change, and felt like our dreams of meeting our son this year had been crushed. We were also extremely saddened at how this would effect all of the orphans in Ethiopia who would, in essence, stay orphans for longer. We have not heard a whole lot of information over the last couple of weeks, but what little we have heard has seemed positive and encouraging. There are a lot of people working on behalf of the orphans and waiting families, and we firmly believe that God is going to turn this situation around. He loves orphans way more than any of us do, and "He sets the lonely in families". Continue to pray with us as we trust and wait. To stay updated on the situation, or to find out more information about the situation in general, you can follow posts on http://www.jointcouncil.org/, and for updates specific to our adoption agency, follow their blog at http://adoptedbydesign.typepad.com/.

A lot of people have asked us if any of this changes our plan to continue to adopt from Ethiopia... ABSOLUTELY NOT. God asked us to adopt from Ethiopia, we love our child/ren in Ethiopia, and our lives would be impoverished without them. We are yet to be all that God has created us to be as a family, and the effort it takes to move forward is worth it. "Well, you'll get pregnant now- everyone who plans to adopt ends up getting pregnant!" One, that's not true. Not everyone who adopts ends up getting pregnant and having biological children. Two, whereas obviously we would be overjoyed with a pregnancy, we would still adopt children from Ethiopia. Our adoption was not a back-up plan or a whim, but a choice and an anwswer to God's calling on our lives. Thank you for following this (crazy) journey with us!