March Update

We have been sick alot the last 3 weeks..... many of us got strep and then some of us "lucky" ones got it again. This week our sweet, baby Ava was throwing up and has diarrhea. She was actually in the hospital for dehydration . Mary Kate and I did not get a whole nite of sleep since Sunday nite because she was sick.... Last nite when we came home she was better and did sleep the nite thru... 4 of us are still on an antibiotic and we are praying that this will be the end of it all. I was sick last nite with the bug Ava had but mine was quicker than hers.... Today I bought 30 new toothbrushes, new toothpaste, vaseline that we share, disinfected any thing I could think of that we share. We even had a visit from Jenn and our "grand" children at the start of all of this and before Jenn went home with the kids we had visited the ER for Ella to get 6 stiches beside her eye... then the next am she woke up with strep as well....So we are praying that we are over it. It has been a quite a winter of illness. Jenn and Jeremiah have sold their house and will move in mid April to the farm... We are so excited for them. We have started another house addition.... we are adding on and finishing our garage. So the house is busy with lots of construction... but it is exciting to watch. The older boys are helping our contractor, friend to build it. They learn lots of skills and we are able to gain even a larger home a bit more reasonably.We are waiting for news from Ukraine and hope to hear some news soon. I think that when we do we shall be in shock for this adoption has taken so much longer than all our other ones... It will be hard to believe that we are actually leaving ....

Our 6 baby birds are now out of the nest box

We have been watching the baby birds as they are now out of their nesting box most of the day. Here are a few pics of them... Last Friday when we cleaned the box we held them and some even flew around the house..... they flew out of our hands. That is why we put our dogs outside when we are handling them.... It would not be a good thing if they got one of them. Besides our grandaughter, Ella who is picking hers out when she comes and possibly Paul's parents we will try to find homes for them... Oh maybe we will keep one or two.... We can never get into breeding anything... It is far to sad for all of us to say good bye to them.

How about blessed by 5 more children

We heard Friday that our dossiers were indeed submitted...... Yeah! Now we begin the wait for their response. They have 20 business days to give the families a registration number and or invite you to travel.... We have been given as short a notice as 2 weeks and as long as a few months ... So we hurried up to wait.... :) It does not matter though at least the clock on our documents has stopped....from the day of submission... so no more redos. It is amazing to see the hand of God again once at work in our obedience to His will to adopt .

Our baby birds a week older

They are starting to come out of the nest box.... We have 3 yellow and 3 blue colored ones. Naty was able to hold one on her finger in the cage for quite awhile when it came out of the box.

An adoption update

I wanted to share an adoption update for those of you wondering... We heard 3 weeks ago that we needed to update some of our documents for our dossiers that are in Ukraine... We got them all done in record time and they have been notarized, apostilled and sent to Ukraine. We also have decided to adopt all 5 of our children from Ukraine. We were told that Uzbekistan had changed some of their adoption laws and one of them was not to allow families with over 8 children to adopt.... this was in Aug. of 2007. Since we did not know how this would play out we waited, and prayed... because our 2 little guys are already in our hearts. Just last nite during devotions Mya prayed for Peter and Arkasha. It breaks my heart because they will not be easy ones to find a family for... especially Peter. So any on you out there with a love of special needs children I know of 2 very special ones... However, the Uzbekistan program for adoption is not moving very smoothly right now. So I would wait to see . Our agency has only been able to get one child home so far... Prayers are needed for Uzbekistan and the orphans.

Now I want to share that our last document we needed was a change of country from the USCIS... If you have read any of my older posts you know how terrible it has been to deal with this federal agency.... It looked like it was going to be about the same.... After a frustrating week of not getting positive information from them we were thinking here we go again... I was able to locate a contact at the Dept. of Homeland Security in Wash. DC and they directed me to write a letter which we overnited and they got it Thursday... Today this am I got a phone call that they did what we needed and an apology... I also have a contact number to call if we have any other needs or issues.... Again our Goliath was conquored.... thank you Lord for what you are doing.... We should have it Sat. and it will be notorized and apostilled and sent by fedex to Ukraine next week... We should hear some news soon.... praise the Lord!

birds update

Here are our birds -1 week later. Every Thursday we take them out and change the bedding in the nesting box. You can see they are getting their feathers. We only have 6 now and we are not sure what happened to the 1 tiny bird because we did not find it. The egg was cracked and we did find one small bird in the bedding that had died. They are so loud that their peeps for food when the parents go in the box. Hey Ella- "Tinkerbell" do you see one that you want?

3 Little Princesses and one prince

I am sitting here watching 3 of my little girls... Anna, Lily and Mya twirling, and dancing to the Steven Curtis Chapman cd- Declaration. They are twirling their flowing skirts they wore from church... And from their comments and smiles you can just see they feel "pretty". They are too. Such radiance comes from a soul that is loved and has purpose.... It reminds me of my own faith and how I can reflect the love the Lord has given to me. I hope that I am "pretty" and that is my true reflection of my own soul.... Now my little prince, Luke has joined them :) Confidence and joy is being shared to each other as they encourage and twirl, and jump... Ohh my heart is singing...