She's Walking!!!

We received Evelyn's 10 month check-up report today &

our big girl is walking!

It says that she is standing alone and taking 1.5 steps!!

Not sure how you can take 0.5 step but we love it!

She weighs 17 pounds and is 26 inches long..

not even on the growth chart for height...little peanut!

Overall she is very healthy and

developmentally right on target!

So thankful for another good check-up this month.

We are praying that her next check-up

will be here with us!!!

Evelyn's First Christmas

Even though Evelyn didn't make it home in time to celebrate her first Christmas with us she still had more presents under the tree than anyone else!

We had a great time opening her gifts and dreaming of next year when she will be here to open them all herself!

What a fun Christmas it will be!!

Now on to 2011 so that we can get our baby girl HOME!

{Being Different}

There will inevitably come a time when

Evelyn asks us why she looks different than we do....

She may endure some ridicule at school or even from some people she considers friends

just because she looks different.

It will be at this point that we will lean heavily

upon the words of our old friends

Kermit the Frog and Ray Charles

to help us explain to her that being different is great.

Merry Christmas!

{A Special Gift}

Patrick and I had a very fun surprise waiting

on us in the mailbox yesterday!

A sweet friend that we have met through

the adoption process made us this

South Korean Flag Christmas ornament!

She and her family are awaiting the

arrival of their son from South Korea.

Hopefully he and Evelyn will be coming

home shortly after the New Year!

Who knows...we may even end up in

Seoul at the same time!

Thank you Leah!! We love our gift!!

It's Christmas Time Again.....

This was our "song" last Christmas.

Well, here we are 12 months later and it is our

"song" again this year.

We really thought we would have Evelyn

home by this Christmas...

We started the adoption process in

August 2009 so we thought SURELY by

December 2010 she will be here...

think again.

For some reason the Lord has chosen to keep her in Korea for a few more months and we are trying our best to trust in His providence and perfect timing.

We can only see a part of the picture He's painting.

So for now we are looking forward to this being our last Christmas as a family of two and spending Christmas 2011 with our precious little girl!

***To all our adoption friends who are waiting

on their little ones to come home.

The words to this song hit really close to home.

Just be prepared...

Care Package #2

We recently got another little care package

together to send to Korea for Evelyn.

Some of our adoption friends are going to take it to

Seoul in a couple of weeks when

they travel over there to pick up their daughter.

We are so excited that this package is

going to be hand-delivered for us!

Thank you to our new friends the Sloans!

{warm winter clothes & pjs}

{a special outfit for her 1st birthday}

{toys and rice cereal}

Everything is ready to go!

{New Hobby}

Since we have about 5 more months until Evelyn comes home I thought I should find something

to keep me busy...

so, I started taking photography lessons!

My wonderfully talented photographer friend

Ceresa Caudill has offered to give me a few lessons and here are some of my practice pics....

I didn't have the most cooperative subjects

for a beginner :)

This is Nate.

He is our "first born" and is now 8-years-old.

He loves playing tennis ball, chasing squirrels and

snuggling on the couch.

~~~

This is Honey Bear.

She is 7-years-old and is Nate's sister

(same mama and daddy dog just separate litters).

She enjoys swimming, chewing on sticks and

pestering her big brother.

No worries...they are GREAT with children and

passed our homestudy with flying colors!

Evelyn is going to love her new "brother and sister!"

NVC In/Out

Well, we are officially DONE with the US side of this crazy paper chase!!! I just got off the phone with the National Visa Center and we have been logged in/out and all of our paperwork was electronically sent to the US Embassy in Seoul yesterday!

but here is the frustrating part...

Evelyn must be issued an Emmigration Permit (EP) from the Korean government before she can travel.

This permit allows her to leave the country permanently.

We received word on Wednesday that Korea will not issue any more EPs for 2010. Evelyn will not be submitted for her EP until 2011 and we were told to be prepared for an additional 2 month delay in our timeframe to travel.

Our original estimated time for travel was

late January - early February.

Our new timeframe is now late March-early April and

we will most likely miss her 1st birthday.

Needless to say, we are very disappointed.

We thought we were close to the end of this

emotional roller coaster ride.

We are trying to trust in God's perfect timing

during this process.

Please pray for us as we have a long winter ahead...

I-600 Approval!!!

After 8 long weeks of waiting we finally received our

I-600 approval!

This is the next to last step in completing the US side of Evelyn's immigration paperwork. Our file has now been transferred to the National Visa Center (NVC) and once we are logged out of the NVC

everything on the US side is done!

Because of the paperwork remaining on the Korean side

we are still looking at early 2011

before we get to pick her up.

We're thankful to have made it this far...

Just a little bit longer!

...More New Pictures...

....happy girl....

....looking a little confused....

8 Month Check-up

We got the most exciting email from Korea today...

Evelyn's 8 month well child check!!

She is doing great!

She weighs 16 pounds and is 29 inches long.

That puts her at the 10% for weight and 3% for height!

She's a little peanut :)

She is sitting without support, crawling and pulling up! She also plays "peek-a-boo" and says

"mama/dada" in Korean!

She has 3 teeth on the top and 2 on the bottom and her overall physical assessment says "cute and fine."

Yay for Evelyn!!!

We are so thankful that she is growing and developing normally and staying right on target. Still praying for immigration paperwork to speed up so that we can

GET HER HOME!

New Picture of Evelyn!!!

And just when we thought we couldn't wait any longer this comes out of the blue....

Here she is with all the things that we sent in her care package! She could be looking at our pictures right now or snuggling with the blanket or golden puppy that we sent! So happy to see her little face and see that she is happy and healthy. We are also very excited to see her sweet foster mother in the picture (whose face cannot be shown for privacy reasons). How will we ever be able to thank this sweet family for taking such amazing care of our daughter for the first year of her life?

It's overwhelming to think about...

Isn't she beautiful!

thanks to my friends Maggie and Candace for some fancy cropping

so that I could post these pictures today :)

no news.

No news here.

We are in week 7 of waiting on the approval of Evelyn's I-600 (the last portion of immigration approvals before applying for her Visa). Everything is on hold until this is done and it is the last major step before bringing her home. Please pray that this will happen soon so that things can start moving again...

We did get a brief update from Holt Korea regarding an ER visit that Evelyn's foster family made with her for fever (it ended up being hand, foot and mouth so thankfully she is ok!) Other than that we are just waiting and working on getting her room ready for when she is finally home!

Here is a preview of what we have done so far...

still have work to do but we're getting there!

...bookshelf that my dad made for her...

...he wrote these 2 verses for her and signed the back...

...pictures for the wall...

...chest of drawers and carseat...

...her little bed...

Thanks for everyone's prayers.

We hope to have some exciting news soon!

{Saturday's Song}

"When Love Takes You In"

Steven Curtis Chapman

I've imagined this little Asian girl is what Evelyn will look like.....

{Shine}

“I believe in God like I believe in the sun. It’s not because I see it, but because of it I see everything else” C.S. Lewis

Amy and I view this world through a lens or filter that has at its focal point the reality of Christ and of God’s work of redemption in time and history. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not just the core of Christianity; it’s the focal point of all history. Because of Christ and the reality of the resurrection we as believers get to revel in the grace and mercy of God’s bringing a rag tag group of sinners together (“misfits” as Flannery O’Connor would say) into His family through the Cross. This is the lens we hope to cultivate in Evelyn’s heart and mind as she tries to make sense of this world and all its worries.

This is the backdrop of our wrestling through one particular document we received lately. We received Evelyn’s legal papers from Seoul, namely her birth certificate and the document from her birth mother stating her desire to officially and irrevocably give our adoption agency custody of Evelyn for the purpose of adoption. We saw her birth mother’s fingerprint and signature. There is a real woman in South Korea who gave her daughter to us. To make this adoption a reality someone had to sacrificially give a part of herself for us to have joy. We are fully dependent on the gift of another. Am I reading too much into this? The Gospel seems to peak its head around every corner we encounter.

We have prayed for Evelyn’s birth mother’s wellbeing numerous times. Perhaps the Lord will redeem her in due time, and in Glory, she may once again be able to see her daughter.

“For all that we struggle

For all we pretend

It don't come down to nothing

Except Love in the end

And ours is a road

That is strewn with goodbyes

But as it unfolds

As it all unwinds

Remember your soul is the one thing

You just can't compromise

Take my hand

We're gonna go where we can shine….” David Gray

Waiting...

The waiting is the hardest part...

Adoption is beautiful. No question about it. Adoption is also excruciatingly hard. The process is hard. The waiting is hard. And once the time comes for you to see the face of the one you’ve been waiting for finally arrives…

it’s beautiful, but also hard.

She's out there. We know who she is and what she looks like yet there is so much land and sea (and paperwork!) keeping us from our daughter.

For those of you who have gone through or are currently going through an adoption process you know what I mean....

Adoption is full of "hurry up and wait."

Some of you may have read this on the 147 million orphans website but we have found these words to be very pertinent

to us during this entire process:

"Waiting is never an easy process. We began to dream about our daughter and fall in love with a person, whom we have never met. I will say that with each wait during this adoption process God has done some amazing work in our lives. He has taught us how to submit to His will, how to trust in His perfect plan for our life, and how to reach for His word during the hills and the valleys. Always remember that others are watching you wait and you want to WAIT well by shining as a light for the

glory of the Father."

While I'm waiting...
I will serve You
While I'm waiting...
I will worship
While I'm waiting...
I will not faint
I'll be running the race
Even while I wait

Though it's not easy
Faithfully, I will wait...

7,067.6 miles......

the distance between Evelyn and us.......

Evelyn's Care Package

We sent a little care package to Evelyn in Korea yesterday and here are a few things that were in it:

A few little outfits, socks and a stuffed Golden retriever

so she can be prepared to meet Nate and Honeybear!

A blanket that we have been sleeping with for the past few weeks so that it has our scent

A Hallmark recordable storybook with us reading the story to her so that she can hear our voices

A picture album with pictures of Patrick, myself, Nate, Honeybear and our house so that she can what we look like and what her new house looks like.

The Korean symbol you see on the front of the book is her name.

A letter we wrote to Evelyn's foster parents and had translated into Korean by a friend of ours who is a Korean citizen

1. 

Honeybear helping.....

Honeybear saying goodbye to the puppy.

She couldn't understand why she couldn't have it...

All ready to go and on it's way to South Korea!

{Saturday's Song}

"Amos Story"

This is an amazing adoption song

written by Aaron Ivey who adopted

his son, Amos, from Haiti after the massive

earthquake of January 2010.

The words from this song are so true for us today:

I’ll find a way to get you here

If it takes my fleeting breath

Another sunrise hits the ground

And it’s a dark lonely sight

Lightyears away I hope you know

There is somebody searching

For the way to get you here

I will get you here...

evelyn.

one month ago today we saw

her face for the first time...

...at birth...

...at 2 months...

...at 5 1/2 months...

praying the Lord will bring you home soon.