Birthday Celebration and Update

Well, this weekend we celebrated my 25th birthday! It's just crazy to think that 6 months ago, when we were thinking of starting our adoption journey, we originally thought we wouldn't be able to start the process until now (Ethiopia's requirements are for both parents to be 25), but with God's help, we are now almost completely finished with our "paper pregnancy", as some adoptive parents call it! I just love how God has led every single step along this journey!

We had a great weekend and Michael and the kids spoiled me like crazy! :) It was a very special day and the only thing that would've made it even better was to get our I-171H (from our fingerprints) in the mail, but it didn't happen, and more than likely will be a couple more weeks. As soon as we receive that, along with a couple reference letters from some great friends, we'll be able to get everything notarized and then send everything to be state authenticated! We cannot wait!!

In the meantime, we started our new puzzle fundraiser (in case you didn't read about it earlier - you can read about it HERE). So far we've had 4 pieces sponsored! I can't wait until we begin to get more pieces sponsored and the puzzle really begins to come together! Hopefully we can get all pieces sponsored in the next couple of months, as I'm hoping and praying we'll be able to get  referral maybe by this summer! The money raised from this fundraiser will go towards the fees we owe once we accept that referral. Would you consider sponsoring a piece to help bring God's precious child to our family? Every piece that is sponsored will have the sponsors name or personal message written on the back. What will be so awesome is how many people will have helped to bring our child home and we will have that constant reminder on our wall!

We've had people ask if they can share our blog link and fundraisers, so I just wanted to let EVERYone know - of course you can! Please share away! :)

P.S. Have you checked the airplane graphic at the bottom of the page? We're out of the US! :)