Not much new

I told Jen that when the baby comes home we'll buy him/her a shirt that says this!! Ha!

There isn't a whole lot new going on up here. We are going to savor these next 2 weekends of dullness as we are completely booked until October after that! It's all fun things, but nevertheless, it is busyness.

Aimee and Chad and the kids were up last weekend...it was nice to spend some extended time with them. The downside being that we ALL have colds now (everyone except Jesse!) - I even went home from work early on Wednesday and slept solid for 3.5 hours in the afternoon.

On the baby front - I've started looking at things like high chairs, pack-n-plays, and diaper bags. Currently I'm considering a Stokke Tripp Trapp high chair - it's kind of weird, but I kind of like it. I think Aaron and I are going to need to go see what is out there so we can get more of a feel for what we like and don't like. I suppose we still have plenty of time!

do a happy dance

Yeah! We found out today we are OFFICIALLY waiting! 5-7 more months and then we'll know who our child is! We are so thankful that the process has gone smoothly up until this point. I am also glad that we are pretty busy the next several months which will hopefully make the wait go fast - but not too fast - I want to enjoy these last few months of it just being us!! (Not that six years hasn't been enough, but you know....)

If you think of it, you can be praying for our baby and his or her birth mother and family as these months progress. There will be much going on in their lives and they will have some hard decisions to make. It is so strange to think that somewhere in Ethiopia is a baby that God is knitting together in his mother's womb- or is already born! - to join our family.

Well, I wasn't anticipating those deep thoughts, so we'll just leave it at that and expound on those at a later time. :)

just in case you care

We UPSd our dossier down to CHSFS today! It sure is nice to not have that hanging over our heads anymore. Working on that dossier was like homework in college - you knew it had to get done at some point, so even when you were out having fun there was always this nagging feeling of "something to do." Anyway, that feeling is gone! The pictures to the left are the pictures we had to include in our dossier, the first look the Ethiopian government will get of us. :) (I have some much more fun pictures, but they are still on the camera...which reminds me...I can't remember the last time I've printed off any pictures - anyone else have that problem??)

In other news...Aaron's parents are up for the weekend. Mike is helping Aaron with electrical stuff in the garage. I should have taken a picture of the trench they dug today in the yard. It was a lot of work. It is nice to start working on the garage to get Aaron ready to move the office out there. Hopefully that will happen before it snows.

hopefully only a few more days

until we will be on the waiting list! We have all of our paperwork and forms, now we just need to get it all notarized, get a few checks and money orders, and ups it down to CHS. That's the latest from the Northland.

my Grandma.

*note - this is lengthy!*

As most of you probably know, my Grandma Carlson has not been doing well. Yesterday my mom called me and said that Grandma wasn't waking up and that if we wanted to see her before she passed away we should come down soon. Aaron and I decided to head down to the cities yesterday afternoon.

My grandma is not a Christian, and I had intended to send her a letter reminding her of Jesus' love a couple weeks ago. I never got around to writing or sending the letter (bad granddaughter!), so as we drove down the freeway I told God that if he wanted me to say something to Grandma He would have her wake up while we were down there.

We arrived at my aunts house and Jen and Mom and I went in to see Grandma. She is very weak and in much pain, and has a hard time breathing due to emphysema. She was sleeping. We spent the next hour or so chatting with family and going to check on Grandma. I told Jen about my prayer, and she, too, felt like she wanted to say something to Grandma about Jesus if she had the chance.

After a while we decided to head out to get some supper, and then my mom came out into the living and said "Grandma is awake if you want to come see her." We all went into her room and were talking to her, all she could really say was "yes" and "no" because it was hard for her to talk. I knew that God had given me an opportunity, but I was wasn't wanting to say anything in front of all of those people. So, we said our good-byes to Grandma and we were getting ready to leave. Jen came up to me and said "we need to go say something." And a moment later everyone had left the room and we knew we had to go talk to her.

My parents have told Grandma about how Jesus saves and how we can go to heaven and be with him if we repent of our sins, so we didn't need to tell her the whole story again. Plus, I think that would have been a tad bit overwhelming for her. I simply said "Grandma, Jesus loves you" and something else about heaven, I'm not sure what exactly. Jen said "Grandma, we love you, and so does Jesus." Grandma looked over at us and nodded her head, so we knew she heard us.

At this point Jen said she was thinking "Grandma could have given her life over to God right now, and he can still change her at this very moment." We were leaving, and Jen said "Bye Grandma, I love you." Grandma said "I love you too dear."

If you know our relationship with my grandma at all, this is a poignant moment. My grandma has never once said that she loved any of us, at least, not that we can remember. Our relationship with her is pretty distant. So for her to say "I love you" sent me, my mom, and mostly Jen into tears.

On our way back up to Duluth I called my Grandma Flavin and started telling her this story. After I told her about my initial prayer, she stopped me and said "You need to know that this morning I woke up with a heavy burden to pray for your grandma, and I prayed all day today that somehow somebody would be able to reach her today and talk to her about Jesus today."

So...it is very possible that in that moment my Grandma realized Jesus' love and that she gave her life to Him. I really really hope that she did. I hope that her saying "I love you" was an outward expression of a change that happened inside her heart. I hope that when I go to heaven she is there - wouldn't that be awesome?!

And what a reminder that maybe people just need to know that Jesus loves them.

We're approved

Yesterday we had our second and final visit with our social worker for our homestudy and we are now approved to adopt! (we didn't think we WOULDN'T get approved, but I guess you never know!). It was quite uneventful, but nice to have yet another thing done in this whole long process. We received our dossier paperwork by email yesterday and I'm going to start working hardcore on that on Monday. (our dossier is the paperwork that gets sent to Ethiopia). I'm hoping we can get all our paperwork and finances in order in the next two weeks and then we'll be on the waiting list! This might not be realistic, but I can always set a goal.

After we met with our SW we went to the Twins game with some friends. We had a great time, the Twins won, and I got to see Santana pitch! I think he might be my favorite player. Him or Joe Nathan, I'm not sure. :) Anyway, here are some pictures from the game!

Adoption Baby Book - help needed!

Hey everybody! I need some help. I have started looking for a baby book that is specific to adopted babies and I'm having a hard time finding anything that I like. I found ONE at B&N/Borders that I wasn't crazy about, and I found a couple online that have special inserts that look like they would work but I'm looking for more ideas. Anyway, I know many of you have either adopted babies or you know people who have adopted babies, and I'm wondering if anybody knows of any good baby books and can point me to a website, store, book, or SOMETHING. Thanks in advance!