Living Full and Free!

I love mornings like this. I have already conquered by getting up at 4:50am to make it to the 5:15 Body Pump class at the gym. Then, got inspired by an amazing sunrise and had 30 good minutes of quiet time with my God and his Living Word. More days should start this way. During this wait for Samuel I am so aware of how much I need it to keep my heart and mind in the right place. I have a dear friend who is good at reminding me to set my mind on Jesus. I love this passage from the Message Bible in Luke 13:

Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life - to God! - is vigorous and requires your total attention.

I love it because I know that getting to God does not require a lot of work on my part (it is by faith, through grace, not my works!) but it does require vigorous work to keep my attention and my heart set there!

The pics represent current going-ons in the Abbott household:

~girls taking their aggressions out on pizza dough (yummy recipe from Mandy!)

~Maria has learned to scoot!

~girls each getting special time with daddy!

We have a court date!!!

When I talked to our case worker earlier this week she told us recent court dates given out were further out than usual. (usually when you get a court date it is about 2 months down the road but recently have been more like 3 months) She called again today to say we have a court date and it is earlier than she had expected. Our court date is April 22. So, what does that mean? This is a court appointment in Addis Ababa that Mike and I will not need to be at, we just wait to hear from our agency if we "pass" or not. Usually when you don't pass it is because the court does not like how some of the paperwork is processed and sends it back to some government agency to redo it. (I really have a very vague understanding of this but it is not uncommon to not pass the first court date) What if we do not pass? We will be assigned a new court date usually 2-3 weeks later and know that we have made no progress towards bringing Samuel home. What if we do pass? We will travel 3-4 weeks later to bring Samuel home!!! So, for now we are just excited that we have an earlier court date than we expected and it makes it more real that we may bring Samuel home in May and most likely will bring him home no later than the end of June!! We would appreciate prayers that the judge would find favor with us and our paperwork and approve us on the April 22nd court appointment.

Growing in the Wait

Waiting for Samuel is bringing back painful memories of our 10 month wait for Maria. (Dear Lord, please let us bring Samuel home much sooner than that!) It is the oddest experience to already be a mother to sweet little one and have all those motherly thoughts and emotions and yet to know that your sweet one is living in an orphanage in a far off land. It is reminding me to embrace my days with my kids here. The girls and I had some fun swing time on a recent spring like day. (come on Spring!!!) It was such a blessing to breath the fresh air with them and soak up some sunshine and see their girlish joy. I long to begin to share moments like that with Samuel. The kids and I have been having some sweet devotional times over breakfast. This morning we read some scripture that was a cool drink of water to my often weary soul.
~May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit ~ Romans 15:13
A familiar passage but especially hit the spot today! Lord give me trust, hope and joy in the wait!
My mind has spiralled downward a couple times as I try to wrap it around the thought of having a toddler in the house. On a recent trip to Target I aimlessly wandered around picking up a blue blanket here, sippy cup there, and a bib in the next isle. Then, replacing those items for others. What do I need? I ended up bringing home some fitted sheets for our crib (with brown and blue polka dots) and a booster seat. However, I returned the booster seat this morning after Mike and I were unable to assemble it!! Is that a sign that we are not ready for this?! Well, ready or not we just want to get that boy home!!
I spoke with our caseworker yesterday - no news - just waiting to hear our court date still.

Mike turns 40!!!

The pics say it all. We feel so blessed as we celbrate Mike's birthday to have 3 amazing kids with another on the way!

Accepting Samuel

Yesterday we got all the signed, notarized, documented papers in the mail to formally "accept" the referral of Samuel. After AGCI gets it they will send more papers and we can learn more about the process from here. As far as we know the next thing will be a court date set in Ethiopia to go over our paperwork and approve us to move forward. I have been so distracted this week trying to finish up the paperwork and Mike had been forwarding emails to me about things he was finding about traveling to Ethiopia and from a nurse in his clinic who has adopted from Ethiopia. I discovered last night that an email that I thought I had sent to him (thinking he had forwarded it to me from the airline company) I had actually sent to the airline. It included my comment that there prices were not good along with a comment that I cannot wait to spend a weekend alone with him!!! Oooops! Just a nice example of my state of mind right now!
We continue to feel so excited about Samuel and the girls have been trying to convince me that there is room in their room for his crib. Silas says, no, he is a boy and needs his own room but since Mike and my room is on a different floor that Silas thinks he should have a monitor in his room for Samuel because he could get to him quicker in the night. Very sweet. In reality Samuel will sleep in our room at first and we will go from there!!

IT"S A BOY!

Many of you hopefully got to see our exciting news about our new son! Unfortunately I did not realized that I am not allowed to post his picture so I had to remove it! We received a referral for 18 month old Samuel on 2-3. We are so thrilled and in high gear processing all that that will mean and preparing for his arrival in 3-5 months. Silas, Kate and Maria are all thrilled but will be learning a lot about patience in the next few months!

Living Words

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?"
~from Romans 8~