We Are Going To Ethiopia For Christmas!!!!!!!!

The past two weeks have been extremely eventful! We are now at the half-way point of our fundraising! THAT'S RIGHT, YOU HAVE GIVEN $17,000.00!!!!!!  No words can express the gratitude in our hearts! We received an email two weeks ago that our paperwork had been submitted to court and that we would probably be notified of a court date in November. Less than 1 week later, this past Friday morning, Amanda received an email that our COURT DATE IS DECEMBER 27th!!!!!! WE WILL BE IN ETHIOPIA FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!! Even more amazing, Amanda's friend in Texas that has 2 little princesses at the same transition home as our babies tells us that their court date is the same day!!!! We had talked about how amazing it would be if we got to go at the same time but knew that the odds were very slim!!!! God's favor through this whole adoption has been so hard to comprehend! Our faith has grown more in 3 months that in our whole marriage! Our children will BE HOME BY VALENTINES DAY!!!! We are in the process now of looking at our 1st trip expenses. Our plane tickets are going to cost around $ 4000.00 and our room and board will be about $500.00. We are kicking off our $20 TO TRAVEL CAMPAIGN!!! We are asking everyone who can to donate$20.00 to our travel expenses! We love you all and can't wait to give you the next update! Thank you for walking this journey with us!

Time Is Of The Essence!!!!!

Over the past several weeks, there has been SO MUCH PROGRESS with our adoption journey!!!! All of our paperwork is in Ethiopia!!! Once our paperwork has been translated, they let us know when we will be taking our first trip for court!!! It will more than likely be December or early January when we travel!!! We sent a care package for our sweet babies last week! We made a scrapbook for our son who is 8 or 9, full of pictures of his new family and introducing all of us. The last page had a picture of our whole family and said: WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND WILL BE THERE SOON TO BRING YOU HOME!!! It doesn't even seem real!!! This past week, we painted the girls room and set it up with the new decor! Needless to say, Taelor is beyond excited. They boys room is next! Devyn is so excited to see TWO BEDS in his room!!!! He has been writing notes to his brother and it is so sweet!!! Yesterday, we received recent video footage of our babies and it was absolutely amazing!!! Our baby girl is crawling so well and loves balls!! We got to see our son in action playing soccer! He is a lefty!!! God is so good and we are so blessed to have these beautiful children coming to be with us. We have raised about $6000.00 so far!!! Thank you so much to everyone who has donated!  We wouldn't be this far down the road without your prayer and financial support!!! Our yard sale two weeks ago, made us $700.00. The next fee we have to knock out is our in-country fee. This is by far the largest expense of the adoption. The total for two children is $17,000.00. This pays for all the medical screenings, court paperwork, and for the orphanage to care for them and give them what they need until we arrive! We need people to continue to partner with us in order to fulfill this obligation! There are several ways you can do this. As usual, there is a DONATE tab at the top of this page where donations go directly into our paypal account. Another option is to participate by getting your fall and holiday pictures done with 7 Lights Photography. The majority of the proceeds will go to our adoption! If you are in to itunes, you can download Cole's Lullaby by Kristi Neumann! This song is so amazing and she is donating ALL the proceeds to our adoption!  Please continue to consider helping us bring our babies home!