Officially freakin out!!!!!

Okay so we got our fingerprint clearence in the mail today and I immediatly called WACAP, our social worker said that she had also received these and that she was shocked becasue ours only took like 3 weeks and normally it takes like 2-3 months. SO.....long stroy short we are officially on the waiting list and our number is 4! She said that they have been reffering a lot of children out lately and that we shouldbe ready for a refferal on the low end of the wait times which is like 1-2 months!!!!! So that is the news we have today, we are short one document on the Dossier ( a small oversite on my part) and other than that we are pretty much done with our part and are just now in waiting mode. God bless to all!

Wonderful Chritmas

I have been wanting to post but I havnt had any pics yet and part of me hates posting without a pic but I just wanted to share my wonderful Christmas! Our hearts are full right now with the love of family and time shared together when we were a little nervous that we wouldn't be able to travel. Late on Tuesday we decided if we were going to make it down for Christmas to Salem/Portland than that was our opportunity so we headed out at 5pm and finally made it to Salem at 12:30 at night! It was a rough travel day but our boys were the best travelors any parents could ask for. Christmas was so much fun this year, the boys are at a great age and we just had so much fun watching them open presents. Owen does this very cute hyperventalating thing when he is unwrapping a present and realizes it is something he really wants, I believe that flapping hands and jumping up and down are involved as well. Wyatt was so sweet and was very content with the new books and trains that he got. It was like he would open one thing and then be totally distracted and into it that he didn't really want to unwrap anything else. Owen on the other hand loved the idea of helping brother unwrap! I never knew how fun it was until this year (they just weren't aware enough in past years) to get ready for Christmas for young children, they are in awe of everything like lights and decorations and presents of course! We hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas also and that there weren't to many mishaps with the snow and ruining plans. God bless to all!

Craft fair success

Hi everyone just wanted to let you all know that I did my first craft fair this last weekend. I sold my bows, with all of the money going towards Ruby! It was a tone of fun and neat to see people excited about something I made. I rasied about $140.oo at the craft fair but the cool thing is the amount of money (about $350.00) that I have raised through just friends and families and co-workers of Joe (Daphne!) Thank you so much to people who have purchased some on these, it touches my heart beyond measure (ooh good Jeremy Camp song...heheh) that so many of you have wanetd to support us in this journey. We are so excited for our future with our new daughter and we cant wait to share it with all of you. We have our fingerprints taken for immigration paperwork on friday and as soon as that comes backs cleared to our agency we will be getting onto the waiting list so maybe by the end of the month or so! It is cool to think that next Christmas we will have our new daughter, maybe even next 4th of July....ehhh, better start painting a room pink! Blessing to all.

How to say thank you?

So okay I didnt post a blog about the outcome of our car but I did end up telling our friends about it, the Buchanans. End result approx $3000 for a whole new transmission! So.....today after church as Owen was sleeping, Wyatt and I jumped on to the computer (Wyatt likes to watch Thomas the Train and Singing Times videos on Youtube) well after his turn mommy had her turn to check e-mail. Well what did I find but and e-mail explaining that these dear, dear friends of ours are sending us $2500 to help fix our car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you is just not enough. Joe and I just keep walking around the house and every few minutes stopping to say "can you believe this? or "God is just SO good!" As you know we are saving for our adoption and this potentially large stumbling block has just been lifted off of our backs, there are just no words within me to say what that means right now. It has strengthed our faith, as we have been praying very hard about how this was going to work out, we believe without a doubt that we were meant to get Ruby and we knew that God was going to take care of this! We just hope that when it is our turn to help that person in need that we will be so obedient to answer the call as this amazing family! Thank you from the bottom of our heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

..and a happy Thanksgiving to you!

Well we hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Ours started off wonderful, we are in Portland (Oregon) and we are visiting our family. We got to see a lot of people that we haven't seen in a long time. The boys did great even without a nap and Wyatt didn't even notice that not a single thing on his plate was the same as everyone else was having (he has wheat and milk allergies). SO...all was well until we left in the evening to go back to my dad's house again to visit and play games, we were on our way just about to get on to I5 and suddenly our car just stopped going, Joe pushed on the gas but we had no juice. We ended up being stranded on the side of the road with both boys in not the best of neighborhoods. We called roadside asstistance and had our car towed and my dad came and picked us up. We don't know what the problem is but pretty sure it is part or possibly the whole transmission. So please pray with us that it is something small and not too expensive! Oh yeah the only transmission shop, which is where our car is is closed today so we will see tomarrow if they are open, so we relaly do hope you all had a great Turkey day! God bless

Baby Bobbi bows

Okay now comes the stress.....I am trying not to do a lot of this but find myself constantly thinking oh my gosh how are we going to do this. We finally got our Homestudy approved and completed and we have officially been welcomed into the Ethiopian program at our agency. I knew it was going to be happening but I think I was in denial...but finally it did happen today, we got our first big bill! Through the denial though I knew that I had to start doing something to help off set this. So what I have decided to do for my own personal Ruby Fundraiser is to make little girl hairbows. It has been so much fun making these, I get to play with ribbon, which I love, and also being around pink and girly things is getting me excited to have another woman in the house amist the firetrucks, thomas the trains and cars. So I am sending this out to all of you, our friends and family. I thought that these could be a perfect gift for Christmas (or birthday)for little girls that you may know. I have A LOT of these in all color schemes, I also have christmas Korkers (the curly ones) bows. I have clippies in so many color combos I am sure that I have something that will be perfect. And also to let you know with the help of Jessica (thank you again) I have a stamp with our logo "Baby Bobbi Bows" and each bow or pair of clippies comes on a piece of cardstock that looks very professional so you can feel confident in giving it as a gift. Some of you may be wondering about the name baby bobby bows, we it comes from my Wyatt and Owen because that it how they say Baby Ruby, it really is very cute. So please e-mail me if you would like to purchase some of these, the clippies are $5.00/pair, the Korkers are $8.00/piece, the single bow (with the butterfly on it) is $4.00/piece and the bow sets are $6.00/piece. And if I am shipping maybe add like $1.00 or $2.00 to the total order. Honestly I have a LOT of different styles and colors so just let me know what you would like or if you are local I can stop by. Love to all and God bless

okay, um....I've been tagged?

I guess I have been tagged by Teabo Chica..you silly girl! I am a new blogger and I have no idea what this is....but I am going to try!

apparently I have to list 7 random or wierd facts about me, so okay.....

1.) my first car was a 1979, 2-toned yellow Toyota Carolla aka, the banana boat

2.)my husband boils water on the stove to add to my bath if the hot water runs out and I want to stay in longer.

3). I am scared to death in a gondola (sp?) or that ride that goes across the fair, I just know the cable will break on my turn.

4). When I was little I wanted 2 set of twins, their names would be Micheal & Jordan and Mercedes & Ben.

5). I love car games!

6). I like salt on my ice cream

7). My dream home is on a farm with lots of animals, lots of kids and lots of love! A territorial view of the willemette valley would be icing on the cake.

SO, I think that I did this right and now I am supposed to tag 7 people which I think is hilarious because I only know like 5 people who blog, 1 of which blogged me and I's guessing I cant send it back your way so......Cory, Emily, Kelsey and Amy even though I know you have done this before (gulp!) um yep thats about it.

And the title goes to.....

MY HUSBAND! #1 Dad and husband of ALL times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So this weekend was a girls weekend that we have been planning for months for my sister-in-law's 30th birthday, so on friday afternoon, me, Kristen, Julie and Kel (Joe's twin sis) headed out to central Oregon for and awsome weekend. It was such amazingly beautiful weather, crisp-fresh air, sharp clear views and blue sky. It was like God knew it needed to be a special weekend. We had the best time in a beautiful cabin in Sunriver, lounging around relaxing, and doing girly things and going to places that I don't dare trod into with kids. Meanwhile.....back at the ranch Joe was home with boys. This great father took our boys to the zoo, the park, a community event at the fire station (in their Halloween costumes too!) and then to church all by himself. And the most amazing part was that when I came home the dishes were done the house was clean, the yard was mowed and the laundry was done and PUT AWAY!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much sweetheart, you really are the best!

loving life!

For some reason I feel like I should post only because it has been a while since I have posted, but the truth is life has been very steady recently, thank you God! The boys while keeping me quite busy are just melting my heart lately. Today I was at the Goodwill and I saw a beautiful little black baby doll and I had to get it. Even though we are still a ways a way from actually bringning our daughter home, I thought that at least I could introduce dolls into our house hold, it is the first one, and also one that will look like their sister. I was shocked at how sweet my oldest child was with doll. he wanted to hold it and played with it for quite a while. Now this may sound pretty normal but for Wyatt who has special needs we are just starting to see a little bit of imaginary play beginning. He was patting the doll on her bottom like I was when I was holding her and he was pushing her around in the "new" Maclaren stroller that I also got at the Goodwill for $15! Score! And I have to share my last bargain of the day just because I am so excited about it, I love a bargain.....I got our new daughters bedset, bumpers, quilt, dustruffle and cribsheet all a set made by Laura Ashley, brand new and just what I wanted for $9!!!!!! I was so excited I almost threw myself on it. It is so exciting getting ready, I am feeling more and more excited lately as I see my boys getting a little older and more mature and a little less scared of being a mom to 3 little ones. I have to tell one funny story that happened recently, I was walking up to the door with Owen and I had my hands full of groceries, I asked Owen "can you open the door I dont have any hands" Owen just gave me this concerned and questioning look and said "mommy no hands?" as he frantically went looking for my hands! It was very cute.

a little update

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Wyatt loved the bounce house/slide we could barely get him out! The pic of him to the left is in a filbert tote on the back of Grandpa Tom's tractor. He pulled the boys around in that thing for what seemed like hours!

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Yeah.....our buddy barely walked he got the royal treament on Grandpa and daddy's shoulders....did I mention that the walk is like 1/4 of a mile!

Rachel Coleman of Singing times was there it was SO awsome! The boys loved seeing her. They are looking at a real AUTOGRAPH for THEM from Rachel, we couldn't get them to look at the camera! The hot momma's are Joe's sister Kelly and our friends Julie and Kristen, thank you so much for coming to supprt our buddy!

It has been a little while and so I wanted to give the 2 people who may read this blog an update on how our family has been doing lately. Well 2 weeks ago we had our buddy walk. The buddy walk is an event where people come and gather and celebrate their children that have Down syndrome and also to bring awareness and change regarding our children. It is an incredibly fun event for the kids and adults too! This year Rachel Coleman of Singin times came, she held a concert the night before and the boys had a BLAST! They love them some Signing times! The weather was so georgous and it was just really great to see such a large group of people, especially all of our family and friends, gathering for such a great thing and it was fun to see all of our little ones running around. I also must update on the amazing results of our month of nothing which officially ended on Sept 30th but becasue our eyes were opened SO much we have really changed our spending habbits. In the month of Sept we bought nothing that we didn't need, ate no meals out, had no Starbucks that was not bought for us (thank you Tom and Karen who graciously gave us a couple bucks for "road coffee only!) and so because of this we were able to put an AMAZING $1200 in Ruby's account which was very fortunate because we had an $860 sum of money to pay for out immigration (I600A form) and fingerprinting last week. So needless to say we were a little embarassed as to the fact that we had not been having any left over at the end of our months and it left us really wondering where it all has been going? We are planning another month of nothing in January although I believe that we have changed our habits already and are more aware now, but I am sure we will need a resfresher after the holidays! And in terms of the adoption we are finalizing the homestudy right-up that was written by the Social worker and hopefully be completing our Dosier paperwork very soon. We are anticipating being put on the wait list around Late December early Jan.

Doodlebops O YEAH!

So today we we went to the Doodlebop concert at the Puyallup fair and oh my gosh talk about a lame concert! Joe mentioned the fact that of all of the very cool concerts; Casting Crowns, Carrie Underwood, Kid Rock, Sarah Evens, that we were at the DOODLEBOPS! I actually won tickets on SPIRIT 105 a few months ago for the name game, so in case you were wondering NO we did not buy these tickets. The boys on the other hand had the BEST time, Wyatt was SO happy. He danced the entire time, everyone around him thought he was so cute, which of course I cant argue with! Owen also had a good time, albiet a little on the tired side (1:30 show time=no nap) We had a wonderful family day at the fair, we rode on the skytram ($11.00!)which was their 1 ride, and bought no food. Our month of nothing conitues to be fruitful and eye opening and good for our waistlines as well. I am a little amazed at how many times I think oh I will just stop and get something and normally I would have. I am happy to report that not one Starbucks drink, Subway, Indian Food/Thai food has been bought by either Joe or I for 21 days now. We did buy the boys Mcdonalds on our trip to the Oregon coast for a family reunion, which I have to report that $11.00 was all that was spent on food the entire weekend! All of the ladies went to the outlet mall and I went too but left my wallet in the car (that was a hard one). Anyways we are so excited about this we plan to have our next month of nothing after the Holidays in January. I think about our daughter every day. Wondering if she is in her mothers tummy yet. I get excited when I think of her along with us on our family outings or at the dinner table, or in the boys' room when we read them their books at night (or maybe I get snuggle time with her during that time if she is fussy!) I just am getting so excited to meet whoever this little child is that God has in store for us, yeah this is all worth it! And if she wants to see the Doodlebops too then we would gladly go again!

THIS IS THE STAGE! Wyatt Danced the entire time

Okay I had to load this video. We took this of a woman dancing at the concert. It was a little wierd, she was really rocking out, I guess she really likes the doodlbops!

Mason family challenge!

This was super cute. My husband loves football and with it starting back up again he is all excited. We were playing with the boys outside tonight when Joe thought that he would teach them a drill: Mason family challenge. He set up a little drill and showed them how to do it and then let them go at it. It was so cute they actually got it. Owen was a little hesitant to knock down the garbage can, but once he did it he wanted to do it over and over again. Oh by the way if you can hear it, that is the Oregon Duck fight song they are huming after they score their "touchdowns!"

month of nothing going well so far!

Well we are at the end of day 4 of the month and I already am feeling the itch to go and get a coffee or grab a bite to eat (since we have all been sick it would be so much easier to go and get dinner!) But it has also been a bit liberating, to know that the money for this stuff, which we can certainly live without, is going towards bringing our daughter to us. That is pretty awsome! ........................We taught our son to say "nice to meet you" for this last wednesday during our homestudy, and he has been so cute walking around the house say "nice to meet you" even talking to grandma today. One exchange that just made me smile a little "thank you God for my children" smile, was this
Owen: Nice to meet you mom
Me: Nice to meet you too, thank you (we are learning manners)
Owen: You're welcome (yeah he is actually learning!)
Me: Love you buddy
Owen: Love you too mommy
.....then the sweetest part of all was my 4 year old who was standing behind his brother and listening, holding up his "I love you" sign to me. I love you to buddy!!!!!!!!!!

yep, blog #2!

Okay, so today Joe and I decided that Septmeber is all about being frugal. We have decided to totally eat at home, no fast food stops (even Mcdonalds for the kiddos!) oh....and no coffee! I am a little nervous about that one but we have made a comitment to save like $500.00 for the adoption account this month on top of the $200 we are trying to put away each month. We will keep you posted on how we are doing with our goal.

I cant believe I am blogging!

Okay so I think that I am officially a blogger now! Yeah, I am so excited, well it is 11:22pm exactly...just finished getting some things finished in the house for the big day. Wednesday is our 1 st homestudy visit. We are so excited it is actually happening. With each new step in this adoption process it is getting more and more real! Today I had an amazing experience. The Teabo's hosted a party for all of the families in our area who have already adopted from Ethiopia or who are in the process. It was an awsome time! I meet so many wonderful people who I hope see again soon or to atleast catch up with once in a while and see how their journey is going. It is amazing the doors God opens for you and the people that he puts into your life when you are open to the path that he has before you. We feel truely blessed in our life.