unfortunate news

We received some unwelcome news, our wait just got a bit longer. instead of the 10 months they had thought when we started it will now be closer to 14 months. So we are looking at February or March.

I am trying to motivate myself that it gives us longer to earn more vacation time away and save more $$ for the big trip to Korea!

I have a whole list of things I want to get done around the house before he comes home, one of which is painting his room and making all the bed linens. Thank you Ty Pennington for the inspiration!

Could he be any cuter?

Baby Moon @ 7 months!

He is packing on the pounds with rice, cheese, yogurt, bananas, and apples! Not to mention he still gets up every two hours from sleep to eat - what a little piggy!

From the report he is sitting up, crawling and loves to hear "you're such a handsome boy". ahhh.

LOVE those feet!

We can see God's plan at work

God is so GREAT!




So one of the coolest part of our referral of Baby Moon is his foster family!







As I read through the referral it tells about his foster family and keeps referring to Mrs. Choi and I thought maybe Choi is a common name because I know that was Hudson's foster mom's name. As I continued to read about her I thought WOW that really sounds just like Hudson's Mrs. Choi. I finally looked at the photo . . . It is Mrs. Choi!!!! Hudson's foster momma! We are not even working with the same agency so it is so weird to be placed with same family! It is wonderful to know that he is being taken such good care of, we know Hudson was well-loved and treasured and we feel like Baby Moon is in good hands!



Secondly, Hudson and Baby Moon were actually living as foster brothers for about 3 months! God is so good to remind us He holds our plans, our lives, our future in His hands! Having this connection with Hudson and Mrs. Choi made me feel so loved by our God! He does love to surprise us!

REFERRAL!!!

After much consideration and heartache we have decided to leave the Ethiopia program. After continuous delays, hiccups, questionable agency practices we felt we should explore our options. It has been a difficult process, I feel like our identity is so much a part of the Ethiopia program and our future Ethiopian child.

After spending the holidays with Val, Jonathan and baby Hudson we are feeling like the South Korea program might be where it is at. The fact that the children are cared for in foster care by loving foster parents and have access to Westernized medicine. It is a big change of thought for us, we were prepared for malnutrition, language and development delay, questionable age and history. Now all of a sudden we are changing gears.

After talking several times with our agency social worker and still questioning the decision to change, we received a phone call, she stated that for the first time ever in the agency history they have more children in the program than adoptive parents (specifically boys). We of course said "what's the catch?" After a week of discussion we opted to switch on Monday 0800. at 10:00 we received a phone call, "we have a referral for you". Say What????

A beautiful healthy baby boy!



JaeHyeong Moon was born on July 20, 2010 at 7.2 lb, 19.3 in


YEAH!!!!!!!!


So now we just have to do a bunch of paperwork! and we will be officially waiting to travel! We have been warned it will be about 10 months.

It's been a while

Well I am not sure if it was the overwhelming frustration with the adoption process or the stress related to buying and selling our house (in winter no less) but I have been absent from the blogging world.




Next week Dan and I will mark the 1 year mark in our official wait. last year at this time we thought we would very close to a referral if not already, however we have been told it will be at least another year. We have been updating the homestudy and have another home visit scheduled this week with our adoption social worker.









Valarie and Jonathan have a referral and hope to travel this summer to pick up little Hudson Joon Hart Smith. He is such a cutie with wild hair. I am so excited for her and cannot wait to meet Hudson and see my baby sister as a momma!







We purchased our new home on March 22 and am totally smitten with it! we only spent a few nights there before heading to Playa del Carmen, Mexico for a much needed vacation from reality! We are so thankful for Dan's parents, Kathy and Ernie, for providing the opportunity to spend time there.

good news and rough news

So the long awaited mayo craft fair is over! Val and I worked so hard to prepare and it showed! I don't think we had any idea how much we really had until we set everything out on our tables. We have plenty left over in case anyone needs any last minute christmas gifts!



So on to the rough news. the same week of the fair we were told by our adoption agency that the 9-12 month wait has now been extended to 24+ month wait. whoaaaaaa. I knew it wouldn't be 9 months (we are at 8 months now) but 24+????? between gov't regulations and increased humanitarian work the number of adoptable orphans has decreased . I know this is a great thing that because of aid to families in need families are able to stay together. but it is still hard to think that the number of children in need of homes has truly shrank that much.

I think we are just heartbroken that our hopes of having a family continue to be just out of reach.

We have attempted to keep busy just so we don't sit around and dwell about about it. House hunting and open houses for us. we think we found the house perfect for us, only catch - still need a buyer for our house! We always like to do things a little different or challenging, and trying to sell a house in the off season - in the middle of the holidays should present enough of a challenge.

keep us in your prayers we need wisdom and patience (nothing new!).

Real Quick

The craft fair is OVER, I cannot believe after so many months of preparing it is done. wish we would have done a few things differently, who knows maybe we will get to do another fair. we had a great turn out, but have tons of inventory left! I cannot wait to get the flickr site more updated and to get a better update on this blog. until then continue to check out the flickr site (the link is to the Right of the page), and I have started to use my facebook page to advertise a bit also. val and i are toying with maybe doing an etsy shop, but not sure yet.

if you have suggestions or would like to order something fabulous email me and I can get to it asap!
sisterhood2motherhood@hotmail.com