Ethiopia...here we come!

There has been lots of excitement at our house this week. I had prepared myself for a long and painful wait with this whole adoption process but it has proved to be much faster than I anticipated. We received our court date yesterday - May 25th. That is the day that Duni (one of the Ethiopia staff) will go to court in Ethiopia on our behalf and if the judge passes our case, we will officially become "Eden's" parents. (By the way, if you didn't already know, we are going to probably name her Eden.) Right now, we have a tentative travel date (TTD) of June 20-27th.

30% of families do not pass court the first time so we would really appreciate your prayers that we DO pass court on the 25th of May.

Yes, there is life aside from adoption at the Jennings Home. Cole has turn into quite the bike rider this Spring. It doesn't matter how cold and rainy it is, he wants to be outside riding his bike! Brian took him on a little "camping trip" out to the church camp last a couple of weekends ago and he had a blast riding his bike up and down the sidewalks.

This is a snap shot of a typical day in the life of Levi. He's such a little character that we spend much of our time watching and laughing. However, it's a rare occurance that we get a picture of him without a silly look on his face or where he's hiding his face or scowling (he's not a big fan of having his picture taken).

Lately, he's been fascinated with numbers. The boy amazes me. He already does simple addition and subtraction - he just doesn't know he's doing it! And be careful to not tell him your age unless you want him telling it to everybody he sees in the next couple of days!

It's starting to feel real.

A week and a half has passed now since we received our referral.  Levi and I went to Target on Wednesday and picked two outfits, an assortment or headbands and a mini photo book to send in a care package to our Eden.   There is a family from Broken Arrow who is also adopting a little girl from Ethiopia that is the same age as Eden and they will travel to get her in a week.  They are going to take some pictures for us, deliver the care package and get hand and foot prints of her if possible.  I am hoping for some pictures of her smiling.  The only picture we got with her referral is really sad.  It makes me want to hop on an airplane right now and go give her a hug.

Lots of people have been asking me when we will get to bring her home.  My best guess is in July sometime.  We should be getting a court date in the next week or two and that will give us a tentative travel date (about 3 weeks after we pass court).  

As I write this, Levi is coughing up a lung.  He started coughing yesterday evening and hasn't stopped (except for a couple of hours in the middle of the night when I gave him the last few drops of our beloved prescription cough syrup).  I am so sick of the boys being sick!  I just want my babies to be able to feel good and go to school and church and have fun.  Allergy season brings such mixed feeling for me.  I love Spring with all of it's flowers and budding trees and mild temperatures.  If only we didn't have all of the wind blowing the pollen in our faces!

Hopefully Eden won't have allergies too!  

Well, I'm going to go get some exercise and mow all of our weeds so Brian can spray them with pesticide in a couple of days.  Unless... maybe I could have the boys sell dandelion salad at little curbside stand to raise money for the adoption!

Today was THE DAY!

Today I was spending a little time sewing on a Birthday gift when the phone rang. I almost let the answering machine get it but at the last minute picked up. It was our Family Coordinator from America World. She said that she was calling with some great news for our family. She had a referral for us! I immediately started crying and my heart was racing. She called Brian on a conference call and told us all about our little girl. I can't tell you too much now for confidentiality reasons but we are so thrilled to finally know her by name and to see what her sweet face looks like.

I was expecting to have to wait until atleast June if not Aug. so this all came as quite a shock. Now we wait 2-4 weeks to hear when our court date is. The court date will probably be in June. Then we will travel about 3 weeks after we pass court.

Please pray that we will get a court date soon and pass the first time in court. I wish I could tell you more but we'll just have to wait on all of the details until she is officially ours!

Houston Bound

The kids and I are headed down south for Spring Break to see my brother and his family. I'm looking forward to spending time with the ladies in my life (my mom and sister are going with us). The weather is supposed to be in the upper 70's and low 80's all week...I'm looking forward to that! Hopefully the kids will play happily outside just content to have the company of their beloved cousins. ; )

We'll be making a trip to the new JoAnn in Pearland. Elizabeth had never been to one before and called me a few weeks ago, begging me to come and see the new "amazing, gigantic" JoAnn. I think she now understands my tendency to gravitate towards our local JoAnn Store. They also have some really great V.A. Thrift Stores that she frequents. I'm going to try to talk her in to taking me so I can get in on the amazing deals! My dad came home from visiting my brother for his birthday and said they also have a really cool outdoor mall really close to their house. It sounds like we are going to have to get a baby sitter atleast one day and cram as much shopping as possible into one afternoon!

Here's just a little bit of bragging. I pride myself in my expert packing and this is the only bag we are taking for all 3 of us for a full week! (Granted, we'll have a backpack or two of snacks and toys for the drive down.)

...is not as bad as...

Today Cole's teacher relayed a funny story to me from "story time" in class last week.  

They were reading a book about manners written by Whoopi Goldberg.  On each page they discuss a different offensive behavior and in the lower right-hand corner, almost like a mantra, is the suggestion that this particular offense (such as interrupting, talking in theaters, bad sportsmanship, or eating with your hands) is not as bad as...(the next bad habit or behavior) on the next page.  

As Mrs. Munozcano read the "is not as bad as..." part, Cole would say under his breath "is not as bad as going to hell."  He did this on every page!  Thankfully, Mrs. Munozcano is a believer and wasn't offended by his remarks, but I reassured her that we didn't talk like that all the time at home.  

Kids are so unpredictable.  But he does have a point...good manners aren't quite as important as salvation!

HAT + BOY = CUTE

I finally broke down and learned how to crochet. Up until now I've been a little bit of a knitting snob. I got this Newsboy Cap pattern from here. After I figured out HOW to crochet, it was pretty simple. I still have some practicing to do.

Fun with Rope and Remnants

I've been doing a little bit of spring decorating this past week and thought I needed a little more color in the living room. I decided to make some new coasters with some of my favorite fabric remnants. I the instructions on craftystylish

Anyway, I've been itching to try it. It uses clothesline rope which I had a little trouble finding, hence the delay in trying out the project. Anyway, you can buy 200 yards of the rope at Home Depot for a under 10 dollars. I made a bowl and 4 coasters and only used about a third of the rope. For a fun set of coasters or bowl of your own, just cut fabric into 1 1/2 inch wide strips about 6-10 inches long. Wrap a strip around the rope, form the rope into a cinnamon roll shape while sewing the layers together using the zigzag stitch on your sewing machine. To form the sides of the bowl, just gradually curve the edges and sew so that the bottom of the bowl faces out to the left of your sewing machine. It's as easy as that...maybe better explained with pictures than words! I'm sure I'll make more in the future, maybe next time I'll try making a tutorial!