Still my favorite quote from Women of Joy... "I am drinking from my saucer because my cup is overflowing!" It's been quite a week for us! I feel like my mind has not rested at all. There's so much happening with our adoption and a lot going on at work, too, so that makes it hard for me to sleep soundly and to turn my mind off, I feel like I am always trying to solve several problems at one time. God really blessed us this week with new pictures of Ethan (thanks to my cyber friend, Jeanine http://www.jeanine-kaminski.blogspot.com/, who worked a little magic and got some super cute pictures of my little guy. I love that they are not posed by the orphanage staff and we know exactly when they were taken. He is getting cuter and cuter and I cannot wait to hold him and kiss him. I loved the reaction of Tim and the girls, too. Tim is always very matter of fact... "This is the best picture ever of him!" and the girls kept saying "He's just soooooo cute!" Everyone has commented on how big he is getting, but I think we are going to be surprised that he is still little.
Blessing number 2: our 1800 approval came, which means our government has given us permission to bring Ethan home and will allow him to become a U.S. citizen. Now we have to put together a packet of original documents that were previously faxed and/or emailed to our agency and some copies of paperwork that we will take with us when we travel. I am a little annoyed that we pay a lot of money to our agency and they can't make all these copies themselves, it's a little ridiculous to have to mail so much. Anyway, can't get bogged down with petty annoyances. We are now waiting for an email that contains a pdf file from the National Visa Center and that will be the final piece of the paperwork puzzle! Praise God! Then our agency sends it all to China and we wait 2 weeks for our Article 5 paperwork. Then we will wait for Travel Approval. And last we will get our Consulate Appointment, which determines our travel dates. So, we are getting very close!
Blessing number 3: Our Adoption Ministry Garage Sale at Lifepoint was a huge success. We worked with the 3 other adoptive families to raise money for our adoptions. We had so much stuff! So many generous donations of things to sell and then so many people who came to support us! Amazing! I normally do not like garage sales at all, but this was very different! Great times visiting with our friends and talking about adoption as often as it came up! No worries about people getting tired of that topic! My girls worked so hard to help. I am so proud of them. They are so excited for Ethan to be home and they all want to pitch in and help. We are so blessed to have such awesome kids! It was so neat to see how many "customers" gave extra money just to support our cause. That just warms the heart! We also had the chance to talk to several families about adoption and met a family that will be hosting 3 sisters from Latvia this summer. Very excited to get to know them. Isabella and Becca love hearing about other kids' coming over like they did. God is great!
Very sleepy tonight, so I am not going to mess with pictures...
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