Sprouting

I am on a blog posting frenzy tonight. It would seem as though I have lots of time on my hands, except that I need to go workout and make muffins for a baby shower.

But first, here is my first experiment with growing things from seed. Hopefully, I will be posting pictures of the "fruit" of my labor, or rather our Creator's handiwork. All I have to do is make sure they have plenty of sun and water, and I can't even take credit for those essentials.

He is Risen!

Some pictures from Easter with the Reno fam.

Some "Purdy" great music (sorry I couldn't resist)

Chris and I just discovered Joe Purdy and we love his music. Go listen.

Are we playing freeze tag?

I was tagged by my (I am trying to think of a word that describes her) friend Meris to list 6 quirky things about myself. AH! I don't know. I have been putting off partly because it is Spring Break and my husband just finished his last paper for his Master's class (Praise God! - now onto the thesis). So it has been party time in the Reno house. Party time for us is being home together when Chris is not writing a paper and I am not doing any work on the computer or tutoring. On Monday, we watched an insane amount of Lost Season 1 (we are just getting started) and went out for Korean BBQ. Way too fun.

Here Chris is emailing his LAST paper to his professor...



And even now I am changing the subject - ok, 6 non-important things/habits/quirks things about myself...

(1) It takes me all day to finish my coffee. My husband home roasts coffee beans, so our coffee it pretty strong. It more or less lasts me all day, through my 2 hour tutoring sessions and right up until I start making dinner.

(2) Everytime my sweet husband compliments me, I repeat it back to him. I'm not sure why - maybe to make sure I heard it right? Or maybe to hear it again, although it definitely doesn't sound as nice coming out of my mouth.

(3) I am fanatical about making the bed in the morning. My life is chaos until the bed is made.

(4) My husband and I go on midnight runs to Taco Bell every once in awhile after he gets off of work. Yum.

(5) I love, love, love being home. I am the text book case of a homebody/introvert. I am convinced this is one of the reasons why God has me (a) married to a man who makes friends everywhere he goes (grocery stores, airplanes, public restrooms) and (b) living right next door to a very gregarious friend. They make me do things like go to the beach on a beautiful day like today.

(6) My favorite band is a non-band called Brother Down (he he aka my husband and husband's friend). I may sound like a broken record for those of you who visit my blog regularly, but go listen!

Anyway, I tag my mom, PaperPony (has she been tagged yet?), and Caleb, Becca and Sakari.

And here are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag at least 3 people.
5. Make sure the people you tagged know you tagged them by commenting to them.

Kingdom growing

Go here. Our adoption agency is partnering with this agency. Exciting!

More t-shirts?

Would anyone be interested in purchasing a t-shirt if we did another round with a different design? Just curious...Go here to see what the design may look like. We would probably do navy or olive shirts.

Great Music

In the midst of our adoption business, I have neglected to mention that my husband's band, Brother Down, (sort of a band, they never really practice or have concerts because they have other jobs and are spread throughout the state of California) has a great cd out, To the Black Land. Check it out and let us know what you think. It was released back in 2003, and we still love it!

Also, our friend, Steven Hansen, who produced Brother Down's cd, just came out with one of his own, The Wounded Dog's Choir. He is an uber-talented produced and musician.

Fun with the kiddies

California Craziness

Oh the joys of living on the Left Coast...

Please pray for thousands of families in California who are homeschooling and doing an excellent job.

Update

We just received some updated information about the wait time for our adoption (thanks Kari!).
The wait time for an infant girl referral is 7-9 months (September-December for us) and for an infant boy is 5-7 months (July-September for us). And...the Ethiopian courts close August-September (or something like that). So even we do get a referral by the earliest possible date (July), we wouldn't have a court date until October and would travel (hopefully) by November. So, now we are hoping to get our little one by Christmas.

This is definitely turning out be much longer that we expected. I need to keep reminding myself that God's timing is perfect in every way.

"Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart, and wait for Lord." Psalm 27:14

Dossier on its way

I'm not sure if you noticed our little ticker up above and our timeline to the right, but we sent our dossier to our agency on February 11th and all the paperwork we have been working on since April 07 has been approved. Praise God! Our dossier was sent via FedEx to Ethiopia on March 3rd (Monday). (I've been tracking it - its still in the states, Delaware to be exact.)

So now the real waiting begins - we probably will not hear anything for another 5-6 months. The next news we hear may be a phone call letting us know that they have a referral (match) for us.

Please be praying for us as we wait, the the little one God already has planned for us and for his/her birth mother.

Thank you for all of your prayers and kind words!