Waiting Stitches

Do you want the good news or bad news first? Ok, I'll give you the good news... our dossier was sent in the mail to our agency! Hallelujah! Feels so good to get that off of our plate. Now it will be reviewed by the agency and once everything is A-ok it will be sent on to the Philippines.  So we now start a new waiting season. We are not sure if it will be a couple months or a few months until we hear back from the Philippines - please pray for "a couple"!!!! Either way, we are one step closer to bringing our Little C home! :) Alright, now the bad news, or frustrating news at least... we are completely lost on what to do about our Ethiopia standing. Let me back up a little first -  In the last few weeks we have been given word that there is a good chance Ethiopia could close international adoptions (meaning we would loose a future adoption, as well as all fees we have paid for already). We thought for sure they would close within a week or two, and then got wo...

Just thought I'd quickly share that Jon and I have all of our dossier paperwork in order tonight! Tomorrow we head to our amazing notary and get everything signed and stamped. Then off in the mail it will go to our agency, where they will review it before forwarding it on to the Philippines. We are almost there.... One of our "ends" are in sight!!! Woot! Woot! Have a great week everyone! In Christ, Mara

Question most asked of me lately - "how is the adoption coming along?!" My answer - "We're getting there! And staying busy in the process!" The last blog post was a month ago and my goodness we have stayed busy since then... well, other than when we were "lazing" around the house on all our cold/snow days! We have had way too many of those this year... Weeks of -40 degree temps and now we have at least 5.5 feet of snow!... but I digress. We've been busy - what have we been up to? This weekend I will be performing in the musical "The Last Five Years". It has been a fun and challenging show to learn. I am one of two people in the cast and sing every other song - that's a lot of memorization! But I very much have enjoyed the challenge, especially since Jon has joined me! Jon is playing the drum set in the pit. This is the first show we have done together since we were in Jr. High - lol!! He has played for a bunch, and I have sung in...

Well, our home study is finally on the way to the immigration office as of last Saturday. It felt good to get that done. Now to finish up our dossier paperwork so it is done when our immigration paperwork comes back, probably a month from now, very possibly even two months from now. I recently said yes to being the character, Fontine, in"Les Miserables". The show will be in June, and I'm making everyone nervous since we don't know if I will be available for sure. According to the estimated timeline from our agency though, we unfortunately have very little chance of bringing Little C home by the end of June. I am still praying by some miracle the timeline shortens and he comes home sooner, even if it would mean I don't get to do the show. It has always been a small dream of mine to play a role in this show, but I would quickly choose my son over doing a show any day. But, for now, I have a show planned, and a potential smaller role as a nun in "The Sound o...

Not much to say on the adoption front. Still wondering why the homestudy isn't in our hands. I'm praying I go to the mailbox today and it is there, but my hopes aren't too high. Our international agency is positive that we will be granted an extension from the Philippines to get our things in, but I don't want to Have to do an extension!!! But I don't think my wish will be granted on that one. I'll let you know more when we know more. In the mean time, I decided to finally download our pics and share our Christmas celebrations! This will be a looooooong post of pictures, but since many of my readers are close family and friends, I figure you won't mind. If you don't know me all that well, well then there will be a bunch of Christmas pictures to follow... You've been warned!  :) Can you tell he likes Mario? Although, I don't think he got any mario things for Christmas come to think of it. However, he had written a second Santa letter and ...

I am overly blessed by such beautiful people in my life. Thank you for your outpouring of love and prayers through this process. Your encouraging words are taken to heart and will stay with me always. As this is the last day of my official holiday break, and I needed some cathartic activity, I decided to do two of the things I love most, well I suppose it is three actually... 1.spend time with my handsome boy, Caleb *pics from Christmas Eve - he's so much fun! 2.sew *there is a purple "Big Sis" shirt already at their house... I'm going to be an Aunt again!!!  I decided all three of them needed a shirt! So excited to see them in it... **note to Katie - would like a picture please.  :) ***Caleb helped pic out the fabric for the "Lil Sis" shirt. All fabrics were from Owie Owl scraps! 3.sing & dance *This video was actually recorded about a month ago, but Caleb and I did sing this song today as well.  Not sure what it is about th...

I've been out of the blogging loop the last couple weeks. We traveled for seven days to see family and friends over the holidays and I rarely used internet during that time - it was kind of nice actually. We very much enjoyed our time during our travels and I will have to post some pictures soon. Maybe once everything is actually put away from our bags and boxes, I'll consider writing about it all! Truthfully though, I was kind of ignoring my blog. Christmas and the New Year are such happy times of the year, and when it came to blogging, all I could think of were negatives. I really had nothing nice to say. And what is the saying - "if you have nothing nice to say, don't say it at all". I didn't want my negativity to weigh down our holiday, nor my spirits. So, if you are at all feeling in a really good mood and want nothing to do with frustrating thoughts, feel free to stop reading this post - NOW. But if you feel like learning a little more about the down...