Life in the Gateway City

Adoption Update: Not what we'd hoped for

2011-11-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

I have not written much about our adoption situation since we returned from Ethiopia in July. Here's a run down of what has happened over the last few months:

Our agency did investigations on two of the children that we had been able to meet while we were in Ethiopia.
After receiving the results of the investigations, we accepted a referral for one of the children, an eight mo. old girl.
We had to re-do our dossier. Our first one was about to expire. (Dossiers are good for 2 yrs in Ethiopia.) This took about 6 weeks.
We found out in early September that we had been assigned a court date of Nov. 15th. In early October, we booked our flights.
We told our parents about our travel plans on 10/30, but those plans were going to unravel 5 days later.
Last Friday while I was at work, James called me and said our social worker wanted to have a conference call with us. I was tied up and could not talk, so I asked James to talk with her. I expected that the news would not be good, and feared that it had something to do with the birthmom's court appearance, which had taken place earlier that day.
I called James when I was able to, and my fears were correct. The birthmom testified that she wished to parent the child who had been referred to us. Our fourth failed referral.
Yesterday we informed our agency that we want to withdraw from the Ethiopia program. We are considering pursuing domestic adoption, but we have not made any firm decisions in that regard yet.

James and I have been put through an emotional hell this past year. I did not want to go to church on Sunday. It was Orphan Sunday, and I was not up to hearing people sing the praises of adoption. So, we stayed home. I feel like God has been playing a game with us. There have been so many things that have happened along the way that made us feel encouraged to adopt from Ethiopia. Such us:

Learning that James and my birthdays both fall on Ethiopian holidays.
Our original dossier got hung up at our agency's office and was sent to Ethiopia about a month later than it should have been sent. It was sent on March 5, 2010 - which was the birthdate of the first baby who was referred to us. (She passed away less than three months after we received the referral for her.)
Learning that we have a neighbor who does works in Ethiopia and travels there once or twice a year.

I don't know why God put the desire to adopt from Ethiopia in our heart if He knew that He had no plans to fulfill that desire. All I can say about that are that His ways are not our ways.

We learned several things along the way about the adoption process that I wish we'd known before we got heavily involved with the program:

Most of the children available for adoption are not orphans in the way that we think. Most of them have one birth parent living. I know this is not true of every child, but it is true of most. All four children who were referred to us had a living mother, and I know of many families who have been able to meet their child's birthparent while they were in Ethiopia.
The birthparent has the right to claim custody of the child up until their appearance in court in Addis. This is not just a formality, and the judge will honor in the birthparent's wish to parent. The birthparent's court date is typically 1-2 weeks before the adoptive families' court date, so your travel/adoption plans may get thrown out the window a week before you were planning on leaving for court.
There is probably no way to know your child's HIV status for sure if they are under the age of 18 months. Yes, the little babies will be tested for HIV, but the tests that are commonly used in Ethiopia for HIV are not 100% accurate in children under the age of 18 months.
Children under the age of two year will not be screened for TB. TB is one of the most common causes of death in Ethiopia, and I was baffled to learn that kids under the age of two will not be screened for it. They will be given a chest x-ray, if they exhibit signs of respiratory illness, but in our experience TB is not accurately diagnosed. The first child we were referred died from TB, after she had been treated for pneumonia for several weeks.
Ethiopia does not have a good system in place to keep track of records regarding previous relinquishments by families. Let's say that a mom relinquishes a child for adoption and that child is adopted by a family in the US. Same mom gets pregnant a year later and wants to relinquish that child as well. The family in the US who has the first child has to be contacted to given the option to adopt the new sibling. This is how we lost our third referral.

I don't know if we would have changed our minds about adopting from Ethiopia had we known all those things, but it still would have been nice to know these things before we had spent over a year in the program.

Thank you for your prayers, condolences, and encouragement. We are not sure what our next steps will be at this time. We ask that you give us the same courtesy that you'd give someone who had four miscarriages in less than a year's time. We are not up for a lot of questions about adoption/children right now.

Google Voice: FAIL

2011-10-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

Guess what this message was about:

Hey staff. This is bag. It's Monday afternoon. I wanna know if it's about 530 6 o'clock. But anyway, if you don't need to call me back tonight to Kathy automatic kind of we could set the Spencer's Isaac starting out the on the clock okay about automatic interest not house up to centers are so I just never the. Why so I'd appreciate it if you can work. I know I have. If you have the automatic at. If you lock and if you don't like a block and a half and we'll get some pretty soon. Just put on the networks them a call me when you can. Love you. Bye bye.

That was someone wanting to know what kind of automatic soap dispensers we use. Google didn't catch the word "soap" even one time, and it was on the voice message several times.

Google Voice: FAIL

2011-10-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

Another incoherent transcription from Google Voice:

Hey Stephanie, Indiana, which, I was calling. I know that totally last minute, but we decided that we might have people over. Not my we're having people over. This West card in this afternoon at 3 And I know that your E getting all but I want to tell you also that Madeline we're gonna be there so I thought I might. Sister, I'm for you guys come to you. So, anyway, give me a text or give me a call. Would love to have you guys over, talk to you later. Bye.

So, what was this missed call about? It was an invitation to go to someone's house and watch the Cardinal's game on TV.

Daisy turned 10 this year.

2011-10-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

In August, we celebrated 9 years with our Daisy. She was about a year old when we brought her home from the Human Society, so we think she is about 10 years old. She given us a few worries this year, which culminated in her having a liver biopsy early this summer. Her liver enzymes had been running high for over a year, and we'd done a lot of testing on her. I wrote about what tests we'd had done and finding out what she did not have here: What's ailing Daisy?

After her liver biopsy, we found out that she has a benign condition called Vacuolar Hepatopathy. I had never heard of the disorder before. Basically her liver cells are getting clogged up with fat and metabolic wastes. She's taking two medications for it. One is a liquid that we can squirt on her food and the other is a chewable tablet that she has to be coaxed into taking. We are really thankful that she doesn't have a life-threatening condition. She's not had any symptoms of illness.

From her behavior, it is hard to believe that she is 10. She is still very active, and she loves to play with Lily. I still catch her dragging Lily across the floor by her tail.

Google Voice: FAIL

2011-10-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

Here's another jumbled up message that was transcribed by Google Voice:

HI This is a call. Call when that we surely miss phone call, from this offer and just want to see if I can answer any questions, you can call our toll free number back. At (888) ***-****. Again, this is better. Call on the the poll college, your college at (888) ***-**** sorry that we missed your call. Looking forward to speaking to you soon and have a great day.

I edited the call-back number that was left. I had to listen to the voice mail to find out what this was about. I was trying to call a culinary school to order a gift-certificate for his birthday. No one aanswered when I called, and that was the message that I got when they tried to call me back.

Crock Pot Pulled Pork

2011-08-31T14:57:00.000-07:00

I found a recipe for pulled pork on www.food.com and modified it a bit. It came out really well. We had this for dinner last night.

Ingredients

5 lbs pork butt or shoulder
2 large onions
1 and 1/4 cup ginger ale
1/2 bottle of liquid smoke
18 oz of your favorite barbecue sauce

Directions

Slice one of the onions and place in crock pot. Put the pork in the crock pot on top of the onion.
Slice the other onion and place it on top of the pork. Pour in the ginger ale and liquid smoke. Cover and cook on LOW for about 9 hours.
Remove the meat, strain and save the onions. Discard all of the liquid. Using two forks, shred the meat, discarding any remaining fat or bones.
Place the shredded meat back in the crock pot and stir in the barbecue sauce. Cook on HIGH for 30-40 minutes.
Serve buns or rolls.

We had a lot of leftover meat, so I'm using some of them for dinner tomorrow. We are going to have build-your-own-burritos with it.

A Day at Yezelalem Minch

2011-08-23T16:28:00.000-07:00

This post is a little overdue, but I wanted to share a few more pictures of our trip to Ethiopia. Our last day there, we visited a ministry called Yezelalem Minch. (YM) It is an organization that facilitates child sponsorships, provides job skill training for widows and helps families with nutritional support. On Saturdays, they have a feeding program where children and adults who are part of their ministry can receive a free, wholesome meal. Before the meal was served, James and I had some gifts to deliver to a couple of kids that are sponsored by friends of ours.

The meal is served by widows, and this is an source of income for them. They are paid by YM to prepare and serve the food.

The kids loved attention and wanted us to play with them.

I had some candy that I had brought to pass out to the kids. They all lined up after their meal for candy. This was about like starting a riot. The adults who were supervising the chaos had little sticks that they used to keep the kids in line.

All the kids wanted to see their photo after we took it. This was fun. One perk of digital photography!

This is a wonderful organization that is changing the lives of the children and adults in it's care.

A Better Pizza

2011-08-02T14:21:00.000-07:00

Several days ago, our local news featured a pizzeria called A Better Pizza. It is close to our house, so we decided to check it out. The main thing they advertise is their stuffed Chicago style pizza, so that is what we ordered. The pizza was great, but that is about the only positive thing that I have to say about the experience.

A slice of our stuffed pizza

The first thing that put me off was the owner's wife sitting at a table trying to peddle her jewelry. It was one of those things that you host a party at your house and the consultant has displays of jewelry that the guests can order. After you sat down at your table, she'd walk to you and give you one of her business cards and talk about the jewelry for a minute. These kind of things can be fun, but if my husband owned a restaurant I'd be in there working with him, instead of bothering his customers with a jewelry purchase. There was very little seating inside, and she was taking up one of the largest tables. Her skills could have perhaps been put to better use in trying to decorate the place and help manage the restaurant. The only decorations that were there were posters from the vendor that supplies their cheese.

I was not impressed with the service. I realize that it takes time to make a pizza from scratch, so that is not what I had a problem with. When we got our stuffed pizza, the waitress did not bring anything to our table for us to serve it with. I asked for a spatula or something, and she said that they don't have serving utensils, and that we would need to scoop the slices up with our forks. Now realize that this pizza is easily an inch thick, and we were told to scoop it up with our forks. Humph. We only ate half of the pizza while we were there, and we wanted a box for the left overs. They don't seem to carry boxes that are deep enough for their stuffed pizzas. The lid would not shut all the way.

All of the employees at this place need to have a lesson in appropriate work-place attire. The teenage girl who was taking orders was wearing house shoes. The owner came to the front counter to chat with the customers, and he was wearing a ratty old t-shirt that was better suited for yard work or painting.

A Better Pizza is definitely not the kind of place you want to go on a date night. If you want to try their pizza, I recommend ordering take out or delivery. One pizzeria here that we really enjoy that is date-night worthy is Pi. The atmosphere is nice, but not fancy. They do believe in using serving utensils. There are a lot of drinks on the menu, beers, organic teas, soda, coffee, etc. Their pizza is a little different from what you'd get in Chicago, the main difference being with their crust. Pi uses a corn meal dough to make their crusts, and I really like it.

How we spent our weekend

2011-08-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

Well we didn't have a fun weekend, but it was very productive. I've been wanting to replace the carpet on our second floor since we moved into this house three years ago. We are finally able to do it. I had to work two days last week, so I spent my three days "off" working at home, pulling up the old base boards and painting the new ones. I was happy to go back to work. Sometimes the work that I find for myself to do at home is more physically exhausting than the work that I get paid to do.

That is the mess that was left. The installers will be removing that today.

We are going through Lowe's to have the new carpet installed, and it is going in as I type. I was not expecting that it could be put in this quickly. James and I had two days to get the furniture moved, the carpet and pad removed and all the staples pulled out of the floor. We had to pull carpet out of three bedrooms, our walk-in closet, a hallway, and the the stairway. I was so sore last night, I had a hard time sleeping.

The new carpet is much darker than the old carpet. The old carpet was almost white. While we were pulling it out, we found a few pieces of what we suppose was the original carpet. It was pink. Our new carpet is a "green" carpet. It is EverStrand Carpet from Mohawk. It is made out of recycled plastic bottles.

I'm really thankful for all the hard work James put into removing the old carpet. He enjoys having leisure time on the weekends, and this weekend did not offer him much of that!

Meeting our Sponsored Child

2011-07-23T15:35:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, we had the opportunity to meet our sponsored child. We began sponsoring Tariku last summer through Compassion International. He's between 8 and 10 years old. Birthdates are not generally kept up with in Ethiopia, so we don't know for sure. He was wearing a sharp looking suit. We complemented him on it, and he told us that he got it with the money we sent him for his birthday. (Which was only $30.) When we began sponsoring him, he was unable to attended school because of the financial strain that his family was under at the time. In his first letter to us, he asked up to pray for him to be able to go to school. So we did. And he attends school now. He told us that English is his favorite subject, and he likes math too. He looked so much different from the boy we saw in the first pictures from Compassion last year:

Here he is being instructed on how to operate a hand-crank flashlight that we gave him.

We gave him a backpack full of school supplies and other items. His favorite gifts were a soccer ball and a calculator.

Tariku was escorted by two Compassion personnel. They brought him to the guest house we were staying at. After we gave him his gifts, we had to wait for a little while for a car to pick us up and take up to an amusement park. While we waited, I showed Tariku how to play Angry Birds on my phone. He caught on very quickly.

Tariku had a lot of fun at Bora Amusement park. He wanted to play air hockey with both of us.

He won tickets at some of the games. Here he is counting the tickets with a park employee.

He chose to get a package of colored pencils and a bouncy ball with his tickets.

Next, we rode the swing ride. I was pretty nervous about getting on this dang ride. James has gotten sick on these kinds of rides before. I mean we were in a country that probably doesn't have any sort of safety regulations, and I doubt that this ride had been serviced in the last decade. But, we rode it & we lived to tell about it.

We had lunch at the amusement park, and this was the only meal I had all week that I did not like. We all ordered hamburgers. There was a lot of seasonings in the meat that I did not care for at all. I'm not ever sure that they were made out of beef. It could have been goat meat for all I know. Tariku wanted to pray in English before we ate, and he did a good job! He fed both James and I a bite of his food. This is an Ethiopian tradition called "gursha." We both returned the gesture.

During lunch Tariku told us a little more about himself. We learned that he plays the drums for the younger children at his church. He told us that this was his first trip to the city and he rode a bus from his village to the city. It was his first time to ride a bus.

This was by far the best day we had on the trip. I'm really thankful to Compassion for setting this visit up!

Back from Ethiopia

2011-07-21T09:01:00.000-07:00

We got home Sunday from what should have been our court trip. On Tuesday last week, just before we went to the orphanage to meet Baby M, we were informed that our agency had just learned that Baby M has a half-sister who was adopted to the US two years ago. The half sister was adopted through an different agency. The other family family was informed about our situation, with the two failed referrals and they were informed that we were willing to do what we could to keep the girls in touch. Both agencies were both in favor of us proceeding. We asked if the other family would be given the option to adopt Baby M, but our agency dodged that question. We were told that we should go ahead and meet Baby M. So we did. We held her, played with her, and fed her. She even fell asleep in my arms. We took a bunch of photos and James shot a lot of video.

We were supposed to go to court on Thurs. Three people from our agency came to the guest house to talk to us & we knew that they probably had bad news. They informed us that the other family had chosen to adopt Baby M, and there is nothing we can do. Our agency’s country director is the one who told us, and he wept as he spoke to us. He has worked in social services for many years, and he said that this was the hardest day of his career.

Our agency gave us three different children to consider. Two boys and one girl, all under one year of age. We spoke with a pediatrician on Thurs. and went through all the medical records for all three children. The girl is the healthiest one, although the two boys are in fairly good health too. We got to meet all three children while we were there. Over the weekend, our agency sent a team to the hometowns of two of the children. They conducted investigations over the weekend to see if there are any issues that could cause problems with the adoption. On Monday, they will send another team to do another investigation. Within two weeks we should know if they are any problems. We are not certain that we even want to give this other try, it depends on what the investigations turn up. Our agency's stateside office should have the results of the 1st investigations sometime today. The staff is confident that they can get our case submitted to court before the court closure in August, however it is unlikely that we will get another court date before the end of Sept.

These past two weeks have been extremely difficult. We are not pleased with the way this disaster transpired or with the way James and I were treated by a particular social worker while we were in Ethiopia. Baby M never should have been referred to us. The staff in Ethiopia found out about the sister early enough in July that we could have canceled our trip if they had told us right away. They decided to sit on the information for a little while and allow us to go ahead and make the trip. Our agency's stateside staff is not pleased about that. There is a lot more to this story that I'd like to share, but I feel that it is not appropriate to share all of the details publicly at this time. I will say that if you are pursuing and Ethiopian adoption through our agency, to proceed with extreme caution. (Unless you know me in some capacity outside of the blog, you don't know what agency we are working with. I have removed their name from all of my posts.) I will be more than happy to give you an earful if you talk to me.

We now have been through three failed referrals, and are wondering what else can go wrong. I'm at a place where I'm tried of investing my time, energy, and heart into adoption. I'm tried of praying about adopting a child & I'm tried of asking others to do the same. I'm tired of printing out photos of little girls that get referred to us and putting them up all over our house, just to throw them in the trash a few months later. I'm tired of mailing photos of another little child off to our parents, just to have to make another difficult phone call to them telling that we won't be bringing that child home either. I'm tired of getting every one's hopes up.

I wish I could rewind the past two years.

Donations and Toys for the Orphanage

2011-07-09T09:58:00.000-07:00

We are taking some toys with us that will we use while we are visiting Baby M at the orphanage. I got a dozen of those little beach balls from Oriental Trading $6. They are only 7 inches wide, so they will be good for little hands. I also the little toy dinosaurs and the little plastic Slinky's at Oriental Trading. The other items in the photo are a package of bubbles and a package of plastic links.

These are donations. A few outfits, diapers, (cloth and disposable) and a Jenny Jumperoo. The orphanages seem to be in need of weight bearing toys for the little ones, so I hope they can use this. We are also taking a bunch of children's underpants that my parents donated. We've had several people give us monetary donations for the orphanages. We will use that to buy formula while we are in Ethiopia. Thank you to everyone who has donated!

Photo Book is finally finished!

2011-07-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

We will be able to leave a photo book for Baby M that will be given to her after our case is approved in the Ethiopian court. I wanted to give her a little photo book that she could play with, and I got this one at Babies-R-Us. Thanks to my friend Dana for the recommendation. There is a pocket on the front for a small photo, so I put a photo of Baby M in that so the book could be easily identified as hers.

I just finished this today. I've had months to get this done, so you'd think that I would have gotten done before now, seeing that we leave the day after tomorrow. "Last minute" seems to be our modus operandi around here these days.

The book holds only 6 photos, and I had a hard time narrowing it down. I decided to put photos of people that she will probably see very soon after she comes home. I have another small photo album that I will take on our second trip that has more photos of our extended family.

One more photo, just you can see the Amharic font on the photo a little better. Amharic is the national language of Ethiopia. I was stumped as to how to do this, but James showed me how. Thank you! I found this website Amharic Dictionary, which was very useful. You type in an English word, and it will show you the word in Amharic. I copied that into a Word document and saved it. Then I pasted the text from the Word document into photoshop.

We're getting to meet our Compassion Child!

2011-07-05T20:41:00.000-07:00

James and I sponsor a 10 year old boy in Ethiopia through Compassion International. We started sponsoring him last summer. We'd hoped for a long time that we'd get to meet him during one of our upcoming trips to Ethiopia. As soon as I found out when our court date would be, I emailed Compassion to see if we could arrange a visit with him. Compassion requests that you give them 8 weeks notice to plan a visit. We had less than a month's notice for our court date, and I was not really hopeful that it would give Compassion enough time to plan a visit. We'd only have one day where we could plan a visit, and our sponsored child would have to be driven to Addis Ababa, where we will be staying. He lives very far away from the city, and for us to travel to see him, we'd have to spend the night in a rural part of Ethiopia. We were also concerned that it would add $$$ to the cost of our trip. Compassion replied to my email with further instructions regarding what we needed to do to plan a visit. We'd have to pay $70 for background checks in order to proceed. It seemed so hopeless, that we felt like it would be a waste of $70. We decided not to bother with it.

Two days later, someone from Compassion called me to see what was going on. I was impressed! Compassion is a big organization, and I thought no one would pay us any attention if I didn't respond to their email. I explained my concerns to her, and she assured me that they would do everything that they could to arrange a visit for us. I went ahead and filled out the necessary paperwork and waited to hear back from them.

We found out last Thursday that we will be able to met our young man! We will have to pay for his transportation, a translator, and meals. but it's going to be less than $50! Compassion is going to drive our guy to the city & he will spend the night there with an escort from Compassion. Our visit will take place at the Compassion field office in Addis Ababa. I'm sure this will be his first trip to the city, and it might even be the first time he's ridden in a car. We are really looking forward to meeting him. I'm really thankful that Compassion was able to arrange this for us!

We were given a list of suggested gifts for him, and I hope he doesn't find it overwhelming. Here's what we're giving him:

School supplies, a soccer ball (you must deflate these for the airports), toothbrushes, toothpaste, a metal water bottle, a hand crank flashlight, a photo album, a Cardinal's hat, and hand pump for the soccer ball, and a Jansport backpack.

My aunt gave a Jansport backpack when I was a freshman in college, almost 13 years ago. I've become sentimentally attached to it because my aunt passed away unexpectedly right after I got married. She loved to travel, and she was a nurse. I think she would be pleased to know that the gift she gave me has was with me through pharmacy school and in Haiti on a medical mission trip. It has lasted me through college, pharmacy school, and trips to Mexico (twice), St. Thomas, D.C., Florida (twice), NYC, Yellowstone, Haiti, and now I'm taking it to Africa. My mom did have to sew one of the straps back together once because Daisy chewed it apart, but it had not affected the usefulness of the backpack. I hope he is able to get as many years of use out if his!

My mom and dad sent us a little money to get him something, so I got him two Cardinal's shirts. (Thank you!)

Compassion also recommended taking a gift for his family. So we are taking towels, serving spoons, and soap for them. We used some money that James' parents had sent us for our trip to get those items. (Thank you!)

Learn a little Amharic

2011-07-04T17:37:00.000-07:00

Amharic is the national language of Ethiopia. Since we are leaving for Ethiopia very soon, I wanted to try to learn a few more words and phrases in Amharic. I found several YouTube videos that I thought were rather helpful. You are shown the word in Amharic script, and then transliterated into Roman letters, and the word in English. The pronunciation is given at two different speeds. Here are a few of the videos:

There are several more videos like these. Just go to YouTube and search for Amharic. I've also been using a smart phone app called "You Talk Amharic," which has been helpful. The app cost about 10 dollars, and it available for iphones and androids.

Test Post #2

2011-07-03T22:03:00.001-07:00

Here's a picture of our Daisy. She's happy in this photo. She is not happy right now. She is ready for these fireworks to be over with!

Preparing to travel

2011-07-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

This is a test post. I'm typing this post from my email account, and hoping that it will post to my blog. Blogger is not accessible in Ethiopia, and I'd like to be able to blog a little while we are there.

Google Voice: FAIL

2011-06-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

James and I got new mobile phone in May, and we began using Google Voice for our voice mail. Overall, I've been really pleased with it. It will transcribe your voice mail and email the text to you, and there will also be a link in the email where you can listen to the voice mail. It is much easier to discreetly check your voice mail by just reading the text, and I really like that. The transcription has not been 100% accurate for me, but most of the time it is pretty close. However, we've both gotten a couple of voice mails where the transcription was totally off. Off so bad that I was not sure what the call was about. I don't know what it is that makes some of them that bad. I listened to the audio message, and I could understand it just fine. Here is the transcription of a voice mail that I got from my mother-in-law:

"Hey, Yeah this is Fay you don't have to call me back and just been getting those chicks in the mail, that I have a color Monday does that. The tomorrow. So, often you check for 30 announcing the check for 25..., you can use that if you wanna bathtubs for the nanny 30 if you wanna be some of the formula. Something, whatever for the main ether. It doesn't matter and that the it. I've got one getting long. Give me a thing in order to get him We're already prayed about the trio will talk to you guys are going and you don't have to return my call affect me. Mom pop all. We're all going out to not stuff. Love you. Bye bye. "

Wow. The audio message was clear as a bell and made perfect sense. She was calling to tell me that she had mailed checks to us to purchase some donations for the orphanage. Some of the words that show up in the transcription are not in the audio message at all - like bathtubs, trio, and not stuff. Looks like Google Voice has some bugs that need to be fixed!

Jambalaya

2011-06-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

This is a recipe that I have tweaked a little. The original recipe was posted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a while back, and it gave instructions on how to bake the jambalaya. Yes, bake. I've never heard of any Louisiana native baking jambalaya, so I decided to cook in a pot on the stove top - as it should be done. We've both tried making homemade Jambalaya several times with different recipes, and this one is our favorite.

Yield: 15 servings (about 20 cups)

6 tablespoons olive oil
2 clove garlic, minced
2 small yellow onion, diced
8 ribs celery, sliced
2 red bell pepper, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
2 green bell pepper, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
2 tablespoons Cajun-style seasoning (such as Tony Chachere’s)
2 1/2 cups uncooked extra long grain white rice
5 cups chicken stock
1 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoon butter
6 dashes Tabasco sauce or to taste
1 pound cooked dark meat chicken, diced
1 pound andouille sausage, sliced
Salt, optional
Ground black pepper

1. Combine olive oil, garlic, yellow onion, celery, bell peppers and blackening seasoning in a large pot. Sauté over medium-high heat until onions are translucent, about 10 minutes.

2. Stir in chicken stock, tomato sauce, Worcestershire and butter; bring to a boil. Stir in Tabasco, chicken and andouille. Return to boil. Stir in rice; reduce heat and cover and walk away. Do not stir or remove the lid until you think the rice is almost done. Cook for 30 minutes or until rice is tender.

3. Season to taste with salt and pepper, if needed.

This makes enough to fed a large crowd. If you want to cut the recipe in half, remember to reduce the cooking time after the rice is added. I made a half-recipe of this on Saturday, and it took about 15 minutes -instead of 30 - for the rice to become tender.

A case of bad translating

2011-06-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

I recently ordered an item on ebay from a seller in China. I got an email from the seller with the tracking information and a word of thanks. It is obvious that English was not his first language. I got a few laughs out of it, especially when I read "your cognition is our power to make forward." So here it is, unedited except I removed the tracking number:

Dear Friend

thanks for your making purchase and prompt payment for this item.

Today the postman picked up the package from our office, here is shipping information please view.

Shipping Company: EMS fast express
Consignment No: *****************
Delivered address: Same with you confirmed via Paypal
Tracking website: www.ems.com.cn or www.usps.com

Typically it takes 7-12 business days to arrive in your place, same with we promised on Ebay description, please wait patiently.

Also you may logo on this web to check its status, which will be shown updated shipment two days later, thank you.

We warmly hope that it can arrive in your place and you will be satisfied with our total service and let us have chance of servicing you again. Much appreciate that you can leave a positive feedback and all full 5-Star DSR for this transaction, your cognition is our power to make forward.

Any other questions please don't hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards.
Lisheng.

I will say that his English is worlds better than my Mandarin, but I'm not trying to write letters in Mandarin either. Ha!

Cake Balls

2011-06-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

These are a rather easy dessert, and they look so fancy! I made these cake balls for James' grandmother's birthday party. We went to Louisiana on Memorial Day weekend to celebrate. Here's what you need to make them:

1 cake mix, any flavor
1 jar of icing, any flavor
melting chocolates or almond bark. The melting chocolates are available at Michael's in a lot of different colors and flavors.
whatever the directions on the box of cake mix call for.

Prepare the cake according to the package directions. Bake it in a 9 x 13 Pyrex dish. Let it cool for at least one hour after it is baked.

After the cake has cooled, crumble it up in a bowl. Mix the can of icing in.

Place some wax paper or parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Using a small scoop, make little balls out of the cake/icing mixture. Place the balls on the cookie sheet.

I was able to get about 40 balls out of one cake mix. Place the cake balls in the freezer for an hour or two so they can harden a little. You don't want them to be warm and crumbly for the next step, or else your chocolate will end up with tiny pieces of cake in it.

Use a double boiler to melt your almond bark or chocolates. I just used a glass bowl on top of a pot of simmering water.

I didn't take a photo of dipping the cake balls into the almond bark, but it's done the same way. I used a spoon to lower the ball into the chocolate.

Then turned the cake ball over and placed it on a fork. Next, I spooned chocolate over the top of the ball. Place the dipped cake ball onto a sheet of wax paper to harden.

After they have hardened, you can drizzle a contrasting color on top of them. I just used a fork, but you can use a piping bag if you want them to look a little cleaner.

The finished product! These are so yummy! I had some melted chocolate left over, so I dipped some Vanilla Wafers in it.

10 years ago today

2011-06-16T12:46:00.000-07:00

Photo by Kevin Beasley

Ten years ago today, I married my dearest friend. James, I am thankful that you're my husband. You have loved me well. You have loved me when God's love seemed elusive to me. You have stood by me on some very dark days. You have served me and cared for me when I was sick. You have shared in my joy, suffering, laughter, and grief. You have prayed for me when I was so spent spiritually that I could not pray myself. You have guided me, encouraged me, lovingly rebuked me, and you've had a hand in my sanctification. You are my husband and my brother in Christ. You have stirred my affections for my First Love, Love Himself. You have been Christ to me. May God help me remember that before you were mine, you were Christ's, and one day, we will be united with the rest of the body of Christ to our Bridegroom.

Our Wedding Vows

2011-06-15T11:48:00.000-07:00


Photo by Kevin Beasley

Our Marriage Vows

James: I, James, take you Stephanie, to be my wedded wife. With deepest joy I receive you into my life that together we may be one. As is Christ to his body, the church, so I will be to you a loving and faithful husband. Always will I perform my headship over you even as Christ does over me, knowing that his lordship is one of the holiest desires of my life. Stephanie, I promise you my deepest love, my fullest devotion, my tenderest care. I promise I will live first unto God rather than others, or even you. I promise that I will lead our lives into a life of faith and hope in Jesus Christ, ever honoring God's guidance by his Spirit through His word and so throughout life no matter what may lie ahead I pledge to you my life as a loving and faithful husband.

Stephanie: I Stephanie, take you James to be my wedded husband. With deepest joy I come into my new life with you. As you have pledged to me your life and love, so I too happily give you my life and in confidence submit myself to your headship as to the Lord. As is the church in her relationship with Christ, so I will be with you. James, I will live first unto our God, and then unto you, loving you, obeying you, caring for you, so that we might serve Christ together. God has prepared me for you so I will ever strengthen, help, comfort, and encourage you. Therefore, throughout life, no matter what may be ahead of us, I pledge to you my life as a faithful and obedient wife.

Ring Vows

James: Stephanie, I give you this ring, wear it with love and joy. I choose you to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish as long as we both shall live. And I pledge to you my faithfulness to show you the same kind of love Christ showed the church when He died for her, and to love you as a part of myself, because in his sight, we shall become one.

Stephanie: James, I give you this ring, wear it with love and joy. I choose you to be my husband to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live. And I pledge to you my faithfulness to love you with a Christ-like love, and to love you as a part of myself, because in his sight we shall become one.

Our vows came from samples that used to be available for free on Dallas Theological Seminary's website. I tried to look for them today, and it seems that they are now charging $15 for a Wedding Planning Kit that you have to purchase if you want to see their sample vows.

Crawfish Boil & Vow Renewal

2011-06-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe it, but our tenth wedding anniversary is this week! This past Saturday, we had a crawfish boil for our community group from church, and we decided that since it was going to be so close to our anniversary that it would be a nice time to renew our vows. A friend of ours Jason Polk, who is the worship pastor at Grace PCA Church led us through our vows. Jason and his wife, Liz, were some of the people that we met after moving to St. Louis, and they are dear friends. We were so glad that they could be with us to celebrate our anniversary! They are in the process of moving to Ethiopia as missionaries, which thrills my heart. You can read about their work here: On the Ground.

My friend Jamie made these fabulous cupcakes that were reminiscent of my wedding cake. The butterflies were made out of chocolate, and they were edible! She is so talented.

The little boys were intrigued by the crawfish, and I don't think they were convinced that they were food and not bugs.

Daisy found a place to hang out, but Lily had to stay in the house. Lily, our little Sheltie, is not fond of crowds. We should have kept her in the house in to begin with, but I wanted to see if she could cope with the company. She could not. She almost caught herself on fire. She got freaked out by something harmless and ran to James just after he had gotten the gas lit on the burner for the crawfish. She got too close to the burner, and her fur got singed. I'm just glad she was not hurt. James put her in the basement after that.

James wanted to see how boiled shrimp would be with the crawfish. He put them in with the crawfish after they had finished cooking. The shrimp were really good!

We asked Jason to read Ephesians 5 and he talked about what a covenant means and he and some of our friends prayed with us. He also gave us some words of wisdom regarding parenting as we prepare to bring our daughter home.

It was a great evening! We both meant our vows the first time we said them, but it was sweeter this time because of the history that James and I had together. James has been with me in the good times and bad times, in sickness and in health. As we said our vows on Saturday, I had memories of James staying by my side in a hospital and caring for me and encouraging me going through my mind. I'm delighted to be his wife. It was wonderful to share the evening with friends who have prayed with us, grieved with us, and rejoiced with us. Thank you to everyone who was able to be there! I'll post our vows later this week.

Court Date!

2011-06-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

I woke up to good news this morning. I checked my email shortly after I got up, and I had an email from our social worker with our court date! Our case will be heard in court on July 14th. This is a wonderful answer to prayer. We - along with many of our friends and family - had been praying that we could appear in court before the courts close for the rainy season. The courts usually close in early August and reopen at the end of September. If we had not been able to get a court date before the closure, not only would it have meant that it would have taken that much longer for us to bring our daughter home, it would also have meant that we would have to re-do our entire dossier. It took me a couple of months to get our dossier together the first time, and I'd rather not have to do it again. Most of the documents from our dossier are dated at the end of 2009. Dossiers expire after two years in Ethiopia. As long as our case is approved by the court before November, we will not have to re-do it. We are so thankful for this news.

The only downside is that I'll have to miss work at a time when I need to be there to help cover vacations. The manager knew that might happen though and understands our situation.

We are so grateful to everyone who has been praying for us and for Baby M. Please keep them coming! There are still a lot of things that could go wrong that could delay our case. Here are some specific things that we will be praying for, and we would greatly appreciate it if you would join with us:

Baby M's birthmother will have to appear in court before we do to terminate her rights. Sometimes the birthparents will reclaim custody of their children at that time. Pray that all goes well if God does intend for Baby M to be our daughter.
Pray for all of our documents to be in order when the judge hears our case, and for our case to be approved while we are in Ethiopia. There are several documents that have to be obtained from the area where Baby M was born. Some families with our agency have recently experienced delays both with the court and the US Embassy because these documents had not been obtained.
Continue to pray for Baby M. She is doing well, and she has gained a few pounds. Pray for her needs to continue to be met and for her to stay healthy.

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." Luke 11:9-10

The hunt is over!

2011-05-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

I was laid off from a job that I really enjoyed back in January. I was pretty disappointed. At least I had the luxury of not having to find another job right away. Last year, we made some changes to our budget because we thought we were going to have a child home with us in January, and I wouldn't be working as much. Well, that didn't happen. And God knew that wasn't going to happen, and He did know that I was going to lose my job. We managed pretty well just on James' income. I thought I'd have another job rather soon. I'd been laid off before, and I was able to find a job the same week that I was laid off back then. But that was 5 yrs ago. The economy was better then. Part of my severance package was a career coaching service. I decided not to use it right away, I mean surely I wouldn't need that, right?

I began seriously looking for a job a few weeks after I was laid off. I applied for job after job. I went to interviews. I called a hiring manager that I knew. Nothing. It became my daily habit to spend a few hours searching for jobs on sites like monster and indeed, apply for two or three, and not expect to hear anything back. I probably applied for at least thirty different jobs. Even Walgreen's is having a statewide hiring freeze. I began to wonder if I should be trying to get unemployment. I got random calls about jobs that were either 90 miles from our home or clear on the other side of the state. If someone had told me that I'd be in this position three years ago, I would have laughed at them. All in all, I had six phone interviews and five face to face interviews. I got one job offer for a night pharmacist position at a long term care pharmacy in early May. It was a 7 on, 7 off position. You work a week, then you're off a week. No vacation. That's right - no vacation. That was a deal breaker for me. I almost accepted the position, but the more I thought about it, it made my stomach hurt. I didn't want to say no. I mean, I'd been looking for three months. How long would it be before something else turned up? I said no. Shortly after I turned that offer down, I decided to use the career coaching service that was part of my severance package. I kept applying for jobs, and I got two calls one morning about a couple of part-time jobs that I had applied for. My interviews were a few days later. The interview for the job that I really wanted was very brief. I didn't know what to think when I left. But, I got an offer from them!

I'm working part-time (which is what I wanted) at a specialty pharmacy that serves transplant and cancer patients. I'll be working two or three days a week. This was my first week, and it's been really good to be back at work. I feel a little rusty. This is extremely different from my last job, and I'm handling medications that I've never dispensed before, but I'll catch on. I couldn't ask for better hours. The pharmacy is open 8am-6pm, closed on weekends and holidays, no "on-call", it is not open to the general public, and in three days I haven't even seen a bottle of Lortab - much less had someone cuss me out because I wouldn't fill it 15 days early. This still feels too good to be true!

Can I get a do over for this week?

2011-05-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

This week has been challenging. I've had two big headaches to deal with on top of being worried about what's going on with our little girl.

The first thing was getting our dog, Daisy's medication refilled. Sounds simple enough. Oh no. I realized over the weekend that the pharmacy had probably shorted us when they filled it. She takes 1 ml a day, and I had asked for a six week supply. I was charged for a six week supply on 4/21. She ran out of medication last night. I was able to get only 27 doses out of a bottle that should have had 45 doses in it. I called the pharmacy on Monday and told them what was going on. Of course they wanted to argue with me and insist that they had given me a 6 week supply. The technician even told me that they "overfilled" the order for 47 mls, just to make sure that I'd have enough. There was a problem with that. Her medication came in a bottle that was only big enough to hold 30 mls. I asked him to explain to me how he got 47 mls in a bottle that could only hold 30 mls. He got the pharmacist then. She apologized profusely for the mistake and said she'd compound what they owed us and send it out that day via overnight UPS at no charge to us. I was satisfied with that. Last night, when there was no sign of UPS, and decided that I'd give them until noon today, and then I'd call the pharmacy back to see what was going on. I called them today at noon, and spoke with the pharmacist. Again, she was very apologetic, but they had dropped the ball again. They never compounded anything for us on Monday and they didn't UPS anything to us. Well, that didn't make this pharmacist none too happy. I voiced my displeasure and she assured me that I'd have the medication today even if she had to deliver it to my house herself. I thanked her, but I told her that I was going to let the vet know what happened, since it was the vet that referred us to that pharmacy in the first place. They did make things right today. Someone was at my door at 2:45 with what they owed us plus enough for another month, and a $10 gift card to Petco. I was impressed. This medication isn't exactly cheap, and it was generous of them to give us a whole month's worth at no cost. I'm still probably not going to use them again though. I don't exactly trust them after this incident. If I worked at a compounding pharmacy, I'd fill it myself.

The other headache I've been dealing with this week is my mobile phone. That is my iPhone in the photo, and no I didn't really smash it, but I wanted to. It is 2 and a half years old, and I've been having issues with it for a while. The last time I talked to my mother-in-law on it, she could hard understand anything I said. My mom told me that it sounded like I was talking into a bucket every time I called her. Plus there was the whole issue of dealing with itunes. What a lousy program. Wanna put a song on your phone that is currently saved on your computer? Well, first you have to let itunes sync your phone, update the software, and back up the phone before you can do that. You might have the song on your phone three hours later. Ugh. Why do people put up with this?? I know there are people out there who think apple and Steve Jobs hung the moon. I used to be one of those people. Not anymore. Not after owning an iPhone. I currently have no plans to purchase another apple product.

James and I went to the AT&T store to get new phones just before Mother's Day. We both got Motorala Atrix phones. James got a refurbished phone, and he is loving it. However, I decided to spend twice as much and get a new phone. I am not loving mine. It randomly turns itself off and restarts itself multiple times a day. I'm still having issues with the outgoing call quality. I've had a number of people tell me that there is a lot of static or an echo when I talk. I've made two calls to AT&T's customer support this week, and I'm going to replace the phone tomorrow at the AT&T store. I hope the next one works.

Another day with no news

2011-05-17T15:20:00.000-07:00

It's 4:30 pm. That means that our social worker has left the office for the day, and another day has passed without getting an update on Baby M or on the status of our case. It's been just over six weeks since we heard anything. It's been 9 weeks since we turned our acceptance papers in, and we still don't know if our case has been submitted to court.

Our agency has an online forum where the families can communicate with each other. Not all of the families that adopt through our agency participate in the forum, but there are a lot of people who do. From the best I can tell, everyone on the forum who is adopting a child under the age of four has either recently received an update or found out that their case had been submitted to court. Except us.

One of the families who had recently got an update posted some words in hopes of encouraging those of us who are still waiting for news. They said to remember that God is even in the bumps and delays of the adoption process. I believe that. I believe that God is intricately involved in the details of our lives and that he is in control of absolutely everything that happens. However, that doesn't mean that just because he's in control that our lives are going to be happy, pain free, full of butterflies and rainbows. Remember Job? Remember Paul? Ever read through Psalms? David sometimes goes from "I hate my life, why am I not dead" to praising God for his majesty - all in one Psalm. God promises that we will suffer in this life. So it doesn't really make me not worry out the health of Baby M to tell me that "God is involved in the bumps." I believe that he was involved in the lives and deaths of both of the girls that we lost. God being in control does not equal a pain free experience. It does mean that we have to trust his plan and wisdom when it makes no sense to us.

We've been in this place before where other families were getting information and we were left in the dark. It wasn't nice the first time it happened, and I'm not enjoying now either. We went through this time of silence with Baby D - the first baby we lost. In that situation the silence was indicative of bad-awful-terrible news that literally made me physically sick once we finally received it. I can't help but worry that the same thing is going on now. Our social worker and the staff at our agency's national office are going to get sick of hearing from us before this is all over.

Waiting for news

2011-05-12T11:59:00.000-07:00

It has been a little over 5 weeks since we received any news on Baby M or our adoption case. We are really hoping to hear that our case has been submitted to court in Ethiopia very, very soon. If it is not submitted soon, there is no way we are going to get to travel for court before the courts close in August for the rainy season. The courts close every year in Ethiopia for 6-8 weeks. If we don't get through court before then, it will mean that Baby M will have spent almost her entire first year of life in an orphanage before we get to bring her home. While she is at a very good orphanage, it is still not as good as one-on-one attention from mom and dad. I keep trying to tell myself that all this will work out in God's time, but I've been telling myself that for two years now. I'm ready for "God's time" to be right now! Most of families that we know of who got referrals around the same time we did have found out that their cases have been submitted to court, so I hope ours is soon!

In case you are wondering why it takes so long for a case to get submitted, it is because there are a number of documents that they court needs regarding the child's history. The court just recently started asking for all this information.

We are also hoping to get an update on Baby M. Our agency has been sending updates out to the waiting parents around the first of each month. Well, May is almost half over and we haven't heard anything yet. I do know that May 1st is Labor Day in Ethiopia, so people were probably off of work for a few days. Hopefully we will get some information soon. We made arrangements to have a family that is leaving for Ethiopia on Tuesday take some photos of Baby M for us. Their child is at the same orphanage, and we are really thankful that they volunteered to do that for us.

Safe Families

2011-05-06T15:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while because we have been super busy. On Good Friday, we had some bad tornadoes strike the St. Louis area. We were at home, and I saw the sky turn green and went down to our basement to wait it out. Here is a video from CNN about the damage at our airport:

There was a lot of damage done to several residential areas, although it was not as devastating as what happened in Tuscaloosa. James and I are part of Safe Families for Children. This is a voluntary program for families in crisis, and we just signed up to be a "Safe Family" a few weeks ago. Basically what happens is you get a call from a social worker who has been working with a family who needs help. Maybe mom is about to have surgery, and she doesn't have anyone to care for his child. Maybe mom is about to be incarcerated and needs someone to care for her children for an extended period of time. Maybe the family is on the verge of homelessness and they need to get their kids in a home where they will be fed and cared for. The child comes to stay with you, the "safe family" until their situation at home improves. The day after Easter, I got a call from a social worker wanting to know if we could take two young brothers for one week. Their family had lost their electricity due to the tornadoes and they lost all their food. They were out of food stamps and it was going to take about a week before they could get anymore. We said yes. And then the adventure began.

We had a super busy week making sure no one was biting, hitting, marking on the wall, traumatizing the dogs, eating food out of the garbage, drinking dirty bath water, eating their toothpaste, punching the TV, fighting, jumping on the bed, playing with the neighbor's mailbox, on and on. Whew. The walls in stairway need to be repainted thanks to little hot wheels and dinosaurs running all over them. We gave these boys Cheetos once, and we made them eat them in the kitchen at the table. Well, I have found Cheetos crumbs all over my house. By the front door, on the stairway, in the living room. Resolve will get smashed in Play Dough out of your carpets, by the way. The mini blinds in the nursery were a casualty of the week. The little fella, who was two, was quite proud of his handiwork. He came and got me and showed me what he had done to our blinds. I need to find something that is toddler-proof to replace them.

Thanks to everyone who provided clothes, toys, diapers, and other items for the boys. You helped meet a very practical need for us and for their family.

Redeeming moment of the week: James and I had been praying together with the boys before dinner. It was a bit of a battle getting them to do it, and it seemed like it was kinda a new concept for them. I was not so good about doing it if James' wasn't home. Which is bad of me, I know, but I was a little scared to take my eyes off these little firecrackers. The last day they were with us, in the middle of lunch - the little fella spontaneously bowed his head, closed his eyes, clasped his hands and began to jabber a little prayer for his family. I heard him name all of his family members. It was precious. Then the older one asked me if I would pray with them both, so I did.

Lesson of the week: Dogs are way cleaner and more obedient than children :-)

What's ailing Daisy?

2011-04-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

About this time last year we found out that one of Daisy's liver enzymes was too high. We had x-rays done to rule out cancer, and we started her on injections for arthritis. She has arthritis, because of an old injury to her hip that happened before she came to us. Our vet postulated that the inflammation from the arthritis was causing the spike in her liver enzyme. Daisy didn't much like taking the injections, and they didn't seem help. We had her liver enzyme level checked a couple of months after starting the injections, and it had climbed even higher. I stopped giving her the injections at that time, and we decided to get a second opinion from a vet in my husband's hometown. All our vet knew to do was to keep ordering expensive tests. After getting a second opinion, we decided to just wait and see if she developed any clinical signs of illness. She has not acted sick through any of this. She's nearly ten years old, and she has not slowed down much. She's still a very active dog.

I took her in for her annual check-up a few weeks ago and had her liver enzymes checked again. Both of her liver enzymes were high this time, not just one of them. This means that there is something going on her little body that is causing liver cells to die. We've had several tests done, and I took her to see an internal medicine veterinarian. So far we have determined that Daisy does not have any of the following:
bone cancer (ruled out via x-ray)
lung cancer (ruled out via x-ray)
Cushing's disease (ruled out via low dose dexamethasone suppression test)
liver cancer (ruled out via ultrasound)
gallstones (ruled out via ultrasound)
hyperparathyriodism (ruled out via blood test)
hypo- and hyperthyroidism (ruled out via blood test)

The internal med vet called last night, and she has given us the option to have a liver biopsy done. It's not cheap - none of this has been cheap - and I really don't want to put a dog with no clinical symptoms through that. The vet said that her best guess is that Daisy is having a problem with her bile draining too slowly. We're going to try a medication and see if that helps. I'll take her back to have her liver enzymes rechecked in 6 weeks. Sounds like a simple enough plan, but it is just awful trying to get Daisy to take medication. She has nearly driven me to tears trying to get a pill down her mouth. She has to take glucosamine and fish oil. I spent $50 on chewable peanut flavored glucosamine tablets, and she doesn't like them. We have to grind them up with a mortar and pestal and them mix it with a little bit of Alpo. The new medication is going to come from a compounding pharmacy. It will be in liquid form, and they are going to make it "beef" flavored.

Book Review: Experiencing Grief

2011-04-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

Our grief counselor recommended that we read this little book called Experiencing Grief. It is available at Amazon for under $4. This book is a general book on grief. It is not just for widows or for parents who have lost a child. Anyone who is wrestling with grief could gain help from this book. That's one thing that I liked about the book. The author writes about the emotions and fears that you may experience while grieving, and he gives practical suggestions for dealing with those feelings.

Here are a few quotes that I found helpful:

"Just remember, you don't need to be fixed."
This winter was hard. Really hard. After losing Baby D, I cried at church every.single.Sunday. from early November to mid-January. James wanted to have "me" back. He's an engineer. He fixes problems. He's used to looking at a problem, coming up with a solution, and fixing it. He couldn't "fix" me. And that frustrated him. It frustrated me too. There just wasn't an easy solution.

"The scriptures are not a medicine cabinet, filled with prescriptions to take the edge off life. They are about a God who, during his most painful experience on earth, refused the wine mixed with myrrh that was offered him."
I had turned to the scriptures wanting to find solace. I couldn't find it. I'd come across a verse like Deut. 4:31 "For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath." My heart would sting. God's mercy was elusive. I felt like we had been obedient in following the call the adopt, and I felt like we'd been abandoned. When I stopped approaching the scriptures like they were they medicine, I began to enjoy reading them again.

"Grief disrupts your mind and thinking ability. Confusion moves in and memory takes a vacation."
After the loss of Baby #2, I became incredibly forgetful. I didn't know what was wrong with me. One Saturday following our loss, I told James that I could not remember what we had done the night before. We had gone out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants and then we walked around outside for a little while, taking in some unusually warm February weather. We had a good night, but in that moment I couldn't recall any of that from my memory. My forgetfulness concerned me, and I was rather relieved to learn that it is a normal part of the grieving process.

Begone Unbelief

2011-04-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

Even with the wonderful news we have received about Baby M, I still find my heart heavy, and doubting God. This is a song I find myself listening to a lot these days.

This is an old hymn that was orginally penned by John Newton, who also wrote our beloved "Amazing Grace." Indelible Grace has redone the song, and I've found myself listening to this quite a bit lately. Here are the words:

1. Begone unbelief, My Savior is near,
And for my relief Will surely appear:
By faith let me wrestle, with God in the storm
And help me my Savior, the faith to adorn
And help me my Savior, the faith to adorn

2. Though dark be my way, Since he is my guide,
'Tis mine to obey, and His to provide;
Though cisterns be broken, And creatures all fail,
The word he has spoken will surely prevail.
The word he has spoken will surely prevail.

Chorus
Begone unbelief, The Savior is here (3x)
Though cisterns be broken And creatures all fail
The word he has spoken will surely prevail
The word he has spoken will surely prevail

3. Why should I complain, Of want or distress
Temptation or pain? He told me no less
The heirs of salvation, I know from his word
Through much tribulation Must follow their Lord
Through much tribulation Must follow their Lord
Chorus

4. Since all that I meet will work for my good,
The bitter is sweet, The medicine food;
Though painful at present, will cease before long,
And then, O! how glorious, The conqueror's song!
And then, O! how glorious, The conqueror's song!
Chorus

Happy Birthday Lily

2011-04-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

Our Lily turned 6 years old today. We got her from a breeder in Northeast Arkansas just after I graduated from pharmacy school. No, she was not a graduation present. We had been waiting for her. We had been on a waiting list with the breeder, and I will always remember getting the email telling us that she was ours. She is a spunky little dog. At least she is when she's around people she knows. She's rather shy around strangers. Unless you have a beer in your hand. Then she will be your buddy. Ha! I'm not kidding. She's torn up her fair share of shoes. She got a hold of a pair of James' shoes one day several years ago, and she made such a mess that James waited to clean it up until after I got home from work. He didn't think I'd believe the awfulness of the mess that she had made unless I had seen it with my own eyes. He was right. There were pieces of the shoe strewn all over the living room. Lily is the snuggliest dog I've ever had. She will sleep by my feet all night long.

We give the doggies cupcakes on their birthdays. No, gasp, we are not the most fastidious pet parents ever. This will probably mean that we will indeed give our kids an occasional chicken McNugget. Gasp again. I know. We might as well let them eat wood and glue. (Can you sense my sarcasm?)

Daisy got a cupcake too. She ate the cake part first, and then she tried to eat the icing all at once. That didn't work so well.

We love you, Lily!

Referral Call #3

2011-04-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has been praying for us lately! I know there are people who have prayed for us that we will not meet this side of heaven. Knowing that our brothers and sisters in Christ, some that we don't even know, have been lifting us up before our Father has been such a blessing. We are finally ready to share some news that is an answer to prayer!

Monday, March 14th 2011 was an unusual day. I woke up to snow. James was still home because the roads were a mess from the snow. He usually leaves really early in the morning before I'm awake. I had to go to the doctor's office at 9 am to get some lab work done, nothing serious. Just routine stuff. Since the roads were bad, James drove me to the doctor's office. We were scheduled to meet our social worker for lunch at 11:30, and the weather did not prevent us from doing that. James and I meet her and her boss at a little Italian restaurant in St. Louis' Italian district. We talked about our plans and asked about a hundred questions about domestic adoption. We left a little after 1:00 and I drove James to work. I had a little shopping that I wanted to do, so I went to Bed Bath and Beyond. After I was finished in the store, I went back to my car and I checked my phone to see if I had missed any calls. Sure enough, I had a voice mail from our social worker. She had a referral for us to consider, but it was for a child who was outside of our age parameters (1-3 years old).

A word about our age parameters: We had recently told our agency not to hold those as a hard and fast guide. We told them if there was a child who they felt we'd be a good match for, but was slightly outside of our parameters, to let us know.

I called James to see what he thought and we called our social worker. We were on the phone with her for about 15 minutes listening to her tell us what she knew about this little girl. We needed to decide if we wanted her to send us the referral documents or not. We decided to think about it for an hour and agreed to call each other at 4 pm. I went on to Micheal's and picked up some supplies to make a wreath for Easter. I called James back at 4:00, and we decided that we should call our social worker back and let her know that we did indeed want the referral information emailed to us.

We both have smart phones, so we could have opened the email and seen her pictures right away. I wanted to wait. After what we've been through I wanted to clear my head and pray before we got too involved with this little girl. I went to the mall and did a little shopping for James while I waited to go pick him up from work. I picked him up at 5:45, and then we had a counseling appointment. It was about 7:30 before we got home. We finally opened the email together and saw her pictures for the first time.

She is just beautiful. I'm going to refer to her here as "Baby M." She is 8 months old, and she is doing really well. She can hold her head up, she is getting close to being able to sit up by herself. She can hold her toys and play peek-a-boo. She can stand with support. She can roll over and she is affectionate with caregivers. Our social worker sent us an update today with 12 pictures in it. This is the first update that we have ever received that had good news! We even got a few pictures of the orphanage that she is staying in. We are praying that we can travel before the courts close for the rainy season in August. Our anniversary is in June, and we'd love to spend our anniversary in Africa this year.

These were taken a couple of days later after we signed the acceptance papers.

We are thankful that God has placed this little girl in our lives, and we are relieved that she is healthy. I will admit that it is hard for me to feel super excited about where we are. After what we've been through, I know that there are still a lot of things that could go wrong. This baby may or may not ever be our daughter. So, we pray. We pray for Baby M and her birthmother. We pray that Baby M will be home with us soon. We pray for God to continue to heal our hearts so that we can once again say, with no reservation, that He is good, He does have a wonderful plan for us, and that He loves us with a love bigger than we comprehend.

Book Review: Choosing to See

2011-04-04T19:11:00.000-07:00

James suggested that we pick up a copy of Choosing to See by Mary Beth Chapman. Mary Beth is the wife of singer Stephen Curtis Chapman. They suffered the loss of one of their adopted daughters, Maria, in 2008. This book was somewhat helpful, but it was not what I thought it would be.

I thought that the bulk of the book would be about Maria' death and their grieving process. That was not the case. Only the later half of the book talks about that. The first half is about their family. How Mary Beth and Stephen Curtis met. Their marriage and the launch of his musical career. The birth of their three biological children. The adoptions of their three Chinese daughters.

Sometimes this book made me jealous. It was not easy for me to read about how fast and simple their adoptions from China had been, three times over. China! I've heard of it taking as long as four years to adopt a child from China, but things moved much faster when they were in the process. Things made me jealous that I never would have expected. They had Maria for a few years. We didn't ever even get to hold our girls, much less less watch them grow and play. They were with Maria when she died, and they had the sacred, albeit heartbreaking, experience of ushering her into the arms of Jesus. We will never know for sure what happened to our girls. I don't even know who was with either of them when they breathed their last.

Mary Beth includes some of her journaling that she did after Maria's death. This was probably the most helpful part of the book to me. Here's one thing that I found encouraging:

"We need to understand down to the depths of our souls that whether He is quietly behind a storm cloud or blazing obviously in the bright blue sky right on our faces, Jesus, the Son, is always-not sometimes-present. No matter what circumstance."

She quotes C.S. Lewis several times throughout the book, and that made me pick up my copy of "The Problem of Pain." I should have reached for that book weeks before I did.

Be careful in recommending "Choosing to See" to someone who has suffered loss. This book is not for a grieving widow, and I don't think that it would be that helpful for a couple who has experienced a miscarriage. I think that a mom who's had a miscarriage would have some of the same feelings of jealously that I had while reading this book.

Easter Decorations and The Mustard Seed

2011-04-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

I put our Easter decorations out this week. This is my favorite time of year. I love the rebirth of nature that spring brings. I made a new wreath for our front door. I got the supplies at Micheal's for under $15. Here's what I used: two ostrich feathers, 1 small bag of decorative eggs, 2 bunches of silk purple flowers.

Here's what I placed on our kitchen table:

See the colored eggs above? Those are real, hollowed out eggs that James' grandmother gave us about 8 years ago. She gave us a dozen of them, and I still have them all. They have survived two out-of-state moves. The rest of them are in this basket on our dining room table:

You might have noticed that I have some unusual little bunnies. I love these! They are from The Mustard Seed in Brandon, Mississippi - just outside of Jackson. My sister-in-law introduced me to the organization. It is an Christian organization that ministers to mentally challenged adults. They have a gift shop where they sell pottery that has been painted by the people they serve. The vase in our entryway is also from The Mustard Seed.

I think these are the perfect thing to put out at Easter. These bunnies are not perfect, and neither are any of us. Their form looks right, but most would say that they are not painted with the right colors. Real bunnies don't have green polka-dots. Just as man bears the image of God, but we aren't as we should be because sin has stained us. They remind me that we are all fallen image bearers of God, in need of a Savior.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Experimenting with a new flash

2011-03-22T20:08:00.000-07:00

I saved some money that I had been given for Christmas, my birthday, and money that I been paid back in the winter for getting called into work for 5 different "emergencies." I decided to use it to buy a new flash for my camera. I've had a DSLR for about 4 years, but I had never gotten a flash to use with it. I have a Canon Rebel and I got a Canon Speedlite 580 EX II flash from Amazon. It was $50 cheaper there than at our local camera shop. It came in the mail today, and I took some photos of our dogs this evening. I have always had trouble taking good pics of our bigger dog indoors. Her photos taken indoor would almost always have "pet eye". No more of that with the new flash. Here are some of my favorite pics from this afternoon:

Lily is intentionally out of focus. I like this picture.

I found that bouncing the flash off the ceiling worked best. If I aimed it at the dog, the photo was too bright. Since the flash is not bouncing right into their eyes, they don't mind having their pictures taken as much either. I wish I had gotten one of these a long time ago!

Processing our grief

2011-03-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

We met with a grief counselor last week, and she gave us a few suggestions to help us get some closure on the death of our two girls. One thing she suggested was to think of something that we could do in lieu of a funeral. Something where we could say good-bye to them and "bury" them so to speak. I want to share what we decided to do as a little memorial service. Maybe this will help someone else who has either miscarried or been through the same thing we have been through.

I had started a scrapbook back in the summer to document our adoption. I had spent hours on it. Once we got our first referral for Baby D, I put her photos in it and information about her. After we got our second referral, I removed the photos of Baby in order to use the book for Baby #2. As we talked about what we should do for a memorial, James suggested we burn the scrapbook. I had a few other photos of the girls that I had not put in it, and we decided to burn those as well. We decided on a place to scatter the ashes.

This afternoon, we burned the photos and the whole scrapbook in our chimenea on our patio. We placed the photos in the fire one by one and watched until the fire went out. We listened to "Jesus Loves Me" and we prayed together. Once the ashes had cooled, we put them in a little box and drove to the place we had decided upon to scatter them. There was a small body of water there, James scattered the ashes over the water, and we stood there for a moment watching them dissipate.

That was it. Simple, just the two of us. We never would have done that without the counselor's suggestion. We both found it to be healing.

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

Bathroom Remodeling

2011-03-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

We have a small half-bath in our basement, and we are doing some remodeling in there. We are replacing the flooring, vanity, fixtures, mirror and repainting. Basically the only things that stay are the wastebasket and toilet. Here are some before pictures:

You can see spackling on the wall in this photo, above the sink. That is because there used to be a medicine cabinet there, and whoever installed it decided that it would be a wonderful idea to glue it to the wall. Ugh. What is wrong with just using screws? The glue damaged the sheetrock, so I had to spackle over the damage.

The floor had seen better days. This is was vinyl flooring, and the upper layer of it had started to wear off.

We had a really difficult time removing the vanity because it was also glued to the wall. Again, the glue damaged the sheetrock. I understand needing to use caulk or silicone around a sink, but this much glue?? I have been unable to remove all of the glue from the wall. If anyone has any advice about how to remove it, I'll take it! I've been trying to scrap it off with a putty knife, which has not worked that well.

A close up of the damage:

A shot of the room once we got everything removed:

Homemade Granola

2011-03-17T12:39:00.000-07:00

This is a really easy recipe for granola. It tastes much better that what we had been buying at the grocery store, and it is considerably cheaper.

Ingredients:
6 cups rolled oats
1 & 1/2 cup shredded sweet coconut
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 & 1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine the oats, nuts, coconut, and brown sugar. In a separate bowl, combine maple syrup, oil, and salt. Combine both mixtures and pour onto 2 sheet pans. Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes to achieve an even color. Remove from oven and transfer into a large bowl. Store in airtight container.

My advice for waiting families

2011-03-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

After how difficult our adoption journey has been so far, I felt like I should share a few things that I wish we had known when we began waiting for a referral. This is just my two cents, so take it for what it's worth. Maybe this will help someone.

Remember that you are not obligated to say "yes" to a referral. Yes, it is an exciting time, but try your best to separate your emotions from the situation. This may or may not be the child that God has intended for your family. The matching is done by human hands, which God certainly does work through, but humans are not perfect. Take a few days and discuss the child's medical reports with a physician, and pray. Pray that you and your spouse will be in agreement over your decision and that you will have peace about the decision that you make.
Be realistic about what kinds of medical issues you will be open to. Don't accept a child with special needs if you truly feel that you are not going to be able to address those needs. The treatment for some medical conditions can be very costly. Can you afford it? Will it mean that you will have to modify your home? Is the child so sick that they might not live long enough for you to bring them home? These are hard things to wrestle with, but I feel that it is best to be realistic and be prayerful about what God is calling your family to do.
Have a doctor in mind before you get your referral. We consulted an International Pediatrician regarding our first two referrals. No, their services are not cheap, but they are very helpful. You may want to consult a traditional pediatrician first, and then if there are any red flags that you want to talk about with a specialist do so then.
Once you get your referral, remember that the child's medical report is not going to be complete. We don't know what either of our girls weighed at birth or if they were born premature or full term. The International Pediatrician taught us how to consider the "what ifs?" regarding the rest of the story.
If there is something weighing on your mind that you want to talk about with your social worker, do it. That is what they are there for and they want to help you.
Consider how you want to share the good news of a referral with your family and friends. Do you want to tell them right away, the day you get the call? Do you want to wait until you speak with a doctor? Do you want to wait until you have turned in the acceptance papers? Do you want to wait a month or so until you've gotten an update on the child? It just depends on what you are comfortable with.
Remember that just because you have accepted a referral that your adoption is not a "done deal." There are a number of things that could happen that could prevent you from bringing that child home. The child could get sick and die before you even meet them, as has happened to us twice. The birth family has the right to claim custody until they appear in court. I know of someone who had a referral fall through just days before their court date because the birthmother picked the child up from the orphanage. Once you travel for court and meet your child, you might realize that they have a significant special need that you are not going to be able to face.
Hold off on registering for items for the child until you have passed court. After we got our first referral, we began to talk about when we should register for baby things. I wanted to wait until we had passed court to register, but for various reasons we went ahead and registered. I really, really, really wish we had waited. We've had a nursery pretty much ready since October. I had never wanted to have that happen. A crib set up for months with no baby in sight. Having the room ready so early has not really been a good thing for me psychologically. If we had this to do over again, I would definitely not register for baby things until we had passed court and I would stick with gender neutral items. There will be plenty of time to get a baby's room ready in between your court date and embassy date.

I don't mean to scare anyone, I just wanted to share a few things that I wish we had known a year ago. Be happy and enjoy this time of adding a child to your family, but be realistic. Just like there can be all kinds of unknowns with a pregnancy, there can be a lot of unknowns with adoption.

God's Love is Hard

2011-03-09T11:01:00.000-08:00

"We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." C. S. Lewis

I have thought about Romans 8:28 a lot lately. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (NIV) I want to believe that God will work all things out for our good. I do believe that. God will do the best for us, but on the path to "our best" He promises that we will suffer. I also believe that we will not see the full working out of all things until God's redemptive work that He began ages ago is finally complete and all things have been made new. When the lion will lay in peace beside the lamb and the curse will be removed.

Then he showed me the river of living water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the broad street [of the city]. On both sides of the river was the tree of life bearing 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, and there will no longer be any curse. Rev.22:1-2 (NIV)

One book that I have repeatedly turned to when I'm in the midst of one of life's storms is The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis. My copy is well worn. The cover is creased. The margins are written in, page numers are circled, selections of the text are underlined. I am a fan of Lewis, but this is one of his harder books. I remember pulling out a dictionary more than once during one of the times I read it. It has a lot of helpful insights, particularly in the chapters "Divine Omnipotence" and "Divine Goodness." True to form, there is some less than solid theology, especially in the chapters on the fall of man and animal pain. There is a lot of interesting things to think about in those chapters, but it is not solid theology. I have learned a lot from this book, and Lewis' writings have been instrumental in healing my heart a number of times.

In the chapter on Divine Goodness, Lewis compares our sanctification by God to a good man training a puppy:

"Man interferes with the dog and makes it more lovable than it was in mere nature. . .To the puppy the whole proceeding would seem, if it were a theologian, to cast grave doubts on the "goodness" of man." He goes on to say that older, fully trained dog who has been the recipient of much affection due to it's successful training to have no such doubts regarding the goodness of man. "He does not house-train the earwig or give baths to centipedes. We may wish, indeed, that we were of so little account to God that He left us alone to follow our natural impulses - that He would never give over trying to train us into something so unlike our natural selves: but once again, we are asking not for more Love, but for less."

I just wish His love didn't hurt so much right now.

Our current plan

2011-03-08T21:33:00.000-08:00

We've had some tough conversations this week between the two of us and with our agency. I have cried and shook my fist in anger while on the phone with the staff in our National office and our local agency office. We had been told over and over again that they never had a family loose a referral due to the death of the child. On Monday I learned that was not true. A mom reached out to me and told me that they knew what we were going through because the same thing had happened not just to them, but also to another family. Both of these families were working with our agency. I am oh so thankful that this mom contacted me and shared part of her story with me. We were both upset that the staff had been telling us that no other family in their Ethiopia program had a child die before they could bring them home. I didn't know what to think, and I was very upset that this information had been withheld from us for whatever reason. I was able to determine that the staff at the national office had experienced a complete turn over since this other mom had experienced her loss. The information simply got lost in the shuffle.

These past few months have been awfully hard. After we lost our first referral, it took a couple of months before I could make it through a church service or read scripture without crying. After having been told over and over that this hadn't happened to one of their families before, we began to wonder why God seemed to have it out for us. I looked and looked for someone who had been on this wretched road. Someone who could tell me that my sorrow would end, just as theirs had.

Last night, I typed out a long, um. . .transparent (i.e. angry) email for the staff. I labored over my words, and I took out a few things that were probably not appropriate. I sent the email last night before I went to bed, and turned my phone off - knowing that my social worker would probably call me soon after she got to work and had read it. I got a call from her at 8:40 this morning. The staff at HQ wanted to speak with us. I waited a couple of hours to call her back. I needed to calm down and get my thoughts together before I said something hurtful to her. We set up a conference call for noon.

The call was helpful. I made it clear that we needed to know that we were not alone. The staff has been very compassionate and patient with us. They offered their sincere apologies. We are going to continue to work with this agency, and we are going to stay in their Ethiopia program. We have changed our age preferences to 12-36 months. We have no idea how long will have to wait. We are once again back at the top of the waiting list. It took us twelve weeks to get our second referral, and I am praying that we hear much sooner than that this time around. We are greatly encouraged to hear that people are praying for us, just please don't ask if we have any news. If we'd had a two miscarriages this winter would you ask me if I was pregnant again every time you saw me or talked to me on the phone? Didn't think so. Please grant us the same courtesy.

Where do we go from here?

2011-03-04T21:00:00.000-08:00

We had a conference call with our agency on Thursday regarding what happened with baby #2 and what our options are. We have learned that her caregivers did the very best they could for her. Other than that, we were not able to get any other information about what happened to her, but we were given some options and a lot to think about. Here's what we are trying to think through:

1. We could drop out of the Ethiopia program and switch to our agency's domestic adoption program. Since we have had such an unusual experience in the Ethiopia program, our agency is willing to refund part of our international fees. We are thankful for their willingness to do that.

2. We could cut our ties with our agency altogether and not adopt at all through them. They are again willing to refund a portion of the fees that we have paid both on the state level and the national level.

3. We could stay in the Ethiopia program. If we do this, we will change our age preference from 0-2 years to 1-3 years.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has prayed for us. We feel your prayers. Please keep them coming. Pray for us as we try to decide what path we should pursue. Please continue to be respectful of our feelings at this time and do not bombard us with questions or continually ask us if we have heard anything about a third referral. We will keep everyone updated when we are comfortable with the decisions that we have made. Thank you all for the love that you have shown us the past few days. I know people have cried with us, prayed for us, and poured scripture into our ears. We are thankful for the way the body of Christ is carrying us through our heartbreak.

Shell shocked

2011-03-03T03:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at about 4 pm, our social worker called us. She called James' cell phone, but he was outside so I answered it. She told me that her boss was also on the phone with her and that they needed to speak with both of us. I went outside to get James, and they said they had bad news. They offered to come to our house and deliver the news in person, but I knew that it would take them about an hour to get here and I didn't want to wait that long to hear what they had to say. We decided to speak over the phone.

The little girl that we just turned in our acceptance papers for has passed away. She developed flu like symptoms suddenly, and she died in the hospital. Our social worker was shocked. She told that she had no answers as to why this happened and why we had to go through this. She said that this has never happened with one of their families before. Before the first baby we had been matched with died, they had never had a child die in one of their orphanages. Now it's happened to us again. There were other referrals that went out the same days that we got both of ours. Why couldn't God have led the agency staff to place us with a different child? If we had gotten matched with one of the other children that were referred to other their families back in September, we'd be home with a child now.

We are stunned and heartbroken, and we are asking ourselves a lot of questions. If God knew that he was going to take this baby to be with him, why couldn't he have done it two weeks earlier and spared us another loss? Why did he choose to put us and our families through this loss for a second time? Why did God give us a desire to adopt just to put us through this hell? I can say for sure that if we had known we were going to go through this, we would not have wanted to pursue adoption. We've had so much bad news around here lately I hate to even wonder what God has in store for us next. Things haven't been easy in our house for over a year now. This season of sadness began last January, and we are beyond ready for it to end. What's the next thing God's going to take from us? My husband's job? One of our parents? One of our pets? Our home? Is he going to leave one us a widow(er) at the ripe old age of 31?

I believe that one big reason God allows his children to go through hard things is so that we will see the brokenness of this world. He wants our hearts to be hungry for heaven, and we will not feel that hunger if our hearts are captivated by the things of this world. Well, I lost my affections for this world years ago. I have suffered, and I have beheld suffering beyond what seems natural. I know that this world is cursed, stained by the fall, and crying out for God to finish his redemptive work. We get it God. How much more heartbreak are you going to put us through?

We know that many of you are praying for us. Thank you, and please keep them coming. One of our pastors called us last night, and he's getting us set up with a counselor. We are going to have a conference call with the staff at our agency's national office. That is probably going to take place sometime today. While we covet your prayers, please do not bombard us with questions right now. We are encouraged to know that people are rooting for us and that you want to see us bring a child home, but please do not continually ask us if we have heard anything from our agency about a third referral. After we lost our first referral, we were asked that a lot. Sometimes it was helpful to know that others were thinking about us, and sometimes it was a jab at my heart to have to say that we still hadn't heard anything. Just let us know that you are praying for us. If and when we ever have news of another potential child, we will let everyone know.

The Next Step

2011-03-01T13:47:00.000-08:00

We've had lots of people ask us what the next step is for us in the adoption process, so I thought I'd write about it. The next thing that needs to happen is for our case to be submitted to court in Ethiopia. Until the past month or so it usually did not take very long for cases to be submitted to court. The process has slowed down. We found out last week that the list of documents that have to be gathered before a case can be submitted has grown longer. I don't know exactly what all is needed, but I do know that the court needs a birth certificate for the child, a photo of the child's birth family, and a death certificate of anyone in the birth family who has passed away. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. It can take weeks, if not months to acquire these documents. Our agency is now telling families to wait 3 months after accepting a referral to ask if their case has been submitted to court. After your case has been submitted, your court date will be in 6-8 weeks. So, three months from now is the end of May, and then another 8 weeks after that is the end of July.

We are hoping and praying that we can travel for court before the end of July because the rainy season in Ethiopia usually begins in early August. The courts close for approximately 8 weeks during the rainy season, and we are hoping that we can avoid that delay! Our social worker told me today that the earliest we could possibly travel for court is June. Our anniversary is in June, so maybe we will be spending our tenth anniversary in Ethiopia!

When can we expect to have her home? That is hard to say. We are just hoping to have her home by Thanksgiving, but it could be sooner than that. If we don't get to travel for court before the rainy season, it would be October before traveled, and then we'd have to wait another four to eight weeks for her visa before we could bring her home. If we do get to travel for court in June, we could have her home by the end of the summer!

Signing the acceptance papers

2011-02-28T15:38:00.000-08:00

We signed the acceptance papers for our daughter-to-be yesterday afternoon. These forms are a little confusing, especially the child's visa application. I had an example to follow. If you need an example form, let me know & I'll email it to you. If you wonder why these documents do not look complete, it is because I photoshopped our personal information out of these pictures. I do have unedited copies saved that we will put in a scrapbook for our little girl.

Her visa application. This is a confusing form, because you fill it out on behalf of the child. There are places where it you have to fill in a spouse's name, schools attended, nationality, employment, and names of children. These are all questions about the child - not yourself.

I printed these cards up to send to a handful of our family members. We included a little information about our girl and two photos of her. I mailed these today at the post office.

We sent these to our parents, grandparents, siblings, and a couple other people. I know there are lots of others who want a photo, but we still have a lot of hurdles to cross and this is not a "done deal." We will be more generous with her photos after we have passed court. Thanks for understanding. Our parents and grandparents will be happy to show her off, so ask them if you live near them.

While I was driving to our social worker's office this morning to drop off the acceptance papers, I got the phone call from the International Pediatrician that I had been waiting on. I had honestly been dreading that call, because our initial consultation with her after our first referral was filled with gut wrenching words like "nutritionally wasted", "malnourished," "HIV," "failure to thrive," and "developmental delays." We went from hopeful to scared over the course of that phone call, and I was afraid she would find something in the report that we had missed this time and I'd be in for another scary phone call. Well, that did not happen! She said that this little girl looks pretty healthy. She feels that this baby might be a little older than eight months and she estimates that she is anywhere from 8-12 months old. We are fine with that, and that is not enough of a variance for us to bother with changing her birthdate. We are so thankful that she is healthy and that the nannies are taking good care of her!

We got a referral!

2011-02-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

It has been over a week since I posted anything, and that is because we have big news that we have been dying to share! Last Friday, Feb. 18, at 2:41 PM I got a call from our social worker. I wasn't sure who it was when I saw the number on my phone. I hoped it was her, but thought "No, it's probably just an appointment reminder." I was at home, and I had just finished uploading pictures that I took at the botanical garden. She told me that she had a referral for us. I tried to add James to the call, but he didn't answer his cell phone. Then I called his work number, which I never do. He picked up, and I told him that I was on the phone with our social worker and that we had a referral. He asked me to call him back on his cell phone, which I did. Both of us listened to our social worker as she began to tell us about a little girl. She is eight months old, and she weighs 21 pounds. Our social worker told us that this little girl is the chubbiest Ethiopian baby she has ever encountered! I carefully took notes as she told us more of her story. She told us her birthday, which may not be exact because birthdays are not kept up with in Ethiopia. None the less, there is something pretty interesting about the birthdate that we have been given. Do you remember this post that I wrote about dreaming that I was in labor? (You can read it here.) I had that dream on Sunday, May 30th, 2010. Now, that is not the birthdate that we have been given, but it is pretty close! And guess what else. Her name means "Sabbath" and I had that dream on a Sunday. Now, I'm not saying that is divine revelation or anything like that, but I do think that is special.

We got off the phone with our social worker, and James told me that he would be leaving work in about 10 minutes. So, I had about an hour to wait for him so we could see her pictures together for the first time. My mom called soon after I got off the phone with James, and it was really hard not to say anything! I decided to go ahead and get the tripod set up so we could take pictures. The tripod was in my car, and in all the excitement, I managed to lock myself out of the house when I went outside to get it. I managed to find a way back in. James came home, and we opened the email with her photos. She is beautiful! She has dark chocolate brown skin, chubby little legs, chubby little arms, and long eyelashes. We read through her records. She can crawl. She can sit up by herself. She can babble and grasp toys in her hands. She likes to play pee-a-boo with the nannies.

Seeing her pictures for the first time.

Because of what happened with our first referral we decided to wait until we had the chance to speak with a physician before sharing the news. We wanted to have a chance to talk about this little girl's medical records with a doctor before we made our decision. While we are still waiting to hear back from the International Pediatrician, we were able to go over her records yesterday with some friends of ours who are internal medicine physicians. We are very thankful their willingness to do that for us, especially with the busy weekend they've had.

I can't wait until she is chasing these two around the house!

We are incredibly thankful and excited that we have been matched with this little girl. A big thank you to all of you who have prayed for us the past few months. If everything goes smoothly with the adoption and we get to bring this baby home, we will change her name to Samantha Eva. We will keep her Ethiopian name as a second middle name. Please continue to pray for us and for the little girl that will hopefully soon be our daughter.

Cajun Fettuccine

2011-02-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

1 lb.Andouille Sausage*
1 stick of butter (this was a little too much, I will use less next time)
1 pint of half-and-half
1 bunch green onions, chopped (tops, too)
8 cloves garlic, chopped
Creole seasoning to taste
1/2 lb. fettuccine

Cook pasta according to the directions on the package. Drain, then rinse under cool water. Drain again, thoroughly.

Slice the sausage and brown it. Drain the grease and dispose.

Melt the butter in a large pot and saute onions and garlic for 3 minutes. Add the sausage and saute for 2 minutes. Add the half-and-half, then add several big pinches of Creole seasoning, tasting before the next pinch until you think it's right.

Cook for 5 - 10 minutes over medium heat until the sauce thickens. Add the pasta and toss well. Let it sit for 10 minutes or so over very low heat, stirring often. Serve immediately, with French bread and a nice dry white wine.

I got my idea for this recipe at Gumbo Pages. There are a lot of great recipes there.

A word about the Andouille: Pronounced an·dou·ille [an-doo-ee, ahn-dwee] This is hard to find outside of Louisiana, from my experience. The closest thing we've been able to find in the St. Louis area is Johnsonville Cajun Brats. They aren't the same, but they are good in a pinch. We stock up on these sausages when we visit Louisiana.

Valentine's Weekend Recap

2011-02-15T12:33:00.000-08:00

Valentines' Day usually isn't a grand occasion around here, but we had fun celebrating this year. Friday night we got a coupon for a sushi place we'd never been too, and we had dinner there. The name of the restaurant is The Drunken Fish. It is a local place, and it was the best sushi we've had since visiting NYC in 2009.

Saturday night we did a little experimenting in the kitchen, and we came up with a tasty new pasta dish. We had that for dinner with a bottle of wine while we watched "Mama Mia." James was a pretty good sport watching the chick flick. I did catch him playing chess on his iPhone once, but that's ok.

We don't like to go out for dinner on Valentine's Day. We did it a couple of time when we were dating, and the restaurants are all just too busy. I'd rather cook and have a nice dinner at home. Some years we have picked up Chinese take-out and had that on our china at home. James and I cooked dinner together this year.

This is how I originally had the table set.

James came home with flowers! He gave me roses on our first Valentine's day in 1999, and I think this was the first time since then. He gives me other types of flowers from time to time, just not roses. I love that he found a bouquet that had a lavender rose in it. I had lavender roses in my bouquet when we got married. It is a little hard to find them.

Here's what we had for dinner:

Scallops in Vermouth Cream
I originally found that recipe in a cookbook from Southern Living called Easy Weeknight Favorites
Roasted Brussels Sprouts I'm not a big fan of Brussels sprouts, but these are so good!
Carrot Souffle
Multi-grain Rolls (not homemade)

For dessert:

I made the chocolate covered strawberries, and James got the ice cream at Whole Foods. If you've never had it, I know green tea ice cream sounds awful. I tried it once at a Japanese restaurant, and I love it now. The coconut milk gave this a great flavor.

I hope you all had a great day with the one you love!

A prayer for Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T12:37:00.000-08:00

Take some time this Valentine's Day to reflect on your love for our Savior and how you can show His love to others.

O Lover of the loveless,
It is thy will that I should love thee
with heart, soul, mind, and strength,
and my neighbor as myself.

But I am not suffieient for these things.
There is by nature not pure love in my soul;
Every affection in me is turned from thee;
I am bound, a slave to lust,
I cannot love thee, lovely as thou art,
until thou dost set me free.

By grace I am thy freeman and would serve thee,
for I believe thou art my God in Jesus,
and that through him I am redeemed,
and my sins are forgiven.

With this freedom I would always obey thee,
but I cannot walk in liberty,
any more than I could first attain it, of myself.
May thy Spirit draw me nearer to thee and thy ways.

Thou art the end of all means,
for if they lead me not to thee,
I go away empty.

Order all my ways by thy holy Word
and make thy commandments the joy of my heart,
that by them I may have happy converse with thee.
May I grow in the love and manifest it to mankind.

Spirit of Love, make me like the loving Jesus;
give me his benevolent temper,
his benevolent actions,
that I may shine before men to thy glory.

The more thou doest in love in me and by me,
humble me the more;
keep me meek in lowly,
and always ready to give thee honour.

This prayer is from the book Valley of Vision. It is a collection of prayers from the Puritans.

A "Welcome Home" Party

2011-02-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

On Friday, James and I had the chance to witness the homecoming of a little boy that we had been praying for since we met his parents, about a year and a half ago. We met his mom and dad at a training seminar that we were required to go to by our adoption agency. At the time, I really didn't want to go to the training. It was going to last all day, and it was on a Saturday in September '09. We'd been very busy that month, and the training meant another busy weekend. I'm so glad we went to it, because that is where we met our friends, Jack and Dana. They had turned in their application the same day that did, before we even knew each other. Our paper work was sent to Ethiopia on the same day, and we had hoped to travel to pick up our kids together. God had other plans. We rejoice with them as we continue to wait. We are so happy that their Joseph is home with them now.

There was quite a crowd of people gathered at the airport, aunts cousins, grandparents, and friends. Another traveler asked us who was coming home. It was obvious we were anticipating someone - welcome home signs, ballons, gifts, and lots of cameras and kleenex. It is such a miracle when a family is formed, either through birth or adoption. It was hard to believe that the day we had all prayed about for so long was finally here. What an encouragement it was for us to see the fruit of obedience to God's call for this family.

Joseph was pretty laid back most of the time. I'm sure he was a little overwhelmed. A crowd of white folks with flashing cameras, other travelers passing by, and lots of attention. After everyone had said their hellos, Joseph noticed two African American airport employees. He was kinda interested in them. I'm guessing he was intrigued because they looked like him.

I'm glad James and I both had the chance to be there. It gave us some logistical things to think about when it's our turn. We're hoping that our parents can meet us at the St. Louis airport when we come home. It's not an enormous airport like O'hare or Atlanta, but it is much bigger than the airports in their respective towns. It is confusing driving there. It gives me a headache! I just have to resign to the fact that I am going to get lost, I am going to have to drive a circle around the airport before I find the place I'm looking for, and that I am not going to remember how in the heck to get back to my car when my business in the airport is finished. A map would help the average person, but I'm not the average person. It's been over 4 years since James has asked me to read a map for him, that's how good I am with them. I'd like to find away to make the experience less stressful for our parents when they come to meet us. We've tossed a few ideas around, and I hope we come up with a good plan.

Child Sponsorship

2011-02-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

James brought the mail inside on Tuesday. He started to go through it, and he brought an envelope to me. He seemed excited, but I wasn't sure what the reason was. We got a newsletter and a smaller envelope in the mail from Compassion International. In the smaller envelope was a new photo of our sponsored child. We were thrilled to see how much he's grown in the last six months. After looking at his photo for a moment, I started to cry. That morning, I had cleaned out our bedroom closet and taken three very large bags of clothes to Goodwill. Clothes that we had not worn in at least a year or two. Clothes that we will not miss. Clothes that we did not need. In the photo, I noticed that Tariku was wearing an old pair of shoes with no shoelaces. Have you ever tried walking around in a pair of lace-up shoes without shoelaces? It doesn't work too well. The shoes are loose, they rub your feet too much, and they leave blisters. The benefits of our sponsorship were evident in the photo. He looks healthier in the new photo. This may sound silly, but I'm praying today that he will have shoelaces.

Americans take so much for granted. It's so easy to get wrapped up in commercialism. We think we "need" the newest smart phone, the biggest TV, the most comfortable car, updated homes. Expand your world, and make a connection with a child that doesn't have a pair of shoelaces and you will see that none of those things are needs. What has my sponsored child taught me? He's taught me to be thankful for my shoelaces.

A book review: They Poured Fire on us from the Sky

2011-02-09T12:35:00.000-08:00

I finished this book, They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky several months ago. It is a book about a heartbreaking time in human history. It is written by two brothers and their cousin. They are all "Lost Boys of Sudan." In the 1990's Sudan was in the throws of a bloody civil war. Families were torn apart. The innocent were slaughtered. Children were orphaned. Girls were raped. Little boys had their lives spared though, but not for a noble reason. Little boys would be trained to be soldiers to fight for the war. Little boys who should have been herding the families' goats and playing games of make-believe were left with the option of trekking across the desert to freedom or learning how to kill a man. Many chose the dangerous trek across the desert, where on the other side they hoped for freedom and reunification with any family members that might have survived. This book is the story of three of those boys who made that journey.

The book is written in English, which was the fourth language of the writers. There are a few places where it is apparent that they are still students of the language, but that simply adds to the poignancy of the book.

The boys write about their homes under attack:
People scattered everywhere. Roofs went up in flames. I left our goats and ran to join my parents, but I couldn't get past the gunman who stood in the middle of our yard. The village was destroyed. . .I watched them kill our cattle, set the millet and sorghum fields on fire, destroy all the things that human life needs to survive.

This is not light, happy, feel good reading. It is worth while. Nothing makes me more thankful for the comforts and freedoms that we enjoy in the States than leaving the country for a short time and learnimg about the injustices that take place in other places. This book will make you want to pray for our politicians instead of criticize them.

The boys write of how they reunited with each other, how they eluded death, how the reached safety, and how they ended up in the US. They do provide some comic relief in parts of the book. They talk about learning how to use a toilet, how to buckle a seat beat, how to eat a salad and so many other things that are everyday occurrences to us. Pray for the people of Sudan, as the effects of this war are still evident.

A Prayer for Faith

2011-02-08T10:08:00.000-08:00

This is a song that we sing at our church. It's been running through my mind the past few days, so I thought I would share the words to it here.

A Prayer for Faith
By: Joe Day
My heart is glad, that you are my Father
Adopted to you, as sons and daughters
And Your love endures, as You said it would
And my heart sings...

Chorus:
Teach me, the sound of Your voice
With the faith to respond, to love you...
Teach me, to follow you close
With the faith you bestow, to love you...

My heart is glad, to serve you as King
Forgive the times, that I am stubborn
With a humble heart, may I come to you
And my heart sings...

(repeat chorus)

My heart is glad, that you are my Father
Adopted to you, as sons and daughters
And Your love endures, as You said it would
And my heart sings...

(repeat chorus)

Lately, I have been praying for God to teach me the sound of his voice and to give me the faith to believe Him.

A book review: One Thousand Gifts

2011-02-01T19:34:00.000-08:00

I have not finished reading One Thousand Gifts yet, but so far I have really enjoyed it. It is about her journey towards living a life of thanksgiving. Giving thanks for the simple things, giving thanks for the life-changing things, giving thanks in the midst of the difficult things. She writes about finding beauty in the mundane and in sorrow. She counts one thousand things that she is thankful for. I stumbled upon this book at a time when I needed it.

I like the author's writing style. It's kind of stream of consciousness at times. Her sentence structure reminds me of William Faulkner, although it is not as difficult to read her writing as it is his. She makes numerous references to the bible, sin, and God's grace. She talks about her own struggle to let go of the pain of loss and to trust God. Here is a quote where she is writing of that struggle that resonated with me:

"No, God, Your plans are a gutted, bleeding mess and I didn't sign up for this and You really thought I'd go for this? No, God, this is ugly and this is a mess and can't You get anything right and just haul all this pain our of here and I'll take it from here, thanks. And God? Thanks for nothing."

I have had those thoughts, and I felt guilty for it. I cried when read that, because I was relieved that I wasn't the only Christian who has felt like that in the midst of loss.

The author proposes that the problem in life is not the lack of time, but rather the lack of thanksgiving. Slow down, take time to take in the beauty of life and see that thanksgiving makes time. She writes that she is thank-full and time-filled.

"Thanksgiving creates abundance; and the miracle of multiplying takes place when I give thanks."

I have benefited from this book, and I will probably buy a few to give as gifts. One thing about it that is a little distracting for me is that she doesn't always refer to her kids by their names. She has six children, and she writes about them quite a bit. She refers to them by names like "Tall-Girl" and "Little-One" etc. I have a hard time following that. She does throw in a name here and there, but I don't know which nick-name goes with the real name. I understand that she might want to keep the names of her children private, but I wish she had just chosen a regular name for each child and used it consistently throughout the book. Not a big deal though. Certainly don't let that little detail keep you from reading this beautiful book.

If we had known then . . .

2011-01-31T19:19:00.000-08:00

If we had know two years ago what we know now, I wonder if we would have made the same decisions regarding adoption that we made. January 2009, we went to the sancity of life service at church. There was a representative from agency's local office there. I picked up a few brouchers, and we began to seriously talk about this thing that had been in our hearst since before we married. We took six months to pray, discuss, decide on a country and an agency. In June 2009 full of hope, we turned in our application our agency.

One thing I can say for sure is that international adoption is not easy. It is terribly hard to wait. Our agency lets the waiting families know each month how things are progressing. There were 8 referrals in December and 9 in January. Seventeen referrals since we had to let go of Baby D, and not a single one of them was within our age/gender/medical preferances???? I feel like we are just spinning our wheels with no end in sight. I know that feeling will pass once we do get matched with another child, but who knows when that is going to happen. We thought we'd have another referral by the New Year. That didn't happen. Then we thought surely we'd have another on by my birthday. That didn't happen. Then we thought we'd have one by the time some friends of our left to get their baby from Ethiopia - hoping that they'd be able to take pictures for us. That didn't happen either. They left today to bring their son home. Right now, I'm just hoping that we pass court in Ethiopia by July because if we don't there will be several things in our dossier that will have to be re-done because they expire then.

This road has been a hard one. Full of difficult things that we never expected. James and I have talked about what we would have done differently if we had known that we'd have to go through what we've been through. Would we use the same agency? We've wondered if we would have choosen to adopt stateside or exercise some other options. There's nothing else we can do for now. Our agency will let families pursue domestic and international adoption at the same time, but that is not free by any means. One thing at a time I guess.

I've wondered why God wanted us to go through this. What is he trying to teach us? What sin is he trying to work out of both of us? I'm beyond ready for this season of sadness to end. Last year was hard - the death of three people we loved, grandparents who were ill, leaving a church, a broken leg. There were blessings in the hard times - lessons learned and love grown, but I was so hoping that this year would be better. This year is already off to a sad start. We buried one of my uncles last week. I don't want to know what is coming next. It has been hard to feel God's kindness and love through all this. I'm doing better than I was a month ago, and I can hope that God will continue to heal my heart in order to trust him better. A few days ago we were reading in Psalms and the following verses struck me:

I call on you, my God, for you will answer me;
   turn your ear to me and hear my prayer.
Show me the wonders of your great love,
   you who save by your right hand
   those who take refuge in you from their foes.
Keep me as the apple of your eye;
   hide me in the shadow of your wings
from the wicked who are out to destroy me,
   from my mortal enemies who surround me.

Ps 17:6-9 NIV

"Show me the wonders of your great love. . .keep me as the apple of your eye. . .hide me in the shadow of your wing." I realized that was David's prayer. Why hadn't I been praying for that? Well, I had never thought to pray for those things. But I am now.

This is one time I hope the weather man is wrong!

2011-01-30T18:20:00.000-08:00

Here we are at the end of January with still no end to winter in sight. The past two winters, by mid-January we had a bit of a reprieve. We were past the bitter cold and most of the snow. We got 10 inches of snow 12 days ago, and it has not all melted yet. Another storm of "historic proportion" is supposedly headed our way.

Here's the word from one of our local news stations, KSDK:
"A Winter Storm Warning is in effect Monday morning through Wednesday morning. Significant ice accumulations (.25" to .5") Monday into Tuesday will be followed by a powerful snowstorm Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon with most areas getting 8" to 12" and some, especially north of St. Louis, 16" or more. Tuesday night through Wednesday morning very strong winds are likely further stressing trees and power lines."

Ugh. James and I spent a little while this evening getting prepared for the worst. If we loose electricity, we will still be able to cook on our gas range. It just has to be manually lit, and we tested it today with no problem. We will still have some heat too, thanks to our gas fireplace - it has to be manually lit no matter what. I went to the grocery store to get my staples for bad weather: canned tuna and peanut butter. And, no I do not eat them together :-) It is going to be so cold that we will just move the food in the fridge out to a cooler in the garage, if need be. James went out to get some other items. We've got plenty of candles, flashlights, and batteries. We should be OK. I'm just ready for winter to be over. I've got an appointment in the city (40 min from home) tomorrow morning, and I really want to be able to make it there.

My Birthday

2011-01-20T11:57:00.000-08:00

James and I had a good day yesterday celebrating my birthday. He brought a bouquet of flowers home for me and we went out for dinner at The Melting Pot.

Opening a gift from James' bother and his wife. It was a little ceramic sign from The Mustard Seed. It is an organization for adults with developmental disabilities. One of the ways they raise money is by the sell of ceramics that have been painted by the adults that they serve. The sign has the last part of Eph. 3:18 written on it. I'm not sure where I want to hang it yet, but I think it would look cute in Samantha's room.

This is my camera bag, and while it is very functional it is not very pretty. The backpack style bag has served me well for hiking in the Grand Canyon and walking the streets of NYC, but I was a little tired of taking it to for formal events like weddings. James got me a new camera bag that was designed by a photographer that we went to college with. You can find her collection at Kelly Moore Bags.

Here's the bag with the camera, three lenses, memory card case, and battery charger in it. There are exterior pockets for keys, a wallet and other small necessities.

I also got this pretty handmade scarf from my mom, but I opened that package before James got home so I don't have a photo of me opening it. It matches a hat that she gave me last year.

My birthday cake. James got it at a nearby bakery called French Gourmet Cafe. Carrot cake is one of my favorites.

January Snow

2011-01-11T15:15:00.000-08:00

We had snow on Christmas, but we were not here to see it. It started snowing last night. I took the day off, and stayed inside for most of the day. I think the snow is beautiful, but my body doesn't adjust well to these cold temps. Growing up in the south, I never thought I would ever come to think of 30 F as "warm." Well, 30 degrees is warm to me now. In fact, I make myself get outside with the dogs and walk them along our walking trail whenever it is above 30 F in the winter. I cannot stand to be outside long at all when the temperature is below 20, and that's what it has been today. I wanted to take a few pictures of our doggies playing in the snow, so I bundled up and went outside. I put on long socks that went up to my knees, two pairs of pants, two shirts, a hat, a jacket, and hiking boots. Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

backyard

front yard

I want to go inside!

We are going to mail the photos of the two of us and one with both of the dogs in it to our Compassion child in Ethiopia. It never snows in Ethiopia. There is not even a word for snow in their national language. So, I think he will enjoy these pictures.

Meramec Caverns

2011-01-08T08:21:00.000-08:00

James and I both had Friday off, so we decided to visit Meramec Caverns. It is about an hour's drive from where we live. The temperature inside the cave is 58 degrees year round, so it was a nice outing where we didn't have to be outdoors in the cold weather for very long. It snowed here off and on all day yesterday.

They were not very busy while we were there. There were only three other people in our tour group. We had a nice tour guide, and I noticed early on that he had an accent. An accent that I love to hear during the cold winter when I'm missing Baton Rouge. I whispered to James that he sounded Cajun. After the tour was over I asked the guide where he was from. I was right. He was from Lafayette, LA. We told him that we used to live in Louisiana, and chatted for a moment. Two of the other people in our group overheard us, and they told us that they were also from Louisiana. What a small world!

We enjoyed the tour. The cave was very interesting. We picked up a few postcards to send to our sponsored child in Ethiopia.

Wine Glass Charms

2011-01-07T12:02:00.000-08:00

I did a little crafting over the holidays. Whenever we have a party, we always have the problem of "whose glass is whose." I had been looking looking for some kind of charms to use for a while, but I wanted something that appealed to our interests. I finally decided to make some for James to give to him for Christmas. James is an electrical engineer, and he likes math. So that was the theme I chose - engineering and numbers. Now, if you know me, you know that I have far more business with a paintbrush in my hand that I do a math book. So, I was kinda kicking myself for getting James to take all of his textbooks to work. I have taken physics, but I don't remember that the symbols for a diode and resistor are. I did a little searching on the internet and found what I wanted though, thanks largely to Wikipedia.

Supplies
1/16 inch hole punch
jump rings
wire hoops
glass beads
needle nosed pliers
acid free paper
acid free glue stick
laminator
5 mil laminating pouches
1 inch scalloped circular hole punch
3/4 inch circular hole punch
scissors

I got all the supplies at Michael's, except for the laminator and laminating pouches. We already had those. If you don't have a laminator, you could take the charms to an Office Depot and have them laminated there. They don't change much for that service. The other items can be found with the jewelry making or scrapbooking supplies.

James was so funny when he unwrapped these. He didn't know what they were, and he said, "You got me earrings!?!" James has never had a pierced ear, and I can't envision him ever having one - although it wouldn't bother me.

I told him to guess again. Then he saw what they were. He has encouraged me to sell these on etsy. We'll see.

Sewing to meet a Need

2011-01-06T12:05:00.000-08:00

This might be a post with a little "TMI" for the guys out there, unless you work in the medical field, so feel free to stop reading now. I've started a new sewing project. Andrea at Babe of my Heart inspired me to do this. GO read her post, if you have time. It will tug at your heartstrings! Until my trip to Haiti last year, it never crossed my mind what women in less than fortunate circumstances did when they got their period each month. Lets face it, feminine hygiene products are something that no one here enjoys shopping for. I've see more than one woman who has been embarrassed to buy those items. I saw women in Haiti who were in such need of those items that they were willing to steal them. I've heard of women using old mops and newspaper when they did not have access to pads or tampons. I can't imagine having no other choice than newspaper. It tugs at my heart as a pharmacist. . .newspaper is far from sanitary & it puts the women at a high risk for infection. So, I decided to do a little something to help. I'm making reusable pads that can be washed reused. We are going to donate them when we got to Ethiopia. I'd love to have some of you join me in this project too! The pattern and instructions that I used can be found at Ask Pauline. Refer to her website if you need more detailed instructions that what I gave. Her pattern is also available for no charge. I made one last night, and I hope to make some more this weekend. This is pretty easy. I'm not much of a seamstress, so if I can make these I think most anyone who knows how to operate a sewing machine can make these.

Here's what I used:

100% cotton batting (Don't use polyester because it is not as absorbent.)
1 yard of flannel
1 yard of Rip-Stop water-resistant fabric
1 old towel
sew-on snaps

I bought the supplies at Hancock's. I spent about $35, and the batting was the most expensive item. I got one package of crib-size batting and it was about $15.

Cut out the batting, towel piece, and the top and bottom. The top will be from the flannel and the bottom will be from the Rip-Stop.

towel

flannel

Rip-Stop

Layer together the flannel, batting and towel. Sew a zig-zag stitch down the middle.

Sew a zig-zag stitch around the outer edge of the towel and batting.

Pin the Rip-Stop to the side with the flannel.

Place the pad on the sewing machine with the towel side up. Sew a straight stitch around the majority of the edge - wings too. You need to leave about a one inch opening so you can turn the pad right-side-out.

Turn the pad right-side out and sew a straight stitch all the way around it outside of it. You can close up the opening by doing this, if you care careful.

Sew on the snaps.

This is the backside.

It snaps closed into a handy little pouch.

Potato and Corn Chowder

2011-01-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to add a few more meatless recipes to our regular rotation. Vegetables are cheaper than meat, and we just don't eat enough of them anyway. I made this yesterday for a friend who had a baby on Christmas Eve. She's a vegetarian, and I hope she liked this. I saved a little of it for us, and we enjoyed it.

Prep time: 35-40 minutes

Ingredients
4 Russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
3 stalks of celery
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
1/2 stick of butter
30 oz niblet corn (drained)
2 (14 3/4 oz) cans cream of mushroom soup
2 cups 2% milk
8 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese (cubed)
1 tsp. Zatarain's liquid Crab Boil
1 tsp. Tabasco
1/2 tsp. seasoned salt
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Melt butter in large stock pot, add the green onions and celery and simmer until done. In another pot, boil the potatoes until tender and drain.

Once the green onions are cooked, add the rest of the ingredients. Stir constantly until everything is well blended and the cream cheese is melted.

Remember Y2K?

2011-01-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that all the hysteria over the new millennium was over a decade ago. There was much talk of computer systems failing, the electrical grid going down and panic from the general public. People stocked up on water and canned goods. It went off without a hitch. It is interesting what the fear of the unknown will drive us to do.

Much has changed for me since 2000.
2001- James graduated for college. We got married and moved to Little Rock - where we had an apartment fire and had to move again.

2002- We got our first dog, Daisy. I was rather unfamiliar with boarder collies before we got her, but I think we're hooked. She's been so much fun and she's so smart. She obeys and follows instructions better than some people I have encountered! Ha! I also started my first job in pharmacy that year.

2003- We went on a missions trip to Broken Arrow Bible Ranch in New Mexico. Broken Arrow provides Christian teaching to the Navajo people in the area. We went with a big group from our church, and we had a great week.

2004- We visited St. Louis for our anniversary, totally unaware that we'd soon call that city home.

2005- This was a year for the history books, a year we will never forget. Not all the memories are sad. We got our Sheltie, Lily. I graduated from pharmacy school, and we went on our first cruise afterward. James started grad school at LSU. We moved to Baton Rouge and bought our first home 6 weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit. We had lost power at our house, and I'll never forget sitting in our living room listening to the radio and hearing the news that the levees had been breached. My heart sank & my mind went straight to James' cousin and his wife who had been living near Lake Pontchartrain. People had talked for years about New Orleans' vulnerability to a strong storm. . .I knew when the levees were breached that this was that strong storm that would bring the city to her knees.

We go to see these Mayan ruins on our cruise. We climbed to the top of the pyramid.

The Louisiana State capital building

2006- I got laid off and changed jobs. We volunteered with the relief efforts in New Orleans.

2007- We took a trip to the Grand Canyon in April. We began talking about what life after grad school would look like.

2008- James decided not to pursue a PhD, and he left LSU with a master's degree. In March, we both applied for jobs in St. Louis. I quit my job at Walgreens six weeks later. We sold our house in April and we bought a home outside of St. Louis in May. My grandfather passed away that summer.

2009- We began the process of adoption. We visited New York City in September.

2010- We watched the Saints win the Super Bowl. I began to cry a little when the trophy was presented. It was so good to see the city celebrate again. I went to Haiti after the earthquake. We went to Yellowstone in June, and that trip included an unplanned hospital stay in Montana. We lost out first referral for a child.

This was taken our first day in the park. The accident with the horse happened the next day.

We've been through good times and sad times and God's been with us through it all. He promises that hard times will come. I think it is comforting in a way that He does promise that we will suffer. It makes me remember that He is in control and He is our refuge. He knows what each day of our lives will hold. Happy New Year, and may you fall more deeply in love with our Savior, Jesus this year.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-28T19:34:00.000-08:00

Christmas this year did not happen the way we thought it would. Just a couple of months ago, we thought we'd be spending Christmas in Ethiopia, meeting our daughter for the first time. I have to say that it was hard for me to feel like celebrating. After all the time we had put into this adoption, it seemed that we were finally near the finish line. Now the finish line has fallen off the horizon, totally out of view. If we had known two years ago that this path to adoption would lead us to the heartbreak that we have been through, I don't know if I would have wanted to do it. I certainly would not have approached it with the hopeful optimism that I approached it with back then.

I've thought a lot lately about the story in Genesis where Jacob wrestles with God. God tells Jacob that he has struggled both with man and with God and that he (Jacob) has overcome. I feel like I've been doing a lot of wrestling and struggling lately, but I don't feel like I have gotten much resolution. We had the chance to see the Christmas program at the church James grew up in while we were there for Christmas. One of the songs the choir sang was "Take my Life and let it Be."

Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in ceaseless praise,
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my hands, and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love;
Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee,
Swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice, and let me sing
Always, only, for my King;
Take my lips, and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee,
Filled with messages from Thee.

Take my silver and my gold;
Not a mite would I withhold;
Take my intellect, and use
Every power as Thou shalt choose,
Every power as Thou shalt choose.

Take my will, and make it Thine;
It shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart; it is Thine own;
It shall be Thy royal throne,
It shall be Thy royal throne.

Take my love; my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure-store.
Take myself, and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee,
Ever, only, all for Thee.

I will confess, that song brought hot tears of anger to my eyes. While I know that God has a purpose for all things, it has been hard for me not to be angry with Him. We both feel that the call to adopt was from that Lord, and we both would willingly go anywhere on this earth that He sent us to. We both believe that the church is called to be the hands and feet of Christ, and serving as a part of His body is our delightful duty. We poured ourselves into this adoption. We answered the call to adopt. We gave of our time, our money, and our hearts, and all we have to show for it so far is broken hearts. Just because you are willing to be obedient to God, it doesn't mean that your life here on this earth will be full of happy endings. It is certainly painful to wait on the goodness of God.

During the season of Advent this year, I wondered what it was like for Mary to obey God when it very well could have cost her life. Getting pregnant before you were married was quite a scandal in her community. Was she scared? Did she doubt God? I don't know, but we do know how the story ended. She was faithful, Joseph stayed with her and she saw her Son bring redemption.

Have you cursed at the wind
Have you cried to the heavens
Have you fought with this mercy you don't understand?

Closure

2010-12-13T17:36:00.000-08:00

We got some sad news from Ethiopia. Baby D passed away. We do not know when it happened or what her cause of death was. She was dealing with several medical problems, so it could have any of those issues or perhaps something else that we were unaware of. While we are sad about this, we knew that this would be a likely outcome. While we were trying to make the decision as to whether or not we should continue with our adoption of Baby D, we had wondered if she would even live to the end of December - when our court date was. We do not know for sure if our agency will continue to work with the orphanage where Baby D was, or if there will be any consequences for any of the staff their that may have played a role in Baby D's demise. We are confident that our agency did what they could to advocate for Baby D, but since the staff at the orphanage were not their employees, our agency could not control what may or may not have happened there. We are so thankful to have closure in this situation.

This has been a difficult road. At times we felt so helpless, knowing that there was little that we could do for Baby D so far away. . .except pray. I have been through a myriad of emotions - anger, sadness, impatience. We had been praying since September, when we got our referral for Baby D, for God to be the father to the fatherless and the Great Physician that His word says He is. At first, I was angry with Him. Because He didn't heal her in the way we wanted her to be healed. It was through death that He chose to heal her. May she be found safe in the arms of Christ. Thank you so much to all of you who have prayed for us during this difficult time.

Peppermint Bark

2010-12-13T13:31:00.000-08:00

After the success with the thumbprint cookies, I decided to try a new recipe. I love a recipe for candy that doesn't require the use of a candy thermometer! This is a recipe that I found at Owlhaven that I modified slightly.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
    * 2 cups mints
    * 28 ounces of vanilla bark (AKA almond bark)

Melt the vanilla bark in a double boiler, or in a metal bowl over a pot containing a few inches of boiling water. While bark is melting, put peppermints into a ziplock, then put that bag into another ziplock. Pound mints with a meat mallet until most of the mints are broken. Pour broken mints into a colander that you’ve set over a bowl.   Let the powdered candy sift down through the colander into the bowl.

When vanilla bark is melted, mix candy dust and half of the larger mint pieces into the bark. Set aside the rest of the pieces. Put wax paper on one cookie sheet, and butter the wax paper. Pour the melted bark/candy combination onto the cookie sheet.

Spread with a rubber spatula so that the bottom of the cookie sheet is fairly evenly covered. Don’t spread it too thin–the melted bark should be around 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep, though obviously the chunks of candy will prevent you from making it super even.

Pretty candy! Once it is spread fairly well, sprinkle the remaining candy over the top of the bark, pressing candy gently into the surface of the soft bark. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes, until bark has cooled and hardened. Break into chunks and enjoy!

I recommend storing the candy in the fridge when it is not being served.

Nursery in progress

2010-12-12T12:12:00.000-08:00

Despite being back on the waiting list for a child, we have continued to work on the nursery. I really didn't want to be in this place, with a room full of furniture and no child to go with it yet. I was ready to get my house back in order though. We had bought some of the furniture this summer. It had been downstairs in pieces in the dinning room and office. James put it together a few weeks ago before Thanksgiving.

Finally put together!

James' aunt gave us this pretty daybed. We have set it up in the nursery too. I still need to get a dust ruffle for it. It is a trundle bed.

James' paternal grandmother gave us this little quilt. It has letters and little teddy bears on it. I think it matches the bedding nicely.

Cookie Success

2010-12-11T11:52:00.000-08:00

I can cook. I can even bake. Except for cookies. Last December, I hosted a cookie exchange at my house. Four of my friends came, and I served them a lovely lunch of Shrimp Bisque and coffee punch that was just as good as anything you can get at Starbucks - if I do say so myself. But, I had no homemade cookies to offer them. The only cookies I knew how to make were sugar cookies - and that's just because my mother-in-law gave me a lesson on how to make them. I've helped my mom make Snicker-doodles, but I had never tried to make them on my own. Well, one of the other girls wanted to make sugar cookies. I didn't complain. I thought, "Surely, I can make something else." I decided to try to make gingerbread cookies. What.A.Mess. The dough turned out to be super sticky and I came out with only one good cookie. The girls were coming over in one hour. I had flour all over myself. I still needed a shower - and five dozen cookies. There is a bakery up the street from our house. I ran up there, flour and all, and asked them for five dozen cookies. They had to scramble, but they got them together. I told the baker about my unfortunate incident with the gingerbread cookies, and he was kind enough to give me his recipe. . .a year later I still haven't gotten up the nerve to attempt it though.

I had to give cookies another try. . .I mean, what kind of mom can't make cookies? I found this recipe at the Food Network, and I made it last week.

Butter and Jam Thumbprints (From Food Network Kitchens)

Prep Time: 20 min.      Inactive Prep Time: 30 min
Cook Time: 18 min

Serves: about 24 to 30 cookies

Ingredients:

    * 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
    * 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
    * 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
    * 3/4 cup unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened
    * 2/3 cup sugar, plus more for rolling
    * 1 large egg
    * 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
    * 1/3 cup raspberry, cherry or strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.

In another bowl, whip the butter and the sugar with a hand-held mixer until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla until just combined. Slowly beat in the dry ingredients in 2 additions, mixing just until incorporated.

Scoop the dough into 1-inch balls with a cookie or ice cream scoop and roll in sugar. Place about 2-inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Press a thumbprint into the center of each ball, about 1/2-inch deep. Fill each indentation with about 3/4 teaspoon jam.

Bake cookies until the edges are golden, about 15 minutes. (For even color, rotate the pans from top to bottom about halfway through baking.) Cool cookies on the baking sheets. Serve.

Store cookies in a tightly sealed container for up to 5 days.

They came out great!

What to do about Santa?

2010-12-10T18:51:00.000-08:00

James and I have talked about what we are going to tell our kids about Santa a number of times. We're in agreement, we just don't know how the best way to handle our plan will be. See, we are fed up with how consumeristic Christmas is. We don't want to turn our kids into little consumeristic monsters, any more than they will inevitable become since they will be Americans. We want Christmas to be about the Christ child. The God-Man. Deity mingling with fallen man to do a job that should have been ours, but we were inadequate for the task.

We both believed in Santa as young children, but I had the whole thing figured out by the time I was in kindergarten. I have a few memories of writing letters to Santa and wondering if I would catch him in our living room on Christmas Eve, but not many. We aren't at all upset over our experiences, but the whole thing about telling your kids lies about Santa, the Easter bunny, and the Tooth Fairy just doesn't sit right with me. It seems to be a way to manipulate your child into behaving properly. Attributes that belong only to God get handed to Santa. . ."he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake. He knows when you've been bad or good . . ." Santa is not God, God is not Santa, and only God is omniscient. If you lie to your kids about Santa, the Easter bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, what else are you going to lie to them about? We want our kids to trust us to provide them with honest answers to our questions. We are going to tell them the history and folklore behind the story of Saint Nicholas and they can have their photo taken with Santa if they want to, but that's about it. There will no gifts from "Santa" under our tree. No cookies for Santa left out on Christmas Eve - the dog would eat them anyway! Instead of those cookies, we're going to have a birthday cake for Jesus.

Before you start leaving me nasty comments, I'm not trying to criticize anyone for how they have chosen to celebrate Christmas with their children. This is just how we are thinking about doing things.

Since this will hopefully be our last Christmas with no kids in the house, we decided to try something new this year. You know, give it a "dry run" before we had a kid in the mix. I made these little advent boxes.

This is just a few of them. There is one for every day of advent. Advent is the four Sundays before Christmas, so this year the first day of Advent was November 28th. Inside each box is something to read. Some days it is the words to an old Christmas hymn that I was unfamiliar with. Other days it is scripture. I also included some of John Piper's Advent poems. These poems can be found at Desiring God. We have been opening the box for the day at dinnertime, and reading what was inside. It has been good for us, and it has opened up conversation. I hope this will become a yearly tradition at our house. I got the supplies for the boxes at Michael's. Everything except for the ribbon came from the bridal department. The boxes are little metal tins that they sell for wedding favors.

Here is a good article about how to address the "Santa issue": What we tell our Kids about Santa

Roasted Chicken

2010-11-22T17:46:00.000-08:00

I made this for dinner (or supper, for the southerners out there) today, and I thought I'd better document it before I forgot the recipe.

1 whole chicken (4-5 lbs)
1 bundle of celery
4 carrots
1 onion
7 cloves of garlic
1 lemon
lemon juice (fresh or bottled)
Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning
salt
pepper
garlic powder

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

I don't have a roasting pan, so I used a 9 x 13 pan. Place 4 or 5 whole celery stalks in the pan. Cut three of the carrots in large pieces and place in between the celery stalks. Cut 1/2 of the onion into large pieces, and scatter that on top of the celery and carrots. Place chicken on top of vegetables. Pour enough lemon juice into the pan to cover the vegetables. Cut lemon into 8 pieces. Squeeze a little lemon juice on the chicken.

Slice the remaining carrot. Chop the rest of the onion. Place this inside the chicken along with 3 cloves of garlic. Loosen the skin on the chicken, and place the other 4 cloves of garlic in various areas under the skin. Sprinkle a generous amount of Tony's, pepper, garlic powder and salt on the outside of the chicken.

Do not cover. Place in the oven for 90 minutes. Remove, cover with foil and let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before trying to serve it. This came out really well. It was far more tender than my previous attempts at roasted chicken.

I made cranberry sauce to serve with this. Yummy! I would have used some fresh rosemary in this, but we were out. It took me about 30 minutes to get the chicken prepped and into the oven.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-21T14:22:00.000-08:00

This year has been a difficult one for James and me. In January, we made the gut wrenching decision to start looking for another church. Two of our dear sisters in Christ went home to heaven this year, one in late winter and the other in October. These women had known James since he was a child, and I had known them for over a decade. I learned so much from both of them. I went to Haiti in April. While that was a good trip, it was emotionally exhausting. Then there was the BP oil spill, and our hearts were saddened for our beloved Louisiana as we watched her coastline succomb to the disaster. I broke my leg while vacationing at Yellowstone in June, and I had to have surgery in Montana. The fourteen hour drive back home with a broken leg was not pleasant. James' grandfather has been ill. We thought we had found our daughter, only to have her slip away from us.

We're thankful for God's steadfastness through all of the saddeness this year. It hasn't always felt like He was with us, but we knew He was. He lead us to a new church. We know that the women we had to say goodbye to are healed of the suffering they had faced in this life. God will make all things new. There will be a day when there are no earthquakes. No cholera outbreaks. No environmental disasters. No illness. My leg has healed, and things have pretty much gotten back to normal for me. He will lead us to our daughter one day.

I'm also thankful for what God has done this year in my marriage. James and I are closer than we've ever been. God shows us a lot about himself through marriage. Husbands are called to serve and love their wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. I've seen James step up when I was down for the count. He drove all the way home from Denver in one day, because I couldn't drive. He took off work to take me to doctor's appointments and physical therapy. He took over the household responsibilities this summer while I was recouperating. He did all the cooking, all the grocery shopping, and all the cleaning. I've marveled at his ability to do the hard stuff like that. He's not sick much, and I've never had to help him recover from a serious injury. The few times that he has been under the weather for more than a day or two, I don't handle things well. I feel a heavy pressure that all the work lies upon me and I don't have anyone to help. I get overwhelmed. If he's ever felt like that, he's not shown it at all. Watching him love me and serve me when things were not easy has taught me about God's steadfastness. If this dear redeemed sinner that I'm married to is able to love me through thick and thin, oh how much more God loves us with a perfect, sinless, holy, unending love.

The ups and downs of waiting to adopt

2010-11-18T15:53:00.000-08:00

When we first started seriously looking into adoption nearly two years ago, we had no idea what we were in for. This has been an emotional roller coaster. We've learned a lot, and we've made new friends along the way, but it has not been easy. Here are some tips for anyone who is thinking about adopting:

1. The whole process is very invasive. Forget about your privacy. You have to disclose your financial records in fine detail. How much do you owe on your home? On your cars? How much do you make each year? How much money do your spend each month? What is the current balance on your credit card? Do you pay it off each month? How much is invested in your retirement accounts? How much is in your savings account? You have to provide copies of your tax returns for the last three years and letters from your employeer stating your job description and salary. . .like the IRS is not evidence enough that you can afford to pay your bills.

You also have to disclose your medical history. Previous surgeries? Do you have any medical conditions? What medications do you regularly take? How much do you weigh? How tall are you? Has anyone in your family had heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholestrol, glaucoma, COPD, cancer, etc?

I know there are very good reasons that you have to provide all that information. The agencies do not want to place a child in a home where there will not be enough money to feed them or where there will not be a healthly parent to raise them. It just seems excessive though. It also feels like you are being judged thoughout all of this too. Not wealthy enough? Not the picture of perfect health? Next please. . .at least that's what it feels like.

2. Adoption will never ever go as fast as you would like. There will be delays. You will wait for state and federal agencies to do things like background checks before you can move forward. We waited over a month for my home state to turn in our background checks. That should not have taken no more than two weeks. You will stalk the postman, wondering if he last lost your oh-so-much-needed letter from US immigration. I cried when ours finally came. It was the last thing that we needed before our dossier could be sent to Ethiopia. Things will not go like you had dreamed. You will have days when you are checking your email every 15 minutes because you are desperate to hear something from your social worker. Once you get matched with a child, you still have a lot of waiting to go through. The waiting is even worse after you have a face and a story. You will loose sleep over things that you have no control over.

3. No one cares more about your adoption more than you do. You are not the first thing that your social worker thinks about when she gets up each morning. Your adoption is not the cause of lost sleep for your agency's staff. Yes, they care about their jobs. They care about the families that they help create. However, their lives are not invested in this process like your life is. If your paperwork gets put aside, and kind of forgetten about, it won't cause them the distress that it will cause you. This happened to us. We sent our dossier off to our agency's home office in January. It sat there for a month untouched because the person who handled them was in Ethiopia. It got sent to Ethiopia a month later than it should have. If you have questions that need answering, pick up the phone and call your social worker. They squeakey wheel gets the grease.

4. Use the time that you have while you are waiting for a child to join your family to boost your relationship with your spouse. James and I don't have kids yet, and as much as we want kids, we realize that these days of just the two of us are numbered. This year has been one of our best, despite everything we have been through. This has been a really terrible year in a lot of ways, but our relationship is better. Our pastor gave a wonderful series of sermons on marriage this summer, and it gave us a lot to talk about. You can find the series here. It is entitled "You and Yours."

5. News travels slowly, very slowly from Africa. It has taken us at least a week to get our questions for the Ethiopia staff answered. Usually more like two weeks. Maybe other agencies are able to provide a faster turn around, but it has been slow for us.

We've been through a lot lately. (Read my last post if you don't know what I'm talking about.) I'm at a point now where I cannot see the finish line and I wonder if all that we have invested in adopting is worth it. All the hours of filling out paperwork. All the money. All the prayers. I hope that I will be able to say that it was worth it all one day. But that day is not on the horizion yet.

Walking through our loss

2010-11-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

The past three weeks have been terribly difficult for James and me. In early September, we received a referral for a six month old girl in Ethiopia. I'm going to refer to her here as baby D. We accepted the referral, knowing that she needed some special care, namely that she needed good nutrition and medication to recover from an infection. We waited for 7 and a half long weeks before we got any more news about how she was doing. News finally came on 10/27, and it was not good. Her condition had deteriorated. We consulted with our pediatrician the next day, and then sent a list of questions regarding baby D's health to our social worker. Then we waited for more news. We booked our tickets for our court trip during this time. Another update came on 11/5. The news was even worse this time. We had lots of questions, and we were able to get some answers after talking with our social worker and two other representatives from our agency last week. Our next step was another consultation with our pediatrician. It seems that baby D was misdiagnosed. She was given antibiotics, but it was the wrong medication for the wrong disease. She became very sick, and even if she does recover she will likely have long term needs that we are not ready for. There is much more to this story, but I'm not willing to share all of the details publicly. Our agency is not to blame for baby D's worsening condition. They have done what they can to advocate for this child, and they have had some success in the past week or so in getting her what she is in need of. They have even tried to get her admitted to a hospital, but she has been turned away from four different hospitals. This is a highly unusual situation. Ethiopian orphanages typically provide very good care for the children. It is very rare for a child to get sicker while in an orphanage - our pediatrician even confirmed that.

We were left with a terrible decision to make. Do we continue with baby D or not?

Last Sunday we went to church with heavy hearts. I wanted to find where God was in all of this. When we got matched with this little girl in September, we knew that she needed care. So, we have been praying that God would be the Father to the fatherless and her Great Physician. I felt like those prayers had fallen on deaf ears. Where was He? The songs that our worship pastor led us in last Sunday were songs about God's sovereignty and His vast love. We both found it difficult to sing those songs. We prayed with two of our pastors after the service. I had to let James talk. All I could do was stand there and cry for most of the time.

We've realized that baby D was God's child before she was any one else's. If He is ready to have her home with Him, than so be it. The arms of Christ are far better than our arms. After a whole lot of praying and discussion, we have decided not to continue our adoption of this child. We have taken this decision very seriously, and we are in full agreement with each other in this decision. We pray that she will recover, but if we doesn't we hope that she sees just how many people loved her in a country across the sea from her birthplace. This has been so hard.

What's next for us? Well, we are back at the top of the waiting list. We hope to get matched with another child by the end of the year. We are still going to use the same name that we had chosen. Baby D is not our Samantha. We are so thankful for the many people who have prayed us through these difficult days.

A somber trip to the botanical garden

2010-11-11T11:53:00.000-08:00

James and I have been faced with some very difficult things lately. I will write a little next week about what is going on, but I'm not ready to say much about here yet. I'm thankful that if we had to go through this, it came at a time when our marriage is stronger than ever. We've been able to comfort each other. We are thankful for the support we have gotten from the body of Christ, believers who we have been able to cry with, pray with, and express our heartbreak too.

Since I had to work Saturday and Sunday, I have today and tomorrow off. Last night I decided that I was going to take my camera to the botanical garden and shoot for a few hours. That is therapeutic for me. I asked James if he wanted to join me, and he was able to. He works near the garden, and he was able to leave work for a little while.

We've been to the garden several times, but this was the first time for us to go in the Fall. We missed the peak of the season, but it was still pretty.

A sycamore tree. I love their white bark. I wonder if we could keep one of these alive in our backyard?

I was standing underneath a large Ginko tree when I tool this. I had no idea these trees could get this large. I had always thought of Ginkos as small ornamental trees.

The orchids in the greenhouse were stunning. I had never seen them with such magnificent blooms before.

We spent awhile in the rose garden. Our previous visits to the botanical garden had been in the middle of summer. I think it gets too hot here in the summer for roses to bloom well. They seemed quite happy today though with the cooler temperatures.

We looked around the gift shop for a little while before we left. We bought a few postcards to send to our compassion child. I need to get those in the mail to him soon. He chastised us a little in his last letter for not writing to him as much as he would like. We try to write to him at least once a month, but mail travels slowly from here to Africa.

Christmas can still save lives

2010-11-03T20:25:00.000-07:00

About this time every year, I start to feel the stress of the holiday season begin to make it's ugly head. When I was a kid, Christmas was fun. It meant time off from school, baking with Grandma, dressing up as an angel for the church Christmas program, and presents. Now, I'm lucky if I get one day off work and get a couple of semi-homemade pies made. We don't live near either of our families, so it always means traveling.

The beauty of Christmas is found in the mundane. A couple of years ago - it was our first Christmas in St. Louis - we had gone to see the Rockettes' Christmas show at the Fox theater in downtown St. Louis. The show ended with a lovely live nativity. After the show was over, we walked outside. It was cold that night, and we were both wearing our heavy coats. We heard carolers. They were from a local church. When they saw that we knew the Christmas hymn that they were singing, they invited us to join them. We kindly declined - knowing that I wouldn't last ten minutes outside in that cold weather. It was still a perfect night.

My point is that Christmas doesn't have to be super busy or expensive in order for it to be meaningful and memorable. I am sick of the consumeristic nature of the holiday in the US. Shopping, traffic, crowded malls, dancing mechanical Santas, on and on. I'm ready to make this holiday more meaningful for us. This year, if you get a Christmas gift from us it will have most likely benefited someone else. Some of the Christmas gifts that I've already purchased were bought at a fundraiser for a Haitian hospital. Other gifts were adoption fundraisers that friends of ours were selling. We're also asking our families not to spend much on us. Instead, we are asking that people give us items that we can take to the orphanage that Samantha is at. . .things like diapers, underpants, and money for formula. We will deliver those items on Christmas morning as a Christmas gift for all of the children there.

May you have a happy Christmas - and may it be one that honors the Saviour who came to serve others.

Court Date!

2010-10-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

I had promised myself today that I was going to restrain myself from checking my email every 15 minutes, in hopes of getting something from our social worker. I managed to wait until about 10 AM. My heart sank when we still had no news. Then, I got a surprising phone call from her. I was finishing up my lunch at work, and my cell phone rang. I was expecting it to be a carpet installer calling me to set up a date to have our new carpet put down in Samantha's room. I was happy to hear our social worker's voice. I wasn't sure what she was calling about. We had not even heard that our case had been submitted to court, and I didn't think she would call us for that. She would just email us to tell us that. I was shocked when she said we had been assigned a court date. I had been really hoping that we would be able to make our first trip before the end of the year, and God granted us that. Our court date is December 27th. We are going to get to meet our baby girl on Christmas Day! We are still not sure when our case was submitted to court, but our social worker thinks it was around October 8th. We are going to try to arrange a visit with our Compassion child was well, but that will have to be coordinated with Compassion International and the timing might not work out. We will see. We are so thankful that we have received this news! Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us these past few weeks!

Mondays

2010-10-24T19:28:00.001-07:00

A quote from another adoptive mom-to-be:
"In the adoption world, Mondays are like Christmas morning . . . and then Friday is when you realize you've opened your last present and didn't get what you wanted. Its a vicious cycle."

On Mondays I wake up with the hope of hearing some news from our social worker. On Fridays at 5 pm, the work week draws to a close with the disappointment of another week passing without hearing a thing. Another week that our daughter has changed, grown, learned new things, and become more accustomed to the orphanage. Without us.

Reflections on Waiting

2010-10-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

These past few days I have certainly felt the prayers of others. I feel like I have a little more of my sanity back and I'm able to focus on what I'm doing without checking my email every three minutes hoping to find some news from our social worker. Thank you so much to those of you who have been praying for us.

One thing that I thought about this week is that as a parent there are so many times throughout your child's life that you will not be able to be with them, holding their hand, helping them make the tough decisions, protecting them. When you have your kids the old fashioned way, I think those days when you are not able to be there come a little later in your child's life. We are living through those days right now. When you give birth to a new baby, you might make the decision to keep that baby under your own watchful care for months and months before you leave them with a baby sitter for the first time. As the child gets older there is probably more of a sense of trusting in the Lord to watch over them while they are at school or at a friend's house. Well, we are walking through that same kind of trusting right now. We cannot be with Samantha right now. I will not be by her side when she sits in kindergarten for the first time or goes on her first date or when she takes her first spin behind the wheel by herself or when she agrees to be someone's bride, but Someone else will be there with her through all of that. From the moment of her conception, she has been in Better Hands than ours. . .God's hands. He already has her life story written, and He has chosen me and James to walk with her through it. She will be in HIs same hands after she is grown and James and I are no longer living. God gives us children for a season. They are not things to be gotten. They are gifts that He gives us for a time.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well
Ps. 139:7-14 (NIV)

Adoption Update

2010-10-13T18:13:00.000-07:00

I'd rather call this a "downdate" instead of an update because this isn't the happiest news. Not awful. Just disappointing. We had really been hoping to be able to travel to Ethiopia in November for our court date. That is not going to happen. There are families with our agency who got their referrals back in July who just got assigned Dec. 3rd court dates. We are still hoping that we will get to make our first trip to Ethiopia before the end of the year, but we do not know if that will be possible. Our social worker had told us several weeks ago that it was reasonable to expect that our first trip would be in November and our second trip would be in January. With the long lead time that these families were given about when they would need to travel, we are not going to buy tickets beforehand like our social worker had suggested. We should have no trouble getting tickets. It is just so hard not knowing what is going to happen.

I've tried to not be fixated on this. I want to hear something from Ethiopia. We're still waiting to hear that our case has been submitted to court and we are hoping to get an update on Samantha from the orphanage.
We at least know that we will be able to spend Thanksgiving with our family in Louisiana this year. I wouldn't mind spending Christmas in Ethiopia though. :-)

The Waiting. . .is the hardest part

2010-10-10T14:53:00.000-07:00

That song by Tom Petty has been playing in my head the past few days. It has been over a month since we received our referral for Samantha and got to see her face for the first time. I'm really hoping that we hear some kind of news soon. Here's what we have left in the process:

Find out that our case has been submitted to the Ethiopian courts

Court date scheduled (we have no say so in this).

Travel to Ethiopia for court and meet Samantha for the first time

Come back hame and wait some more

Receive invitation to travel for our Embassy date where will be get Samantha's visa and bring her home.

postplacement

Much of my time has been taken up with preparing to make our first trip. We are waiting to get airline tickets until we hear that our case has been submitted to court. We will get our tickets before we know exactly when we need to be there. Sometimes families only get 10 days notice before their court date, and it is very expensive to get tickets for a trip across the world in such a short amount of time. It is cheaper to guess about when you will need to travel and pay the fee to change your tickets.

I have not had too hard of time waiting until lately. Part of the reason is knowing that I might need to go to Africa next month and we don't have tickets yet. I just want to hear something. An update from the orphanage would be great! We are getting our house ready for her. Some friends of ours came over yesterday and helped us move our office furniture downstairs. This was a huge help to us. There is no way James and me could have moved our desk downstairs. Her nursery will be where the office was.

I bought this new luggage at Macy's on Friday. My luggage was given to me when I graduated from high school, and it is tearing up. The zipper on the suitcase is shot, so I was very happy to find these for 50% off.

I'm trying to soak these last few days of having James to myself and the freedom that we have since it is just the two of us. We've had over nine years of this freedom, and I think it will be a hard thing for me to give up. If we want to go to a movie at midnight, we go to a movie at midnight. We certainly want to have Samantha home soon, though.

The things people ask . . .

2010-10-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

I got one of those nosey questions about adoption today. I have a membership at Curves, and today was my first day back after breaking my leg in June. I was wearing a shirt that said "Mercy Justice Compassion." Someone asked about the shirt, and I told her that I bought it from one of the worship pastors at our church. He was selling the shirts to raise money for their own Ethiopian adoption. This lady was unaware of our pending adoption. She said that she didn't understand why people go overseas to adopt when "there are so many kids here who need a home." Well, I'd like to know where all these kids are. People who have never darkened the doors of a social worker's office seem to know a lot about all these American children who are available for adoption. And since they know so much about these needy children, why in the world have they not adopted three or four of them themselves?

There are literally MILLIONS of children in around the world who have been orphaned who are available for adoption. Wanna know how many kids there are in foster care in the states that are available for adoption? Less then 200,000. Wanna know something else? Those American kids in foster care will not die of things like malaria, malnourishment, or tuberculosis. Kids in developing countries will.

I would be absolutely shocked if any one who has this mind set of "why not adopt from the US?" has ever set foot into a developing country. They have never seen Mexican children become awestruck over the gift of paper, crayons, and yarn. They have never seen Haitian children playing in the road with practically no clothing on. After you do see those things, how can you not want to do something for those kids?

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Matthew 25: 35-40 (NIV)

Travel Shots

2010-10-04T14:21:00.000-07:00

James and I went to the health department to get some of our vaccinations that we will need to travel to Ethiopia. Some of the vaccines that we needed were available at our doctor's office, so we got what we could there because they were able to bill our insurance for the shots. I called a travel clinic to see what it would cost for us to both get vaccines for yellow fever and a polio booster. Those four shots would have been about $500 there. The prices at the health department were about half that, and we're going to see if we can submit a claim to our insurance ourselves to cover the cost.

It did not take very long. I think we were there for about 30 minutes, maybe less. The health department was clean and the staff was very friendly. It feels good to cross one more thing off our to-do list.

Here's a list of the vaccinations that we have gotten, for other readers who are going to be bringing their babies home from Ethiopia.

hepatitis A and B
typhoid fever
meningitis
yellow fever
polio
James is going to get a tetanus shot too. Mine was up to date. We got prescriptions for an anti-malaria medication too.

Baby things

2010-10-03T17:03:00.000-07:00

We've begun to register for things that we will need for Samantha. I set up a registry at Amazon, which is so easy. I did it on the laptop from the comfort of my couch. I'm hoping to find some time later this week to register for her at Target. While it is fun to be pick out stuff for her, it is overwhelming. There is so much to choose from, and I want to pick out things that really are practical that we will actually use. Since Samantha will probably 10 or 11 months old when we bring her home, I'm trying to pick out things that she will need at that age. I've gotten some really helpful advice from some experienced moms, and I've picked out some of the first things that we will need for her, like a backpack style baby carrier that we will use in the airports bringing her home. It is still a little overwhelming. It is incredible that so many things are "needed" for such as small person. I'm having visions of my house turning into this:

I don't want to see our rather traditional home turn into a labyrinth of big bright chunky plastic baby toys. Of course, I had toys as a child. But I'm sure I only remember a few of the things that I had. I remember my Rainbow Bright and Strawberry Shortcake dolls. I remember a little scooter that I had. One of my favorite "toys" wasn't a toy at all. It was a purple blanket that belonged to my grandmother. I'd get it out when I went to her house and play with it. I've seen kids find amusement out of simple things. I just don't think I'd feel right if our house did become excessively filled with toys. There are so many kids who are in need that have never had a toy.

Sometimes James and I have differing opinions about what looks nice. He's an electrical engineer, and I think he looks at a piece of electronic equipment and sees a piece of art. He understands the intricacies of things like speakers. I just see a black box. He came into the living room a few days ago looking for a free outlet where he could plug in the battery charger for a new cordless vacuum cleaner. I said, "Oh, I think I see an ugly piece of electronic equipment." He laughed and asked me where he could plug it in. I suggested the garage or the storage room in the basement. He put it in the basement. I think that if women hadn't been kept out of working in engineering for so long, that things like speakers and battery chargers would look more like a piece of art instead of a chunky black box.

So here's what I can't figure out. Why are so many baby toys so ugly? Why haven't women infiltrated Fisher Price and started making toys that are still fun for kids, but are also nicer for the adults to look at?

What makes you cheer?

2010-09-26T19:25:00.000-07:00

Ever since this spring, I have felt my interest in professional and college sports wane. I think my trip to Haiti had a lot to do with it. After visiting with people who were living off of $2 a day, and seeing how content they were with their worldly possessions, I began to think more about what is important in life. If you are a Christian, the gospel of Christ should be the most important thing in your life. SO many days it doesn't feel like that is what is driving me - but I want to feel that way.

We live in the best baseball city on the planet. I love going to the games, even if I'm not a Cardinals fan. Well, I used to love going to the games. . .now I find myself trying to find a cheaper date night alternative for me and James. I used to watch entire games on TV, but I haven't watched a whole game all season long. I used to get disappointed in the fall if we couldn't go to a Razorbacks game. . .now I'd rather not spend the money.

I still keep up with the teams that I'm interested in, but I don't follow them closely. I know you can use sporting events as a time to fellowship and there are ways to minister through them. That was never our practice though. While I do like to see the Saints win, you will never, ever hear me saying "I bleed black and gold." I will never, ever wear a T-shirt that says "The Razorbacks (or any other sports team) are Everything." What would happen if Christians got as passionate about Christ as they did SEC football? What would happen if Christians could recite Scripture from memory just as easily as they recite sports statistics? What would happen if Christians spent as much money supporting missionaries as they do on football?

This post at Babe of my Heart sums up what I'm talking about: What Life is REALLY All About

Crib is Up!

2010-09-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

James was able to put Samantha's crib together today. I helped him a little, but he did most of the work. He did a good job. And with no instructions at that! Since we bought the crib off of Craigslist, instead of buying it new, it did not come with a manual. The doggies were very curious about what James was doing. He explained to them that the crib is where Samantha is going to sleep.

We are planning on leaving the walls blue even though we are going to be bringing home a girl. I've never been much of a girly girl, and I'm just not into pink and frills. We had the room painted right after we bought our house, and I picked this color out with a nursery in mind. We have a framed Dr. Seuss print that we bought at an art gallery in Sedona, Arizona in 2007. I matched the paint to the blue that is in the print. The room will have some feminine touches, just no pink.

The crib fits perfectly in this little nook in the room!

Adoption Fundraising Spotlight

2010-09-24T18:38:00.000-07:00

Do you have a heart for orphans? Maybe you do, but you don't feel the pull on your heart to adopt. Maybe you just aren't at a place in your life where you can parent a child. Maybe your parenting days are behind you. Yet you still feel like there is something you could do to help a child join his or her forever family. Here's an opportunity for you. This family at Our Gifts from God is selling T-shirts to raise money for their adoption. I have ordered two shirts for us. I just love them. They say "Live simply so others can simply live." We have so much here in the States. I am guilty of spending money each month on things that are not necessary, and I have tried to think more about what I buy. Do I really need it? Is this an impulsive purchase. . .am I still going to want this item next week? Is there an eternal benefit to spending my money on such a thing? Live simply and give others a chance at life.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27 (NIV)

Homestudy Update

2010-09-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

We turned in our acceptance papers for Samantha on Friday last week, and we thought we were pretty much finished with all the paperwork. Well, that was not the case. On Monday we got an email from our social worker stating that our homestudy needs to be updated. She included a list of documents that she needed from us. I felt overwhelmed. We were not at home to get started on this, and I had about a dozen questions come to mind. It was not a good time for us to try to call our social worker either, so those questions would linger until the next day.

Would our paperwork get submitted to the Ethiopian courts before we got this paperwork done? We had to do all of this stuff last year, but many of the things that you have to submit for your homestudy expire after one year. (So be mentally prepared for that if you are adopting.) It did not go quickly and smoothly the first time around either. There were several things that we had to wait over a month for last year. Was it going to take as long this time?? One thing that we have to re-do is a statement of proof of insurance for an adopted child. Someone at the HR department where James works has to fill this out, and it took over a month last year. I told James that I thought he should go find the responsible party (he works in the same building) and sit in a chair right beside her desk until she gets in done! I think she'd tired of that situation fast.

We did find out on Tuesday that our paper will be submitted to court before we get this done, which was a big relief. We've made quite a bit of progress this week. I picked up a copy of our dogs' vaccination records yesterday - yes, the agency needed that. We got re-fingerprinted yesterday for our new background checks. It didn't occur to me to take photos the first time we got fingerprinted, so I asked James to take a few pictures this time. I got three of the vaccinations that I needed to travel to Ethiopia today at my doctor's office. I've got an appointment at the health department in a couple of weeks to get the other two that I need. James was able to complete the financial worksheets today. Our social worker is coming over to our house on Friday to do another walk through. The house was pristine the first time she came over. It is not going to be so tidy on Friday. We are still in the process of moving the office downstairs and setting the nursery up. We will be spending much of today cleaning though.

Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole

2010-09-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

This recipe was published in Southern Living 3 or 4 years ago, and it has become my "go to" recipe when I'm cooking for a friend that has a new baby. It makes a LOT of food. I take two 8 x 8 casseroles to the family I'm cooking for and there is still enough for me and James to have for dinner two nights.

Ingredients:
6 lbs. chicken (I used a large package of breast and a large package of thighs & legs)
2 stalks of celery
1 onion quartered
2 (6 oz) packages long grain and wild rice mix (Like Uncle Ben's brand)
1/2 c and 1/4 butter, divided
16 oz fresh sliced mushrooms
1 bunch of green onions, chopped (about 1 cup)
8 oz sour cream
1 (10 & 3/4 oz) can cream of mushroom soup
1 sleeve round buttery crackers, crushed (like Ritz)
6 oz French fried onions, crushed
1/4 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. garlic powder

Boil chicken with celery and the quartered onion. Add some salt and pepper to the water as well. If the chicken has bone, remove them after the chicken has cooked. Reserve your chicken broth and chop or shred cooked chicken.

Cook rice according to package directions substituting 4 1/4 cups chicken broth for water and omitting the butter. (Add water to broth to equal 4 1/2 cups, if necessary.)

Heat 1/2 cup butter in a large stock pot over medium heat. Add mushrooms and green onions. Saute 10 minutes or until tender. Stir in rice, chicken, sour cream, and cream of mushroom soup. Spoon mixture into a 4 quart casserole dish.

stir together crushed crackers, fried onions, paprika, garlic powder, and 1/4 cup melted butter. Sprinkle this mixture evenly over the casserole. (If you want to freeze this to use later, STOP here. Cover the casserole securely with foil and freeze it.)

Bake, covered at 350 degrees F for 20-30 minutes. Uncover and bake 5-10 minutes more or until bubbly.

We said yes!

2010-09-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

We had two weeks after receiving our referral for Samantha last week to turn in our acceptance papers. James hand delivered them to our social worker's office this afternoon. We took pictures while we signed the papers. These will go in Samantha' scrapbook. (I have blurred out info in the photos that I couldn't post online.)

The only reason we did not turn these in sooner was that we had asked an international pediatrician to review Samantha's medical records. We learned about this physician through our agency. She spoke at a training seminar that we were required to attend. She called us back last night. We had thought about most of the things that she mentioned to us, and she alleviated some of our concerns. We are praying that Samantha will grow and become stronger while we are waiting to bring her home.

If you are adopting internationally and are looking for a pediatrician who specializes in treating international adoptees, you can find a list of doctors here. The doctor that we are working with will work with families that do not live in the area. We emailed her Samantha's medical records and she called us, so all that can be done without traveling to her office.

Books for Adoptees

2010-09-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

When I got home on Friday afternoon there was a package from UPS on our front porch. It was three books that I had ordered for Samantha. How fun it was that they came in the day we got to see her pictures for the first time! One book was a children's bible but the other two were written with adopted children in mind.

A Mother for Choco if about a little bird who can't find a mother who looks like him, but he find a mother that doesn't look anything like him and they become a family. It is a sweet book, and I hope it will help Samantha as she tries to come to terms with the fact that James and I do not look like her.

I guess this second book, Lifebooks is really more for me than it is for her. The author is a woman who was adopted at a young age and who works in social work. She has also adopted a child through the foster care system. Adoption is such a different process than giving birth. Instead of ultrasounds and doctor's visits and pictures of mommy with a baby belly there are fingerprinting appointments and meetings with your social worker and lots of training. I hard a hard time finding a baby book that was written for an adopted child that had room for everything that I wanted to include for Samantha. So I bought a scrapbook when I caught them on sale at Michael's and I began saving and collecting information for it. I got this book to help me as I began to write Samantha's story. It has a lot of good suggestions for pages and topics and it has example pages written in simple language for young child. I'm going to finally start working on Samantha's scrapbook tomorrow.

We got a referral!

2010-09-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the day we had waited almost six months for! I got "the call" from our social worker at 9:41 AM. I had just arrived at the clinic for my physical therapy appointment. I wasn't sure if it was our social worker, but I was hoping it was. I had a dream that night that we had gotten the "the call." It was certainly her with the news we had been waiting for. I got a pen and a journal out of my purse. The journal was the one that I usually take to church with me, and I had intentionally left it in my purse just for this reason. I tried to add James to the call. He did not pick up. We had agreed that if I got the call and he could not come to the phone that I was to go ahead and take the information from our social worker. So I began to take down the information. James did call back while I was on the phone, but I could not think straight enough to figure out how to merge his call in. I took down the rest of the information, and I managed to keep it together until I got off the phone. I called James back. As soon as I heard his voice the tears began to flow. He wasn't sure if I was calling with good news or bad! I composed myself enough to talk and gave him the information I had written down. We made plans for me to meet him at his office after I got finished with therapy. After I got there we would open the email from our social worker see her pictures for the first time together.

It was tempting to go ahead an open the email on my phone, but I waited. My therapist is a brother in the Lord and I told him our good news. He rejoiced with me. I got finished with my appointment and went home to get our cameras.

We called my parents while I was on the way to James' office. They were thrilled! We called James' mom, but she was not at home. We got in touch with both of his parents later. His mom was at a funeral home with a friend of hers who had lost her mother. We were able to reach her there.

One of James' coworkers, shot a little video and took some pictures for us.

We are smitten. She is six months old. Their are so many details about her short life so far that confirm to us that God has hand picked her for our family. We cannot post pictures online until she is home with us, so I have blurred them out for now. We are not allowed to shared much information about her online either at this point. After calling a few more of our family members, we went out for lunch at this Mexican Restaurant. The weather yesterday was just perfect and we ate outside. I called a sweet friend of ours who is also adopting from Ethiopia. They received their referral last month. She is a physician and I gave her some of Samantha's information so she could plot out growth charts for us.

After lunch, I came back home and made more phone calls and shared the news with some of our neighbors. We made some copies of her pictures and I showed one of them to the doggies. I hope they become good companions for Samantha.

I hung one picture on the fridge. We don't have frames yet.

We are still on cloud nine. We are amazed at the number of people that God has put in our lives who already love her and are awaiting her homecoming.

Nursery Furniture

2010-08-31T13:10:00.000-07:00

We are beginning to set up Samantha's nursery. About a month ago I got a Pottery Barn Kid's catalog in the mail. I found a few things in there I wanted to buy for the nursery, particularly a changing table that has storage towers on both sides. However, I can hardly stomach paying full price for Pottery Barn furniture. So I started looking on Craigslist. I found someone who was selling the very same thing that I had seen in the catalog. They also had a crib and some nightstands, and the price was right. We made an appointment for the next day to see it, and we took cash with us. We got the crib, changing table, and two night stands for less than what the changing table would have been if we had bought it new! Here's a couple pictures of what we got. (These are Pottery Barn's stock photo's - our stuff is still sitting downstairs unassembled.)

I have posted these next two photos on Facebook already, so you may have already seen them. I got two lamps from JCPenny website (not available in stores) and I got the bedding on sale at Pottery Barn.

In this picture is a set of towels and washcloths with "One Fish Two Fish" on them, a Cat in the Hat pillow, a fitted crib sheet, and a set of twin size sheets. We are going to put a twin size bed in her room so one of us can sleep in there if we need to. After sleeping in a noisy orphanage some kids have a tough time getting used to sleeping in a quiet room by themselves.

Do you like Coffee? Then please order some of this!

2010-08-29T19:48:00.000-07:00

I tried Ethiopian coffee for the first time several months ago, and I love it! It is not bitter, and it is so smooth. So here's a chance to try some really good coffee and help an orphan come home to his forever family. Some friends of ours are selling Ethiopian coffee to help raise money to cover some of their adoption expenses. They go to our church, and Stephen is one of the worship leaders. I was thrilled when I found out that they were adopting from Ethiopia too. Our little girl will have an Ethiopian playmate at church! So please help them bring their son home. Here's their website: Coffee and Adoption

Do you think you are rich?

2010-08-26T16:39:00.000-07:00

This is something that has been on my mind since I got back from Haiti. It has been said that you don't know poverty until you see Haiti. I agree. I took a lot of pictures while I was there, but there were some things that I saw that I just couldn't bring myself to photograph. It felt inhumane. One of those things was a little child playing in the road with nothing but a small t-shirt on. No shoes. No pants. Not even underwear.

On our trip home, my group and I spent one night in Fort Lauderdale before we made it back to St. Louis. It was hard to adjust. What a difference from Haiti to home. That night we went to Old Navy and we ate dinner at TGIFriday's. I felt overwhelmed and guilty about the luxuries that we have as Americans. I mean, the airport in Florida was fancier than the hospital in Haiti.

I had seen poverty before in Mexico when I was a college student. But I was a broke student then. My worldly possessions fit into a small dorm room. I didn't even have my own car. Now I have a husband, a house, two cars, two dogs, and a good job. The average Haitian lives off less than $2 a day. What we spend on cable TV could feed a Haitian family for at least a month. I have certainly thought more carefully about what I spend my money on, but we still have cable for now.

My point is if you were born in America, you are wealthy in comparison to much of the rest of the world. Yes, you may lives in an older house or have a run down car, but I can bet you are not living on dirt floors with no shoes. . .like people in Haiti. There is a price that we pay for the lifestyles we have here in the states. It seems that the more we have, the more we want. A bigger house, a pool, a new car, a bigger TV, another pair of shoes. On and on. After visiting a developing country, I think that the less you have, the easier it is to be content and thankful for the things that you do have.

One very easy way you can help people in developing countries is through child sponsorship. You don't even have to leave your house. You set up an account online. You can have the money automatically drafted from your checking account or credit card each month. Then all you need to do is write to your child from time to time. As you probably know, we recently signed up to sponsor a young boy in Ethiopia through Compassion International. We got our first letter from him a few days ago. He told us that his favorite holiday is Christmas and that he has a cow. He said he wants to be a doctor when he grows up and he thanked us for sponsoring him. I was touched.

Daisy's 9th Birthday

2010-08-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Daisy's 9th "birthday." We got her from the humane society when she was probably about a year old. We brought her home for the first time on August 18th, 2002. We all got cupcakes to celebrate.

The doggies had strawberry cupcakes. If you are wondering what we usually fed the dogs, they rarely ever get to eat anything besides their dog food.

Lily had her own cupcake too, and she was much neater with her treat than Daisy was with hers. By the time Daisy had finished her cupcake, there was pink icing smeared on the floor and the fireplace. Lily managed to keep her cupcake on the plate.

Daisy is a great pet. Her life didn't have a glamorous beginning. I was with James' grandmother one day and mentioned something about wanting a dog. She had been volunteering at the humane society in her parish for years, and she said that she had just gotten the sweetest little collie in. I was hesitant because I knew James didn't want a dog, and I thought a collie might be too big to be happy in the apartment that we were living in at the time. Knowing her grandson's affection for dogs better then I did, she talked me into taking him to the shelter to have a look at her. Of course he wanted her after met her, but she needed some veterinary care. She had mange on her face and one of her hips had been broken. There wasn't much that could be done about the hip. It had healed on it's own, and she had a bit of limp. She has arthritis now, but she is still pretty active.

She was mischievous when she was younger. She liked to chew things, especially things that we not hers. She learned how to unzip my backpack and get my phone out. She chewed the buttons off of one of James' shirts - that he had never worn before. After we got Lily, that kind of behavior stopped - she just needed a companion.

1 Corinthians 13

2010-08-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

James and I are slowly reading through Corinthians. Our church is doing a series of sermons this summer that is kind of a survey of the New Testament, so we had the sermon on Corinthians fresh on our minds when we came to chapter 13. That chapter is known by many Christians as "the love chapter" and it is commonly read at weddings. We probably had part of it read at ours. I've been thinking about that chapter in a context other than marriage lately. While Paul does address marriage in the book, it is not his primary topic. The book was a letter that he wrote to a church - a church that needed help - a church that was in need of guidance. So if it was written to a church, what does chapter 13 mean to the church?

Here's part of the chapter:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Christ himself tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Stop thinking about those verses in reference only to your spouse and think about them in light of your neighbor. Just who is your neighbor? Obviously your neighbor is the person who lives near you, but your neighbor is also the homeless man that you walk by and ignore on your way to the baseball game downtown. Your neighbor is the teenage mom who rings you up at the grocery store. Your neighbor is the HIV positive homosexual man you see getting treatment at the "free clinic". Your neighbor is the child in foster care that goes to school with your 3rd grader. Your neighbor is mentally ill woman that you see standing outside of Wal-mart taking to a person who is not there.

How are you being the hands and feet of Christ to those people? How are you showing them love? I am writing to myself. It is hard. I have worked with the public. I have come face to face with the homeless man, the poor HIV positive patient, the teenage mom, and the mentally ill woman who talked to the empty air. These are people who left a lasting imprint on my mind. I still see their faces. I still remember struggling to communicate with the woman whose mind was so shrouded with schizophrenia that she probably wasn't even sure if I was actually standing before her or not. It was not easy. Love is patient. I got exasperated. Love is kind. I had turned my back in disdain at the homeless man. Love never fails. I have looked down at the teenage mom for being irresponsible. Love is not boastful.

The best professional advice I ever got did not come from a fellow pharmacist or a professor. It came from a sister in Christ who had served as a missionary in Africa and had learned how to love her neighbor. I asked how she did it, day after day. She told me that she tried to remembered that we are all God's creatures - all created by his hand. But for the grace of God I could be the homeless man or the HIV positve patient or the child stuck in foster care or the mentally ill man. We are called to protect those who cannot protect themselves and love the unlovely, just as Christ has loved us.