Life Unexpected

Throughout our adoption process, we learned the true art of waiting.  While I wouldn't say that we became "masters" at waiting, by the end, I think we understood the importance of it.  We have officially been home with Biruk for 3 months and while it has been everything we hoped and dreamed for and more, it has been a transition.  Now, when I look back over those three years of waiting, some of which included days that I felt like completely giving up, I can see that God was shaping us and working behind the scenes so that his perfect story could be lived out. Waiting is never easy.  When we want something to happen so badly, we dwell on, we beg for it, and we expend every ounce of our energy thinking about it.  If given the choice to not wait and just get what we wanted, most of us would seize that opportunity.  At the beginning of our journey, if we could have chosen to have our prayers answered right then and there, getting what we wanted so badly, we probably would

This past weekend, Nate and I went home to my parents' house to hang out for the weekend.  We were able to spend a lot of time with our family, taking Biruk on all sorts of adventures.  We visited a pumpkin patch with our nieces, checked out some sweet yard sales Saturday morning with Grammy, took a long walk to Starbucks with Pop-Pop, and even ended the weekend with an awesome party for young families that my sister and brother in law threw.  It was an awesome weekend. We had invited a couple of our friends that we had gone to college with to come out for the party.  They had been huge prayer warriors and sources of encouragement during our adoption journey, and had yet to meet Biruk.  It was awesome watching them interact with Biruk for the first time, a child they had been praying for with us, for years.  About an hour later, I found myself sitting across from my friend for dinner, and she asked me, "How you are you doing?  I mean really...how are YOU doing?" The

So I have to put a couple of disclaimers on this blog post.  One, it's been awhile since I have posted (thank you mommy-hood for making me tired at 9pm every night!) and two, while I try to be inspirational when I write, this post is NOT inspirational.  This is pure entertainment for everyone.  If you have had a bad day, week, or even year, this HAS to make you laugh! They say kids grow up fast and now I officially know what they are talking about.  We have officially been home for over 2 months and Biruk is growing and changing faster than we could have ever imagined.  Tonight I watched him steal the show, yet again, at our volleyball game, crawling at lightening speeds and dancing with some moves that he could have only picked up in Ethiopia!  He has become animated in so many ways, babbles like crazy, gets into everything and eats like a champ.  He has already changed so much. I still remember those first few hours in Ethiopia as "new parents," staring at this t