All about......

Gracie!! :) Ok so it has been a while since I have posted something and I tell you friends I don't do very good at this so I probably wont post often but when I do it will probably be HUGE like this one :) Well first I want to say that we are waiting on our Ohio abuse clearance before our homestudy can be completed. Then we will send our completed homestudy to the USCIS form I-700A for clearance and then once we get approved we will finish our Dossier ( a bunch of notarized papers ) and send it with the completed homestudy to Ethiopia and then we will get our first court date. To type this out seems like an understatement of what we have been working on! So if it sounds simple it is NOT and I am very "paper pregnant" !!!!! We have both completed around 30 hours of training and tears has ran down my face as the printer printed off millions of papers at a time! It will be so worth it we know but we have this dark cloud hanging over our heads to get this all done and in Ethiopia as fast as we can. When we accepted Gracie we signed a paper stating that we would have all the papers done in four months and if we can not get it done there is a possibility of someone else getting her or us paying $450 a month for foster care ( which we of course will do!) So we are getting closer and we have heard many times that waiting is one of the hardest parts! We have completed our end of the deal now we just have to wait for some person to send us our letter who may not really care for our situation. But we are trusting in the Lord with ALL of our hearts and we KNOW that He is already in tomorrow.
So all I know about Gracie is really her medical records and the sweet pictures that I stare at all the time. She was brought into the Soddo orphanage on December 13 of 2009. Her mother brought her. Can you imagine? Tears come to my eyes as I think about what that would be like...was she scared? what did her mother say to her? I am not coming back have a good life??? In the first pictures we got of her she is not smiling and looks very scared and very thin. Her father died of a malaria case in 2008 and she has 3 older siblings who can take care of themselves. If you research Ethiopia you will find that some are so poor and eat roots or anything they can find. Her mother could not take care of her anymore so in desperation to give her child a better life she put her up for adoption. Gracie is from the Wolaita Zone and she speaks Wolaitigna and some Amharic ( and some English :) so cute to hear her try to count ) She is perfectly healthy as far as we know and she is 43 inches high :) She is SO cute and for some of you who have not seen the pictures, trust me she is sweet!
I dream about the day when I can wrap her in my arms and kiss her sweet face and tell her I love her!!!!! Love in Jesus!!!

Our Adoption Story

Its late but the only way I will ever get this written out is when the house is quiet. So this is our adoption story that gets overlooked by most people. Once upon a time in a far away land....OK I'll stop! hehe But really long ago (it seems like forever but its only been like 6 or 7 years ago) when Britton and I started dating we would often talk about our future family and all of our dreams. I can't remember who brought it up first but someone mentioned adoption and right away we both thought it would be so fun. Really just like a dream we didn't dwell on that we would adopt cause we knew we wanted to have our own to. Then of course we got married and a couple years later Carter was born and then a couple years after that Brysen was born. I know this sounds crazy busy and fast!! We both still feel so young and we are but when we surprisingly found out we were pregnant with sweet Carter we knew that the Lords hand was in it and we knew we weren't going to stop because we want all of our children close. Adoption kept making its way into our conversation and very casually we would tell a family member or close friend that we wanted to adopt someday and they all would say, "What will you do when he/she gets older?" or "How on earth will you come up with money for that". We would always just smile because we knew that the Lord will always work everything out and we haft to have the mustard seed faith! So then a couple summers after Carter was born and I wasn't pregnant yet with Brysen I got the chance to share with a close friend that we wanted to adopt Lord willing someday. She said REALLY?? we are in the homestudy process right now!! How special!! I was just thrilled and we have became good friends through this process! So then one night after Brysen was born he was like four months we were driving home one evening and Britton looked at me and said, " lets adopt now". He doesn't want me to have anymore of my own and so I had to get over that and it took me a while! But the Lord opened my eyes in a big way! All of the sudden it seemed like everywhere we looked was adoption stories, blogs, newspaper articles, friends adopting and on and on. We saw the great need that the orphans have and the Lord completely opened my eyes! So we decided if we sold our house we would start looking into it. And wouldn't you know we did!! Almost right away! We applied for a packet through America World Adoption but they wanted us to wait to apply until we had our tax paper and we knew we wouldn't have it for several months so we asked Bev what there agency was and we applied through Christian World Adoption Agency and passed right away! We were given a list of countries to choose from and they all had regulations and prices for a child. Some of the countries were China, Kzachastan, Russia, Guatemala, and of course Ethiopia. The ONLY one we could do was Ethiopia and of course it wasn't a problem cause we love us some AFRICA and all the children are so cute!!! When we started this all we were hoping for like 2011 sometime not now or soon we thought we would just go slow :) We laugh now because you know the saying if you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans :) And sure enough I bet He was laughing when our case manager emailed us and told us she had pictures and medicals for a five year old girl from Ethiopia!! Did I mention that we applied for a 6 mo- 5yr girl? Truly a dream!!! God has so blessed us and now I am all typed out and will talk more about Gracie Kaylin Berekete Filbrun and her background later :)

Ok so now I figured out how to put pictures on here :) This is fun and I can't wait to learn more!! Someone PLEASE help me!!! Since we are leaving soon for California I was showing Carter videos on youtube of airplanes taking off and landing and I was telling him how we are going to go high way above the clouds! He looked at me and in all seriousness said, "Lets stop by and see Jesus on our way!" He is really so cute right now!! Brysen literally learned "uh-oh" today and he learned where his ears are and now will pull at both of them when I ask him :) CUTENESS!! I love my boys and I am so blessed to be thier mother!

Hi!!! Welcome to my blog!! I have no idea how to work this all, I am not very good with computers so I will learn as I go. So many people have asked me if I have a blog and FINALLY I do :) First off I really just want to give God all the glory! Without Him I would be nothing and it brings me much joy to be following Him.
Well for those of you who don't know me I am a twenty-three year old mommie from Ohio. My husband and I will be married five years the end of this month. Even though sometimes life gets kind of hairy I would NEVER trade it. Not in a million years!!! I love being able to be home and get the priveledge to take care of my boys!!! I am always thinking of new things I can introduce to them and we have alot of fun just being silly together!! Carter is my oldest and he just turned three. He is, although hyper at times, very good natured!! He listens to what I ask him to do and he is always wanting to please me. Brysen is my second and he just turned one. He is quite opposite than Carter both in looks and personality. My husband commented the other day that if it weren't for his beautiful brown eyes he would be in lots of trouble!!! My husband is a good natured fellow that goes with the flow and he is a wonderful husband, father, and worker for our family. We all love him so much!!! Love in Jesus and more later!!!!