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!

painted lady

in el paso face painting is a big deal.  if you really want to have a true el paso birthday party, you will have a face painter.  and a pinata, and a bounce house...but back to the face paint. I'm not talking about a little balloon or heart on your cheek.  I'm talking entire face coverage. it's crazy.  it's like art.  last weekend we attended our friend lucia's birthday party in the park.
face painter. check!
eden got a pink butterfly. her friend mia was a cat, and jaxman picked spiderman.

then, this past tuesday we went to chick-fil-a like usual.  it's family night.  this week's kid activity was ZZ the clown.  yes!  and there was...a face painter!
so she became a rainbow with a fairy.

fun times for this little girl that I love. 

I saw the signs

today I kept noticing little sayings and words around the house.  and I tried to pay attention to them.
my grandmother we called "mamie" went to heaven almost a year ago.  some of my most prized possessions are little things from her home.  I have these two drinking glasses of hers that pete and I fight over using when they are clean.  when the glass is empty...this is what you read.

 

take life a little easier. deal. sure miss my mame.

 

we bought eden and charlotte these shirts because we loved their simple message.  also...whenever you purchase one of these shirts you support a family's adoption fund.  I kept wondering about the sweet child this shirt is helping bring home to their forever family.

caramel apple.   these days I need all the help I can get remembering that it is fall.  I love this $4 walmart candle. and eden loves blowing it out.

 and this.  this just makes me laugh.  jumbo glitter shaker.  every house needs one.

two of my loves on the shelf above our sink.  mexico and cadbury world.  I only wish one of them wasn't so far away.
so there are the signs I saw today and wanted to make a note of.
on the adoption home front...we have our fingerprint appointments!!!  I will definitely update when those are done and we have our USCIS approval and wait list number! we're getting there!
I am a part of a yahoo group for families adopting from ethiopia and there were several referrals given out last week from our agency.  I would get so teary reading everyone's stories...it's a 10 month old girl! or a 4 month old boy!...and thinking about what our referral phone call will be like.  how our story will unfold.  such a miracle.
well. I'm off to take life a little easier.

shirts and aprons!

just a friendly reminder that we still have our shirts and aprons for sale!  we are ordering one more batch of shirts...and then we think that will be it.
thank you to everyone who has already supported us!
directions on how to order are on the right side of the blog.

copy cat

I saw these on some others blogs... so I needed to make one for our family.
we are hoping for a brother...but his name won't be miles.  even though I think that is a great name.  I don't know why it made some words larger than others...it didn't depend on the amount of times I entered them, like other wordles I had done in the past.  I was referring to the "miles" between el paso and ethiopia.
anyhoo.  tada!

weekending

even though fall officially starts in 2 days...it is still 90 degrees in el paso.  I try to embrace the season by burning caramel apple scented candles, brewing pumpkin spice coffee, and of course, eating candy corn.  and then when I walk outside...I remember it really won't feel like fall here for another month or more.
so...since it is still swim suit weather, and since mimi sent the girls a package with water balloons in the mail...we decided to have a water balloon fight this weekend. 

eden and daddy got wet, while charlotte preferred to try and pop her "ball" open with her teeth.  really safe.

we also went to our neighbor's first birthday party.  it had a mickey mouse theme and the girls had a great time.  they both got their own goody bags, so charlotte now knows what smarties are. and m&ms. 

the stink thing about weekends is that they go by way, way too quickly.

woops.

our dossier was received by holt this afternoon.  but it seems that I messed up a little on our end of things.  I didn't realize that starting in august the dossier requirements had changed.  I did go back and read an old email from holt that told me this...but I guess I didn't understand what they were saying at the time.  adoption speak is still a little confusing to me.
basically...our dossier won't be complete until we get approval of the application (I-600A) that we sent to the USCIS.  I mailed this almost 2 weeks ago, and apparently approval can take a month or more. SO. it looks like we have some more waiting to do for this to get to us...and THEN our dossier will be complete.  and we'll get an official waiting list number.
in the old way (the way I thought things were still happening) you didn't need this approval included in your dossier. I had everything checked off on the old list and was so proud of myself...not realizing it wasn't up to date.  sheesh.
and while this is a little bit of a bummer...it's just a little bit more waiting. 
live and learn.

on a positive note...at least everything else in our dossier was good to go and we don't need to do any revisions. 
I just feel kind of dumb.  and wish I had a little adoption helper fairy to guide me along the correct check-off paths.
chin-up!