One more day!

Well, no court in Africa today, it is a national holiday. Our agency called and they are going to hear our case tomorrow instead, hopefully!! Please continue to pray and hopefully tomorrow we will have good news. It would be great if we passed tomorrow and she legally became our daughter because tomorrow is her one year old birthday!!! What a great day that would be!

Maybe, maybe not . . .

Our agency just called and there's a holiday in our little girl's country tomorrow. The problem is that they don't know if they are or are NOT going to hold court?!?!?! We find out tomorrow whether or not they hold court and then if they don't, we should find out Wednesday when they will reschedule us. Who knows when that will be. SOOOO, please pray that court meets tomorrow, holiday or no holiday! Thanks!

BIG DAY!

It's here! I can't believe it! Tonight somewhere in Africa our case will go to court! Sometime between midnight and probably 3 a.m. they will hold court and a judge will look at all of our paperwork and decide if we can be her parents. If the judge approves us we will legally be her parents! Please pray that everything is in place, that they will have electricity, that everyone who needs to be there will be there, and pray that we pass! If we pass court, we will travel in about three weeks to bring her home! We will know something in the morning and when we do we will be able to post pictures and her full name! Please pray! We are so excited but cautiously optimistic because most people do not pass court until the second or third time. We are just praying it works! We will be up tonight praying so feel free to say a prayer when you go to sleep or if you are up in the middle of the night, pray some more!! Thank you and hopefully tomorrow we will be able to celebrate!!!

I have amazing friends!

Our friends gave us the most wonderful baby shower! Everything was perfect, down to the napkins!! We received some beautiful gifts and I can't wait to bring Maya home to see everything! She is going to love her new community and her new church family!

Carter and Dakota also received some great things!

Check out the shirts Mrs. Barbara Caraway had made for them!!

The quilt!

Here are some pictures of the quilt my grandmother made for Maya. (Notice the little girl's arms and feet!) She did an amazing job and the quilt turned out beautiful! It is just perfect for our little girl!! I can't wait for her to see it, of course it will be several years before she can use it, this one's going on the wall for a while!

Coming home!

Our wonderful friends left yesterday for a long awaited trip to Africa to get their little girl! It has been a crazy last few months for them with delays and unknowns but they actaully arrived in Africa today and are going to get to see their little Ellie tomorrow!!! You can follow their trip at their blog. They are also getting to love on another little girl while they are there!!!!

Easter

We had a great Easter, one week early! Here are some pictures from the Easter pageant our church did this year (Carter was a young Jesus and Keith was Pilot's assistant, love the make up!)


Dakota had an Easter program and egg hunt at his school . . .

We also had an Easter egg hunt! This is our friend Campbell. She is the surrogate little sister. The boys love her!

A blur!

This week has been a blur of pain medication and no sleep! Dakota, I think is finally on the upside. He hit the five to seven days and they have been awful! I think today may be the day he finally is feeling better. He still has to stay "quiet" for another week! That should be interesting!
Thank you to everyone for your prayers and kind words and fun balloons. We have wonderful friends!

Dakota

Well, tomorrow morning is the big day! Dakota gets his adenoids and tonsils out! We have to be there at 9:00 a.m. Please pray that all goes well and that he recovers quickly. We have the fridge loaded with popsicles! I can't wait to see if this changes his eating habits!! He may take off and grow a foot! Who knows!

A busy month!

I can't believe March has already come and gone! This past month we have started baseball and t-ball, seen lots of doctors and worked on adoption stuff! Carter and Dakota are excited about baseball! They have been having "spring training" out in the back yard for a few weeks now! Games begin this next Monday and they can't wait! It makes evenings a little crazy with two boys going in two different directions on every night of the week! I think this is only the begining!

We also found out this month th at Dakota has to have his tonsils and adnoids out. I shold receive the mother of the year award for this one! The doctor looked in h is nose and said, He doesn't eat much?" No not really. "Well, he's having to choose between eating and breathing. He can't smell any thing his adnoids are so large, so it all tastes the same."
He has to choose between eating and breathing!!!!!! Good grief! I just hope I haven't stunted his growth! Who knows, he may take off and be six foot! Anyway, he goes in for surgery April 10th, Good Friday! Happy Easter Dakota! Needless to say we are celebrating Easter this weekend.

We also had a giant yard sale to benefit our adoption. It was such a wonderful outpouring of support from our community! This is such a great place and everyone was so encouraging and helpful and generous! It is going to be so great to be able to tell Maya what this community did to help get her home and how much they all love her already. It is overwhelming and humbling to be a part of such a loving and kind group of people. I am very thankful!

We also got an update on Maya. She is crawling and babbling. She has gotten a few more shots, and she is growing! She weighs 20 pounds and 11 oz. now and is 29 inches long. She will be 11 months old next week! We can't wait to meet her and bring her home! Just another month until court. If all goes well and everythign works just like it should we will be in Africa the first week of June. We have alot to do to get ready, but it is great and fun. I spent yesterday folding pink clothes and flowery outfits!! It's very fun!