April Snow Storm

Wisconsin was blessed with ANOTHER winter snow storm. Too bad it's SPRING and April!

We didn't receive any school delay or closing, but we did get an awesome winter wonderland for about 12 hours!

Noah's First Turkey

I'm so proud of my little man! It took two weekends and some VERY COLD mornings, but he finally bagged this big one!

CONGRATULATIONS Noah!!!

The Wait...

Our dossier was received at Holt International's office in Eugene, Oregon on Friday, April 8th. Since that time, all we have done for the adoption is wait. We haven't received any new emails, mail, or phone calls. Not that I expected to hear anything, but I am hoping that our dossier makes it to Ethiopia in record time and we receive an email that we are submitted to court. I know we are a few months out before that might happen, but I sure would love a surprise!


I can't help my mind from wandering throughout every day and night. I think about the long flights to Ethiopia. I think about how long Tinsae has been in care. I think about how big he will be and if he is happy. I wonder what his laugh sounds like and how tall he is. I wonder how soft his curls are and what his toes look like.



I worry about traveling to Durame by myself, since Brad won't be returning to Ethiopia on the second trip. I worry about bringing Tinsae home by myself. I worry about how we are going to afford the plane tickets and hotel bill. I worry about what to pack and what I will do with Tinsae at the hotel all by myself. I worry a LOT!



So, what does a person do to keep busy?

I take my kids to the mall to walk. I go to work. I clean my closets. I call my family and friends. I surf the Internet for anything adoption-related. I love on my pets. I buy more pets (baby goats). I watch a lot of HGTV and any reality shows. I play on my iPad. I pray. I pray a lot. I thank God everyday for my family and I ask him to keep Tinsae safe, healthy, and happy. I ask him to hold him and love him.



The wait. It is so hard. I pray for patience with this process. Patience...I really need help with this!

Today starts a new week. This week I want to remember Easter and the importance of Holy Week. I want to continue praying for Tinsae, but I also want to continue to think about Jesus and everything he did for us.


Ethiopian people have so much faith. You could feel their love of God. Muluken has such a true love for God. When he talks about Jesus, his eyes light up and he gets excited. I have learned so much from him within myself.


Patience. Holy Week. Adoption. Tinsae. Muluken. Ethiopia. Family.


Telling myself to just BREATHE.


Taking one day at a time...and waiting...

Dossier to Holt (DTH)

That would be adoption lingo to say that our completed, notarized, authenticated, and copied dossier arrived at Holt International in Oregon today! Everything is in place and is ready for the next step.

The next step, according to Holt today, is to "obtain a state certified cover letter and then send the dossier to be authenticated by the US State Department and Embassy of Ethiopia".

So what does that all mean?!?!?  It means that the dossier will be going on a trip for about a month and then hopefully landing in Holt Ethiopia's hot little hands. All we can do is WAIT.....again.....WAIT!!!

We are now praying for a court date in July! That would be a dream come true. The Ethiopian courts close for August and September due to the rainy season, so that means that if we miss getting a court date before August, we will have to WAIT until October or November. UGH! That would mean that Tinsae would probably not be home until 2012.

But, we're going to stay optimistic and wait for that July court date! It's hard to imagine Tinsae being in the care center for so long, but we're trying our hardest to bring him home!

So, to finish off this monumental day...we received THREE NEW PICTURES of Tinsae today. He's still not smiling and looks so very sad. I just want to pick him up and hold him tight. Maybe even give him a tickle or two.

Finally!!!

Today we received our fingerprint approval letter from USCIS. Our i600-a was logged in on January 27, 2011. We had our fingerprints taken on February 16, 2011. We have bee waiting ever since.



It has been so frustrating, depressing, aggravating, maddening, etc. There have been so many days that I have come home from work, just to check the mail to see that our letter was still NOT here. Ugh!


So, after getting totally excited for about 5 minutes, I decided I needed to get the dossier to Holt International ASAP. That meant that I needed to make some more photocopies of some papers and then it needed to be overnighted to Oregon.

So, I headed to the Fremont Library to make copies. After that, I headed to Appleton. I went to the FedEx Building near the airport. Almost $62 later, our dossier is on it's way to Oregon.


We are now another step closer to bringing Tinsae home! 

Thank you God!

Birthday Fun...

Even though my birthday is today, I've been celebrating with my family since last weekend. My Noah made me a big Sunday dinner last weekend: old-fashion cherry-chocolate milkshakes, stuffed mushrooms, steak on the grill, potatos, and smores pie. Yum-yum!! It was awesome!!

Yesterday I spent a few hours with my best friend, Dorinda. We went to my favorite restaurant, Red Lobster. We ate in the bar, on the special fish table, and talked for almost an hour and a half. Then she drove me around Appleton, Neenah, Menasha and Darboy, looking at potential apartments for herself. I can't wait until we can go "IN" the apartments and check them out.

This morning, I woke up to breakfast in bed. Eggs and hashbrowns and a cold Diet Dew. Brad and the kids gave me a few more charms for my bracelet that they gave me for Valentine's Day. They were perfect!

Then, we took a trip to Iola to pick out my "other" birthday presents. Here they are:

They are fainting goats and are just adorable! We bought two little boys. We haven't named them yet, but we're working on it! :)

We then celebrated at Culver's for lunch and then watched Brad play in the WF alumni basketball tournament. It was pretty entertaining!

Jordan made my birthday cake, which will be served tonight for dessert!

It was a PERFECT birthday!! (Even if the weather was really yucky!!)

Snow Day

The winter snow storm started yesterday around 9am. We knew it was coming so we did all of our errands and grocery shopping on Saturday. So, when the first flakes started flying, we just settled in for Snowstorm Dana.

The 5pm and 9pm o'clock news kept predicting over 12" of snow for our area. Yeah! No school for Monday! Yuck! 12" of fresh, heavy snow!

My school district canceled Monday classes at 9pm Sunday evening and the kids' school canceled about 9:15pm. The kids were all in bed but I was excited for all of us!

How come the day that I DON'T have to wake up early, I can't seem to sleep in. Brad went out and started plowing the driveway with the four-wheeler. I laid around and watched tv and snuggled under the blankets. It was SO NICE to be home and not trying to drive those snow-covered roads to work.

I spent the majority of my day scrapbooking our adoption journey to Africa. I really want to get this finished before we bring home 'T'. On Sunday, I completed a small picture album for 'T' and also made a book for his birthfather on Shutterfly.

I LOVE scrapbooking and got to spend 2 days working on all things scrappy! YEAH! I did have to do my scrapbooking in my bedroom, spread all over my bed, but that was OK. I was able to shut the door when the kids were getting on each other's nerves. I was able to watch MY tv and MY shows. It was SO relaxing!

The 4 pups and 4 cats were NOT happy with me when the door was shut! They just couldn't understand why I didn't need their help.

So, it will be back to work tomorrow for me and back to school for the kids too. But, it sure was nice to have a SNOW DAY!!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day fell on a Monday. A work day. A school day. A BUSY day! But that didn't stop my family from making my day PERFECT!

I usually complain that Brad doesn't get me much for Valentine's Day. (I also complain that he doesn't get me much for Christmas or my birthday either!) But that isn't totally true. Brad always gets me something, even if it is a sappy card. But this year, he really over did himself. With a little help from the kids.

We woke up on Monday morning to the alarm clock beeping at 5:30am. Brad turned the alarm off and wished me a 'Happy Valentine's Day'. (Hmmm...Brad remembered?!?!) I got up and started to get ready for my day at work. Mondays are SO HARD to get up in the morning.

After I was dressed, hair done and make up on, I headed down to the kitchen. I started to make my lunch and threw 2 waffles in for breakfast. I filled up my red juice glass and loaded my backpack. The kids all came by and wished me a 'Happy Valentine's Day'. (Hmmm...all 4 kids remembered?!?!)

I was just about ready to walk out the door and finally spotted a large red heart box on the cupboard with a smaller square box on top of that. The small box had a note on it to not open until I get to work. That was from Jordan. I then opened up the heart box and found a Valentine cookie inside. Breakfast for the whole family. :)

I thanked everyone and headed off to work. I got to work about 6:45am and started out my routine like every other day. I opened the office door, turned on the computer and then headed down to my classroom and opened that up and turned on the lights. I went back to my office and sat down to open up my present from Jordan. In the box she had placed a $5 bill. She put a note in the box stating that the money was for our trip to Africa. Jordan knew that I was stressing out about how much money we needed for the trip and adoption, and here she was giving me her money. SHE IS SO SWEET!!!

I was just going to put my purse under my desk when I noticed a small ribbon peaking out. I looked inside the purse a little bit closer and there was a box. I opened the box up and found a new bracelet with charms. Just what I told Brad I wanted. It's AWESOME!! I called the kids on the phone and they were dying to know if I found the present. They were all mad at Brad because he didn't just give it to me that morning. The girls had never seen the bracelet and the boys were excited because they helped pick it out. I LOVED IT and thanked everyone!

Later that afternoon I received ANOTHER delivery. I got a dozen red roses, box of chocolates and a small teddy bear. I called Brad right away and asked him if something was wrong! He just laughed and said that he ordered the flowers a long time ago and then the boys talked him into the cookie. The bracelet was all his idea, which the store just happened to be located near the cookie store. Gotta LOVE that!

I'm always talking about my kids but I never brag enough about my hubby. He's the one that puts the smile on my face! He's the one that makes everything better! I have no idea what I would do without Brad by my side. We've been together over 20 years and married for over 17 years. He's my best friend and I love him more every day! I never thought I could love him more than I did on our wedding day, but our love has just grown stronger!

I LOVE YOU Brad and can't wait to spend the next 20 years with you!

Fingerprint Appointment & Ethiopian Cuisine

On Wednesday, February 16th, Brad and I took off of work and headed down to the Department of Homeland Security in Milwaukee. We finally received our fingerprint appointment but it wasn't scheduled until March 9th. UGH! That was way too long to wait, as far as I was concerned!

I knew others had tried to get in for earlier fingerprint appointments. Some were successful and some were turned away at the door. I knew we had to take a chance because it can take up to another month before we receive the approval. We didn't want to wait another 2 months before our dossier would be able to be sent into Holt, so we gave it a shot.

We arrived at the Department of Homeland Security building around 9:55am. The first two security guards were pre-occupied and actually didn't ask us any questions. The one guard was talking on his cell phone and the other security guard was signing for a Fed Ex shipment. The guard let us both go through and told us to have a good day. YES! We made it through the first barrier.

Next, we had to stand in line to get our "number" for the wait. This woman wasn't so happy, so I let Brad talk. We let her know we didn't have an appointment for this day but really were hoping to have our fingerprints taken. She warned us we would have to wait. We said, "fine". She warned us it would be over an hour. We again said, "fine". We received the clipboard and paperwork to complete and were told to go upstairs to the waiting room.

YES! We were in!!! I had the biggest grin on my face!

We headed upstairs into a large room. There were 3 televisions there, streaming CNN. We filled out the paperwork and then waited. We watched people and listened to conversations. We waited and just about the one hour mark, our pagers lit up! We were on our way to get fingerprinted within one hour. Woohoo!

We headed back downstairs and were both done within 10 minutes. I just couldn't believe it. They were already electronically sent for approval. We saved at least a whole month earlier to bring our son home from Ethiopia and we couldn't be happier.

After a mass text message to everyone who was praying for us to get in, we were looking for the Ethiopian restaurant we saw last year after the fingerprinting appointment. After some driving around and frustration, we found the restaurant. We went in and ordered some take out of injera and doro wat. We knew Muluken had this while in Ethiopia and he loved it. We were wondering if he still liked it or if we had 'americanized' him too much.

We warmed everything up for dinner that night and served it to the kids (Brad and I passed). Muluken's first big bite made his eyes water ~ a little too HOT! But, he drank a big glass of water and kept digging in. Cassie tried everything on the plate and liked most of it. Jordan looked, smelled, and passed. She said she was taking her Mom's side on this. :) Noah tried a little bit. He liked the chicken but the injera was a little bit too much for him. (Brad's description of injera: a sponge filled with vinegar!)

Overall, Muluken LOVED it! He ate so much and finally said that he was stuffed. He got up on Thursday morning and asked for some more of it for breakfast. Brad let him but there were no other takers.

Dad's Surprise Birthday Party

Brad's birthday is on January 30th. This year that fell on a Sunday but I knew everyone had plans that day. So, while watching Noah play basketball in Plainfield on Saturday the 29th, I started texting Kris and Grandma Lenz about going out for dinner that evening to celebrate Brad's birthday. After about 10 texts back and forth, we finally decided on a Papa Murphy's pizza party at Grandma's house. We would all meet at 6pm. Kris picked up the pizzas and cake (THANK YOU!) and Cassie made a salad and hid it from Brad.

We told Brad that we all wanted to go out for dinner Saturday night. We said it had to be somewhere good and also in town. So off we went about 5:30pm for dinner. As we were getting onto the highway I told Brad that my Mom wanted us to stop by sometime that evening so she could give him his birthday present. We decided to stop before dinner rather than after because we had no idea when we would be going home. Everything was set for a surprise party...

then we got to Grandma's house. I finally saw Cassie's big (very tiny) salad. Jordan, Cassie and I were all laughing about it in the driveway when Brad turned around. He quickly figured it out and called me a not-so-nice-name! Sassy guy! So, he was SURPRISED and this was all planned within a 5th grade basketball game via text messaging and a cell phone call. LOVE IT!

Happy Birthday Brad!