God has so richly blessed me with little boys that sometimes I think my heart might burst! So I am starting a list of my favorite things about each boy.
Carter D. Ehrman
1) He giggles hysterically when he is tired
2) He is so strong: He has cute baby muscles
3) His dimples and kissable cheek-ies
4) He asks his big brother funny questions like: "I don't have skills... Noah, how did you get skills?"
5) He snuggles up close to me under a blanket to pretend to be in my tummy again
6) His shy smile
7) His long eyelashes and big beatiful eyes
8) His determination to finish what he starts
9) His relentless pursuit of finding out where baby's come from
10) Sumo pillow wrestling

I am so excited because Noah (6) is questioning his belief in God. I know that may sound strange but it is a huge step in making a real, true, personal commitment by questioning his own perceptions of reality and how God fits into that reality. I think it is awesome that he is not willing to blindly follow what his parents/church put before him... he is seeking Truth on his own with our gentle guidance. It is also an honor that he is happy to discuss these things with us. Today he is struggling with how God can be real if things in the "real" world are not invisible. He was quite upset about this. Please pray for him (if you think of it) as I think this year will be a big one as he forms his own faith. Also pray for us to have the wisdom to answer to the hard questions.

http://www.poison-ivy.org/

So I finally (after 4 months of waiting for it's release) got to read Karen Hancock's new book "Return of the Guardian King"! I loved it! I read it until my eyes crossed every night and I got a ton of cardio in because I love to read on the elliptical machine. I wish there were more Christian authors like Karen Hancock. Reviewers have likened her work to the caliber of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and I would have to agree. It is filled with thrilling, white knuckled, page turning adventure and a dash of romance. Her series is truly eyeopening to the dark forces that operate in our everyday lives and minds as Christians. It is very much like Joyce Meyer's "Battlefield of the Mind" in action applied to fictional circa 1600 characters. In her 4 book series you are awakened to the way that Satan tries to invade your thoughts and control your life so that you don't immediately cast your cares upon Jesus and trust Him for everything. Through these characters lives you get to see the everyday struggles that all of us wrestle with as we seek to keep the mind of Christ amidst normal (and phenomenal) circumstances. It amazes me how a fictional account can make you so ravenous for the Word.

So yesterday was one of the worst days I have had in a long time! My husband "Captain Safety" warned me that the weeds I planned to pull might be poison ivy. I didn't believe him because he thinks everything is poison ivy. Well this time he was right. I apparently rubbed my eyes and face after pulling the "weeds" I woke up Tuesday with my eyes almost swollen shut! The swelling made me very woozy and I couldn't think straight. While I was trying to make lunch Carter and Landon decided to brush their teeth upstairs and left the faucet running for about an hour. Torrey came home and asked why the ceiling was leaking (I was so out of it that I didn't even notice). My hero cleaned up the mess and gave me some Benedryl. Unfortunately the medication unexpectedly knocked me out for about 4 hours....sleep good.....4 boys under 7 unattended in the house...bad....very bad. When I woke up there was a pile of sand from the sandbox on every single carpeted stair in the house, all 10 the tomatoes I just bought at the store where either eaten or smashed into the carpet, Landon had poop running down his leg, and every game piece known to man was scattered around the living room floor. Oh yeah and I remember a call somewhere in the middle of my hibernation saying that my husband got a speeding ticket on the way back to work!!! I thank God for my wonderful husband who came home to see the desperation in my red swollen eyes and cleaned it all up for me!!! I am so Blessed!

So we are officially waiting (no longer waiting to be waiting) WE ARE ON THE WAITING LIST!!! Last night while we were watching Lost Torrey mentioned..oh yeah Louanne at work said that she has our 401K check. DUHHHHH mail man stalker here has been checking the mail every day for it! I asked him why he didn’t get it. He said “oh she left the office, I didn’t think it was a big deal” Uhhhh... I overnighted the $7,700 check to Minnesota first thing this morning and it will arrive by 12 tomorrow. So I emailed my social worker in MN (Lindsay) to let her know that she would have the check in her hand tomorrow. Her first email this morning said okay great. Then at about 4:00 I received an email that said “Knowing that your check is in the mail I have added you to the waiting list!!!” I am sooooo so excited to be done waiting to be waiting. Now I am officially just waiting as of 5/17/2007!!!!

4/26/07 We put our dossier in the mail today! We didn't have the $7700 county fees but we submitted it anyway just so the paperwork didn't get lost, chewed on, or demolished by my brood of amateur wrestlers. I cradled it in my arms all the way to the post office! Then gently placed it on the post office counter to be posted. The postal worker was not very gentle with my delicate package. I freaked out inside when she tossed my baby...I mean package in with the "other" packages. But now I am officially waiting to be waiting! I cannot go onto the waiting list until I turn in the country fees :(

So I am way behind with my updates. So the next few post will be condensed versions of our last month taken from various emails I have sent to people:

4/12 (This is where I really started to get behind because I was in culture shock) I spent the weekend reading Melissa Faye Green's book "There is not me without you" I was life changing (even more than TIVO :) I would recommend it to EVERYONE... not just those who are adopting. It is a huge eye opener to all of us who are caged into our trite close minded American lives. (Before reading this book I would have been angry at my previous sentence.) The book chronicles the life of a woman in Ethiopia who loses her 20 year old daughter to AIDS and is so lost in her grief that she started making plans to make a home in the cemetery (apparently a semi-common practice). A priest at one of the churches that the woman prays at daily persuades her to take in a teenager that did not have a home. Then over the next year the priest continues to bring children to her home until she has over 5o children staying in her small shack. She eventually finds out that people are willing to adopt these children. The most eyeopening part of this is the description of the lives of the people in Ethiopia. It is common for a nuclear family of 3 or more to claim for themselves cement blocks on the side of a sidewalk as their home. The mark their "home" with trash that they find. When it rains they have no shelter so the family with lay on the ground and cover themselves with plastic to keep dry. Work is so scarce that most families are lucky to eat 1 small meal a day! I could go on for years about this book but I recommend that you read it! It made me ashamed of my life here in America. The $20 our family might spend eating out equals 2 months worth of wages for the average family in Ethiopia! I have been wrestling with this for the last month. God has blessed us so richly yet we take for granted these blessings and only desire more and more... bigger TVs, nicer cars, new computer, video games, new clothes, the AMERICAN DREAM... our priorities are so out of control where money and STUFF are our idols. We sit in our house overflowing with a lot of unnecessary things...while others cannot feed their families, afford clothing, live on a sidewalk, have no vehicle, cannot receive an education, cannot afford medication. Infants and children die of a FEVER because they don't have Tylenol (I didn't even know that was possible!) and DIARRHEA!!! I thank God that He has opened my eyes to my own sin of gluttony and greed.