African Angel

I have been doing some really fun shopping lately. While we were raising money for our adoption, we would often see the fundraisers that other adoptive families were holding and wish that we could help them out and buy their stuff. But money was just too tight to be buying T-shirts and ornaments. We kept telling each other that it was going to be so much fun when we finally had all of our money raised because we could start supporting all of the fundraisers that other families were doing.

Well, I am thankful that we now have the freedom to do just that! We have done almost all of our Christmas shopping from adoptive families and awesome ministries that benefit Africa. It has been a blast! And in the meantime, a few items just for US have found their way into our Etsy shopping cart.

One of those is this precious African angel ornament made by Amy Smith, a mom raising money to adopt from Ethiopia.

Check out her Etsy site to buy one yourself!

This artistic lady is also selling custom caricatures of families, that I just love! She sells these watercolor portraits for only $25 each! Aren't they cute?! I am picturing one of these on Little Brother's wall later on...

Order T-shirts for Christmas Now!

If you would like to receive your Go. Seek. Love. T-shirts before Christmas, please place your orders now! The deadline is Monday evening December 14th at 10 pm. All T-shirts ordered by then will be shipped on Saturday the 19th.

Thank you and merry Christmas!

A Few Recommendations

MOVIE

Last weekend Daniel and I watched the movie Live and Become. Have I mentioned before that I LOVE Netflix? :) Wow. The movie follows the story of an 8-year-old Ethiopian boy who is sent alone to the country of Israel during the 1980's. Apparently during that time, thousand of Ethiopian Jews were welcomed into Israel because of the famine in Ethiopia. The story follows the boy as he is adopted by an Israeli family and grows up and tries to figure out who he is in this world. I enthusiastically recommend this for every adoptive family.

BOOK

Over the weekend I read The Strength of Mercy by Jan Beazely. Jan's family began the international adoption agency All God's Children International. The book chronicles their story of adopting a child from Romania in the 90's, the courage it took, and all that they learned along the way. It is a quick read, and I highly recommend it.

WEBSITE

I have recently discovered a gold mine for families adopting from Ethiopia: www.amharickids.com. They offer books for kids and for adults about Ethiopia and about adoption. They even have cookbooks, calendars with photos of Ethiopia, and books fables from Ethiopian culture. I have put about half of what they offer on their website on my Christmas list this year! I love their cool jewelry made from coffee beans by women with AIDS in Ethiopia, too. Check it out!

The Third Stocking

We are now officially a three-stocking family! Madeline's stocking is now finished, and I am so happy. I picked up the part with her name on it yesterday, and I finished piecing it together this afternoon.

I copy-catted a Pottery Barn Kids design when I made her stocking, and I made it out of red corduroy.

This is the reason that having a unique, hand-made stocking for each family member is such a big deal for me:

When Daniel and I were dating in college, I started this cross-stitch stocking for him. We started dating our freshman year and knew pretty quickly that we wanted to get married. We had to wait a LONG time (3 1/2 years to be exact) until we finally graduated and were able to wed. That gave me ample time to work on the thousands of stitches in this crazy-intricate design.

I knew that there was no way that I could create such a time-consuming stocking for myself, so I decided that I would make each family member's stocking completely unique, with no attempt to make them match at all. So after we got married I made this stocking for myself:

I pieced together patchwork of several red and green fabrics to make this one. The hardest was attaching the tiny gold beads that I used to write my name at the top. ( They don't show up very well in this photo.)

I am already planning the design for Little Brother's stocking for next year.... :)

I Love Christmas!

I love to bake. I especially love to bake sweet things. The Christmas season gives me a great excuse each year to go all out trying new yummy recipes. This weekend was designated Christmas Baking Weekend. I spent all day (literally) in the kitchen on Saturday. Here is what I made:

• Caramel corn
• Ultimate brownies (brownie on bottom, marshmallow cream in the middle, and chocolate, peanut butter, and rice krispies on top!)
• Gingerbread men (I ran out of steam before these got decorated)
• Buttery oatmeal crisp cookies, half dipped in chocolate
• Turtles
• Peppermint fudge

And Monday was the even more fun part: I took my grandmother to deliver 8 plates of homemade goodies to her friends! That was my Christmas present to her this year, and she loved it!

While I am on the subject of Christmas, I thought I would share a few photos of our home sweet home decorated for the season. I love Christmas decorations!!!!! (Disclaimer: Our house only looked this way for about 3 minutes. As soon as I finished taking the pictures, the clutter and toys and dirty dishes started to accumulate again. :) )

Yes, there are still only two stockings on the mantel. Although I am not the craftiest person in the world, I have made all of our Christmas stockings. Last year I made M's stocking, only to end up not being able to find anyone with one of those fancy sewing machines to embroider her name at the top. Christmas came and went, and of course, it got put on the back burner. I am pleased to say that I found someone to add her name to it, and it should be ready any day.

The piano with the poinsettias I found for 99 cents at Lowe's!

Our kitchen. This is where I spend A LOT of time. We have a cozy, 1500-square-foot house, and we were commenting the other day that we really USE every square inch of it. I am glad for that. By the way, Daniel made our beautiful, cherry kitchen table (as well as most of the furniture in our house.) He is such a talented guy!

Daniel made this writing desk too with walnut from my grandparents backyard. I love my Willow Tree nativity scene.

Merry Christmas!

My Heart is Hurting

The anticipated time for our referral is getting closer, and I am grieving. My heart feels heavy. I know that the referral of a child to us means that a tragedy has taken place. Parents have died. Or a mother feels hopeless about her son's future, powerless to provide for him, and abandons him to an orphanage. Or she becomes terribly ill and can no longer care for him..... That is what's going on on the other side of the world as we excitedly wait for our referral phone call to come.

Things like that are happening all the time in this world, I know. But this time it will be happening to our son. And to the precious woman that I will probably never have the honor to meet, his birthmother.

This is on my mind all of the time: the heartbreak, the poverty, the disease that are the reality of my son's life. My heart is breaking because my boy is losing his first mama right about now. And she is losing him. As the time for our referral is drawing near, tragedy is striking.

I often wonder - are we doing the right thing? What if we just sent the thousands that we have raised for the adoption to help families in Ethiopia instead of spending it all on the adoption of one? How many families might be able to stay together because of the medical care they could receive, the improved nutrition, the opportunity to make a living for their children? All that money would go so far to help so many.

I don't know... But I do know that there are many, many who have already been orphaned or abandoned and need a mommy and daddy. I know that we are called as followers of Christ to "look after orphans in their distress." I know that God has led us down the path that we are walking. I also know that the path doesn't end here, with the adoption of one child. God is teaching us so much through this experience. He is opening our eyes to suffering in the world that we had never before taken the time to learn about. Now it is personal. This is just the beginning of our family's involvement with the people of Ethiopia.

I think the answer is: Do both.

I am thankful for all that God is teaching us on this journey. But oh, my heart hurts for my baby.

Thanksgiving

We had a great time with family over Thanksgiving. Wednesday, Madeline and I got to spend the day with my sister Rachel, her hubby, and baby Abigail. Madeline was so excited to see them, she could hardly contain herself. She just kept dancing around. We took the two girls to have their picture made with Santa, and it was pretty much a bust. Madeline was not a fan. I felt really bad afterward for making her do that.

Baby Abigail and me

We spent Thursday and Friday with Daniel's family in Kentucky. At his parents' house, 21 people gathered from 4 states and Germany (his aunt and uncle are stationed overseas with the Air Force). They are such a fun group, and we always have a great time with them. I love it that Madeline is now old enough to enjoy the holidays. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my camera while we were there, and so we have no pictures from Thanksgiving this year. :(

The T-shirt business has been booming lately. We have had orders coming in from near and far. It is such fun to see this little non-profit "business" grow. It can be a bit time consuming, though. We print them by hand, and then each one has to be heat set individually for 5 minutes. When you are printing 40-50 shirts, that takes a while... But when I got an email with this picture yesterday, it made every bit worth it.

The Dixons' extended family decided to surprise them by all ordering Go Seek Love shirts to wear to their Thanksgiving gathering this year. (This is the family who is now receiving the profits from the T-shirt sales.) They were totally surprised and blessed to feel the support of all of their family. I wish I could have been there to see their faces. I had been looking forward to this surprise so much!