Favorite Christmas Gift

Insane can not begin to describe the to-do list at our house right now.  Between Christmas, New Year's, preparing for a baby, preparing for a trip to ET, preparing to leave 3 children with grandparents for a week,  preparing for Lily's 5th birthday party, and well, you get the picture, it's insane!  Let's just say we have spreadsheets of the spreadsheets!

So as a short escape from the madness, I thought I'd take a minute to share a picture of my favorite Christmas gift this year.  It came from Ryan's sister.  I didn't ask for it, it wasn't the most expensive, I don't need it, but it is definitely my favorite.  I think you can see why:

I have to say that I take comfort in the fact that there is actually a market for an ornament with that many little folks on it.  At least if we've lost our minds by adding another, there must be some good company out there!  

Mommyhood

It's funny how with our planning for travel mixed with the holidays, I have been reflecting a lot on being a mommy.  There are certain skills that I have acquired with mommyhood that I simply don't think I could have acquired any other way.  These are including, but not limited to the following:

• Scraping soggy Apple Jacks out of the sink drain no longer makes me gag
• I can distinguish exactly what kind of emotion my children are experiencing according to the pitch, volume, and frequency of their cry/scream and I know when I need to run and when they need to take a sit in THE chair.
• Snot bubbles no loner make me flinch.
• I can beat all of my children on nearly every game on Webkinz.

One of the other things I love about being a mom is getting to see the world through the perspective of a child.   Sometimes they say the funniest things.  Here's a couple of my favorites from the last week or so:

• Isaac says to Abby as we're preparing to leave for our co-op Christmas party, "If this ends up being another surprise baby shower, I just don't think I can handle it."
• Said by Lily to Elizabeth as she was describing our trip to Babies R Us. " They had this place where the babies could play, but we didn't bring r baby because he was in Eseepoia."

One of the highlights of being a mother for me was definitely my first Christmas as a mom.  I don't think I'll ever forget that Christmas.  I have always loved Christmas.  It was always a very special time at our house.  I always "knew" that it was about the birth of Christ, but I didn't KNOW that.  But the first Christmas after we had Abby, it was as if someone had flipped a switch and Christmas had so much more significance for me. Every song, every reading of the Christmas story, and especially every mention of Mary brought tears to my eyes that year.  I would gaze at my baby and imagine that journey to Bethlehem, that birth in a stable, and I would just cry over the sacrifice that was made for me.  What a blessing of mommyhood that has been!

With that said, I need to go get back to my number one job, that of being a mommy and a wife.  I don't want to miss a moment of these special days!  

Plane tickets- check!

Okay, I must admit that I can not believe this is really happening!  But, it is.  In 23 days, we leave to meet our son.  We purchased the plane tickets yesterday afternoon and we are so excited.  We felt as though the Lord gave us a gift as far as the booking of the tickets went.  You see, my husband and I were a little at odds about the tickets.  We both really wanted to fly Emirates Air, we've read many positive things about the total experience vs. Ethiopian Air.  But, every time we had sat down and priced the tickets, there was a significant price difference between the two.   A few hundred dollars times 3 tickets, well that's a chunk of change.  And I, being the practical one, could not justify paying that much money for 24 hours of our lives.  Ryan didn't necessarily agree.  So, we weren't sure what we were going to do.

 

Yesterday, when we called Susan Parr, a highly recommended travel agent in the adoption community, she worked some sort of industry magic.  We were able to get tickets with Emirates Air, and we're only paying a total of $30 more for all of them.  We were thrilled.  Not to mention the airline will put us up for one night in Dubai and so we'll arrived in Addis a little more refreshed than we would have otherwise.  What a blessing! 

I thought I'd end with a sweet story about my precious husband.  Before our oldest daughter Abby was born, he read something that convinced him that newborn eyes could focus best on the colors black, white, and red.  She was induced, so he had plenty of time to plan his wardrobe, and he insisted on wearing red, so that she would be able to focus on him.  Lizzy made her appearance quite dramatically when my placenta ruptured during the night.  Still, Ryan grabbed a red shirt on our rush out the door.  Isaac was scheduled for an induction, but decided during the night he didn't need to wait for the morning appointment.  Fortunately, Ryan had already laid out his red.  Lily, came with an emergency c-section.  Ryan was in a staff meeting at work when the secretary grabbed him and told him he had 30 minutes to get to the hospital or he'd miss the whole thing.  He'd worn red to work that day.

Now, Ryan has always liked red well enough.   There are usually a couple of red items hanging in his closet at any given time.  So, I thought nothing of it when he left for work yesterday wearing red.  Then, last night, Ryan was reviewing with our two younger ones why the court date was so significant for our family.  And he said, "It's kind of like a birthday, this is the day when he became a Campbell.  That's why daddy wore red today.  I wore red on the day when everyone of you children were born.  This morning when I was getting dressed I debated about if I should wear red.  I decided that I was going to step out on faith that today was going to be a birthday at our house."  How sweet!   I love that man!

Good News!!!

Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land. Pro. 25:25

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This is the day!

This is the day that the LORD has made;

let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

Several of you have e-mailed or called to ask about exactly what today involves.  So, I thought I'd take a minute to explain.  WE will not go before a judge today.  A judge in Ethiopia will review our case and file today.  A gentleman from our agency has the power of attorney to be present for us today.  After it has been reviewed with a fine tooth comb, if everything is in order, we will be approved.  If not, we will be postponed, probably until at least late January.  

Please understand, today is not really about determining if we would be an acceptable placement for the child.  That's what we spent the first six months of this year doing.  Today is about making sure that everything is in order and that the paperwork has been correctly completed on both sides.  The majority of issues come from the Ethiopian side of the file.  This is simply because they want to assure that all of their adoptions are done in an ethical fashion, with no coersion or exchange of money involved.   I appreciate that!

When we are approved, we will be assigned travel dates.  We should get those by Friday.  The dates will be somewhere between 3 and 5 weeks from today.  We can't wait!

We will know the results today, probably sometime between 1 and 5 PM.  We will update the blog as soon as we can this afternoon.  Ryan and I are attending the church's annual staff Christmas luncheon for a couple of hours this afternoon.  Not so sure how we're going to eat- but hey, it will be a great distraction while we wait those last few hours.  

Have a great morning, and we hope to have some good news and some precious photos of our boy to share with you this afternoon!  Thanks for all of your prayers and encouragement! 

Comfort

Comfort, that's the meaning of our son's birth name.  Isn't that beautiful?  Comfort is such a tender word.   All of us want to find comfort in something.

Through this whole journey to our son, God has showed me over and over again that HE is the only source of true and lasting comfort.  Again, this week, he has comforted me with his word. With less than 36 hours remaining until we hear the outcome of our case, I have been running the same few verses through my head again and again.  I'll leave you with these words from Daniel ch. 6.  They've brought me great comfort as I've prayed for favor with the judge in Ethiopia this week. 

"Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever;

wisdom and power are his.

He changes time and seasons;

he sets up kings and deposes them.

He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.

He reveals deep and hidden things;

he knows what lies in darkness,

and light dwells with him.

I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers:

You have given me wisdom and power,

you have made known to me what we asked of you.

Two days and to-dos

Ladies and Gentleman, give it up for a mere 2 days until our court date!  That means only two more nights of trying to sleep with a onslaught of what-if's running through my mind.

With two days left, I am reflecting on my to-dos.  Back in March, when we were in the throes of paperwork I made my "Before Baby To-Do List."  With Ryan by my side, I have diligently whittled away at the list for the last 9 months.  We have organized, painted, decorated, scrapbooked, bought, sold, and a variety of other verbs in an effort to complete all of the included items.  It's been a great distraction during the tough times of the wait.  For the most part, I am pleased with our progress.  The last of my household projects was completed this weekend- just in the nick of time.  It was listed on my list as:  Cover all naked windows.  Thanks to my talented mother and my staple gun savvy hubby, I can now check that one off.  Here is a photo of the last of the windows- no longer naked!  

Now I can start on my "Before We Travel To-Do List."  Hooray!