Leavin' on a jet plane

We bought our tickets this morning. 24 days and counting -woohoo- Direct flight to Washington DC and then direct flight to Addis Ababa! Also, a family from our agency who is adopting precious tiny twins will get to travel with us as long as they pass court this Friday - please pray for that. This is a double blessing, not only do we get our babies sooner than we thought, but we may also get to travel with another family after all! In case you didn't know, Janae (our 9 yr old daughter) will be traveling with us too. She had been praying fervently about it and Grandma and Grandpa decided to pay for her ticket and she has earned a little money from doing little jobs for my sister and others to help pay for her visa/expenses. She has been diligently saving and hoping to buy all of her siblings Christmas gifts there.

Traveling Sooner

Wow - we were hoping just to get to travel one week earlier than scheduled so that we could have approval from my doctor - but God is able to do more than we could ask or imagine. We were asked to travel 2 weeks sooner - so now we will travel Nov. 22 and be there on Thanksgiving! It will be Javi, Janae and my first Thanksgiving with them and one we will surely never forget. This means we have less than 4 weeks to prepare instead of 6 - but we are not complaining. After being on this adoption road for 16 months, 2 countries and 3 agencies later- things are finally falling into place and we will finally have our sweet sons. Thank you Lord!

More pictures of our handsome little men

Jeremiah's referral picture-4 mo-July 2008

Jeremiah-5 mo-August 2008

Jeremiah-6 mo- Sept. 2008

Jeremiah -7 mo-Oct. 2008

Referral picture - Josiah-15 mo July 2008

Josiah-16 mo- August 2008

16 mo - August 2008

Josiah -17 mo - Sept. 2008

Josiah-18 mo - Oct. 2008

Finally Ours!!!

It is with such gratitude to our Lord that I get to introduce to you both of our beautiful boys . . . .

Josiah (Melkamu) Diaz (18 months)

Jeremiah (Abush) Diaz (7 months)

Yes! We got word this afternoon that both of our boys passed court! They are officially ours. My doctor also gave me approval to travel the last week of November/first week of December (we have to wait 4-6 weeks to travel to allow time for the passports/paperwork to process and for an embasssy appointment). Thank you everyone for praying and supporting us through this roller coaster - we are truly blessed. I hope to post more pictures soon.

No news

So we checked email several times and finally emailed our director. He just replied that he won't know until Monday. Ugh - so we wait all weekend and just enjoy our last couple of days here in Mexico. Since I can't post their sweet pictures, I will post more from our trip.

Mexico

Javier and I hoped to get away for a little "honeymoon" by ourselves to invest in our marriage before our hands become blessedly full. We haven't been away by ourselves for more than a night without at least one baby in tow for 9 years. We found a cheap deal on craigslist for a week at a resort in Puerto Penasco, Mexico (just 4 hour drive). It is the most luxiourious place we have ever been and it cost less than most regular hotels in the states and the same as taking our family to a little cabin for a weekend. We have been here since Sunday and my parents will bring the kids down on Thursday to spend the last few days with us. I don't think Javier and I have laughed so much in years and the kids are going to LOVE it. The weather is warm with a nice breeze and the beach is so interesting - soft, clean sand and shallow warm ocean water. Javier has a gift for making friends with the elderly and we already have made friends with a few that we meet up with. We also got a lot of reading and rest in these last few days - what a blessing to rejuvinate us.

1 more day until court. Court should happen Thursday night while we are sleeping. Hopefully we can celebrate here with the whole family - and we are hoping we will find out Friday morning before my parents head back home so they can find out the news too.

Count down

Five days until court! Please pray that both of our boys pass court on Friday (this step is not as simple as it sounds and there are often glitches with paperwork/power outages/judges not showing up etc.) That will mean they are officially ours and then we just wait for passports and embassy appointments to be able to bring them home! Thank you for asking the Father on our behalf!

That all might know Him

By far the highlight of our week was witnessing Javier's friend through work being baptized at the Salt River. He was saved a month or 2 ago and is so eager to live for Christ and obey everything he is learning in scripture. His wife was also saved at the same time. We praise God for the work He is doing in their lives. This was a great encouragement to our faith and to our children's faith. It was such a beautiful day and great celebration of his faith in Christ and now I will never think of the Salt River the same. We had some good conversations about the baptism on the way home and Janae said that when she is ready to be baptized, she would like to be baptized in "a natural body of water" - too sweet.

popped - 24 weeks -

My mom said my belly has really popped out. Here is a shot at 24 weeks - gained 8 lbs and getting uncomfortable (remember I am only 5'2" and the baby runs out of room quickly). 16 weeks to go until Jameson joins our family. Hopefully about 9 days until Josiah and Jeremiah officially join our family (hopefully traveling in 6 1/2 weeks)

Day at the Dairy

It was a free day at a local dairy. The kids got to do crafts, pet farm animals, go on a hayride tour, get free stuff like milk, seeds and toys, pet a one day old calf and even watch a mama cow in the process of giving birth. Fun stuff!

Working Away

Javi has been working on our backyard the last couple of weekends and almost every night and early morning before work. There is tons of leveling, trenching and drip and sprinklers to install before we can even start on the fun stuff. Our goal is to get at least the grass and rock in before the boys come. Some trees and the batting cage would be nice too, but we will have to see what we can get done in the next few weekends.

Chopped off

Julia and Jacklyn both had hair at or past their armpits and last Friday I let them get it chopped off. I think it looks so cute and now I have 2 fewer girls to worry about "doing" their hair. I still need to get a good picture of Julia's finished style, but here is Jacklyn and of course Joanna had to get a picture to be like Jacklyn!

Productive Day

Today we sorted, counted, and bagged all of the donations that we have collected over the past 15 months. The kids loved this. We bought tons of shirts at 90% off from Target and Old Navy after holidays. Also some sweet older women knitted hats for the babies and we have gotten a few donations of other things. So far we have 179 pieces of new clothing (mostly shirts), 73 hats, 20 diaper covers/plastic pants and 20 toothbrushes. I would love to collect items for the Kolfe boys orphanage - a run down orphanage that houses many sweet older boys. I am trying to get details on their needs first. You can see a great slide show about them here and read more about them on this blog http://www.jobsdaughters.blogspot.com/2007/12/kolfe-orphanage-forgotten-boys.html

Here is the lunch the kids made all on their own - pizza on french bread and bagels and fruit salad. Lunch is Julia's responsibility, but often the 3 big kids all help out.

Obviously the pizzas are going into the oven and the fruit salad is 1/2 eaten - but you get the idea.

Then our friend Lindsey invited us over to pick up some farm fresh eggs and to see their piglets. She gave us 3 1/2 dozen!! (eggs not piggies - LOL) yes we can eat all of those - no problem. Too bad she didn't give us some piggies then we could have had bacon with our eggs (just kidding Lindsey). We are actually going to make some frozen quiches and bake with them too.

And finally, Jordan dressed up Mia because he was afraid she would be cold this morning.