Happy Holiday Update!!!

Our motto this year has been…”If you want to make God laugh.... tell him your plans!”  2011 has brought its fair share of obstacles.  Our journey to becoming Judah’s parents has definitely had some setbacks this past year with the Ethiopian government setting stricter regulations and the closure of our agency’s largest orphanage partner.  Our adoption agency has been working on setting up new partnerships with orphanages these last few months and yesterday we found out from our social worker that there have been a handful of families who received referrals this week, which means we are that much closer to finding out who our little Judah is!  Our social worker is hopeful that the referral waiting line will begin to move more steadily come next year.  She told us that this would be our last Christmas without a baby to call our own.  We pray that she is right!

This Christmas we will be heading to Boise to celebrate with the Hart side of our family!  It is going to be an extremely special celebration because it will be our nieces Abigail and Bellamy’s first Christmas!   Tomorrow, December 23^rd is going to be Abigail’s Forever Family court date which means her adoption will be finalized.  We are so happy for Brent and Katie because this is the best Christmas present they could ask for.  Although we aren’t able to make it to court with them since we will be in the middle of our drive from Oregon to Idaho, we are thrilled to be congratulating them and celebrating tomorrow night!

My New Year’s resolution last year was to become craftier.  I didn’t end up fundraising for Judah’s adoption yet, but I was able to fundraise over $1500 for the Mercy Corps Japan earthquake/tsunami relief selling origami crane earrings and over $1000 for the Mercy Corps Horn of Africa draught/famine relief by auctioning off my rhino painting titled, “Help the Horn.”  Our goal for 2012 is to have an Adoption benefit concert called “Jammin’ for Judah!”  Hopefully we will be able to raise enough money to pay for our first set of plane tickets to Ethiopia.

We wish all our fabulous friends and family a very Merry Christmas and extra Happy New Year!