School Room

I spent the better part of the last two days organizing the school room. It was my big job that I planned before Christmas that did not get done. Since Christmas, we haven't been able to use our school table because of the new Playmobile sets that needed a home. The next room is going to be the office, complete with my first medical bill catch up since our trip to Ethiopia in October- that is going to be a good time!

This was taken during the basket clean out. While I did clear out baskets enough to house the new Playmobile collection, I did not end up with the extra shelf space I anticipated. Selah and Bella enjoyed all the school manipulatives that they hadn't played with before.

I was hoping for some extra room on the shelves that I could tuck pretty things in, but that isn't happening...this is a working school room!

No extra room in the cubes either, but organizing all of it gave me some good ideas for the rest of the school year. Speaking of school year, tomorrow is our final trip to the testing psychologist in Richmond that is going to give us an idea of what is causing some of the challenges that we are facing with James and Ben.  

I still can not successfully load picture from my computer to Blogger - these are from my new phone, but the quality is really not too good.
                  
                                                                                                     Jenny

Getting Ready

 I have every day before we leave for Ethiopia, next Friday, chalked full. Most of it is just life related, more than Africa related, but it is a rather demanding schedule. Strangely, I am home alone this morning because JD took all the boys to a museum that they have been wanting to visit before Gabriel's departure and Alyssa went to another museum the opposite direction with her Classical Conversations class. To spice things up, JD's nephew is coming into town tonight and my brother is arriving at my sister's tomorrow and our house on Sunday. Beyond that, Monday is Moriah's birthday and Gabriel's LAST night at home. He leaves for Boot Camp on Tuesday!! Other than all that, traveling for an adoption absolutely requires me to deep clean the house before I leave; I have always taken that nesting idea very seriously. Yesterday, my friend's daughter came and helped for the day and we got the majority of the basement done. Today I am moving upstairs and trying to conquer most of it. In reality, the cleaning isn't going to be nearly as deep as I hoped, but it will be to a level that I can cope with.

JD is busy building the chimney that is for the wood stove in the basement. We may actually be able to use it this year, although the stone looks like a big job! He has to complete the chimney coming through the porch before the flooring and ceiling of the porch can be completed. We also have a friend's son finishing the barn painting that we did about five years ago and never completed. 

JD brought home two little love-seats for our future seating area around the wood stove that I had to work into the down-stairs yesterday. Someday the pool table will move to the game-room, but I'm afraid that that may still be a few years away. 

In addition to my cleaning, organizing and packing, I still have about 65 pounds of apples that have to be turned into applesauce. I have only done one double session resulting in eight quart jars. I also have to tighten Julia's locs, which is probably a good four hour job.

It is all good and I am so excited that we are barely a week away from bringing our little girls home. We have gotten approval to make the trip out to see Brooke also, so that is extra exciting. It will be so fun to see Brooke's reaction to meeting two of her three big sisters!

The Waiting Wasn't So Bad

So, it turns out that the waiting wasn't as bad as the news - the bank will only do our close as a re-finance rather than a first mortgage. Amazing that you can re-finance something you've never officially financed! It's completely unrealistic to come up with the volume of money we'd need to close immediately.

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This morning I was working through a parenting Bible study that my sister bought me for Christmas. Today's portion was on Abraham and his blind faith following God even when it seemed so unreasonable. That's how a future adoption looks to me - completely foolish when I look at the financial situation of our current home and current family. However, I really think God is leading us in this direction, so He has our back; because again, it's not just a house - it's a home for our children AND orphans that we long to bring into our family. What I am praying and trying to figure out is now this: is this spiritual warfare and we need to fight spiritually OR is there just a window God is pushing us toward since the door keeps slamming in our faces OR are we supposed to just wait...that's the big question right now.

Since no one wants to read a picture-less bad news post, I present Elijah's monogrammed bean-bag he got for Christmas.

Nice it's getting such good use. I should have monogrammed it "cats" instead of "Elijah."