Pictures from Faith

Click here to view these pictures larger

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.