Update

WHEW!! The month of December was busy for us. Anna celebrated her 1st birthday and of course, Christmas and all that encompasses that holiday! Tons of family came in and we took family pictures. This was an interesting experience. On Scott's side of the family there are 19 of us. This includes his parents, all four kids, their spouses and their kids. Did I mention there are 19 of us? For the most part we all came out fairly unscathed! And during the process, in true Lily style she pitched an awful fit! I know in every picture she will either be screaming or have a lollipop in her mouth. (This was the only thing that worked to calm her!) We also celebrated new years with family and friends. During all of this we also stopped the bottle with Anna and finally managed to potty-train Lily!!! This last one was huge! My strong-willed, independent, my way or the highway child was finally ready and we ran as far from pull-ups as we could!

January doesn't exactly slow down for us. Yesterday Scott and I celebrated 7 years of being married. And on Thursday Lily will be 3! Next weekend we are having a 'punzel' party and asking everyone to dress up as their favorite princess!! It should be full of pink, ruffles, bows and fun! (Stay tuned for pictures.) And in the middle of this controlled chaos we are finishing our adoption paperwork.

This is a list of things we have completed in the past 6 weeks...

1. Composed an application letter to be included in our dossier.
2. Obtained birth certificates and marriage license
3. Had extensive physical exams for Scott and I
4. Obtained proof of life and medical insurance.
5. Completed a financial statement
6. Obtained letters of employment
7. Asked 3 fabulous friends to write glowing letters of reference
8. Obtained police clearance letters
9. Completed a questionnaire with 150 questions...each
10. Made photocopies of dozens of things
11. Tracked our residential history for 10 years
12. Completed a fire exam for our home
13. Completed a health inspection on our home
14. Obtained proof of ownership of our home
15. Made photo pages of our family and our home
16. Completed 8 hours of online adoption training
17. So many other documents I can't even list them!!!
AND, about 3 out of every 4 documents have to be notarized!!!

And yet, I cannot begin to explain or tell you all the ways God has shown up. Maybe someday I will be able to elaborate more on how He has provided for us over and over again but right now I stand in awe of His ways. Hopefully by the beginning of next week we will have finished our home study paperwork and have sent it off to Dallas. The next big step is to send all of our dossier information to our agency in VA. Once this large document has been approved it gets sent to Ethiopia and then the good stuff starts!! As always I will continue to keep you updated if anything of interest or excitement happens. In the meantime I pray that 2011 finds you happy, healthy and blessed beyond your comprehension.