Who's on Graham's mind?

Graham talks about a few of his favorite people

Not Adoption News...

Nope, nothing new with the adoption. Just a lot of prayers for clarity and patience :) Graham, however, is doing more and more new things every day. It's been great to see him discover new things, especially words! He's getting quite chatty (he comes by that honestly, I suppose.) And while he's not walking, he's pulling himself up on everything and continues to discover new places to play around the house.

... 2 minutes later the rest of my measuring cups were strewn about the kitchen.

yum yum yum

I found this recipe on-line this week for Tortellini Soup, made it last night, and loved it. Thought I'd share:

Ingredients:

1 (10 oz) package of frozen chopped spinach

chopped carrots

2 (14.5 oz) cans chicken broth

1 (9 oz) package of cheese tortellini

1/4 tablespoon dried basil

1/4 tablespoon garlic powder

salt and pepper to taste

Directions: 

In a large pot over high heat, combine chicken broth, spinach and carrots. Heat to boiling, then reduce heat to low. Stir in tortellini and simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the tortellini is cooked to desired tenderness. Season with basil, garlic powder, and salt & pepper.

Not Quite According to Plan

As I said in a previous post, we were hoping that our paperwork would be sent over to Ethiopia by the end of March. Well... that's not looking likely. The past few weeks have been a bit challenging and trying when it comes to being patient. (those of you who know me, now that patience is not one of my many virtues.) Drew and I firmly believe that this adoption is the right step for our family, but we want to be responsible, particularly when it comes to our finances. 

As we get deeper into this process, we're realizing that we'll come out of this with more debt that initially thought. (Turns out Ethiopia isn't offering a "recession discount"...just kidding. But, really, they aren't.) After talking it all over with our caseworker, we've made the decision to wait until the summer to send our paperwork over. We realize it's only a few months, but it's still a few more months.

Someone I consider to be very wise told me that it's not about God saying "yes" or "no" to decisions we make in life, rather it's about us honoring Him with the decisions we make. It was a good reminder for me in all of this!

In the meantime, we're absolutely loving hanging out with Graham. Each day brings out a new dimension of his personality... he now tells us that a dog says "woof" and every circular object that exists is excitedly referred to as a ball. He's amazing. 

meanwhile, in Petoskey

So, while we were soaking up the sunshine in FL, Graham was enjoying the freshly fallen 10" of snow in Petoskey. Thanks to a certain father-in-law of mine, Graham's trip was well-documented.  (Each day brought a new "tele-graham" in our inbox.) 

...we're confident this kid will have a full-ride football scholarship. Just look at that belly.

a little get-a-way

Drew and I just came home after a wonderful week in Florida with our friends, Dan and Christina Katt. It was so very nice to wear flip-flops, bathing suits, and have no agenda for the week! Graham headed up to Petoskey to hang out with Nana and Poppa de Jonge, which made for an even more relaxing week (for us anyway...) We had beautiful weather and a wonderful time away.

Graham is 1!

Our little man turned one yesterday. Crazy to think about how dramatically our lives have changed in the past 12 months, and we are so thankful for that! 

New Moves

a montage of tricks

Moving Right Along

We met with our caseworker again yesterday; she walked us through the incredible amount of paperwork we have yet to complete. We're still hoping to have that done by the first week of March so we can start processing immigration paperwork! Immigration stuff has to go through Washington and could take up to 2 months... and it has to be done before our dossier packet can be sent to Ethiopia.

Just a quick update!

Fear & Control

Drew and I met with our caseworker yesterday as part of our home-study. At the end of our time together, she challenged us to think about what it is we hoped for in this adoption, and what we feared. The "fear question" caught me off-guard. I didn't want to admit that I had fears; I wanted to live up to everyone's reactions when they find out we're adopting. We've heard that adoption is great, that it's a blessed thing, it's even referred to as noble. What we don't hear is that it can be scary and completely out of our control.

So when asked what my fears are, I had to stop and think. We each listed a couple practical hesitations: finances (turns out international adoption ain't cheap), having our patience tested, medical uncertainties, etc. When I got down to it, however, I realized that my greatest fear is that I am giving up control of our child's life before I even know who he or she is! We have zero say in what prenatal care the birth mother receives (if any) and no influence on this child's first couple months of life. To me, that is terrifying. As parents, we want to protect our children from day one; when I was pregnant with Graham I gave up my red wine for nine months, stayed away from smokey restaurants and bars, kept my eye on the "bad foods list" for pregnant women, and saw my doctor more times then I remember. All in all, I thought I was in control.

...and now here we are, passing our time filling out paper after paper, praying for that phone call from the other side of the world with news of a baby.

Yet the more I think about it, I realize that this is adding a new depth to what I know to be my faith. The day Graham started crawling, Drew and I put up a baby gate so that his curiosity didn't lead him to fall down the basement stairs. Yet I know that the gate won't protect him from the bruises he has yet to attain. We just do the best we can to keep them safe and trust that God will do a much better job.

I know that God's working something, and not just in us. He's working in that birth mother who has to face the reality that someone else will be raising her child. He works in the countless orphanages across the world where these babies find brief (or not so brief) homes as they wait for a permanent one. He works in this entire process.

Ultimately, we rely on the knowledge that God goes before us in this. That we relinquish control of all of our children to him, sometimes in more extreme ways than others.

Anyways, those are just a few thoughts I'm having today. Don't worry, I'm still thrilled to be going through this process. On the bright side I can drink all the wine and eat all of the fish I want over the next few months :)

Some Graham Goodness

With Grandma Boersma and his second cousins

...playing on his spaceship

& at his new table

Crawling

He's still perfecting his skills, but it's a great start :)

The Start of Something New

As many of you know, Drew, Graham, & I have started the process of adopting a baby from Ethiopia. This decision is the result of a lot of prayer and conversations between Drew and I, something that we've both felt convicted about since before we started dating, and now seemed like the right time for our family. Graham turns one next month (crazy!) so we've been talking more and more about what the next step would be for us kids-wise. We started everything in November, and our paperwork will be sent over to Ethiopia in March. From there it's anyone's guess... could be 6 months, or 18. We just won't know until we get a phone call saying that they have our baby! We've asked for a child under the age of 2, and our caseworker will recommend that he/she is younger than Graham.

Why Ethiopia? There are some complex answers and some practical ones... I won't go in to all of them, but being exposed through various ways to the extreme poverty in Africa has made a huge impact on us. The vastness of what is going on there is incredible, and we've found it hard to ignore. So to say that we've felt "drawn" to that continent seems like an understatement.

I just finished reading "There is No Me Without You," by Melissa Faye Greene (if you're looking for an excellent read, I recommend it.) The book follows the story of an Ethiopian woman who opens her home to become a foster home and eventually an orphanage. The stories behind some of the children are heartbreaking and convicting. While we realize that adoption doesn't solve a country's problems, we know that we can impact this one little life.

And plus, we're always up for an adventure :)

So that's a brief background. Graham is currently eating day old cheerios off of the floor, so I should go.

We'll keep posting as we move ahead in this journey!

Here We Go...

Drew and I decided to start a blog, so here we go. We figured this would be an easy way for our friends and family near and far to keep up with us! 

Graham just celebrated his first Christmas and did great. He put on a brave face through various family parties and loved all of the discarded wrapping paper. The highlight was getting to meet his Aunt Ari (and soon to be Uncle Ben) for the first time.

One other note; we'll try to post more pictures than words, but I have to admit that I am terrible at remembering to take pictures. I'll most likely steal them from my sisters' facebook pages... thanks to Abby and Christy in advance :) Or they'll come from my father-in-law, who just happens to be an amazing photographer.