We are so incredibly blessed! The picture to the left is of our boys ( special thanks to Rich and Peter for getting the picture to us so quickly)!!! The nuns at the orphanage (Home of Hope) prayed over the weekend and picked these two little guys for us. Their names are Benedict on the left and Louis on the the right. As our friend Jo predicted one of them is named after the Pope. Heidi and I are going to most likely make their first names their middle names and will give them new first names when we adopt. We will let you all know when we make our final decision. We don't have all the specifics yet but they are both roughly 2 1/2 years old and we don't think they are brothers based on their different facial features. According to our friend Rich, Benedict is a little more outgoing than Louis. We just can't get over how GOD just continues to answer prayers and bless our family. Of course the girls are as excited as us now since seeing this picture brings a little more reality to everything. They both want to have them here now as do we. We definitely have a lot more to do as we need to have some tests done and then need to have the official adoption date set up but it looks like if things keep going at this pace we may be heading over to Rwanda in late October. We want to thank everyone who has been praying on our behalf, Heidi and I could not be humbled more by the power of prayer and GOD. Thank you everyone for the prayers we truly appreciate and are in awe of the outpouring from friends and family!
More info to come as we get it! Stay tuned and GOD Bless! Pete and Heidi.
Scroll to bottom for an additional picture of the boys!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Sept. 21st, 2008
WE just got word that "Peter" our contact in Rwanda was able to drop off our letter at the orphanage on Fri. and that the nuns we very happy and would be praying over it this weekend. They hope to have our boys chosen on Mon.!!!! Yahoo! Peter will call them to confirm Mon. evening and go to see them on Tues.
Asia Grace, and possibly Macie, will be on another TV show which will actually air before our HGTV Gig. It begins on Sat., Oct. 11th @ 8pm on Animal Planet. It is a series about dogs. They were asked to play with a friends new litter of puppies while being filmed. Macie wasn't too into it since I mentioned we were going to Cooper and Eliza's (her cousins) afterward. She just kept asking when we were leaving to go see her cousins, so...I am not sure if she actually held a puppy long enough to be filmed. Oh, well. Asia Grace really enjoyed her time with the puppies though.
Pete and I just came back from a day and a half in the Manhattan area for an intimately, wonderful wedding of a couple friends. What a great time we had! (no kids, that won't happen again for a long time! ha ha ha) Our friends just happen to be going to Africa on safari for the honeymoon. Maybe they can give us some travel tips when they return.
It is officially the last day of summer and what a beautiful one indeed! We are just taking a lazy day hanging out in the sunshine with our girls. We are so truly blessed and grateful for our health, happiness and the weather, does it get any better than this?!!
We will update as soon as we have details about our boys. Till then, "Happy Fall".
Heidi
WE just got word that "Peter" our contact in Rwanda was able to drop off our letter at the orphanage on Fri. and that the nuns we very happy and would be praying over it this weekend. They hope to have our boys chosen on Mon.!!!! Yahoo! Peter will call them to confirm Mon. evening and go to see them on Tues.
Asia Grace, and possibly Macie, will be on another TV show which will actually air before our HGTV Gig. It begins on Sat., Oct. 11th @ 8pm on Animal Planet. It is a series about dogs. They were asked to play with a friends new litter of puppies while being filmed. Macie wasn't too into it since I mentioned we were going to Cooper and Eliza's (her cousins) afterward. She just kept asking when we were leaving to go see her cousins, so...I am not sure if she actually held a puppy long enough to be filmed. Oh, well. Asia Grace really enjoyed her time with the puppies though.
Pete and I just came back from a day and a half in the Manhattan area for an intimately, wonderful wedding of a couple friends. What a great time we had! (no kids, that won't happen again for a long time! ha ha ha) Our friends just happen to be going to Africa on safari for the honeymoon. Maybe they can give us some travel tips when they return.
It is officially the last day of summer and what a beautiful one indeed! We are just taking a lazy day hanging out in the sunshine with our girls. We are so truly blessed and grateful for our health, happiness and the weather, does it get any better than this?!!
We will update as soon as we have details about our boys. Till then, "Happy Fall".
Heidi
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Sept. 17, 2008
YAHOO, YAHOO!!!! WE have officially been approved! We found out yesterday and got a copy of the approval e-mailed to us. We also found out we were actually approved on Sept. 3rd and there was some sort of glitch in the e-mailing process where the Rwandan Gov. thought we received it and we did not and had no idea so I kept calling every chance I had attempting to get a hold of someone and get some answers. It had been 6 weeks since any communication when I got a hold of our contact last Fri. the 12th. She seemed confused about my phonecall and explained that we had been e-mailed a letter a while ago. They attempted several more times to send it and then left for the weekend. She never was able to confirm if the letter was indeed an approval. Mon. came and went with no communication though I called and e-mailed several times. Mon. night I wrote an e-mail to both offices I have been attempting to communicate with to explain I still had not received any e-mail with a letter attached concerning our adoption and begged and pleaded with them to try it another way. Upon arising Tues. AM I checked e-mail just before showering to find a couple e-mails and one had the actual approval letter attached! It was truly a miracle! I wrote back thanking them for their perserverance! Then the next miracle came when my cell phone rang its restricted ring about 4:20 pm the same day. I assumed it was someone from DCYF since Jakee is no longer with us and I thought the case worker may have a follow up question for me or news about him and how he was doing. NO, the call was from RWANDA!!!!!!!! One of the women, the one who wrote the approval letter, was calling to make sure I had indeed received it!!! HOLY COW!!! Not only was it a miracle that THEY were calling ME, but that they were doing it at 10:20 PM their time! So much unlike all our lack of communication over the past couple of months. We are truly thankful and feel that this is so meant to be, we just keep having answers to impossible questions fall into our laps!
We hope to know who our new sons are in a week or two. We will find out their ages, current names, height and weight. We have a few names we have been throwing around as a family, but will wait and see their ages and their names and decide then if we feel it is appropriate to change their names completely.
It looks like we may travel as soon as the begining of Nov. or as late as mid Nov. Either way, it looks like we should all be home as a family by Christmas!!! The girls are quite excited as well at this point.
Asia Grace was asking last week if she could have 10 girls sleep over for her birthday in Nov. and of course we said NO!!! Then she said maybe just 6 or 7? and we said NO. Then she heard about our approval and was asking details about when we would be going. I mentioned to her that we may very well be gone over her birthday and she squealed with excitement! She said, "Does this mean if I have an Auntie or an Uncle watching me that THEY get to decide how many girls I can have for my sleep over and I replied, "SURE!" She is so thrilled to think we will be gone over her birthday, a response, I must admit, I would have never thought of , but am quite pleased by her perception of the situation. Macie on the other hand is going to miss her "Mama". Since Asia Grace left us for 2nd grade and Jakee left us about the same time, Macie and I have had a lot of one on one time doing projects, household chores together and even a little "Homeschooling" which she loves.
Well we are making our final plans to head on out to get our boys across the world very soon and hope to keep you posted along our journey!
Thanks to all who are following our story and thank you even more for any prayers said on our behalf!
Good night for now.
Heidi
YAHOO, YAHOO!!!! WE have officially been approved! We found out yesterday and got a copy of the approval e-mailed to us. We also found out we were actually approved on Sept. 3rd and there was some sort of glitch in the e-mailing process where the Rwandan Gov. thought we received it and we did not and had no idea so I kept calling every chance I had attempting to get a hold of someone and get some answers. It had been 6 weeks since any communication when I got a hold of our contact last Fri. the 12th. She seemed confused about my phonecall and explained that we had been e-mailed a letter a while ago. They attempted several more times to send it and then left for the weekend. She never was able to confirm if the letter was indeed an approval. Mon. came and went with no communication though I called and e-mailed several times. Mon. night I wrote an e-mail to both offices I have been attempting to communicate with to explain I still had not received any e-mail with a letter attached concerning our adoption and begged and pleaded with them to try it another way. Upon arising Tues. AM I checked e-mail just before showering to find a couple e-mails and one had the actual approval letter attached! It was truly a miracle! I wrote back thanking them for their perserverance! Then the next miracle came when my cell phone rang its restricted ring about 4:20 pm the same day. I assumed it was someone from DCYF since Jakee is no longer with us and I thought the case worker may have a follow up question for me or news about him and how he was doing. NO, the call was from RWANDA!!!!!!!! One of the women, the one who wrote the approval letter, was calling to make sure I had indeed received it!!! HOLY COW!!! Not only was it a miracle that THEY were calling ME, but that they were doing it at 10:20 PM their time! So much unlike all our lack of communication over the past couple of months. We are truly thankful and feel that this is so meant to be, we just keep having answers to impossible questions fall into our laps!
We hope to know who our new sons are in a week or two. We will find out their ages, current names, height and weight. We have a few names we have been throwing around as a family, but will wait and see their ages and their names and decide then if we feel it is appropriate to change their names completely.
It looks like we may travel as soon as the begining of Nov. or as late as mid Nov. Either way, it looks like we should all be home as a family by Christmas!!! The girls are quite excited as well at this point.
Asia Grace was asking last week if she could have 10 girls sleep over for her birthday in Nov. and of course we said NO!!! Then she said maybe just 6 or 7? and we said NO. Then she heard about our approval and was asking details about when we would be going. I mentioned to her that we may very well be gone over her birthday and she squealed with excitement! She said, "Does this mean if I have an Auntie or an Uncle watching me that THEY get to decide how many girls I can have for my sleep over and I replied, "SURE!" She is so thrilled to think we will be gone over her birthday, a response, I must admit, I would have never thought of , but am quite pleased by her perception of the situation. Macie on the other hand is going to miss her "Mama". Since Asia Grace left us for 2nd grade and Jakee left us about the same time, Macie and I have had a lot of one on one time doing projects, household chores together and even a little "Homeschooling" which she loves.
Well we are making our final plans to head on out to get our boys across the world very soon and hope to keep you posted along our journey!
Thanks to all who are following our story and thank you even more for any prayers said on our behalf!
Good night for now.
Heidi
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