Happy New Year!

Well, who would have thought a mom with five kids, two part-time jobs, & who tries to occasionally clean the house and cook meals would have time for a blog? Well, apparently that is the case - she doesn't.

Just wanted to say "Happy New Year!" to you all.

We are doing great - just keeping busy as you can imagine.

It's time to write my one year post-adoption reports for the agency and I can truthfully say we've been so blessed, because our kids are fitting in so well - and things are just great. So thought I would post an end of the year update here.

We moved to a bigger house at the end of October 2010 and it is so nice, although it will probably never all be clean at once, because there just doesn't seem to be much time for all that :)

I started back to teaching ESL a few days a week in October and working for dad on the other days. All the kids are in school. Lidia in a "Newcomer's" (ESL) class at the Union 6th Grade Center. She has a wonderful teacher (as do all the kids really) and seems to be enjoying school a lot. Lydia Grace is finishing her time at the local elementary school. Elise is in second grade at the same school, and Graham is in kindergarten there. Sammy attends the Christian preschool near our house, so mommy can work. He is well-loved there and is very happy.

Todd has been a web developer for the past year and may be transitioning to a new job soon. Hopefully- we're waiting on an offer from them.

We have a student from China staying with us. We are hoping he'll be exposed to lots of English here, so that his language skills will develop quicker.

The older girls have their own rooms here at the new house which they've enjoyed, although they still spend a lot of time together. Elise is quite the artist and is always drawing pictures for us as gifts. Graham is busy playing with his Christmas toys and Sammy is busy running around trying to see what everybody is doing.

Well, I hope to round up some new photos as I have to do that post-placement report anyway. Hopefully I can post some here.

Happy New Year! Hope it's your best yet - for us too, although it may be hard to top 2010 for us!

the EMORYs

New photos

Don't have much to say except that things are going really well. Our pastor's wife took some good photos of us yesterday. Wanted to post one or two really quick.



Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We were just reminded today of my husband's grandfather who married his grandmother after her first husband died in World War II in Italy. Todd's grandfather was the brother of Banks, his grandmother's first husband. I don't take for granted the sacrifices that many have made for us to have the wonderful freedoms we have today.

Spring Break!

Hi all! Again, long time, no post.

We've been having fun hanging out this week on Spring Break. We had a cleaning day today. The girls did great. They all had great attitudes, but it took us forever. I'm ready to hire a cleaning helper now!

We went to our annual Spring Break zoo trip yesterday. Fun overall, but Lidia came home petrified of snakes. Was sure there were some in the house. I was a bit surprised at the level of her fear. We tried to assure her that the Oklahoma snakes are different than the African snakes, as well as the ones we saw at the zoo (including the 130 pound 1/2 grown Anaconda in the rain forest). She slept with her 7-year old sister last night and is sleeping with her 5-year old brother tonight so she has a bodyguard handy. :)

Don't have much to report. Things are going great. Think I will name her "Lidia Rahel" (Well, I'm still trying to convince her of the Rahel middle name). This is "Rachel" in Amharic. I love it. And since we're having to utilize middle names, want one that has a nice ring. We'll see if I can talk her into it. Also, going to change the spelling a bit, to appease my sense of "correctness" (the spelling "Lidiya" just seems a bit off to me (it's not the only way to spell her name anyway, since Amharic has a different alphabet, I don't feel like I'm taking away her real name.) Especially since we are keeping her name. Her sister, Lydia Grace, gets annoyed when folks call her Lydia Emory, since that is, of course, her name as well. Need some way to get this all ironed out.

Brother Sammy is doing well. Still taking good naps, sleeping through the night, and getting healthier by the day.

I've been so blessed about how they both fit into our family so well. I love this life - so full, so blessed.

Everybody's home!

Wow, I've been so lame keeping up on my blog. Sorry! Lydia Sissay came home last Thursday, the 14th. My mother-in-law, Lydia Grace, and I traveled to Chicago early in the morning and hung out until we met her about 2:30 p.m. - then we traveled home that night at about 10:30.

So, she's been home almost a week! Things are going really well. She isn't much of an eater (now we know why she's so thin). In fact, she's rather a picky eater. So that's my only complaint. She is a sweet girl and we already can't imagine life without her. And yes, the names are still confusing. We still haven't decided what to do yet about the names, but we are tentatively calling her "Sissy" after her last name in Ethiopia "Sissay" pronounced "Siss-eye". She is willing to change her name, but we don't have a name that has leapt out to us yet.

When I visited her in Ethiopia in December and asked her about her birthday, She told me April 26th, and then I asked her how old she would be, and she answered, "13." Oh, my. We thought she was 9, and although the agency warned us about the ages possibly being incorrect we just didn't think much about it.

Now, it's no big deal - but we've been able to confirm with a dentist appointment and our pediatrician's take on it this week that she probably is, in fact, 12. We didn't really feel she had lied about her age to us and it seems like it fits the pattern of some adoptions at least in Ethiopia. Since many families don't want to adopt older children, especially teeenagers, the extended family members who put the child into orphanage care, often say they are younger than they actually are, with hopes that a younger child will be adopted. This makes a lot of sense and again, we knew she was meant to be in our family. And possibly if she had been 12 on paper, we might not even have considered adopting her in the beginning. Adopting an older child was a stretch for us, but a teenager - yeah, we probably wouldn't have made that leap of faith. Anyway, that's the big surprise.

She will start school Monday - I decided to put her in 5th grade because of her "real age". Lydia G. was disappointed that they wouldn't be in 4th grade together, but I was scared of 6th grade and with needing to ramp up on the language, I think this will work really well. And the four older kids will be at the same elementary school, which will also be really great!

Thanks for all your prayers, everybody, as we went through this process. God's grace has been really strong for us. The day I felt I couldn't stay in Ethiopia one more minute, we got Sammy's paperwork approved and could leave. This thing about the age. The names. Getting Lydia home in mid-January when we were worried it would take long. So many times where God just demonstrated Himself strong in our behalf. That's the only thing I can say.

Ironically, as I was paying my last bill to the adoption agency to have her escorted to the United States, I looked at the receipt and our first payment was January 5, 2009. Our last payment was January 5, 2010. We were so blessed to have such a short time frame for the entire adoption - well, it seems short now! :)

Tomorrow night ( Friday, January 22), we are having an open house at my in-laws house if you're interested in meeting the kids. Send me a message on my email account and I'll send you directions. Sorry for the late notice. I posted it on Facebook, etc. but I'm not sure everybody heard.

One more comment

Oh, I'm so sorry. The framed photo is Lydia's late mother. She died when she was 27 or 28, I believe.

Few photos from trip - mostly Lydia's family

Hi, I found a few photos from the trip. This is Lydia's family. Her two grandmothers, two aunts, cousin, half-sister, and family friend, the older boy. The house is Lydia's maternal aunt in Debre Zeit. Some of the photos Lydia took for me. I may be able to send a few more photos later.

Pictures from Faith

Click here to view these pictures larger

Good news!

Hi all! I arrived home in Tulsa late Saturday night. We found out on Friday, the 11th, that Sammy had all his waiver paperwork back in and we were able to leave the country. We cancelled our flights with Britsh Air (which we had learned needed a transit visa to go through London per Sammy's Ethiopian passport) and went to the travel agency to change our tickets to Turkish Air so we could leave that night, at 2 am.

The trip to Ethiopia was very good. The beautiful sights and abject poverty we saw were very sobering. The disparity between the rich and the poor in Addis was sharp. But the people were beautiful. We enjoyed spending time with the four other families staying at the guest house during portions of our stay, and we very sad that the two other families traveling with us, were not able to leave Friday like we were - we were waiting on waivers for four kids between the three families - only two children received their paperwork back on Friday, and the other child was waiting for his sister's paperwork, so his family was not able to leave.

It was, of course, so good to see my family at home. Graham looked bigger than I remembered - I guess that comes from carrying a 17-month old around for two weeks.

So much to say, maybe I'll try to post again, once my head is a bit clearer.

Oh, and the day we left Ethipia, we learned that Lidiya Sissay passed court and is also officially an "Emory". I'll try to post some photos of her and Sammy later in the week. We got to meet her family in Ethiopia, two aunts (from mother and father's sides), two grandmothers, her half-sister, and her young three-year old cousin. so many women in her life, but no men. Her parents died about six years ago. While we don't understand why her aunt could not care for her; although she is relatively poor, we are honored to have her in our family. And yes, she does have the most delightful smile you've ever seen.

So good to be home! We were gone right at two weeks - left Sunday morning after Thanksgiving and returned Saturday night almost two weeks later. Couldn't have hoped for a better turnaround on our paperwork.

Oh, plans changed quite a bit!

We decided, probably immediately after that last post, that I would travel with my mom at this time to get Adam Samuel and hopefully Todd can travel with the entourage in January to get big sister.

It was pretty stressful trying to figure out how to juggle grandmothers helping with traveling at the same time - kids to school, etc. Also wasn't too excited about both of us being away from the two little ones for a long period of time. Don't think we've both been away from them for more than two nights. Elise was pretty distraught about us going. She's still not happy about it, but I tried to assure her, while it is a long time that I will be home and before Christmas!

So, I leave Sunday, the 29th, travel to Dallas, then London, then a short stop in Jordan and to Addis, arriving like 2 am on Tuesday (they are 8-10 hours ahead of U.S. time). Our embassy date will be the following day. Hopefully if all the paperwork is finished, I, my mom and Adam Samuel will travel back December 15th, arriving around 11pm on December 16th in Tulsa.

While there -
We just realized last week that an Ethiopian mandate is in effect which doesn't allow us to take our newly adopted kids out in public. How did I miss this? But we will be able to, hopefully, take a trip to big sister's town and visit her family (an aunt and half-sister) that we know about. We will also visit the town where Adam was found (assuming his home area, although he was found abandoned). These cities are pretty close to the capital city of Addis Ababa, but did require malaria treatment and a yellow fever inoculation. Addis is at a high altitude and doesn't have a lot of mosquito problems, while these towns are more low-lying. The towns we will visit are Debra Zeit and Nazareth (Adama).

So, we will have a lot of time bonding at the guest house. Hopefully big sister will be allowed to join us there. She has her court date December 11th - so we will hear the good news about her passing a bit quicker since we'll be in Ethiopia at that time. :)

All of my siblings are coming into town for Thanksgiving (with the other 15 grandchildren) - so I probably won't post again until I'm in Ethiopia, provided I can find that internet cafe!

Happy Thanksgiving!

New developments

Wow - the past 48 hours have flown by. It looks like Todd will be able to go with me for about half the trip and we will take our daughter Lydia Grace,9, as well so she can meet her sister (who again, won't be able to travel home with us at this time).

We will probably be leaving Sunday, November 29th - Todd will stay about a week and then my mother or mother-in-law will come over and stay with me the remaining time. We have to stay a bit longer in the country because we have a waiver that has to be approved before our son can travel. I don't know when I will travel home but hopefully the week before Christmas.

There is a slight chance this won't all go through - if we've messed up the paperwork in some way, but if that's all a go - we're on our way. We found out Thursday that we needed to fed-ex our paperwork to Ethiopia because it needed to be there 2 weeks before the embassy date which is Wednesday December 2, 2009. So, that was a bit stressful for me. But we got it done, now just hope we did it correctly.

We had an Africa fellowship night with friends from our with Ghanaian, Kenyan, Ethiopian, and South African cuisine. Well, actually we had semi-Ethiopian food because I tried to make it and was so distracted by all that was going on that I didn't cook it correctly, but it ended up being rather mild, which is not typical and which, was a bit better for the kids.

One of our new friends has an 18-month old son (dad is Kenyan, mom is American). I took such pleasure watching him as he reminds me of Adam! Fun to see what my son is doing right now - or probably doing since he is 16-17 months.

Okay, thanks for following - I'll try to post updates as I remember.

Going to Ethiopia November 30 - bittersweet trip

Well, there's good news and bad news.

Adam Samuel Emory, our new son, 16 months old passed his court in Ethiopia on November 5, 2009 and officially became an "Emory". His big "sister-to-be" had a court date a week later and didn't pass. The day that we learned she didn't pass, they offered us a December 2nd embassy date if I wanted to go ahead and bring him home. We weren't thinking along those lines, but decided we would try to go ahead and bring him home - 6 weeks before we anticipated and have her escorted when she passes court.

Wow! So much to do - like I said I wasn't exactly ready to jump on a plane. Now we have a bit of trouble getting out of town as this is the weekend after Thanksgiving and we may need to drive to Houston to be able to get out of the country. No way to get to D.C. to take Ethiopian Air, the preferred carrier, because there are no flights from Tulsa that way.

Also, plenty of paperwork to fill out. I'm not a procrastinator, per se, but I guess I just thought I had more time.

If I have time, I'll post a photo of Adam, but it may be a little while. Okay, so good news is we'll get to spend some time with big sister while we are there to get Adam and this will help with the transition, for sure. For all of us. Add one now, hopefully add big sister in another month or two. That will be nice I'm sure.

And Adam will be home for Christmas - of course, mommy might be a bit exhausted, but I think it's worth it for that prize.

Okay, off to do paperwork! Love ya! Faith

Pictures from Faith

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The photos

Here are a few photos of our fall.

Our new friend Kendi, home from Ghana in September. with Todd & her daddy.

Lydia in her Rose Hill outfit for the trip to the one-room schoolhouse.

Todd & Faith's trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas for our 15th anniversary.

Pumpkin Patch with the kids.

Elise's 7th Birthday party at home.

Jogathon at school.

Essie

Oops!

Hi, I accidentally put some photos of our new kids on here and had to take them off since I'm not allowed to do that. But I hope to put a small photo snapshot album on here, so you can see what the Tulsa Emorys have been doing. But again, if you'd like to email me privately I believe I can send you a photo privately just can't post on the blog.

We were logged into court last week and are waiting on a court date. I'll post as soon as I find out more news about that.

Bye now!

Early October and some "good" news

We got word yesterday, I believe, that Lydia's paperwork is ready to go to court. Samuel's was already ready. So, maybe soon! Court opens back up around October 13th. Of course, there will be a backlog and then we'll need to wait 8-10 weeks after we pass court to travel.

But, at least one step finished! But yeah, if you run those numbers, the earliest we could possibly travel to get them would be January. That's with a favorable first court date. Let's pray for that!

I know it's in Someone's hands!

September Update

Hi All,

I think I realized a few weeks ago that I hadn't updated you all about the fact that the courts did end up closing, but were open a bit longer than usual into the rainy season. The courts should re-open sometime next month to begin hearing adoption cases again. So hopefully we'll get our first court date in October since our paperwork will have been in Ethiopia for several months by then.

We got some good news about a week ago - three of the other children we had considered adopting have found families. This is really exciting! Maybe we'll get to meet some of these families when we travel, since it seems like we all may be at about the same point in the process. I really had feared they wouldn't find families and wanted to adopt them all myself!

We had our fund-raising garage sale last weekend. It was a lot of work! We started the day with someone taking/stealing our garage sale signs and having no shoppers for about 30 minutes. I had trouble not getting angry when I realized what had happened. Don't know if the city took them or just someone who wanted some nice signs to re-use for their future sales.

We were able to raise about $400 during the sale. I wasn't really bummed that it wasn't more - but garage sales really make you understand the value or should I say "liability" of having "stuff" - you can't get much money out of it when you sell it later. Definitely should make one rethink the purchases in the first place, eh? And I've admitted it might be my first and last garage sale - I really don't love the haggling. The same day as the sale, someone committed to giving us at least $500.00 toward the adoption, closer to our travel date. So that ended up being a really good fundraising day after all. :)

I've been blessed to have some opportunities now to make some extra money during the day when the kids are in school - so I think I'm done with fundraising for the present! At least garage sales, anyway :)

Our good friends here in town brought home their lovely two-year old daughter from Ghana today. She was a sweetie. I had a great longing when I met her to have my baby Samuel home to snuggle with. Didn't want to be jealous, - it definitely helps to stay busy so you don't think those thoughts too often! But so glad she's home. Good to be reminded that there is that joy at the end of the wait.

I've really been enjoying having my kids in school. We have a great neighborhood elementary school and I'm just glad not to have the responsibility for managing all their schooling this year. And I'm actually enjoying helping with the homework - lots of fun reading, like Little House on the Prairie. Just didn't seem to find the time to do much of that last year when we were homeschooling. And reading to my kids is one of my favorite times of the day, if I'm not too tired (yeah, I remember my mom falling asleep when she read to us at night too - I am that mom now!)

Oh, our fingerprints finally went through after various problems. Todd didn't have to drive to OKC again to re-do them. I guess they were "readable" - so that's good.

Okay, I hope I've covered all the new developments here. We might get some more new photos of the kids in the next couple of weeks as another family is traveling this week to pick up their new children.

I'm also hoping to start learning how to download my photos so I can post some new ones of the kids here - Lydia is doing "'pioneer day" this Friday and has a really great dress to wear.

So stay tuned - I will post something before Samuel and Lydia Sissay are home. :)

They know about us!

Hi all,

We received word a few weeks ago that the kids didn't know they had a family yet, because our "welcome gifts" had not been delivered yet - they were to go with a staff member of the agency in August. Turns out it was this Monday when they were told we were waiting for them!

We received a beautiful photo yesterday of the kids together. (They are at the same orphanage, but now know they'll be siblings). So exciting!

Poor Lydia Sissay had a bald head - I guess there was a scalp infection that some of the kids had and they shaved some heads. Wow, orphange life isn't all it's cracked up to be, eh? She still looks lovely - now who can say that with a bald head!?

We also realized about a week ago (or two) - man, time flies! That the courts in Ethiopia ARE going to close - I guess they stayed open a bit into the rainy season to try to catch up on some pending cases - but they will be mid-August until October. Don't know if they may decide in the interim to grant some court case dates for when they open back up. Wouldn't that be cool!? So, we could possibly have our first court date in October, but it's just a guess.

Oh, I so want to say they'll be home by January - I guess every case is unique - so we'll just keep praying.

Okay, on the Tulsa-home front... the three kids at home started "real school" last week. I am loving this school thing. (I've been homeschooling at least one of them for the past four years). We have a wonderful neighborhood public school - so that is helping a lot. Graham is in pre-K (full-day), Elise, 1st, and Lydia 4th. The kids are all enjoying it as well. God is good. And I'm able to get some things done. God knew I needed this time to organize, work, etc. I just wasn't so sure. Did I say how much I love having my kids in school!? Okay, I'll stop - don't want to make any of my homeschool friends feel badly - but yeah, I'm still working two part-time jobs - I guess there's only so much one person can do! I do hope to be homeschooling again in the future - maybe for middle-school ?

One last great news item - one of the other nine-year old girls at our kids' orphanage has a family now. We had considered adopting her, but, of course, Lydia S. won our hearts. I'm so excited for her to have a new family! Now, we need to find a family for the six-year old girl and the two-year old boy we were also interested in adopting!

Okay, I guess that's all for now! Faith

Eyelashes!

We have some beautiful new photos of Lydia and Samuel compliments of a family who traveled last week to pick up their daughter. Samuel has curly hair and beautiful long eyelashes. His hair reminds me of our friend's here in town also from Ethiopia & the same age as Samuel. The first photo of Samuel at about 9 months of age shows him with a shaved head. Anyway the curls are beautiful. Can't wait until these two boys can meet. He's smirking at the camera - and standing. Wish I could hold back time so he'd be 9 months again. He'll probably be 2 by the time he comes home. Not to be pessimistic, but just realistic. He's 14 months now.

Lydia still looks beautiful as well - just like the other photos only older :) So cool to know these photos were taken only last week.

We understand our gift packages will be going to Ethiopia next week and then Lydia will know she has a family waiting for her. Good news - I think she needs to hear that.

So strange that we thought she knew she had a family for over a month until we learned about two weeks ago that the packages missed the last staff member to go to Ethiopia by a few days. So they'll go next week.

Oh, and the courts will close from about August 21st through early October. But I guess a shorter time closed than is normal. Still hoping we'll get a court date sooner than later.

In other news, we spent a very nice week in Texas last week visiting family and my sister's condo at Rockport - it was so relaxing and beautiful to have time together as a family.

The kids start school in a few days - I'm excited to get some things done since I won't be homeschooling this year - we'll see how that goes :)

Thanks for reading. Check back with you in a little while.

Photos on the way!

Since we've had no news about our adoption, specifically, since our dossier went to Ethiopia almost two months ago... (except for problems with our fingerprinting - did you know typing a lot can "mar" your fingers and cause you to fail fingerprinting appts! not to mention, getting rear-ended in Oklahoma City when we went for the appointment, and having to amend our homestudy because there was a tiny error that the Homeland Security folks found, after sending the wrong fee to the Immigration Department, and addressing the fingerprinting application to an incorrect address - wow, who knew you could have so many problems with a fingerprinting appointment!) anyway, the rant is over :) But all that to say, our fingerprints have not passed yet. Not sure what that will mean for our paperwork already there. I'm not really sure about that. I think maybe it's most important when we're ready to travel. ???

We were contacted today by a family that is traveling to Ethiopia next week to pick up their new daughter, and we requested some new photos of Samuel and Lydia since they will visit our orphanage. So exciting! So we may have some new photos in three weeks or so. Plus, we'll be able to send Lydia a new letter from our family. We were able to send a small gift bag with a letter 6 weeks ago after we accepted the referrals, but we don't know if/when they got the gifts. Probably just recently. We also sent a disposable camera with the gift bag, so we may get those photos back sometime soon too.

Fun!

All my kids have beds!

Aha! We are buying a crib this weekend. We, being the kind folks that we are, gave our last crib to a man doing some hauling for us who had just had his third child. Thus, we were "cribless". One of my sister-in-laws in Kansas City who has a children's consignment sale twice a year (kind of like Just Between Friends) located a crib and a changing table for us. So now all my children have beds! Yeah, Just need to get our kids home now to their new beds!