Windows

Isaac has a new window! (in his mouth) He lost a second tooth. He ran up to me Wed. night at awana with bloody mouth and a big wiggly tooth and said "Dad, I have loose tooth!"
Five minutes later he had yanked it out and was showing his trophy.
He thoundz thweet when he talkthz. The tooth fairy was generous :)

On the adoption front...
Another family through our agency received a referral this week. They were waiting on an infant boy and had been waiting five months. (Their new son is nine months) We have been waiting three and a half months (it will be 4 mos. on Apr. 15th). So we are hopeful that by 5 months we will hear something. We are so thankful for all the prayer and support we have received. Please continue...Our baby is probably born. Join us in praying for him and his birth family and those caring for his needs. (And don't forget the possibility that their could be more than 1 *big smile*) Ta and I both need prayer to fight anxiousness.

Layne

God's precision and timing

The last few weeks, we have been battling anxiety and attempting to fight against worry.
When we would pray and ask for peace, He would grant it, but the worry would creep in.
This last weekend, we were graced in a big way by financial gifts from family. Our church also gifted us with enough to completely cover our shots, (a cost we were completely unprepared financially for.)
Today, we received word from Katelyn's Fund that they will be assisting us financially with our adoption! We are so overwhelmed and the words Thank You can hardly cover what we are feeling. This gift will enable us to pay off the outstanding balance (past due) with the adoption agency! We are so in awe God's faithfulness.
We feel so blessed by the financial support of these gifts. We also have felt the power of Christ through the prayer and emotional support of our church, our family and the Katelyn's fund ministry.
Meeting with the people from Katelyn's fund was such a huge encouragement. Rejoice with us in this huge gift and praise God for his never ending faithfulness!

Below is their vision statement from their website:

Our vision for this ministry:
To offer financial, emotional, and prayer support to Christian families who are feeling God calling them to adopt. To establish a fund that would assist Christian families in adoption costs. Katelyn's Fund Board would communicate needs to consistory and families would need to share their personal testimony, and have an approved home study. Katelyn's Fund Board would take responsibilities for procedures, establish criteria, and report to consistory and church members. The long term impact of this ministry would not only be saving lives in the literal sense but also eternally. It would be to call other Christian families to consider or to support those adopting. For our church to rise up and proclaim it’s love for those near and far, the same and different, and the unfailing love of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Tanya with her nephew visiting from Illinois this week!

Happy Birthday, Ta!

I thought i'd get Tanya a balloon for her birthday!
I wish I could give her a ride in it. Look at that green grass!

Shootin' for 2

You might think this post is about March Madness. However...it's about a response we recently received from Citizenship and Immigration services.
We have received our i-824 back from Homeland Security. We are now officially allowed by the US government to bring two children back from Ethiopia. This does not mean that we will, it just means that we can. We haven't written about this before, but the story goes like this.
At some point after we had our fingerprinting done (December 27th), we got approval from Citizenship and Immigration services that we had approval to bring 1 child back as a citizen from Ethiopia. We were confused, because our home study clearly stated that we were open to twins, so we started making some phonecalls and emails to make sure this was right. We found that we had a flaw in our home study and needed to have it changed in order to get the ability to have citizenship for 2. long story short... just got the form back last Monday. God was totally ordaining this from the beginning though, because having to change our homestudy allowed us to change our age limits, too. So now we are open to... Up to 36 mos. old as the oldest of a sibling group, or twins.
It was a little frustrating, however, Tanya's sister Lea really put it in perspective recently when she wrote in her blog about the perfect moment in time that God has prepared that we will meet our baby or babies. And even though this seemed like a hold-up, it is really just part of His perfect plan.

L

Snowy Day

Today, Daddy didn't have to go in to work. Awesome blizzard! Thank God for our warm house!
Anyway, Lego's provided some entertainment and below you can see pictures of the work Isaac and Kaylee did. I'll let you guess whose is whose.