months

As we are getting further & further along in the adoption process we are starting to realize it's real. We are becoming parents. I guess you could say it feels like we are pregnant. No, my belly is not growing, there is no baby inside, I do not have morning sickness, I do not go to the doctor for check-ups, or get to hear my baby's heartbeat. But I can assure you, WE FEEL IT! We think about our child, we pray for them, we are slowly starting to think about a room for our child (while we do not know gender or age, this is quite difficult but nonetheless fun)! So you see, it's like we are pregnant. While a normal pregnancy lasts 9 months ours can be more like that of the following creatures here on our amazing Earth God created.

Maybe like the Manatees. 13 Months.

Could be like the Camel.13-15 Months. 

 Or maybe the Giraffe. 13-16 Months. Oh and interesting fact, the mother births the baby calf standing up, so the baby has to be big enough to brace the fall to the ground at birth.
Crazy huh?!?!

 May be like that of the Rhinoceros. 15 Months.

 The Walrus. 15-16 Months.

 Or one of our favorites, the Dolphin. 17-19 Months. Another fun fact, long development periods are very common in intelligent animals, as we’ll see for the elephants in the next heading.

 Or another favorite, the Elephant. 22-24 Months. This animal has the biggest brain, no wonder it takes so long to make that baby. & their intelligent!

 Or maybe our "pregnancy" could be like that of sharks. 12-42 months. (kinda hope it's not the latter of these dates)

I know, my brain is weird but this is just how I think of our "pregnancy". It takes time. I feel that we are at the stage where a pregnant woman would begin to show. Our "pregnancy" is showing, other people are realizing it is real. We are going to have a baby/toddler! =) 

While we wish that it would only take nine months, in reality it probably won't. & That's ok. Seems great things take time & besides time is not in our hands. God's timing is the only time & He is sovereign & knows when things should & will happen. We are trusting His timing & in the meantime we are getting to know our Lord in a way we never have. We feel His presence more than ever, and we are getting to really understand His love.

We are taking this time as a preparation.

We are about to become parents.



where we are...

Words cannot describe our thanks & how completely humbled we are by all the words of encouragement, thanks, love, & prayers from everyone! We covet the prayers most of all..

so thanks thanks thanks!

Felt like I needed to do a quick update to let everyone know where we are exactly in the process. (since I got several calls asking all about our baby & I had to say "well we don't know our baby yet." then long pause from caller. "oh we thought y'all had one") So, sorry for the confusion I caused. We were just really excited to tell everyone what was going on, & there will be a baby... soon!

This is what we have left to do:

• Home study- 5 visits with social worker, tons of paperwork, lots of education courses, Doctor visit for a well check-up (complete body screen & lots of bloodwork/tests)
• Fingerprints (done twice)
• I-600A Application- immigration approval form
• Wait for our immigration approval
• Dossier- everything from home study & all new birth certificates, marriage license, etc.
• Then Dossier is sent to Ethiopia.
• Wait
• Wait
• Wait
• Wait
• Get a referral (A BABY!)
• Wait some more for court date
• Get court date. GO meet our baby & have first court appearance.
• Come home. without baby :( & wait some more for everything to be finalized.
• GO GET OUR BABY.

We are at bullet point number 1.. We have finished our first & second home study visits, finished our super long autobiographies (we are learning a lot about ourselves & our past) & gathering several documents, & reading a book on adoption. (which is fabulous!!)

Seems easy when I type it all out, but it's a lot, & that's ok.

Knowing there will be one less orphan, one less baby to starve to death, one less to grow up on streets or in an orphanage, one less to not know the love of Jesus, ONE that could possible change a nation makes every single thing we have to do or write in vain! Not that we are anyone special by no means, we are truly in awe that the King of Kings would choose us to be this baby's parents. So please continue to pray for our family, our baby, & the birth mother!
We love you all so much!! Blessings in Jesus' name!

& baby makes 3

To start off, we are not pregnant (at least I don't think so at this time) :).

We are adopting a baby from Ethiopia!

We are so so excited to finally share this news with everyone!

We just completed our first in home meeting with our social worker! (yesterday)! So our home study has began!! woop woop! We have lots of paperwork to do now, so we are busy getting everything together & trying to work as fast as we can!!!

We are super excited for what God has planned for us & for our child that only He knows (right now)! We are already in LOVE with this child that we have not seen & do not know!! We ask that you please pray pray pray for us on this journey! It is going to be a long process (so we hear), but we know its all in God's timing & He can do whatever He wants!! Hallelujah!

We are pumped to become a family of 3 (+1 dog)!
Thanking Jesus for His provision & grace through it all!!!

 

One Year Anniversary

Monday, June 4, was our one year anniversary! Woop! It has been one amazing year! Time sure does fly though! Last year I just couldn't wait for June 4 & then it came & went fast & now it's already been a year! WOW!

We had a wonderful anniversary! We were able to spend the whole day together reminiscing the past year. We started the day off by eating our cake topper at 11 am. Yes, before our lunch. We counted it as our morning snack. It was still delicious!

We then went to ttown to buy ourselves an anniversary gift. We each got a new mountain bike! We were so excited about getting them that we came straight back to Demop & hit the park up! We had been wanting bikes since we got married so we decided it was time to get some!

After our fun little ride at the park we decided we are going to get new seats for our bikes because they are quite painful after you ride for a few minutes! Back at home grill master Casey grilled up some perfect steaks & I threw together some salad & corn on the cob! & of course more cake!!!

It was a perfect day! I'm glad to be "doing life" with my best friend! He never ceases to amaze me! I also finished our shutterfly book for the year. I am going to try & do this every year of our life! I hope I can keep it up. This past year I didn't do so great with getting pictures, because I didn't decided to start it about 3 months ago. Anywho, here is our year 1 book!!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=1BcN2jhs1ZuwA

Haiti: backing up 5 months

Yes, its been five months since we took our trip to Haiti. Behind doesn't even describe my blog. We went to Haiti back in January. I took tons of pictures. I picked just a few to put on the blog.

We had an amazing time & we came back changed, with lots of decisions to make. We knew we were going because the Lord had placed it on our hearts. We knew we were open to foreign missions & had a heart for them. We fell in love with Haiti & desperately want to go back, soon!

 The pictures above & below are of the children's home we visited. Most are being adopted by familes in the US. Our good friends are adopting a little boy & he is at this children's home. Getting to love on these babies was so much fun! 

 Below is me with some of the kids at a tent city. The organization we were with teaches English classes there & we went & helped teach & then spent lots of time playing & loving on the kiddos. They were so very sweet!

 We went during school hours one day & I got a picture of a few of the kids as they were changing class. The kids all wear uniforms & the girls have to wear bows in their hair. They were precious. They have school in old buses.

 This precious baby was 14 days old. He was born in the street on the way to the hospital, but he was doing great! It was a special time to get to love on this newborn & pray for him & his mom. Precious moments.

 The cute boy below is Ken Ken & his mom. He had an impact on so many people. He was HIV positive & had TB. The organization Chadasha provided medical care & spiritual guidance throughout Ken Ken's life. He recently went to be with Jesus & we feel blessed to have gotten the chance to meet him & his beautiful mother.

 This monument marks the gravesite of approximately 90,000 people who died in the earthquake in 2010.  

 Happy birthday to Casey Haiti style. We splurged & paid $16 for a gallon of ice cream to go with the cake that sweet Ashton made for him. I think this might be his favorite birthday!

 This precious, sweet boy is Wanelson. He is at the children's home & in the process of being adopted by a family in the US. He was sad the first few days we went because he misses his mommy & daddy. Of course, he instantly became my go to kid there. My goal was to get him to smile & laugh before I left so I could have some pictures of him smiling for his mom & dad. Goal=accomplished!!! Love that boy!!! 

 The kids in the tent cities loved to see Casey coming. He played soccer with them everytime we went! He now wishes he would have played soccer as a child so that he could have actually been good at it.

 Us with a few of the kids at the tent city. We took coloring sheets & crayons one day & colored with them. It was so much fun! They love taking pictures & posing for the camera!! I miss them!

We had an amazing time & we miss Haiti everyday. Our hearts are with them & we are thining about the people all the time. We fell in love with the people of Haiti & esp the kids! The people never ceased to amaze me. They have barely anything & live in a tent or lean to yet they have more joy & faith in the Lord than a Christian here in the states that has everything they could want. The people taught us sooo much! They taught us what it looks like to have an unshakable faith & love for the Lord & other people. We will definetely be taking more trips to Haiti in the future!

Prepared & Ready

This is what we are. Ready. That's the only word that comes to mind about our trip to Haiti. We are ready. Yes, we are excited, joyful, happy, eager, cheerful, in high spirits, thrilled, in wonder, but mostly, we are ready. We are ready for what the Lord is going to do in us & with us. We are ready to share the love of Jesus with the people of Haiti. We are ready to see Jesus change the lives of people & families. We are ready for our lives to be dramatically changed & for us to never be the same. We are ready to never look at other people or the world the same. READY! Ready because we have been prepared for all these things.

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Eph 2:10

The Lord our God has gone before us & prepared the way for us, He has prepared our hearts, He has prepared the people's hearts, He is always ready & prepared. We are nothing special. We are ordinary people just like everyone else. We sin everyday, we mess up, we make mistakes, we are not perfect, but we have been saved by God's grace & have been redeemed by His love! AMEN. We do not want anyone to think we are trying to tell everyone how good we are by going & serving. We are telling about it because this is what God wants to do with everyone. He wants to use us to be God's workmanship, to do good works, He has already prepared this in advance for us to do! (Eph 2:10) It's hard sometimes but we must be obedient to the Lord & what he is calling us to do. We must say YES! YES LORD!

Ok, I feel like I'm preaching a little so I'll move on, but God is Good & He loves You so much & I could just go on & on about Him.

We are leaving before the crack of dawn.. 2:30 Saturday morning. We will be flying out of ATL at 9:40. We will fly to Miami & board the plane for Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. We will be arriving in Haiti at 4:20. 

We were so blessed by a donation of money from a church in Winfield, but the children of Haiti will be even more blessed because with this money we were able to purchase:

 13 3lb. cans of baby formula which will make 1,157 4 oz. bottles

 60.5 oz of Cocoa Butter (they love it)

 3 lbs. of Dum-Dum suckers for the kids

 2 soccer balls

 baby Advil & Tylenol

 box of 120 crayons

20 bars of antibacterial soap

a HUGE coloring book with 120 stickers

sidewalk chalk

13 oz Vaseline

GOD IS GOOD

Then we get to Berry (my parents house) & we have a package addressed to Kendra Hocutt (maiden name) that has two containers of Similac baby formula in it. It only has an address for a return address, no name, & there is $20 in coupons in it for more formula. There is nothing in the box about it being a trial offer & nothing that we have to pay, & we haven't filled anything out online for this. A gift from God. I love the way He works. He just keeps preparing! AMEN.

We are ready & prepared. We ask that you will be in prayer for us as we travel & are in Haiti. Pray for the people of Haiti, the children of Haiti, the missionaries & groups that are there, & that Jesus would come to be the center of Haiti. We thank you in advance, we have already been feeling the prayers that are being said for us. You know, the enemy doesn't like what we are doing, he has been trying to get to us but our God is bigger & greater & we aren't going to let him get us down! Casey is trying to get a little sinus infection so just pray that will dry up NOW! We will be back the 25th!

Blessings to you all in Jesus' name, we love you, & be ready for picture & update overload! 

Christmas & Excitement

MERRY LATE CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas & has a wonderful New Year!
We spent Christmas with Casey's family early since Casey had to work. It was wonderful!

Katy thoroughly enjoyed her first Christmas. Ronnie & Tonya got her a toy which she played with nonstop that night! She had the tail ripped off of it by the end of the night. She's a little spoiled. After Christmas with the Elmore's we headed back to Demop.

Casey had to work Christmas Eve 6pm to 6am. Being our first Christmas, I was a little more than excited (sad he had to work though). I set the alarm & got up at 5:30 to have everything ready. Well, it wasn't much, just cinnamon rolls. I do cook but it was very early and we love cinnamon rolls. So, I got it all ready & had his card ready. I was waiting at the door at 6, and after about 5 mins & no Casey I was sad. Yes, Christmas Eve and people can't behave. He got home at 6:35. Our first Christmas was great though. We said we wouldn't get each other gifts, but we did. Casey got me a manicure & pedicure & I will tell you what I got him later! Casey then went to sleep, he had to work Christmas night as well, & I packed up the car & headed to Berry for Christmas with the Hocutt's.

From left to right. The oldest Gidget, third child Cody, our precious Momma, our sweet Daddy, the baby ME, and the second child Joni. 

With my nieces Sarah & Savannah and nephew Jeremiah. My sister Joni's kiddos.

My niece Zoey & nephew Brody, who doesn't like taking pictures & believes he IS spider man. My sister Gidget's kiddos.

We had so much fun. We all opened up gifts then had an amazing Dinner then played games like the ones off minute to win it. We laughed till we cried. I love my families (Hocutts & Elmores). We are truly blessed!

Now, on to what we are so excited about! We will be leaving the 14th of Jan & spending 2 weeks in HAITI. We will be working in orphanages their with a group called Chadasha. You can check out their website here & their blog here. The Lord has given us a love for children & especially the orphaned. We are saying yes to His calling & going. We can't wait to see what He is going to do while we are there. He loves all His children so much & we can't wait to share His love with them! Please be praying for us as we travel & are there! Updates to come!!! Oh, & Casey's Christmas gift was bug spray that is 98% deet! =) He was very excited about it..no really, he was!

Everyone have a Happy & Blessed New Year!!! Blessings & Love!!!