star crunch breakfast

as I sit here and type our 15 month old is having a little debbie snack as part of her breakfast.  why, you ask?  because she is at her grandparent's house.  I gave her milk, grapes, and some cheerios...which she ate happily.  then an hour later she went to the pantry and my mom opened it...and she came out with a star crunch.  my mom says it is healthier than a reese's peanut butter cup which is what she wanted initially.  sure it is. I am sure that when I was 15 months old this would not have been an option as a part of a morning snack...but she wasn't the grandmother then now was she?
enjoy it charlotte mae.
we've been making the most of our time at home in the fall.  we miss our daddy, but have tried to fill our days with fun activities and cousin time.  I highly recommend the children's museum in atlanta called "imagine it".  we took 6 of the 10 harbin cousins (4 of them born within 9 months of each other) and stayed for 3 hours. the kids would have stayed all day.  we only left because we were hungry for the varsity.  the grease was beckoning us. 
painting L to R is: my little brother john with his daughter abigail in a carrier, charlotte, jackson, eden, june, and reagan.

oh, and before petey left we all went to the yellow river game ranch and fed some deer and bunnies and ducks.  I grew up having cows, horses, chickens, burros, rabbits, and of course the usual dogs, fish, and hampsters.  So, I love seeing the girls around animals. 

can I please, one day, just live on a big farm?  in a big white house that has a wrap around porch with a green roof.  hey, a girl can dream.

wait list! we have a number!!

it is with great great JOY that I say unto you my blog reading friends....we are number

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yes 37!!
we received our I171H approval in the mail on saturday!!  our sweet friends mikell and lindsay are checking our mail while we are gone and they called saturday to tell me the good news.  then they drove straight to kinkos (without me asking!) and scanned the paperwork and emailed it to me right away!  I forwarded the info onto our agency immediately...so this morning I got the email we'd be waiting so long for that told us our NUMBER!!
this means we are number 37 on the list of holt families waiting for a child of any age or gender.  our organization doesn't separate the list by child preference. we also got to request a BOY today!  I have been floating on a cloud all day long...and I even got to talk to pete (in papua new guinea) and tell him the good news!
each month we will get a new number that will keep going down until we are close enough for a referral of a child!
I tried to take a cute picture of our girls in front of another leafy 37 that I'd made...but they didn't really want to smile.  I did get an added bonus of wonderful when my nephew jackson wanted to get in the picture.  he is just as excited as they are.

oh happy day!
p.s. we went to the varsity today, too.  and the children's museum in atlanta called "imagine it"!  talk about a day of wonderful!  more on that later.

ethiopian crock pot recipe!

look what stephanie o'dea is cooking up today?? Ethiopian stew !!  I was so excited to see this today! It is a chicken stew called doro wat...and I can't wait to try it.  y'all know I am a sucker for all things crock pot.  and all things Ethiopian.
we have been traveling the last few days...thus the lack of posts.  my husband and father left yesterday and are bound for papua new guinea.  they'll be gone for about 3 weeks and are helping build a home for a bible translator there.  we will miss them oh SO much, but are very proud they are making this journey for the second time!  Over 65% of the world’s 6,800+ language groups still do not have even a portion of God’s Word in their own language. isolated by linguistic, cultural, political, even geographic barriers that cut them off from the Good News of Jesus Christ, hundreds of millions of people still wait.  what a joy for pete and dad to be a part of bringing God's story to language groups so far from home.
while they are away the girls and I are home in GA.  which is just wonderful.  Eden turned 4 a few days after we got here. her daddy made her a princess cake...and we had fun with cousins and family.

yes.  their carpenter daddy with blistery rough hands...also makes fancy cakes and his own butter cream frosting. 
we are loving every minute of seeing fall.  we don't really see leaves change in el paso, and I always miss this crisp time of year in the south.  it will be the first time that my girls get to trick or treat with their cousins...and go to a pumpkin patch together.  I have to make myself stop daydreaming while I watch the leaves fall as the wind blows. 

I think charlotte likes fall, too.

thinking about the babe

when we began the adoption process I thought a bunch about the child we were going to adopt.  I wondered about him or her.  what this sweet one would look like.  how our children would love this baby.  how much we would, too.
but now, a couple of months into it things are a little different.  now I get teary missing this child.  I actually miss a child that I have never met and might not even be born.  which to those who are adopting or have adopted doesn't sound strange at all, I'm guessing.
I have the same feelings that I did when I was pregnant with charlotte.  always wondering if she was a boy or a girl.  who would she look like?  what would her cry sound like?  and I would burst into tears thinking about how much I loved this baby growing inside of me.
not that I didn't wonder these things with eden...it's just that I had NO clue how much I would love my children until God gave us eden.  I mean, I loved her when she was on the inside and even before she was conceived...but when she came out.  good grief.  that achy, deep, crazy, holy cow my heart my burst wide open LOVE.  that's what I didn't know about until she was placed in my arms. 
but now I know.  and my heart already bursts with love for this baby that isn't growing inside of my uterus...but has already taken up residence in my heart.  and every day that we wait that love just grows and grows.
just another thing I didn't know.  I didn't know how much I could love a child halfway around the world.  I didn't know I'd be chopping up sweet potatoes for dinner and start sniffling because I miss a baby in ethiopia.
still no USCIS approval...but prayers and hopes for a speedy delivery.

disney on ice!

tonight I took eden to see the great ice skating spectacular that is disney on ice.  we went with our buddy jonas and his mom, amy.
I made eden and jonas mickey and minnie shirts and they looked adorable in them. 

I stole the idea from laura kelley at pitter patter art who makes the best artwork as an adoption fundraiser. mine were no where near as good as hers, but still fun.

the kids went crazy for every character that skated across the ice. 

and maybe I might have been singing along and dancing as well. and amy might have worn mickey mouse ears for most of the show.
the princesses were a hit for eden.

and just when we thought it couldn't get any better.....

TOY STORY characters showed up!!
I might have screamed when I saw jessie....and buzz....and woody.
I can't help it.  I love singing and dancing, and especially watching my daughter loving it, too.

fingerprinted!

pete and I were fingerprinted last week, and we are SO happy!  now we just have to wait for our approval from the USCIS and we'll be on the wait list. finally! we are hoping it will come soon, but as with everything else we'll just wait, wait, wait and see.
woo hooo!