Jesus, AKA Chicken

After breakfast this morning, Elias crawled up into my lap to read a story from our favorite book, The Jesus Storybook Bible. We were reading the story of Jesus' birth and got to the part where the angel Gabriel appears to Mary.

The book reads...

The God who flung planets into space and kept them whirling around and around, the God who made the universe with just a word, the one who could do anything at all- was making himself small. And coming down... as a _______.

I was reading this with great gusto and at this point I paused so that Elias could participate and fill in the last word. He promptly said...

"Chicken!"

Oh I laughed so hard. "Baby" would have made a normal end to that sentence, but "chicken" sure did give us a good laugh.

(I figured out later that there was a rooster in the picture on that page so that's what Elias' mind was thinking about.)

FOUR Years Old

Elias is FINALLY four! He has been talking about being four ever since he turned three, asking me everyday if his birthday is here yet. After months with the DAILY (no exaggeration!) questions about his birthday, I eventually told him his birthday would happen around Christmas and when it is cold outside.

Well one early day in September we walked into Walmart and Elias screamed, "My birthday is here!!!" I was confused until I looked up and saw Christmas trees in the store. So the last 3 months have been a looong wait as Elias has seen Christmas stuff everywhere but it wasn't really his birthday yet.

Needless to say, he was the most ecstatic boy I'd ever seen about being four. At church that morning he even waved to people with just his four fingers. A sneaky announcement to the world about his special day.

We had a birthday party at our house with family and friends. It was wild and fun! He loved opening presents. Surprisingly his favorite gift of them all was a pair of shoes. Not just any shoes though- SKETCHERS. That light up!

So for now, the Sketchers is what we hear about all day long and I'm sure as soon as that obsession wears off then we'll start right into counting the days until he turns five.

Pin the Wheel on the Car

Decorating Car Cakes

Too excited to show his face during the birthday song

Putting on those new shoes

Our four-year-old BIG boy

Dossier is 8,483 miles away

Remember that blue folder? Well, we just got news today that all of its contents are now assembled into our dossier and on their way to Ethiopia! This is great news as it means we are officially on the waiting list for a child.

Of course that also means the wait just got a little harder. Ugh.

We really hope to adopt an amputee child again, and we are prepared to wait longer for that to happen. Our agency director told me back in 2005 that the Ethiopian government doesn't think amputee children will be adopted so they aren't released into the orphanages or care centers very often.

Just as there was a plan with Elias, we are confident that there is with this child as well. We know that God will bring us together with him or her at exactly the right moment, and not a day later. And that brings us great peace!

Advent Conspiracy

I've seen this "Advent Conspiracy" phrase floating around lately and had no idea what it meant. Just found out. And I love it! The video is great. Totally expresses my heart and thoughts this season.

Arm Amputee

Chase has been working with a new patient recently who lost his arm in a work accident. His prosthetic arm is top of the line and Chase and the patient even went to FL for a few days in September to get training on the arm.

One of the Austin news stations came out to film the patient and Chase working together with the new arm. It's an inspiring story! You can see the news special here.

Halloween 2008

Sorry I'm so late in getting these pictures posted!

We had a hard time coming up with a Halloween costume. Elias wanted to be supermanbatmanspiderman. By the time I got my act together and started looking for costumes, most stores were already selling costumes at clearance. And this was three weeks before Halloween! Apparently people get all crazed out about Halloween when the economy is bad. Seriously. I saw that on CNN.

So I thought of Bob the Builder and knew Elias would love it, but I would have to convince him a little. So I had a great strategy... I pulled up the internet and Elias looked at pictures of Bob the Builder online. Then he played a few Bob the Builder games, we read a BTB story and at the height of his enjoyment, I sprung the big question.

"How would you like to be Bob the Builder for Halloween?"

He was ecstatic.

And I was relieved.

Bob the Builder goes to party at preschool

Bob the Builder comes home from school, ready to play but quickly falls asleep on the job.

Warm-up run before "truck" or treating

(he seriously thinks that's what it's called)

Bob the Builder has an identity crisis and "arrrs" like a pirate

At the church festival with Uncle V and Aunt Meg

A great family night!

The blue folder

A blue folder. Doesn't mean much to most. Pretty nondescript. Good logo. Plain.

But it's the inside that's exciting. It's filled with lots and lots and lots of paperwork that we get to complete for our next adoption!

I'm weird in that I actually enjoy filling out forms and working on administrative stuff. So it's not that big of a pain to me. Time-consuming? Check. A little confusing? Check. Monotonous? Check. Major financial commitment? Check.

But every time I see that blue folder sitting on the table or the bed or the counter or wherever it ends up around the house as we work on its contents, I feel a thrill and excitement about this next adventure that God has for us.

That folder reminds me so much when we went through this process to adopt Elias. At the time, we were often fearful of so many unknowns that lay ahead of us. The paperwork process seemed challenging and a daunting task. Being parents to a little child across the world who we didn't even know yet seemed impossible.

But then love entered the picture. First through our hearts as we encountered a sweet, tender love in Jesus that we hadn't experienced before. And then as we saw that first little picture of a beaming Ethiopian boy that was to be our son.

And now we get to live life day in and day out with the gift that God had for us that whole time. That reality is a great perspective as we are going through the process for Ethiopian child #2.

So far we're patient, calm, and expectant about all that God is going to do. And in the same breath I can say that we're afraid, hesistant, and wondering how it's going to all work out. But really it's a great place to be and a perfect time to take an honest assessment of priorities and Who and what we put our hope in.

This is long enough already, so here's the skinny on our process so far...

• We're using AAI again and Lutheran Social Services for our homestudy agency
• Our first visit with the homestudy social worker is this Saturday. Hopefully the follow-up appointment will be shortly after that and then the homestudy will be finished
• We've applied for USCIS immigration stuff
• We hope to be finished with the dossier paperwork (minus the homestudy) this weekend
• Once the dossier is at AAI and some processing done, we'll be on the official waiting list. We hope this happens in December sometime.
• We have no idea when we'll receive a referral. Probably a long time from now. In my head I've been thinking a timeframe of traveling to Ethiopia next fall to get our child.
• We're asking to adopt an amputee child or child in need of an amputation. Just like they told us when we were in the process for the first adoption, there are no amputee children in the orphangae. So we'll just wait and see what God does! It was a miracle that we got Elias and so we know it could happen again.

For quite a while now, Elias has been saying that we're going to adopt a little boy with a baby sister. Who knows?!? Maybe God has already given him the inside scoop. :-)