OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED: Post Christmas and 21 Years

OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED

In the beginning, JD adamantly only wanted two children. I thought that four would be perfect. Once we caught God's vision of putting orphans into families, our plan was multiplied by God. We are currently blessed with 12 children; five biological, six adopted and one more waiting in Ethiopia. Our first adoption was from the U.S., the next three were from Liberia, West Africa, and our last two were from Ethiopia. We are supporting our 12th child in Ethiopia after her adoption could not pass court.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Post Christmas and 21 Years

We had our third and final home study meeting yesterday up in D.C. On the way home, we stopped for an anniversary dinner one day early. Today we have been married 21 years! It was a quick reminder where we've come in the last 21 years since we had to interrupt dinner for the kids to be gathered around the phone on speaker for a stern reminder of how they are supposed to behave when their big sister, Alei, is left in charge.

At this point, we still have a few people that are scheduled for physicals tomorrow and a 10 hour Hague training to complete online. As soon as those are submitted, we will wait for our rough draft to be sent to us and the adoption agency, fine-tuned by the adoption agency and our home study can be notarized as official. JD's fingerprints were also returned for one being smudgy, but I wrote a note with the new set in hopes that the second try will not hold up the entire home study.

This is what I came home to yesterday - Elijah running around (and into things since he can't really see) and telling everyone that he is Obama. Never mind it's a mask of John McCain - close enough for a three year old!

Elijah hid behind the couch and jumped out to scare Gabriel's friend when she arrived; it was pretty entertaining. Elijah used to be terrified of these masks, Gabriel has several, and we had to reassure Elijah that Gabriel wasn't bringing them home on the plane at Christmas time last year. A year changes a lot when you are small!

I'm ready to start my home organizational project; I am starting with the office that is driving me crazy. This is supposedly JD's desk, but he never uses it and I constantly use it, so I'm going to make it more Momma friendly. JD always works from a lap-top on the couch or table; I appreciate the office door when I'm trying to hear the person on the other end of the phone line.

This is "my" desk. It is never more than a surface that junk gets piled on. I'm not sure what to do with it. I have a really cool cabinet down-stairs that I thought I might swap it with, but it doesn't clear the shadow box that I don't want to move.

What's nuts is this is the room that I always close the door when people come over, but now I'm throwing it out there for everyone to see. It's ok as long as there's improvement soon, right?