SOMEBODY PINCH ME!

This morning we got the email that we have been waiting on for forever. We got I600 approval on our son's RFE that was sent to Rome! We can finally go to bring him home! We actually booked our tickets in faith once our attorney mailed off our documents to be adjudicated. We booked our tickets for today and sweated it out the whole week! Last night we were really sweating it, but stayed up late getting packed anyway. I woke up a couple times in the night instantly with that nervous sick butterfly feeling in my stomach. I think when I opened that email, my whole body was shaking and I could hear and feel my heart beating out of my chest. It was so loud! Honestly, this has been beyond hard, and we are so thankful it is finally over. Right now we are feeling relieved...like about 30 elephants were just lifted off our backs. We are relieved and exhausted from the battle. I feel like I could nap for 3 days! Defintely feeling like we have been in battle! But today Satan lost that battle. Our son is an orphan no more!
We leave today and come home with him on Saturady Ethiopian Christmas day Jan 7! We have left our tree up so we will be celebrating our new year and Ethiopian Christmas with our son home! All Glory Be to God who trusted us with this precious boy! We are so thankful He saw us through this difficult journey.
Be prayer for us. Aaron is still not 100% feeling better, so please pray healing over him, pray for safe travels, and no complications of any kind.
Also, please pray for our little guy because this is his 4th move in his short little 15-month life. Be patient with us when we come home and hole up in our house for a while. The bonding process with JoMo is a big deal because we will all be adjusting to a new life together, and Josiah Moti will be learning what a family is and what the roll of a mom and dad is. For a while Aaron and I will need to be the only ones to hold him and tend to him until he learns our roles as his parents. This is because he is use to multiple caretakers taking care of him on a daily basis and has never been in a family setting before. Please pray for him, because even though we are rejoicing, this transition will be very difficult and scary for him. Please be praying God's comfort and peace over him and that he feels that comfort and peace around Aaron and me and the girls. Please pray for our girls and all of our wonderful family memebers who are pitching in to take care of them. Pray our girls are a blessing to them. Just this morning I asked Alyssa if she was going to miss us and she said, " no, because I am excited for you to bring Josiah home." That was the best thing I could've heard her say! i told Aubrey the news and her comment under her grin was "good!" The girls are so excited to finally meet their brother. Please be praying that God blesses their transition time with him as well.
Thank you to all of you who prayed with us, cried with us, supported us, and listened to us when we were at ar worst. We love you all and are so grateful we had you to walk this road with us!

My next picture I post will be of these 3 cuties all together in person!

Merry Christmas

Today on the Eve of Christmas I have been thinking about Mary and Joseph and all they had to endure while Mary was pregnant with Jesus. I don't know if I could've done it. I don't know if Mary and Joseph would've said yes had they known ahead of time exactly what they were going to have to endure walking through it. Think of the disapproving looks they must have received everywhere they went, people judging them and rejecting them because of the situation of Mary being pregnant out of wedlock. I wonder as they were struggling to just get through it and survive, if the thought crossed their minds.."Lord, where are you? Why have you asked us to do this again?" I wonder if they allowed doubt and fear to creep in.
I am so thankful for Mary Joseph and their willingness to say YES to something so scary. I am sure they had uncertainty but said yes anyway. I am so thankful they modeled trust and obedience.
Their testimony has ministered to me so much today! As I sat listening to the song I posted below, I was just overcome with thankfulness for this story. I am so thankful Mary and Joseph said yes and suffered well through their journey in helping to bring our Savior to earth! I am so thankful that today is the day we celebrate our Redeemer.
Thank you Lord for the powerful testimony of your birth that reminds me that some things are worth suffering for. There are bigger purposes ahead. Forgive me in my personal walk where I have been focused on the pain and not the gift. You ARE good all the time, and I love when you speak to my heart.

As you gather with your family and friends this Christmas morning and watch your kids opening their gifts in excitement and wonderment, remember why we truly celebrate today and remember to give Him Glory and thanks!

Being thankful through the ugliness!

Here lately I have been feeling ugly. Keeping a brave face and staying focused on God has been difficult. Although I know in my heart and mind that He is with us and that He is working out things for a greater purpose, it still doesn't take away from the fact that this is the hardest thing Aaron and I have ever had to walk through. One day is different from the next, and each day is unpredictable. Yesterday was a good day, no tears and no dwelling on the things we can't control. Today feels heavy. I have already cried, yelled at my husband in front of my kids, and I am still in my pjs. Today it's really hard to pray. I feel God saying..."Turn to me and not that chocolate rice crispy treat." HA! Yes, I think I have gained just as much weight in this adoption as I have in my 2 pregnancies with my girls. Sad but true. Christmas is my favorite time of the year, and I have REALLY been trying to enjoy and focus on all that I have to be thankful for and that is A LOT my friends! So here in an effort to snap out of this ugliness I am going to list 10 things that I am thankful for!

1. I am thankful for the friend I have in Jesus. I am thankful to know that He is crying with me, and still loving me even in my ugliness. I am thankful that He already knows the outcome of this and is going to carry me through every step.

2. I am thankful for my husband...He is the strongest man I know emotionally and spiritually. I am thankful that he can keep his head on straight when mine is spinning out of control, and he still loves me even when I am acting ugly :) I am thankful that we have the common bond of knowing Jesus, because if we didn't while walking through this adoption, we would probably have grown apart instead of growing closer.

3. I am thankful for my precious girls. They are such a blessing to me. They minister to me daily and their sweet words bring healing to my hurting heart. I am thankful they have an understanding of the bigger picture more than a lot of adults do. They are wise beyond their years. They make my heart swell with pride and joy when I look at their precious little faces.

4. I am thankful God trusted Aaron and I to be Josiah's parents. I am thankful for the love I feel so deeply towards this little guy that keeps me fighting for him daily. I can't imagine the calling he must have on his precious life if the enemy is trying this hard to keep him away. I am thankful one day I will hear him calling me "mom."

5. I am thankful for my friend Becky. She and her husband are in the same boat as us with bringing their daughter home, and I probably talk to her on the phone at least 3 times a day. The Lord knew from the very beginning that we would need each other so He orchestrated us meeting on our first trip. I am not saying that misery loves company here, but I am saying that walking through this with her makes things so much better. I have only met her in person once, but feel as though she is my closest friend.

6. I am thankful for my extended family...mom, dad, brother, nieces, nephews, grandmothers, in-laws etc...thankful for our health and closeness, and thankful we all have each other to love each other through our good and bad times, and through mistakes and all. I am thankful that although sometimes not everyone agrees with us or understands us, they still support and love us.

7. I am thankful for my dog, Lucy. I am not one of those I-love-my-dog-like-she-is a-human-child kind of people, but there is something about Lucy's unconditional love, faithfulness and sweet spirit that reflects God's heart and brightens my day.

8. I am thankful for our house and car. The house isn't big and fancy and we don't live on acres of land with an amazing view, but it's cozy, nice, and warm, and it's ours, and our car runs great and gets us where we need to go, and that is awesome!

9. I am thankful for my friends and church family. These are the ones we can completely be ourselves with and lean on for support and prayer, who give us encouraging words when needed and sometimes even words that we need to hear but don't always want to hear. These are also the ones that challenge us in our faith and help us along in growing up more in the Lord.

10. Although it is hard, I am thankful for this difficult journey. Through it we have been stretched and molded like never before. Experiencing such helplessness has made us put our trust in God more and trust Him that He is in control. Some days that is hard to do, but we do it anyway, because He's all we have to hold onto! Yes, it has been stressful on our marriage and on our family life, but Aaron and I are closer than we have ever been, and our girls have gotten to watch us fight to bring their little brother home. They are fighting with us. Last night we were looking at our YWAM Christmas catalog and Aaron asked Alyssa if she wanted to pick something out for us to give towards YWAM for Christmas. Alyssa said to him..." you know I have money in my piggy bank dad." We have always told her the money in her piggy bank is for a car when she turns 16. She said ,"Dad, if you were me, would you use the money for the kids in Ethiopia or would you use it for a car?" Aaron said..."I don't know Alyssa, what would you do?" And she sat and thought for a minute and said, "I want to give it to the kids in Ethiopia." Aaron had tears in his eyes when he was telling me this last night. Our 6 year-old gets it! These lessons and spiritual growth our girls have received in this with us is priceless! We would do it all over again, because it's worth the cost!

This Love

I love the song in this adoption video. It's such a great love song to our son! Take a listen.
Also, Please be in prayer for us and our adoption journey. Our son's case was one of the 15 cases sent to Rome with an RFE. If you would like to read more about it, you can visit our web page at www.bringjomohome.com

Update!

I am sorry I have been neglecting my blog. There has just been so much going on in our adoption journey that I didn't know how to share, or how much I could share, or even where to begin. It has been nearly 4 mos since our first trip to Ethiopia and we are still waiting on clearance to go get our son. For those of you who have heard about the "Nairobi group" we are a part of that group. For those that don't know, I may go into details later, but basically the USCIS Nairobi is having to look over and hopefully clear about 70 cases that the US embassy would not clear.
There is a group of 4 from USCIS that traveled to Addis Ababa and they are spending 2weeks going through all the cases that the embassy handed over to them. Tomorrow starts the beginning of week 2. All of us families who are in this group are just waiting on pins and needles for our clearance. We are very hopeful we will get cleared this week...hopefully tomorrow! IF we do clear tomorrow or Tuesday, we will more than likely be on a plane on Thursday to get our son!!!! A lot of the families are already booking their flights in anticipation, but we are waiting until we get word of clearance. We have been disappointed over and over, and are feeling hopeful, but not so confident that we are already booking flights! Please, please, please be in prayer that we hear something on Monday (tomorrow) or Tuesday of this week. I will let you know as soon as we hear something. Also, just a little bonus prayer would be for you to pray that our friends the King's and the Gerig's clear as well at the same time! It would be such a gift at the end of all this turmoil to be able to reunite with them and spend a week in Addis with them again! STAY TUNED!

His Room and some art :)

My husband loves to fish and camp, and plans on taking JoMo on many trips to Colorado, so we decided to make our little guys room a fishing/camping theme.
Well....it started out that way but ended up an Ethiopian/camping/fishing theme :)
We bought this map of Ethiopia while we were there, and had it framed and hung in his room.


BEAUTIFUL blanket my mother-in-law's best friend, Lynn, crocheted for him! LOVE this...so very special.




Sweetest picture ever of Josiah with his favorite Nanny.





My friend, Christine, found this cute little guy at a garage sale. So cute!




I was putting something away the other day and I found this in his bed :) I think
Alyssa and Aubrey are ready for their brother to be home :) FYI...my friend Scarlette, found this cute doll at IKEA :)



My friend, Kelly, did an awesome job painting this verse over his bed.


Some of the art we bought while in Ethiopia...

Ethiopian cross


Love this one too...this was Aaron's pick. The artist combined real pictures with his painting. The market setting drew his eye to it.


Got this painting at Makush, and fell in love with it!

A day at the fair!

In late September every year in Texas, one of greatest places to visit opens up for business....The Great State Fair of Texas!
We visit every year, and it seems like the day isn't long enough to fit in all the fun the fair has to offer! We love looking at the crazy exhibits, visiting the animals, riding all the fun rides, and eating all the crazy food! SO MUCH FUN!





We can't leave without a caramel apple!

One of our favorite stops is the Go Texan building! It is full of products from local farmers you can purchase, sample and some educational facts about Texas Farmers. Plus there were some pretty cute tap dancers in this building as well ;)






Can you believe this is a butter sculpture??? Paula Deen would love this! HA!







Oh the Fun!




Even now as an adult I am sad and disappointed when it's time to leave the fair. I love everything about it! It reminds me of my childhood and now having my own children, I absolutely LOVE watching them having a blast and making memories with them! One big tradition is the famous Fletchers Corny Dog! We can't leave without having one or two or three ;)! Goodbye for this year Big Tex! We will see you next year!

Sleepover

Aubrey and Alyssa had a sleepover at our friends, the Cottle's house this past weekend. They had a blast playing with their seven kiddos! The Cottles are an awesome family that have 2 biological children and 5 adopted children! We are blessed to know them!


This just happened to be Aubrey's first sleepover with a friend (asside from family) and you could tell she felt so big and special. She and Edie are the same age and are 2 peas in a pod! So Cute! I was so glad she was asked to stay over too, because being the little sister in the family she often gets left out of sleepovers, so I was happy for my little Aubrey. She didn't even hesitate when they asked her to stay too. she was like...'See ya later mom and dad. Let's get this party started!'
Glad they had fun!

Toothless!

My little first grader finally lost a tooth!
We first discovered her looth tooth about a month ago while we were eating at Pei Wei. She bit into a vietnamese chicken salad roll and complained of her tooth hurting. I went to take a look and gently touched it to find that it was wiggling a little bit! She was so excited, because all her friends in her class lost some of their teeth already and she was beginning to feel a little left out.
This little snaggle tooth got so loose that it was just dangling on for dear life to her gums but she wouldn't let me or her dad pull it out! Finally one night at 1:30 am, I got woke up by her little self saying..."mom, Can you believe it? I got up to potty and my tooth just fell out in my hand! Can you believe it?"
The next morning she said to me..."Mom, are you and dad the tooth fairy?" I didn't answer, not sure what to say, hoping if I ignored her question she would just forget about it and walk away. No Such Luck! She just sat there and said with her most serious face.."Tell me the truth." So I told her yes we are the tooth fairy, but explained to her that it was a fun game mommies and daddies liked to play with their kids, so don't tell any friends at school because it would make their parents sad. She agreed and didn't seem at all disappointed in the news. The next night she still put her tooth under her pillow and woke up with $5.00, which she used to buy some new earrings at "Justice."

The Celebration

I forgot to mention on my first post that Sept 13th is also my father-in-law's birthday as well! So, our little Jo Mo and his Papa will share a birthday! This birthday just happened to be Papa's 50th, so what better way to celebrate Papa's
50th and Josiah's 1st birthdays than at an Ethiopian restaurant!

We had a great time with just me and Aaron and the girls and Aaron's youngest sister, Andrea and their dad..aka "Papa"! We decided to venture out and try a different restaurant than where we usually go and we ended up at Ibex in Dallas. It was great! The food was great and the atmostphere was really great! It reminded me so much of Ethiopia and made me miss it! This place is particularly nice because on the weekends they have an Ethiopian DJ come and they clear part of the floor for dancing! Since we went on a Tuesday night, we didn't get to enjoy the festivities, but will for sure have to go back for this! Nevertheless, we enjoyed our night, and I think Papa enjoyed trying something new and loved the food!



This was our food before we dug into it!

And this was the aftermath! Yes..I think we all enjoyed it!

Papa and Aubrey being silly with their blue icing on their cake!
~Fun times with the Reeves Family~