One Week From Today...

We will be on an airplane, on our way to Ethiopia to meet our baby boy...INCREDIBLE!

Please pray for God's will to be done, whatever that might mean for us and for him.

May His Spirit change each of us as a result of this trip.

And may our little man be prepared in his own 4-month-old way to accept us, to receive love from us, to become our child.

What We've Been Up To...

Well, it's starting to feel like "crunch time," but in a really good sort of way! Time seems to be speeding up more and more each day as we near our departure day! And we have SO much to do in the next 11 days.

We have been incredibly blessed by donations of formula, diapers, wipes, etc. that we will be taking with us to give to our agency's orphanage, Hannah's Hope in Ethiopia! We spent today getting much of that packed up and ready to go. :)

Today was also our 2nd round of immunizations at our local travel clinic - just polio and our 2nd hepatitis A and B shots, not bad at all compared to our first round in June!

I find myself CHERISHING each day with our girls, knowing that we'll be away from them for an entire week. It hurts my heart to think about that...but I know they will have a WONDERFUL time with Grandma and Aunt Abby. I've had people ask before, "How can you leave your kiddos for so long to make this trip to Africa?" And my answer: "If Ev was at home, but Sylvie was in Africa, wouldn't I drop everything at home to go and bring Syl home? Of course! And it's the same thing. I leave Ev and Syl because I have a baby boy who is MINE/OURS there, a baby boy who I CANNOT WAIT to meet and hold and get to know all of his ins and outs, his needs, his fears, his joys, what makes him tick...

And here are a few of my favorite recent pics that I'll leave you with...



Some friends gave us free tickets to a baseball game, and we had a really great time. Thanks, Carla!!! :)




Sylvia, watching the team's mascot shaking hands with some other kids. She was in total and utter awe!




Evelyn at the game - and, by the way, who needs a bun?!?




Both girls have been begging me constantly to wear my jewelry, so I finally stopped at our local thrift store and picked them up some of their own. Here, Ev is modeling her favorite pieces.




And Syl got in on the action too. She said, "Mom, do I look gorgeous?" Oh yeah!




Daddy took the girls "camping" (in our backyard) for the first time ever this summer. The girls helped set up the tent, we all roasted marshmallows over the fire, and then, armed with their flashlights, those 3 hunkered down for a night under the stars (and I came back inside to an incredibly quiet and peaceful evening). Good for everyone! :)

July 10-A Special Day :)

So tomorrow, July 10, is a special day for three reasons...

1) Our baby boy will be 4-months-old :)

and

2) July 10 marks the one-year anniversary of our beginning this adoption journey; one year ago, July 10, 2009, we decided that we were going to respond to the Holy Spirit's prompting to bring a little one into our family through adoption!

and

3) Tomorrow marks the "2-weeks-until-we-get-on-the-plane-for-Addis-Ababa" too! By the time our little guy is 4 and a half months old, we will have held him in our arms, and taken TONS of photos of him, and gotten a taste of the culture of his birth country.

Ah...{good sigh}...July 10! :)

Court Went Well!!

That was the message from our case worker today. :)

One more step closer to our little man. :)

Travel Plans and Birth Family Court Date

Today we received our itinerary/plane tickets in the mail from our travel agent (whom I would highly recommend to anyone adopting internationally)! We are really pleased with our flight schedule. We will fly from Omaha to Chicago, Chicago to D.C., and D.C. to Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia) with a short re-fueling stop in Rome (no one gets off the plane). And we arrive there the evening of July 25. We'll have two days to spend with soon-to-be-baby-LeFeber before our court appointment on July 28, another day or two to get to know our little guy, and then we fly home the night of July 30. We are incredibly excited!!! 25 days 'til we hold him in our arms for the first time! :)

Tomorrow, July 2, is our baby boy's birth family's court appointment in Addis Ababa, where they will formally relinquish him as I understand it. My heart is aching for them tonight. And I am praying His PEACE for our little guy's father and older siblings.

I told Nathan tonight just how ready I am to be a Mama to 3. I know without a doubt that our little one is OURS, and absolutely meant to be a part of our family. It definitely feels like someone is missing around here. :) But, hopefully and prayerfully, he will soon be home.

May God be glorified in the life of this little one!