Thank you...

THANK YOU - THANK YOU! 

Within one week, we have met our goal to receive our matching gift!

Within one week, you rallied around us and donated over $500 toward our puzzle, toward our matching gift - and toward bringing T home. Bless you and thank you!

With our matching gift, we now have 335 of our 500 puzzle pieces sponsored. Please take a minute to check out all the wonderful puzzle sponsors listed at the bottom of the blog.

We still have work to do. We are still selling puzzle pieces ($10 a piece). We want to finish that puzzle!

We are still selling yummy coffee - Just Love Coffee - lots of yummy free-trade choices. They would make wonderful office/teacher gifts for Christmas!

We are close to choosing a t-shirt design that we will be selling soon here on the blog.

In a couple of weeks, we will have info for our local friends, inviting you to our open-house Holiday Market. We'll have an afternoon of Christmas shopping here at our house with lots of vendors, door-prizes, and holiday cheer!

In the meantime, we are applying for adoption grants and filling out more paperwork!

Yes, more paperwork - OUR REFERRAL PAPERS!! Yes, T's actual referral arrived yesterday along with tons of other papers, immigration applications, etc. So we are sending those all back to the agency in a day along with the final agency fee! The other cool news we got this past week is that our dossier is now listed (on the China Affairs adoption website) as being "in process." Apparently our agency said this was very quick for them to already have it translated and to be working on. It seems like things are currently moving a bit faster than usual. YAY!

You may have noticed that we are now referring to our new daughter as "T." Last week we received a new form from our homestudy agency, stating that we are not allowed to put info or pictures on the internet until our adoption is final (soooo bummed about this as our placement agency had said we could post pictures as soon as we received our next China approval). This is apparently a new Virginia policy but we will be investigating it as the wording it vague and it contradicts what we were told by our placement agency. So for now, I will be going back through the blog to change any reference to our new daughter to "T."

I am so sad if it is actually true that all photos of waiting children will ultimately not be allowed on the internet. I am particularly sad for adoption advocacy sites that post info about children who are waiting or are in the process of being adopted. What a shame if waiting children can no longer be shown in pictures on the web. This is how we found T and our Ethiopian daughters. More to come on this new development.

My pictures didn't download in time right now, but be looking for a photo-full post coming soon, of our Fall fun weekend with the cousins!

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee...

Oh how I wish I liked coffee...I have always wanted to like it but alas, I am just not a coffee drinker. I like tea...

My whole family drinks coffee. A. Lot. Of. Coffee...A. Whole. Lot. Of. Coffee.

Whenever we get together with the cousins, or our parents, or our sisters and their families, coffee is a main topic of conversation at some point. Coffee is oo'ed and ah'ed over, sought after, bought, brewed, and of course, necessary each morning for anyone to function. My one sister in law has coffee in her email address and has her kitchen decorated in a coffee theme. One of my sisters' dog is named "Latte."
My kids are even becoming coffee drinkers when they can score a cup (yes, don't judge...).

When we adopted three years ago from Ethiopia we were surprised to learn that coffee originated there. Coffee is a staple drink in Ethiopia and coffee ceremonies are a huge part of the culture. We were lucky to have been a part of several ceremonies while were there. Yes, I did try it...sadly, I still didn't like coffee. But boy, my husband did.

Ethiopian coffee ceremony while we were in Ethiopia.

After that trip, John became quite fascinated with the whole coffee process (aw heck, he was before that too). He ordered coffee beans, roasted them on our back porch (I'd pass people in the neighborhood hours later as I walked the dog, and they would say "Do you smell coffee??" Um...yeah).

A year or so ago I read about a sweet family that was adopting an adorable little boy from Eastern Europe who had Down's Syndrome. Their story and struggle to adopt him caught my heart. They were doing a coffee fundraiser - Just Love Coffee. I thought it would be a cool gift for my husband and teens to buy them some Ethiopian fair trade coffee and even some Just Love Coffee T-shirts - and it would help a family to bring home their sweet little boy. They loved their coffee and tees.

Just Love Coffee offers organic, fair trade coffee. Their small company is passionate about coffee (much like my family members...but more) but they are also passionate about helping those in need - non-profits, artisans - and adoptive families.

So I am announcing our 2nd fundraiser - we have opened a store front with Just Love Coffee!!
For every bag of coffee sold through our store, we will receive $5 toward our adoption. Their store offers other items as well - mugs, t-shirts, etc - and we will also receive a portion of those proceeds as well.

This store will be available throughout our adoption process so if you are looking for a gift for the holidays, or just some yummy coffees, just click on our button in the right column which will take you to our storefront and you can peruse the selection.

Need a cup of Joe?

Hundreds of Hats

 I love to knit. I love to knit hats. Baby hats.  They are quick and cute and necessary and allow for lots and lots of creativity. They take just a little yarn to knit up and ALWAYS put a smile on a new momma's face! Five years ago, I was knitting them so often that I decided to give it a whirl (is that a word??) and open an Etsy shop (see The Mustard Seed button to the right).  I even tried selling at craft shows, consignment, and sold lots to friends. I even paid for all of our Christmas presents one year with what I made just knitting little hats! I found that starting a new little hat every few days kept my short attention span at bay, kept me from snacking at night, and always gave me a little something to do while waiting for an appointment or activity with the kids.

Our two beautiful Ethiopian daughters benefited from my hats during our adoption as I knitted to help pay for adoption fees.  These days I don't knit much for profit. My Etsy store (see on the right) is often empty. I will have a creative energy surge every now and then and knit up a few for the store but mostly my efforts have been gifts or for donations.

Sometime in the last year, a friend we met during our adoption, posted on Facebook about a missionary doctor working in Soddo, Ethiopia. Never heard of it? Well, the two Ethiopian faces above were born there and lived their early years there. This doctor, Dr. Hail, is working in a hospital there delivering babies and caring for women. From reading her blog it is apparent that she is doing many more things there as well.

When I first looked at her blog, I was excited to see that among her requested items she could use at the hospital were BABY HATS!! YAY! I can do that!

So I advertised and asked other friends/family who knit, if they would help me make 100 hats for Soddo! Several helped me out, and I knit a whole lotta hats and...voila...100 hats!

The girls and I put together little cards to attach to the hats - they have a crayon colored heart and the word "Love" in Amharic (tho' the language in Soddo is Wolaitan, I believe they are close and that the intention will be received).

What a joy to be able to give a little something back to such a special place with such meaning for our family. The hats will go to premie and newborn babies of rural and very poor women to help the babies survive a very critical time right after birth when they are vulnerable to changes in the temperature - mostly at night, and unable to regulate their own body temperature. 

blog

Doro WHAT?

So all week I have been saying that I wanted to do something ALL together this Saturday. With kids ranging from 5 to nearly 17, it is hard to find a time when all are present, and willing to do an activity. Well, Saturday morning came and we still had no idea what to do. It started raining then and then our choices became very few .... so what did we do?? We took a drive to Harrisonburg, VA (about an hour away) and had lunch at the Ethiopian restaurant there - The Blue Nile. We have been talking about going there for two years now (since the girls came home) and this was our first time actually going. Cute place, with many Ethiopian baskets and art. Sadly, there were no Ethiopian folks there (we had hoped there would be for the girls' sakes).

The yummy Ethiopian lunch buffet looked great to half of us...I have a picky crew. John, Drew, Ben, Jemila and I enjoyed the Doro wat (a spicy chicken meal) and the injera (the "spongy" rolled bread used as your utensil to scoop the food), and the spicy peanut soup and a few other things that I am not sure what they were - but they were yummy. Kulate tried a bit of everything but in the end, turned up her nose and decided she didn't like anything but the American fare that Kate and Jack ordered. (Ben also ended up not really liking the food and mooched off the American food plates). Oh well...we tried. I think the girls enjoyed seeing the Ethiopian things and we spent the day driving around James Madison University and through the city of Staunton. Not exactly my vision for the day, but still ALL together and having an adventure.

Until the next time - Julie

Where to begin??

So here I am starting my FIFTH blog. "I didn't know you blogged??" you say? Well, I never told you - or even allowed my blogs to be public because quite frankly, they never had much on them!! (note: I have also tried journaling too many times to count only to quit the second or third day...). So the odds are against me here but I have been such a blog follower since we began our adoption journey that I just can't help but try again to keep a journal of our daily escapades here as we do this thing called life together.

We are a loud and busy bunch, trying our best to be a family that follows after Jesus. John and I have four biological children (Drew, Kate, Jack, and Ben), and we adopted two little sisters from Ethiopia in 2009 (Jemila and Kulate). The picture here is our first family picture as a family of 8 - taken on the steps of our Ethiopian guest house only a couple of days after meeting our girls and becoming the family we are now. We had finally completed the year long angst-ridden process of adoption and we were about to embark on a whole new life - one full of blessings but also challenges. We have just passed the 2 year mark of having our girls with us.

I am not much of a writer but I will make an effort to keep this, my FINAL blog, up to date! It is my prayer that this blog will be a way to share my thoughts about life, family, homeschooling, adoption, knitting, and sewing, as well as journal and remember events in our life - and in every way, glorify God. Until next time - Blessings - Julie