It's out of our HANDS!

Literally, our adoption progress is now totally out of our hands. However, I would venture to say "was it ever really in our hands?" God has it all in His hands but there are things that we have to do along the way to make it happen and then we step a side. Monday we went and had our fingerprints taken for our Immigration approval of our daughter entering into this country. We need to have this letter before we can be matched with her. We will wait for the letter and then wait some more for our referral (to be matched with our child). I've turned a new leaf and decided that since I know we will be waiting for awhile, I'm going to look of ways to enjoy the wait! We will celebrate other families referrals and maybe the passing of every month in some way. Maybe we will buy things for our child or decorate rooms. Most importantly we will spend our time praying for her. I'll read books to prepare and we will try and learn more about Ethiopia and the way she may be used to living. We will talk about her and also just enjoy the time we have as a family of 6 now. So wait doesn't have to be a bad thing or a bad word. God has had many people wait in the Bible. So I'm determined to try and ENJOY the wait! Remind of this in . . . oh, let's say, NEXT WEEK!:)

Romans 15:5-

"Now may the God who gives comfort and strength in waiting

make you of the same mind with one another in harmony with Christ Jesus."

Abba Changes Everything!

Check out this fabulous article found in Christianity Today. Very powerful! Enjoy!

The Waiting Game!

So when you adopt it not too different than when you are carrying your child in your body. The ONLY difference is you have your child on your brain and in your heart but not in your body. When you are pregnant you haven't seen your child (now a days though the the ultra sounds are like a picture- i never had that technology) and you try and picture what they will look like.

When you are adopting it's so hard not to have your child(ren) on your mind ALL of the time. During the waiting process it's sooooo important to keep busy and do as much preparation because when you get "the call" and the ball starts rolling toward court and traveling your minds losses it and your can't think straight any more. So I've decided to start making a bucket list for the waiting process of things I should, need to do and want to do while waiting. Please feel free to give me ideas to add. WHO KNOWS HOW LONG IT WILL BE? It might need to be a GOOD long list.

THINGS TO DO WHILE WAITING!!
1. Fund Raising for the remaining expenses. - to be started soon
2. Watch the movie called???
3. Collect donations for our orphanage
4. Reread There's No You without Me by Melissa Fay Greene
5. Praying for current families in the referral process to bring home their children
6. Working hard on daily devotions and building my relationship with God - this should be #1
7. Learning more about Ethiopian Culture specifically celebrations for our ET Culture Camp
8. Make a list of things to look for a purchase for our family while in ET
9. Praying daily for our child(ren) and their birth family
10. Do fun things with our kids like day trips and trying new things
11. Work on cooking more ET food. I only know one dish so far and it's Americanized!
12. Get green coffee beans and roast them, grind them and make a good cup of coffee.
13. Have fun during the summer!!!!!!
Waiting is very frustrating, but is ALWAYS worth it.

Snow Day AGAIN!

We are off school for the 5th day this school year and we are to have 4-6 inches with possibly more. Some places may get 8 inches. So what should we do to keep us busy.

I'm thinking some baking, movie watching, game playing and sorry to say we have lots of laundry that I need help with. We have thank yous to write and maybe phone calls to reach out and touch someone. We will also go play outside and I will shovel the drive way.

So there is something else I'm doing today and that is praying my sister to town. She is due to get into the airport right in the heaviest part of this storm. I so want her to come in today but I really want her to be safe.

Who knows what the day will bring but I hope it helps with the "wait" for our daughter to join us. Maybe we will lay bets today on what month we could get our referral. No money of course.

Enough of the randomness on this post. Let it snow. Let it snow, Let it snow!

Get'n closer to my sister

Hi everyone!I am your guest blogger for today.My name is Abby. I am the 3rd kid in the Ewing family.I wanted to share about the numbers we are on the waiting list. I am so excited. On the girls list we are # 88!!!! We started out as # 100 and now we are 88! We are also on the siblings list in case God blesses us with two!We are # 34 on that list.I am so happy!I am looking forward to sharing a room with her because Asher shares a room with Caleb and I was jealous of them.I need someone in the room when I sleep because when I am alone I don't sleep good. I am also excited to play with her and teach her new stuff.

2011 a fresh start!

I love fresh starts. When you turn the calendar to a new month, when you put your feet on the floor to start a new day, and yes even starting a new year. I did a poor job of blogging in 2010 and I hope to use this fresh start in 2011 to make that better.

So as we start this year, I'm not one for resolutions but I do like to think of how I see 2011 unfolding and then watch what God will do in my life and our families. So my goal for this year is to document more of my anticipations, praying and goals and see what God will do in my life and the life of my family's. It's all his any ways. I also want to get back to journally more and having a consist prayer list.

One of the things I love about our adoption agency (All God's Chilren International), is that after you complete your paper work and start the "waiting" process they give you a waiting journal and encourage you to work on your relationship with God in the waiting process. I love that! Believe you me you can get so caught up in the process and walk away from the one whose in control because you try and take the control. I remembering this being a struggle the first time.

Anyway, to update on our process, today we got our appointment from the Homeland Security for our finger printing. We have to be finger printed so they can approve us to bring a child into this country. We will go downtown on Feb 4th for our appointment and then wait to receive our letter from the Homeland Security (FDL). We pray for our daughter (1-4yrs) in Ethiopia not knowing where she is or what her family circumstance will be or when we will even be introduced to her face and medical information. We will wait and love to live in our waiting and maybe do some blogging in the mean time!

Random picture cause I don't like to post without a picture.

Happy 12th Birthday, Caleb

Caleb, you are becoming quite the young man. We love seeing the ways you are growing and can't wait to spend another fun year with you. We love you! - Mom and Dad

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We are officially WAITING!!!

We got all of our paper work in and we are official waiting! Even though that is a funny thought cause aren't you waiting the minute you commit to adopt a child? Any way, we are on the list for girls - get this, at a whomping #100. Meaning 99 families are infront of us for a girl, but most of them are waiting for a girl 0-12 mos. Since are parameters are a girl 1-4 years maybe, just maybe our wait will be a bit shorter. Only time will tell and only God knows. I love our agency though. They have unbelievable communication and the even sent us a journal to keep focused on our relationship with God while we wait. I really think that is cool.

We also wait on a finger print appointment from the governement to get our approval from them to bring an orphan into the country. But I'm soooooo glad we are WAITING!!!! We will keep you posted of our numbers and what we do to pass the time as we wait!

Happyy 5th Birthday Asher! at OneTrueMedia.com

Can't believe you are 5 already! You have grown so fast! We are so glad we have a Asher in our family! We love you!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Comfort!

.

This is how much son finds it. And it's been making me think. How do I find comfort? I need to always find my comfort in this...

2 Corinthians 1:3-5Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the Father of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves received from God. For just as we share abundantly in sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

Pumpkin Farm Field Trip

I Hope preschool field trips and last month I was able to go on my 8th trip to a pumpkin farm. It was so much fun and a perfect day with my little guy!

Pumpkin Wrestling

Now that's a Big Wheel!

Friends

Fun day with Mom and Asher!

Found the perfect one!

Soccer Tournament Fun!

It was a beautiful night for soccer last night in more ways than one. . .

After 80 minutes of play - Kings 1 Fairfield 0

Caroline plays for her HS team and has played for the JV team mst of the year. About three weeks ago she was asked to play with the varsity due to injuries. She has made the most of it and had some good playing minutes. So we have played two tournament games and they are onto the sectional finals coming this Tuesday night were they will play the #1 team in the COUNTRY that happens to be not only in our city but in our bracket of the tournament.

Celebrating our big win at Chick-a-fila!

Fun to watch #23 to be announced before the game!

Something Missing???

We've decided that God is telling us that there is something missing in this photo... We believe it's a little girl (daughter and sister) from Ethiopia. YES, we are again on the adoption journey to bring home a little girl from Ethiopia. We are requesting a girl between the age of 1-4 years old. We are also open to a sibling group possibly twins, but we will see how God works in this journey. We have our first home study meeting tomorrow night and we have all the paper work except the home study ready to send into our agency. So we again will start the process of hurrying up to wait! Where we won't always see what is coming around the bend or over the next hill but we are ready to feel the breeze and trust God in this journey. We will keep you posted and take you along for the ride. So bucket your seat belts with us as we await the beginning of this ride!

Ethiopian Culture Camp

In August we had our annual Ethiopian Culture Camp. Due to my mother's health I was unable to attend but my wonderful husband brought the kids. They had a great day of hands on cultural activities and meeting new friends and bonding with old friends!

We had over 150 people attend and were broken into smaller groups to do the hands on stations you see in pictures below. If you are interested in helping for next year we could spread the wealth and would LOVE to have you.

Caleb and Asher
Choir Time

Kaleb and Caleb

Amharic Twister

Making Mancala Boards

Tire Races

Grinding Buna


Story time

Girl Time

EXCLUSIVE! Interview #1 of 6: Asher Ewing

We (meaning Caleb and Caroline) thought it would be fun to interview the people in our family... just for fun. :)

Today is Asher's interview-

1.What is your favorite time of the day?

Lunch time because I like food.

2.What’s your favorite food?

Mac and cheese

3. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

Go down and play with Caleb.

4. What is your favorite place in the whole house?

Wherever Buckeye is

5. Would you rather have a house full of people or a house all by yourself?

Full of people because I could be scared.

6. What’s the show you’ll try not to miss?

Phineas and Ferb and Whale Wars

7. Would you rather be a football star or a soccer star?

I'm gonna do…football

8.Can you sing a song for us?

the whale wars theme song

9.How about another one?

Oh how he loves us (David Crowder Band)

I wish you could hear his rendition.

Stay tuned for interview #2 of 6: Abby Ewing

Summer Catch up!

So we haven't posted in a long while! But with the help of my kids we will try to get back to posting on a regular basis. So to catch up on what has been happening this summer we will start with pictures from our June vacation. We spent a week in Florida at Treasure Island. Here are some pictures and captions from Caleb.

Happy to be at the beach!
Family photo!

2 of our fish

Last day at the beach

Beautiful sunset

Loving every minute of it!

Celebrating dad at Crabby Bill's.

My Montage 5/5/10 at OneTrueMedia.com

Happy 15th Caroline! Its been a great year!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Can't stop thinking . . .

About HAITI! Man, I don't know about you but all I think about, read about and pray about is the people of Haiti. I've heard that on a good day 80% of the pop. is impoverish. There is no infrastructure and after watching CNN a few nights you can tell that there is very little organization with this devastating situation. I can't wrap my mind around this. If you want a missionary view check out this blog http://livesayhaiti.blogspot.com/ .



If you are local and want to do SOMETHING. Kids Against Hunger is having emergency Pack-a-thon for Haiti on these day 1/17 1-3 and 3-5, 1/18 1-3 and 3-5, 1/20 1-3, 1/22 1-3 and 3-5 and 1/23 1-3pm. Just go to http://www.achildshopeintl.org/Haiti.html to register to volunteer. They package dried meals that can be made with just boiling water. They all are taking donations both monetary and special items to serve the children of Haiti.

And always, PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!

WHO DEY!

Yes, we are BIG sports fans in our family. My husband and son just left for the Bengals playoff game today and I'm so excited for them. I don't know if we will win but we are excited for the opportunity to cheer them on in post season. It is very cold here and since the Bengals haven't had the most successful past needless to say they don't look like they are cheering on the bengals but lets say underneath it all they are die hard fans! It's been 20 years since the Bengals have been in the Super Bowl so we HAD to take advantage and buy some playoff tickets. Go Bengals and WHO DEY!!!

Been having Snow much fun!

We've gotten about 4 inches of snow today and we've had below freeezing temperatures for over a week. You'd think we'd be heading to the nearest hill today but instead we went straight for the lake and skated. It was really snowing and we showeled while we skated and had a grand time. One wonderful progress of this year is that Asher can skate on his own on a single blade. It is such a wonderful thing for my back as well. All the kids have really progressed in their skating and they really love it! And I didn't get any pictures today. So I'm gonna post pictures from skating last weekend downtown.