A little piece of my heart!

Dear Anonymous,

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and I appreciate all comments whether they be positive or negative.

Our adoption process is a reflection of our personal relationship with Christ. God has a heart for ALL orphans but how He uses each one of us is very personal and individualized. Some families may be called to adopt from Russia, some from Ethiopia, others the United States, or wherever God has laid on their heart. For us it is Ethiopia. And yes, God has blessed us with three boys and He has also given us the desire for a baby girl. Who knows what the future holds, but for right now, we are confident that He is leading us to a daughter. A daughter that He has had picked to be in our family from the beginning of time. This is a part of our own adoption story and someone elses story may look totally different. We serve a big God who could accomplish this ALL on His own but I am so glad that He chooses to use people to accomplish His purposes. I am honored and humbled that He is willing to use me and my family with all our faults and imperfections to bring about something so beautiful that brings Glory to His Name!!!

Referral Ready!!!!

Look what we got in the mail....

Our FDL is here...our next step is a referral...wahoooooo!!

I was excited to read that another girl referral went out!! One step closer to our baby girl!! The boys were so excited to get to change the countdown wall!! Speaking of that...you can now get your own...how great is that!! Head on over to Hilary's blog and order yours today. All proceeds go to helping bring home their little boy Isa from Ethiopia!!

Also, if you want one of our shirts, I am going to be placing the order the Monday after Thanksgiving so they will hopefully be in by Christmas. So don't forget to place your order on my sidebar!!

Love my roomies!!

I got the SWEETEST thing in the mail this week!! You might remember seeing Hilary's waitlist countdown that she made. Well, I commented that she was going to have to tell us how to make one and she decided to MAKE me one instead. I was so excited that I even shed a few tears as I was opening it!!


I absolutely adore this girl and we have developed a great relationship! We share our prayer requests and our praises with one another and I couldn't think of anyone I would rather walk through this journey with. Love ya Hil!!!

As I hung each one of these up I wondered how long it would take until we get to number one. After talking with our case worker yesterday, I am hopeful that it may be sooner than we thought. She told me they are now quoting a 12 month wait time to new families. That means we MIGHT possibly see our little ones face in a little over 9 months. She said it is safe for me to think that but still prepare my heart for it to take longer. This brought a whole new excitement to me!!

Our "unofficial" number right now is...


Lara, another one of my sweet friends, is having an amazing Giving Thanks Giveaway to help bring home their baby from Ethiopia. There have been several families donate some great stuff(two of our shirts are included) and I am heading over there right after this to buy my piece of pie which will enter me to win all the goodies!! I encourage you to do the same!! And hurry...it ends Monday!!


I am thrilled to no end to have the opportunity to finally meet these girls in February at the Created to Care retreat for adoptive mommies. I know we are gonna have the greatest time rooming together and am soooo looking forward to it!!

Our shirts!!

I have been going back and forth about whether I wanted to sell our t-shirts on our blog. But since so many of you have asked about them....here they are!!!

When we started talking about designing shirts we threw around the reasons of why we wanted to do it and what we wanted to be accomplish thru them.

This is what we came up with:

1. By wearing the shirt, you are advocating for orphans. Maybe, just maybe, someone might see one of our peeps wearing it and it might speak to their heart. They might question what it is all about, and there ya go, an opportunity to talk about the orphan crisis and the mighty God that loves them.

2. It helps us get one more step closer to our daughter.

So, you have our passion for the orphan and the love for our daughter...that is our heart behind these shirts!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me and Dil designed them together and we each picked out the color scheme we wanted. I of course had to pick me some PINK to represent our little GIRL!!!

Here are some of my girlfriends rockin' their shirts at our church Fall Fest...

My cutie husband sportin' his while judging the chili cook off...


And you must stop by Team Kollar and see my friend Christine and little Halina with Missy and LuLu. They were showing some love by supporting us and another adopting family. These two met while bringing home their sweet girls from Hannah's Hope the Summer of 2009 and still travel many miles to see each other. I love these ladies heart for adoption and our Lord. Christine has been such an encouragement to me thru this whole process and I am hoping that the next time Missy is in town we can have a play date with all THREE of our girls!!

This is how this is gonna go down. I am going to do a pre-sale for 2 weeks starting today and running thru Thanksgiving Day. That is two weeks!! At that point I will order the shirts and ship them out as soon as they come in...hopefully the middle of December.

The shirts are a unisex cut and fit true to size. We are selling them for $20 and all proceeds go directly to our adoption fund!! Check out my sidebar and order yours today!!

I pray that the Lord would bless you all as you are seeking after Him and following His call to DEFEND THE ORPHAN!!!!

November Numbers + 2 Months Down

We got our official numbers for this month!!

For a girl...


For siblings(twin girls)...



That makes 9 spots on the girls list and 10 spots for the siblings list!!

And, we have been waiting for 2 months now!! This was such a great month reading about all the referrals that have gone out and watching God work in so many ways for not only our family but so many others. It is just a reminder of how much he loves the orphan and wants them home with families to love them and teach them about HIS love.

I am planning on writing a love letter to our sweet little one for every month of our wait. I hope she will look back at them one day and know how much we wanted her and loved her before we even knew her.

Baby girl,

Oh, how you are already loved by so many!! Your Aunt Mea worked so hard at the sale this past weekend and sold so much of her stuff...it was all for YOU!! Your brothers gave us money out of their piggy banks to help bring you home. Just yesterday, your Uncle Jeff said "I can't wait until our girl gets here". Then we got a text from your Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Ang...they had made a mii of you on their Wii and had to send us a pic of how cute you are!!
So many people ask about you all the time and wonder when you are going to be home with us. The answer is "not soon enough". But, we can rest assure, that in God's perfect timing we will see your face and begin preparing to bring you home.

I love you,
Mommy

Totally Blessed!!

I haven't blogged in a whole week!! This is a first for me!! We have been so busy all week running from place to place trying to get this together...

We were so blessed by our friends and family who donated so many nice things for us to sell.

We also sold hot chocolate, some yummy baked items, and our adoption t-shirts...



It was alot of work but it was sooo worth it because....


We could not have pulled this thing off without our friends and family. It took alot of people to make it happen and even though it was pretty much exhausting we had alot of fun working together for such a great cause...










My favorite notary even stopped by to support us...I can not wait until the day I can take our baby girl down to the bank and let all those ladies see her...


There were so many people praying that the sale would be a success and let me tell ya, God answered our prayers and blew us all away!! He did far more than I ever imagined.

My goal was $1000 and we ended up with $3071+$450 of t-shirt sales!!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!