Nesting....

"Around the 5th month of pregnancy (or referral waiting), the 'nesting' instinct can set in. This is an uncontrollable urge to clean one's house, brought on by a desire to prepare a nest for the new baby, to tie up loose ends of old projects and to organize your world."- pregnancy weekly

So, we are 5 months and 3 weeks into the waiting game, and I am beginning to feel a lot of pressure to get things done. I will not call it crazy. I will call it nesting!:) Around the Plumb house we are organizing drawers and closets, changing pictures in picture frames, and trying to knock of some "To Do Before Baby Gets Here" tasks.

I actually had a panic moment a couple of nights ago.

We haven't picked out a name yet.

I can't find the perfect baby bedding. (I know I mentioned in a previous post I had bought bedding, but it wasn't perfect enough!:))

Baby Plumb's Life Book is no where near finished.

It is getting close to time to update some adoption documents.

We still have some training videos to watch.

And the list goes on.

So motivation has hit. Let's start crossing tasks off the list!

Brian will be so excited.:)

Oh, and Brian wanted me to add that he is awesome. Whatever!:)

T-shirts are in!

We got the t-shirts!

I will be contacting you guys who ordered shortly to get your shirts delivered to you!

We also have some extras!

If you got a shirt, we would love it if you would send us a picture of you in your shirt!

We would like to put it in Baby Plumb's life book.

(We may even sneak them onto the blog, with permission of course!:))

Thanks again everyone!!!

Family photos

I don't have a whole lot of pictures of me and Brian over the past couple of years. I seem to be the one that takes the pictures in our families. Brian and I haven't had our pictures made since our wedding day almost 6 year ago! So, a few weeks ago Jennifer fixed that for us. Thought I would share a few of our favorites!


She really did an awesome job! I love them! Thanks again Jennifer for taking our last official family of 2 photo !

And in referral news... there has been 2 referrals for baby boys in the past week! We could not be more excited for both families, especially our friends the Carter's!
Yippeeeee!
Movin' on up!

Is this good news or bad news?

We got some unexpected news on the adoption front yesterday. The Ethiopian government announced yesterday that all adoptive parents must travel to Ethiopia for their court dates in order for adoptions to become finalized. This means that we will now have to make 2 trips to Ethiopia, once to appear in court and the second to pick our son up and bring him to the U.S.

The first trip will last about 5 days and we will have a chance to meet our child and appear in court. The second trip will be after the adoption is finalized and will be to appear for a U.S Embassy interview to process our son's immigration visa. The second trip should occur 3-6 weeks after the first. We are still not sure of all of the details, but should hear more from our adoption agency soon.

I must admit, yesterday I had a really hard time with this. 2 trips! Really! We definitely had not planned for this extra expense. And having to travel twice so close together! How is that gonna work with our jobs? And probably the worst part, having to meet our son, begin bonding, and then have to leave him behind!?!?!? Oh, I can't even imagine!!!

All of these thoughts became a little overwhelming and I will say, I threw myself a little pity party. I just started feeling a little down about the fact that the average wait time for referral has gone from 7.5 months to when we first got on the list, to 9 months at this point. There also just doesn't seem to be a lot going on with the unofficial wait list! And now 2 trips!

But the optimistic Shannon did find her way out eventually! Now we get to take 2 trips to Africa! We also get to meet our son 3-6 weeks earlier than we originally would have gotten to! God has blessed us so much, and we know that he will make this all work out.

Brian reminded me that when we get our son, nothing else will matter.

FIVE

Why is the number five so important?

Well, there is The Jackson 5

You can split lunch with a friend for $2.50 each, which makes $5.

(Sing it with me folks, "5....5 dollar....5 dollar foot loooong")

There are 5 Olympic rings.

James Monroe, our fifth president.

"Five Golden Rings!"

And we have been on the waiting list for FIVE months!

Wooohoooo!

This calls for a high five!:)

Where is our baby from?

Books for February

Finished the 3 books for January, and thought all of them were great picks. Definitely would recommend Crazy Love. I actually want to read it again soon! It had so many great thoughts and it was hard to absorb them all. Here are the books for February, just in time to get ready for March!

A friend of mine has been encouraging me to read these for awhile now and I finally have given in. I have already read the 1st one when we were snowed in for a couple of days and LOVED it. It was a quick read geared towards teens about a group at teens in the future that are forced to fight to the death on live TV to remind society of the power of the "Capital" . I know it sounds kind of demented, but it's was good. I read this during "Winter Storm 20010".

I got this book from the library and am almost through it. The funny thing is that the author is actually one of the guest speakers on one of our Ethiopian training videos and I wasn't even aware of it before I began it. I will def be buying this one for my library. SO much great information, hard to keep it all in!

I've always wanted to read "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis and I figure there is no time like the present!

Most of the time...

Most of the time we are keeping this waiting period busy with church, basketball games, family and friends.

Most of the time I am able to appreciate this time Brian and I have together. The last few months that we will be a married couple without kids.

Most of the time it feels like time is flying by. Wasn't Christmas just yesterday?

Most of the time, I try to not plan the nursery too much or look at baby clothes. It seems to make things a little harder.

BUT

Some of the time I can't stop thinking and planning.

Some of the time I have a weekend where I do the very things I said I wouldn't. Buy a crib, dresser, and nursery bedding! (My mom and I got a little carried away!)

Some of the time I get down about the lack of referrals lately. (Where are they BTW!)

Some of the time we have an evening, like last night. There is no laundry to fold, no cleaning to do, no activities to go to and it is quiet. The kind of quiet that only a child, OUR son, could fill.

But ALL of the time I know that God is in control. He has our child picked out for out family and he will be here at the right time, whether that be in 6 months or 2 years! (but definitely praying for closer to the 6 months!!!!)

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."- Jeremiah 29:11

And thanks to everyone for all the support through our t-shirts! We will be placing the order the end of this week!:)

T-shirts!!!

Brian and I LOVE t-shirts. I mean, I think we have a billion between the two of us. Everything from Bethel shirts from when we were in high school to a nice little collection Brian has accumulated from Goodwill (which I sincerely hope some of them are never seen in public!). So we thought it was time to make some shirts about the thing we are most excited about, our adoption!

The verse reads, "Above all these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity." Col. 3:14

The shirts are black and are unisex. They will be $20 for adults and $15 for kiddos. All proceeds will go for humanitarian aid.

If you want a shirt, email me at shancat35@yahoo.com. We will be placing an order in the next couple of weeks and we will set up payment options later!

Geography fair

Last week, my nieces were in a geography fair for their home school association. Each family picked a country and set up a table full of the information that they learned. They picked Ethiopia! It was so neat to see them learn about Ethiopia and the culture. We even went to The Queen of Sheeba Ethiopian restaurant and picked up some injera and beef stew for their booth.

Ashlyn serving up the injera.

The Ethiopia booth!

Ralph trying the injera and stew.


Anna LOVED the injera! She had 4 pieces!

Thanks girls for learning about Ethiopia and getting excited about your future cousin!

Speaking of excitement, super excited for our friends the Andrews who passed court yesterday and are officially the parents of a beautiful little girl and precious little boy! You must check out their adorable faces! Yippee!