How Do You Thank Everyone?

I have no idea how to thank everyone who has made this entire thing possible. Every single one of you that reads this blog (and tons of people who don't) mean so much to our daily lives that I can't even being to express it in words.

We love you. We thank God that you are in our lives every day. Each and every one of you is special and blessed and has blessed US in return.

And we thank God for making this possible as well. He saw our struggle and let us go through it, and because we didn't give up, he laid his hands on us at the end and gave us peace.

Thank you.

More Pictures

I'm starving for more pictures. The families that have recently traveled will probably put up albums so I can sort through those, but his referral picture is quite dark and I haven't been able to find a picture that I'm SURE is him.

GAH! This is driving me crazy. I want to see more pictures of my son!! Anyone have a magic wand to wave for me?

Oh my GOSH!!

You guys won't believe this...I went to create a new lilypie tickers (that countdown thing at the top of the page) and it recorded the last time I made a ticker, which was the very start of the process, when we sent in the very first form.

And the date on that ticker was...May 15, 2007. Ephraim's first birthday.

I have chills.

REFERRAL!!!!

Friday afternoon, at 2:30 PM, we got the call. I was at work and painting away in the museum when my phone rings with a (703) area code. "703? Who's in 703?"

So I answer.

"Stephanie? This is Terra Bailey from America World."

My heart stops. And then I hear my husband's voice and I realize we've been conferenced together.

"Is this the call?" I manage to get out.

"Yes, this is the call," she replies. And I fall to my butt in the gallery and start crying. Big, uncontrolable sobs. My boss starts staring at me and then figures it out, and she leans against the broom and watches with tears in her eyes, too.

"We have a beautiful boy for you. His name is (can't share it yet) and his birthday is May 15, 2006."

2006? He's a toddler!! He's only a year younger than Dagny!!

I didn't manage to say anything else except thank you and to hear my husband promise he wouldn't look at the pictures until I got home.

And when I got hom with Dagny, we rushed to the computer to open up the jpeg and we saw his face for the first time. And we're in love. He's beautiful and I can't wait until he passes court and you all can see him.

AND...as if the day wasn't full enough...I got a job as Director of Libraries with the school system AND we put a deposit down on a new dog.

Heck, might as well have all our changes at once, right?

All Hail the New York Giants!

We just got back from the movie theater, where we saw Madagascar 2. So it wasn't as funny as the first one, that's for sure, but it was the first time Dagny went to the movie theater. She did pretty well! We got popcorn (which she spilled) and Mommy had to leave the theater once to get more snacks, then again to take her to the potty, but all in all, she wasn't too bad.

Of course, it was hard for her to understand that kicking the seat in front of her wasn't appropriate, but lucky for us the lady didn't turn around and tell us off. I appreciated that.

We had fun! I think I'd wait for the video on this one, though.

Good Tidings of Joy

Okay, well, to make a long story short, Marc lost his job three weeks ago. We almost stopped the adoption and moved to Phoenix, but we managed to keep cool heads and just try one day at a time.

But yesterday, Marc got a job! He is the new transportation manager for the county of Pipestone, which means he will organize and oversee the public transportation. It's a pay cut, so I still have to look for a job, too, which means leaving the museum (I'm heartbroken over that). On the job front for me, I have an interview for a librarian position next week. No jokes about naughty librarians, please. :D

God blessed us. I know, it's taking forever to get a referral, much MUCH longer than we thought it would. But that was God's plan. It's taken us awhile to get our ducks in a row and had we gotten a referral in the middle of the chaos, it would have been terrible. So he waited. And I am truly sorry that the other families had to wait with us, but I am so glad that it worked out this way. Now I can look forward to the referral again with joy instead of dread.

To all the other waiting families: our children have been born, they are waiting for us. And before we know it, they will be in our arms since they are already in our hearts.

Spongebob Squarepants

Okay, so this isn't the Nickelodeon Park, it's Halloween. Dagny was Cinderella, in case you can't tell, and she had a great time. We carved our pumpkins on Tuesday and then Friday, of course, we went trick-or-treating. We stopped at the retirement home at the top of the hill first, since all the people who live there love to see the little ones in costumes. And then we worked our way back to our house, stopping at the people we knew. Okay, we didn't get a huge amount of candy and we were done in 45 minutes, but what 3-year-old needs forty candy bars?

At the Nickledeon Park on Saturday (and I'll put up a picture of Spongebob as soon as I find my husband's camera cord), we rode all the rides that a small person could ride. Luckily, all we needed to do was buy her a wristband and either Marc or I could ride along with her as a chaparone. It was great. She loved it and we had a really good time. The picture above is the baloon race ride.

And of course, they had to ride the big rigs ride, too. The little trucks had horns for everyone to push. That's marc, up in the back of the truck. Must have been hard to fit in there. Glad it wasn't me!

I'll post more pictures and write more as soon as, yep, you guessed it, I find the cord.

MN Get Together

The families from Minnesota and South Dakota who are adopting from Ethiopia through AWAA managed to have a get together on November 1st at the Mall of America. We ate at Ruby Tuesdays and although they couldn't fit us all at one table, we had great discussions all around! Hutchinsons, Rovangs, Korsons, Wistroms, Prause, and the Halls (us) all managed to be there, some with children in tow. All in all, there were about 20 of us and we took over two booths and a few tables put together in the middle. It was great fun to see the faces of people I'd only heard on the conference calls!

And notice the silly sign. I made it so we could all find each other, BUT by the time Marc had gotten the sign out of the car, we'd all found each other anyway. So the sign only got used for the picture. Oh well, at least it's a nice sign!