Merry Christmas Again!

One of my high school friends and his sweet family came by tonight. They gathered some of their friends up and told them about our orphanage and together they donated a very generous sum of money to the kids. It's so amazing to see people reach out to these children and do things to make life better for them. Thank you so much, T & S!

Their girls also drew us pictures:

This one is from Anna. The back says "To: Hatey From Anna" and it's a picture of our two kids, Jessica and Nathan. She also included a whole dollar from her very own allowance that she wanted to give to the kids in "Hatey". Thank you, Anna.

This one is from Grace. I LOVE our little family in this picture. She even made Brent bald!

I'm getting so excited to see our babies again. Just two more weeks until we can kiss their cheeks and hold them and tuck them in at night. There's still a very big part of my heart that is waiting for the bad news before this trip. I told my friends tonight that I'm going to end up with an attachment disorder if something happens to these kids. I pray and plead that our Heavenly Father feels we've learned enough to let us keep these two and let us be a family. PLEASE let them come home soon!

Em-Ha-Hee

My older brother told me last night that my childhood best friend had found him on Facebook.

In case you were wondering, ladies and gentleman, THAT is what it takes for me to finally join the Facebook revolution.

Emily and I grew up around the block from each other. Our birthdays are 11 days apart and they're both in the summer so neither of us ever had the "bring a treat to school day". Our brothers were similar ages and the entire clan of us spent long summer days running around in the fields around our houses in the tiny, little 8-block square farming community where we lived.

We went to church together. We were in nearly all the same classes in elementary school (which isn't hard to do when there are only 50 kids your age). We dealt with the same bullies. We walked to and from school together every day for years and years. We were both tall and it was awesome to be "the tall girls" together.

And then on my 16th birthday we moved. We didn't leave the state, but we were far enough away that we couldn't talk to each other much. For you younger readers, back in MY day we didn't have cell phones, or text messaging or email. I'm not even sure if the word "unlimited" had been created when I was a kid. We had something nefarious called "LONG DISTANCE" and it was expensive.

When Emily got engaged our first year of college, we went dress shopping together and picked out the perfect dress.

We mostly lost touch with each other after that. But still, when I got married 6 years or so later, she let me wear the dress we'd picked out together. I still think it's the perfect dress. Except for that flower thingy at the waist. I don't think either of us were too keen about that.
And so, Em-ha-hee... I'm glad to find you again. It's interesting that neither of us have ever been able to have children and that we're both career women. Neither of those things were in the plans we made as little girls. But you're healthy and happy and I'm glad to find you again!

And thanks again for letting me borrow the dress.

Thank you...

My dear friend Susan saw children's flip flops on a great sale and promptly bought up all she could so she could send them down to "Brent and Lori's kids" in Haiti.

A longtime friend and close neighbor for Brent's family read through the blog and knew she could do something. She bought up all the shorts and tank top sets she could find so we'd have new clothes for the kids.

Some kind person at Brent's work left an envelope addressed as "For the Little Angels" and in it was $50 for us to take to our kids.

Another Haitian mom brought me a case of baby food to take.

Our friend, Heather, is collecting donations from our coworkers so they can help support our babies in Haiti and I am moved to tears.

We are humbled and so very grateful for the support. It is so very difficult to get food in Haiti. It costs Nadia $3500/month just for FOOD alone. And because the governments keep slowing down the adoption process, she cant help get children out to their forever families as quickly as she could before. EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS. I don't know how to tell you how grateful we are.


But thank you for helping us to make her smile, get her well, bring her home. (This is our friends' beautiful daughter. Michelle, hope it's OK that I stole this from your blog!)

Giving Thanks

I didn't properly thank all the people that helped us in the last little while.



We're grateful to Amanda and Michelle and their respective families for taking care of our puppies while we flew off to far-flung places to meet our children.

We're so thankful to the dear friends who gave us money to give to the Orphanage. They were able to buy medication they wouldn't have had otherwise.

Without Trudi and Garrett, we might not have been able to make this last trip and there's no doubt in my mind that we wouldn't be adopting Jessica as well if we hadn't gone when we did. They gave us their skymiles and bought a ticket to Haiti for us. We will be eternally grateful - as a family - for that.

Michelle - who clothed our daughter and had diapers and medicine when we suddenly had 2 children on Thursday. Thank you, friend. We wouldn't have felt like we could bring her back to the hotel with us without you and your generosity. We're so grateful we had that opportunity to see them play together and make Jessica part of our family.

And the prayers - we can't say enough about what prayer can do. Sometimes you have to pray that the next appropriate person in this long line of processing will have the DESIRE to ACT on your paperwork today. Help us get them home. Thank you for including us in your prayers and thoughts.