pray, pray pray...

I am asking for everyone to pray for the Ethiopian adoption process. There were some new developments last Friday (the day after we saw our baby's face) that could significantly change our adoption as well as so many others. Here is the link you can look at...

http://www.voanews. com/english/ news/africa/ -Ethiopia- to-Cut-Foreign- Adoptions- by-Up-to- 90-Percent- 117411843. html

If this actually happens, instead of getting a court date in May, it could be a year from now before we get a court date. These babies and children do not need to stay in the orphanages an extra year for a paperwork delay. We are praying fervently that God will have His hand in all of this and we will feel His peace. Join me in praying.....

oh happy day!!

We got our referral!!! What an awesome time it was to look at our new baby's face...and i mean baby!! We were approved for a 0-12 month baby, but assumed he would be in the older part of those 12 months, but he is 6 weeks old! and really cute, i might add!!

We had gotten word from our agency that it was probably coming this week, so i was checking my email non-stop all week. And it was perfect timing. we got the emails about 5:45, while david was home! we put a movie on for the girls to watch so we could concentrate on enjoying that moment and looking at our baby, and then we videoed telling and showing the girls. it was precious, they were so excited and i can't wait to show this little guy how much his sisters love him already. then the girls called our parents and the rest of the night was full of visitors and phone calls. it was wonderful!

We will get the medical report today and we are praying that everything is okay with that. as long as we feel good about it (which we think we will), we will "accept" him and apply for a court date in Ethiopia. and then we wait again....

david and i both have a picture of our cute baby and will carry it everywhere to show all of you, and he is cute!!! we are so blessed to welcome the newest member of our family.....

waiting, waiting, waiting

waiting for things in not one of my strong points. I am pretty sure God is teaching me one of those, "I am in control" lessons right now. We are waiting for our referral, and i am not waiting too patiently. The referral is "the call" you get when they have placed you with a child. We will get a picture and some very basic medical information on him (i think). Once that happens, we will wait for a court date in Ethiopia. So, basically there is a lot of waiting going on. That's the update for now, but I will post as soon as we get a referral (which we are hoping is in the next couple of weeks)!!

and just for fun, here is me with my 2 favorite girls...

the shirts are in!!!

The shirts came in this evening and we had so much fun opening all the boxes! If you would like to join with us on this jouney of bringing "baby brother" home, email me at sarawhitfield@bellsouth.net to get your shirt! They are $20 each and the sizes available are in the post below. We hope you like them as much as we do!

Please help bring this baby home!!

So many people have asked what they can do to help us on this journey...well, here is yourchance!

*The first thing we ask you to do is pray! We can't do this alone, and appreciate so much the prayers of others for this journey.

*The second thing you can do is clean out out house and give to us instead of Goodwill! We are having a garage sale this spring and would love to take things off your hands and sell them. We will be doing the garage sale with Jason and Megan Thompson, and will be splitting the profits 50/50 to help with both of our adoption costs. We are happy to take things now so they don't have to sit in your house in a pile, it can sit at our house! If you have stuff for us, email me at sarawhitfield@bellsouth.net and I will arrange a time to get it from you.

*The third thing you can do to help us is buy a t-shirt!! We have just ordered shirts and they will be here early February. The cost is $20 a shirt and we have mens(unisex), womens, and kids. The mens shirts are charcoal, the women's are black, and the youth is baby blue. They are great looking and you will look super cool wearing them around town! By buying a shirt from us, you will be taking part in bringing "baby brother" home and we will be forever grateful for your support. If you would like to buy shirts, please email me at sarawhitfield@bellsouth.net with the sizes you would like. The sizes are...

Womens S/M/L/XL

Mens(unisex) S/M/L/XL

Youth XS(2-4) or S(6-8)

Get your order in quick, I have a limited number of shirts and sizes and I sure don't want you to miss out!!!

**some of you have asked what the verse is on the shirt since it is a little hard to read as it flips to the other side...it is Matthew 25:40

"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

can she really be 5!?!?

I think that is what I kept saying all weekend long. Is it really possible??? My baby, 5??? David and I decided quite a while ago that we were going to do something really special for Taylor's 5th birthday. We found cheap flights with Southwest and David had free hotel points, so we decided we took her to Chicago to go get an American Girl doll. She was beyond extatic. We told to her about it several months ago, and she has talked about it constantly since then. She didn't care that she would not get a party, she was getting to ride on a plane (she has been on them before, but none that she remembers) and go get an American Girl doll! The weekend finally arrived and it did not disappoint!

David and Taylor walking to get her doll! I think she bounced all the way there...

Meet the new member of the Whitfield family, Casey!

Group shot in the store. She asked me if she could stay as long as she wanted in the store and I told her we could stay until she had seen everything that she wanted to see. We were there for 41/2 hours! The store was HUGE and we had reservations to eat lunch there as well. It was really cute, they had special chairs for the dolls and they got their own cup and plate!

Here she is with all her loot. Family members gave her money for her birthday present and she bought several outfits for Casey with it.

1. 

On Saturday, we went to Shed aquarium and spent the day there. The entire aquarium was great, but this face painting was amazing!! The lady spent maybe 2 minutes on it, and it was unbelievable. she was soooo talented. David and I just stood there in awe!

This was on her actual birthday, I had to take her to do something special. She got her first pedicure and thought it was pretty great...

wooohoooo!

Drumroll please.....I sent the dossier to Washington DC today! Yay!!!

We were out of town this weekend for Taylor's birthday (more on that later) and I hit the ground running when we got back! I picked up the completed home study tuesday and went immediately to get the Williamson county seal on my dossier. Tennessee requires an extra step compared to most other states in that we have to get a county seal, then a state seal, and then the Great Seal in Washington DC. After getting the county seal, I dashed off to church to make 5 copies of the entire document, which was a whole lot of pages! then I went to Kinkos to mail off the I-600A. The I-600A approval is the I171 (confusing, right?) and basically says that we are fit to immigrate a child into the country. This process can take several weeks and includes us going to get fingerprinted when they tell us to.

So today, Callie and I started on our adventure to get the state seal and then get that dossier to DC! I was really nervous because I didn't want to mess anything up (and am still nervous because they won't get it until tomorrow to tell me if I messed it up), but we did it! Callie was a trooper and kept telling people that we were "sending a note to baby brother"...close enough.

I am so grateful to be at this point! We would covet your prayers as we now wait to get a call that they have placed us with a baby boy. It should be several months before that happens, but we are praying that our baby is being cared for by loving people until we can have him...