All Kinds of Stuff......

Whoa. It's been awhile since I've been on here. And I didn't even post the good news yet! Last Thursday we got an e-mail from our agency saying that Ethiopian adoptions are NOT going to be reduced by 90%! The Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA) is going to continue to work to full capacity to process adoptions! Yay! Our case worker told us that we may still experience a delay, but things will continue to move forward. The U.S. Department of state and several other agencies are stepping in to help the Ethiopian government keep things progressing.

I've been busy this week collecting some awesome items that our Sunday School kids donated for Hannah's Hope (more on that later), babysitting for friends' children and even hosting my sister and her little boy who came to visit me for a couple of days! We spent most of our time in my scrapbooking room, and I got lots of pages done! Yay! I am now officially caught up to December of 2009........(uh-oh.....I'd better continue cranking out pages as I'm afraid that I'll have even less time in the near future......)

In other news......what would you say if someone offered to send you and your spouse on this

 to here

and here

and here

for an entire week? And what if they told you it would be totally free?

And what if the date that you were supposed to leave just happened to coincide with the date of your 11th wedding anniversary?

Would you go? 

Well....that's exactly what someone offered Chris and me. The company Chris works for is sending us on a week-long, all-expense paid cruise to the Mexican Riviera at the end of April. And we leave on our anniversary! So.....while I'm really excited!......I'm also worried about leaving my children behind. Especially since we'll have to leave them for 2 more weeks at some point in the near future when we travel to Ethiopia. I always feel extremely guilty leaving my kids with someone else for that length of time. Does anyone else ever feel this way? Part of me can't wait to go and says that this will most likely be the last time that we ever get to do something like this (because it will be much harder to leave 6 kids at home!).....and the other part of me is all filled with

(Granted, that is a really bad picture of me, and I don't usually wear ties.) But I am a HUGE worrywart when it comes to things like this. What if my kids act out the whole time I'm away? What if they're all sick the whole week I'm gone? What if I'm being a horrible mother by leaving them for that length of time? What if the family members who are watching them get so tired that they will never speak to me again? What if purple elephants start falling from the sky? What if they decide to close all of the highways because an army of polka-dotted platypuses is marching through? What if...........? WHAT IF?? (Anyway, you get the point.) But then I think of laying in the sun for a week and my worries start to fade. A little. And then I take a deep breath and start counting the days until April 30th. What better way to spend my anniversary? Ahhhh..........

One more little tidbit before I sign off.......Malia has a tiny wart starting on the bottom of her foot. She informed me quite seriously the other day that "Grammy told me not to pick at my wart 'cause I might get affection." She was so serious, but I had to laugh at the thought of someone showering her with hugs and kisses simply because she picked at her wart. :-)

Have a great weekend, everyone!