Thanksgiving...the perfect time of year.

What a wonderful holiday season it will be this year! We hope that each of you have a great time with family and friends. It is such a perfect time of year to reflect on how many blessings we have been given. Sometimes those blessings are in disguise...we may not fully understand God's master plan, but we have to trust Him.

For those of you who have read this blog from the beginning, you know that in December of last year was one of the lowest points in our lives. For three years, we tried everything to get pregnant. It consumed my life. Every month was a dissapointment. I didn't understand why God wasn't allowing us to have a child. I had it all planned out in my head...I wanted to have a child, adopt a child, and have another child. In the month of December, we decided to go ahead and pursue in-vitro fertilization. I have never ever experienced the pain that I experienced that month. Each and every day I had shots, rounds of medicine and more shots...not to mention the emotional pain I experienced with all of the hormones going through my body. The big day was December 17th. This was the day that we would go to Indy and the doctor would place the embryos into my body. Little did we know at that time that God had a master plan. Our little baby boy in Ethiopia was born on this very day.

Time and time again, God has shown us that He is the one in control and if we trust him he will take care of us. Isn't God good? So, this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for many things. I am thankful for my best friend and husband, Chris. I am thankful for our son. I am thankful for our supportive family and friends. I am thankful for our church. I am thankful for a job. I am thankful for our home. I am thankful for my life. This Thanksgiving, I realize how blessed I truly am and I am so thankful that I am a child of God.

So this Thanksgiving, what are you thankful for?

YES! YES! YES!

We wanted to let everyone know we are legally parents of a new son! Thanks to an army of prayers, support, work of the agency, and grace of the courts we made it! More details to come, but we did it. We can't thank everyone enough for the continued prayers and support!


And in the spirit of a Colts touchdown (they play this song when they score) and how we are feeling a little song:

We are not alone...

This past Saturday we had the wonderful opportunity to join nine other families in Lafayette that are all in the process of adopting from Ethiopia! It was so nice to share with others and hear that we are not alone in this process. One family has a referral and the majority of them are currently waiting to be matched with their child. We look forward to developing friendships with this group because we feel it will be important for our son to know that there are other families just like us.

Please continue to pray for a successful court date on Tuesday. We continue to trust God as He is the one in control.

Leading the BLIND

I have a weird feeling right now.  The best analogy that I can come up with is that of a woman who knows she will deliver her baby on a certain day due to a scheduled C-section.  However, I think that both of us, Chris and I, are feeling the same thing right now.  We are anxious.  We have lots of energy.  We have no words.  We are excited.  We are scared.  We are thinking about our son.  We are thinking about our court date on Tuesday.  We are praying that it will be successful.  As his parents, we feel helpless.  Everything is out of our hands.  We try to keep ourselves busy.  We wish time away.  We are preparing to take a trip of our lifetime.  We are trying to learn about Ethiopia.  We are trying to learn about being parents.  We are nervous. We want our son to know he has been loved from the time that he was born.  We want his transition to be easy.  We know that we are a family that will encounter issues.  We want to have answers for our son.  We want people to know that we would not trade this journey for anything.  We miss our son.  We wish we could hold him.  We wish that he could hear us tell him we love him.  When we are missing him, we go to his room.  We go through his things.  We read his books.  We look at his clothes.  We talk about what we will take to Ethiopia.  We are excited.  We are anxious.  We are waiting...waiting patiently to hear if he is legally our son.  We are praying.  Praying hard.

Christmas before Thanksgiving? Yep.

November has been a busy month so far which has made time go by fast!  I decided to add some pictures when we went to Oliver Winery in Bloomington, Indiana with Syd and Katie.  We had a great time together.

On Thursday, Chris and I went to a concert at Ball State.  This will be the last concert that we attend for awhile.  We went to see David Crowder.  He is one of our favorite Christian artists.  His concert was awesome.  We love how he sings the entire time.  It was great, as we were leaving we asked for a set list.  It was hand written on the back of a menu.  As we were walking out, we noticed a poster hanging on the wall and what do you know...it was signed by the entire band.  What a great surprise!   It is now hanging on our wall in our game room.  Connersvine opened for David Crowder.  They were good.  Hunter (the Colts punter) likes to talk and so does his sidekick...

This past weekend we celebrated Christmas with my side of the family.  We had a great time and I have to say our holidays have been a little messed up this year due to us traveling soon.  Christmas definitely has a different meaning for us this year.  Material things are a thing of the past...we already have so much and there is really nothing that we need.  Our focus has been on providing for our son and that is really fun for us!  We have been wondering a lot lately...we wonder how big he is, what he is eating, where he is developmentally, who is loving on him, what a typical day is for him, how much time he is out of his crib, if he cries a lot, if he sleeps through the night...soon we will know.

We always wait till the last minute to fill my mother's stocking...so we took pictures of us kids so she could update the picture of us that she still has on her fridge from 5 years ago.  We love you mom!

Chris having some fun with a Colts spiderman, aka our nephew.

My dad hanging out with one of his 4 grandsons.

My grandpa was able to join us before he heads to Florida for the winter.  He loves his great grandchildren.

Snorkeling gear for Chris....

I forgot to include this picture a couple of posts ago.  Before a Colts game, we stopped by my college roommate's house to see her beautiful daughter.  We are so happy for Greg and Libby!  Congrats!

And a final shout out to Ashley - we just don't understand how you can dislike the Blue Man Group.  Can we still be friends?

One more week till our court date!!!!!!!  Please continue to PRAY!

Donation Update

We have received a great response regarding the donations for our agency's foster care center in Ethiopia. We have received plenty of children's vitamins, wipes, crayons, pencils and hand sanitizer. Thanks to those of you who have given these items! Also, thanks to those of you who have given money so we can purchase some items (including a camera for the orphanage, diapers, wipes, food, and clothing to donate) while we are in Ethiopia. We are so grateful for the overwhelming response. Please contact us if you are still interested in donating items or money. We will be happy to share God's love (and yours) with the children of Ethiopia.

Adoption Update

This week I actually started a countdown at work!  We are only 19 days away from the court date.  Thanks for the continued prayers for a successful day!

Also, thanks for the response about the donations.  The children in Ethiopia will be blessed!

This week we received THREE more pictures of our little boy.  He is so precious.  According to the pictures, he is pretty flexible.  He looks great.  He is healthy and we can't wait to hold him.

If all goes as planned, we will be leaving for Ethiopia on either December 12 or December 13.  We will be staying there until January 10.  We are so fortunate to be staying with the parents of one of our friends that is from Ethiopia.   I plan to write them a letter this weekend.  I think their lives will change for a bit while we are there.  I hope they are ready! 

This weekend we are going to Oliver Winery and Bloomington with Syd and Katie.  I have lived in Indiana my entire life and have NEVER stepped foot on IU's campus.  It should be a lot of fun.  I am excited to be with friends.  

On Sunday, Rod and Megan are coming over to watch the football game.  It should be a fun time!  Go COLTS!

CWA Care Center in Addis Ababa

Our case manager called the care center in Addis last week and notified us of the needs of the orphanage.  If you are interested in helping us donate any of these items or money, please contact us at ponzchris@hotmail.com.  

We plan on packing lightly when we head to Ethiopia.  We are planning to put all of our stuff in one bag and all the donations in another.  

Thermometers

Anti-fungal cream

Anti-bacterial cream

Latex Gloves

Hand Sanitizer

Children Multi-vitamins

Disposable diapers & wipes (we plan on using money to purchase this in Ethiopia)

If you want to contribute, thanks in advance!  If you have any suggestions on where to buy this or ask for donations, please let us know!

Please pray for all of the children and the foster care center.  We have so much and they have so little, but we share God's unconditional love. 

November 1 = 24 more days

By the way, if no one was aware, it is NOVEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!  YAY!!!!  This morning, I woke up and rolled over to Chris and my first words were "IT'S NOVEMBER!!"  (As a reminder, our court date is on the 25th of this month!)

I love Saturdays at home.  We were able to get so much done.  You should see our garage.  It is so organized.  Love it!  We also put stuff away in our barn for the winter.  The weather was beautiful.  

Today we also met our friends, Wendi and Mark, at Starbucks.  They live in Lafayette and were headed to Mark's family in Peru.  Chris and Wendi worked together at Manchester College and I actually went to Niagara Falls with Wendi when I was a senior at MC for a conference.  Anyways, it is such a small world because we are both going through the adoption process.  They are also adopting from Ethiopia.  What a neat connection.  We plan to go to their house later this month to get together with the Lafayette families adopting from Ethiopia.  I think we are farther ahead in the process than anyone there, but we are excited to share our experiences and the joy of adoption with them.