keeping busy as we wait

People keep asking us "so what's happening with adoption?" There's not much going on with our adoption except that we're waiting on a very important piece of paperwork called the I171H, which should be arriving in the next few weeks from the Greece USCIS office. Our "dossier" (compilation of paperwork including homestudy, background checks, etc...) is on Conoleeza Rice's desk right now. 

During this waiting period we have many things to keep us busy. Learning Arabic is the top thing to do on our list. It's funny, the other day I was doing some online research of Ethiopia and Arabic was listed as a necessary language to learn for visiting this country. I'll get right on that! :) The language that is spoken in Ethiopia is "Amharic," a semitic language that is related to Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew. 

On Thursday my parents are flying across the world to come visit us!! That will help keep us distracted too!! We can't wait to see them! It's been over a year since we've seen them. We sure have missed them!! 

Here's a picture of the future grandparents just hanging out! One day the dog that's in my dad's arms will be replaced by a cute little dark skinned child! :) 

 

Read more...

dark skin!

Today I was working in the kitchen and I looked over at the fridge. There are times when I just miss our nieces and nephews. I miss playing with them and laughing with them!! 

I looked at the picture that Joshua drew for Uncle Tim and I realized that Joshua must like dark skin like we do. I have always loved dark skinned babies and children! I can't wait to shower our little dark skinned baby with kisses! 

Read more...

looking at video cameras

I recently found my husband looking at ads. That's one of his favorite things to do! He compares prices, searching for the best deal!! He loves to do research about electronics and likes to know about all of the features! We are thinking about buying a video camera for the upcoming adoption. We thought it would be nice to have some footage of the first time we see our child and some of the other "firsts." We have a small handheld camera that takes shorter video clips too. 

Because we're living overseas we will need to go visit our baby before he/she goes through court in order to get a certain type of visa that allows the child to become an automatic citizen upon crossing US soil. We would love to have some video to bring back home with us as we wait for the court date. That will definitely be a hard time. The second time we go back for our child we'll leave Ethiopia with our child and go straight to the states to take care of the citizenship and visit family before coming back home. 

Read more...

waiting for our I-171H

Here's an email we sent to some friends that we share a post office box with. We're waiting for our I-171H to come!!! Our finger prints were processed and they were waiting on our Home Study, which has been approved and sent to them. Since we live in the Middle East, we use the USCIS office in Greece. 

------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey guys!

We just want you to be aware that we are currently waiting on a very important piece of adoption paperwork that will be mailed from Greece. If you see it in the box, let us know ASAP!!!!

:) Tim and Jeni

Read more...

praying for our own

We love babies!! We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning with some friends who have a 4 month old baby boy. We enjoyed playing with him and watching him smile! Lately every time I see a baby I think about our Ethiopian baby. I find myself praying for our child that he/she will be a happy, healthy, beautiful child!

 

Read more...

more storage!

Last week we added a couple more things to our storage room! A friend gave us an umbrella stroller that we liked! Another friend gave us some little boy clothes that their son has grown out of! Our small storage room is getting smaller!! 

Read more...

"What Ifs"

Well, this morning I woke up thinking about all of the "what ifs" in the logistics of our adoption. Both Tim and I have a strong desire to have two children from Ethiopia. We know that there are several possibilities. We also know that our God has everything in control. We would love to have two infants. We'd like to get them as young as possible. Twin infants would be a great solution to this issue!! 

We would consider the option of adopting siblings, but we'd want them to both be very young. Like maybe one is an infant and the other is 18 months old. That may not be very likely, though. 

Another option is that we could complete one infant adoption and then do another infant adoption right after the first one. In fact, we're preparing 2 dossiers for this possibility. 

We looked into the idea of bringing the first child back to the country we're living in until we can get the other one..... but the visitor visa for Ethiopians is very expensive (like $2,000 for 30 days). So, we would need to go directly to the States to take care of the visa and then return to our country. When we do the second adoption, we'd have to do the same thing. 

Even though there's lots of travel involved with this idea, we're really okay with it. (It would give us one more time to visit with family that we miss so much!) However, it would cost a lot more. We just have to trust that the Lord is going to take care of us financially. He is faithful to provide everything we need!! 

Read more...

THE crib!!!

Well, yesterday was a big day for us! Baby shop was having a sale, which ends Saturday. The next sale isn't until the summer. That's when we're hoping to be bringing home a blessing. (or two?) We decided to take advantage of the sale. We bought a crib!!!!!! wow! It's just hard to believe that we actually have a crib sitting in our storage room right now. :) It makes it feel a little more real. This is really happening. Each step has been a little bit shocking. Each time the process moves forward, we are excited and scared at the same time! 

Yesterday we also sent in what seems like the last few pieces of paper work. Our Dossier is almost finished. The Home Study is almost complete also. We have a rough draft of it sitting on the computer that we need to fill in some dates and send back. 

Read more...