Happy Gotcha Day Ellie!

A year ago today our friends Daniel and Whitney brought home their daughter, Ellie, from Guatemala. Paul and I have always talked about adopting but God really used Ellie to show us that now is the time and it is not as scary as we thought it would be. So in honor of Ellie we went to Pollo Campero for dinner! It is a Guatemalan fried chicken chain in the south.

my food and my lens cap:) I wimped out and just went for mashed potatoes instead of an authentic Guatemalan side:)

they had a steering wheel so Jackson didn't really eat much.

LOVE the toddler playground....Jackson always gets so mad when he can't climb up in the tubes!

So being a Southern girl, I really liked the fried chicken! We will definitely be going back because the playplace was really great for toddlers and the tables were in with the playground so no fits to be had in the middle of the restaurant....although he did eat the majority of his dinner in the car on the way home:) And I want to try the plantains next time.


So Happy Gotcha Day Ellie! We enjoyed celebrating your special day from afar!

oh the economy.....

yeah I just boosted the economy by buying this



I couldn't help myself....it is too cute and it is really hard to shop for a child when you have no idea what size she will be.

This is what came in the mail today!

We are really excited to start learning some simple phrases that we can use with our daughter. I thought it would help her to maybe not be as scared if we could comfort her in a language she is familiar with, especially if she ends up being closer to 12 months old. I am pretty sure I sound ridiculous so it will be a miracle if this actually sounds comforting to anyone:)

Amharic is super hard! Maybe I should not have waited so long to order it.....

The book comes with a cd to help you with the pronunciation....I think it would be really helpful for families adopting older kids!


oh and we are #


Congratulations Nell Ann! We are so happy for you guys!!!

Audrey---Questions

First to Audrey, Thank you so much for the comment. I would love to read your blog and try to answer any questions you might have! However, when I clicked on your name, nothing came up. Could you leave me another comment with your blog address?



Reading blogs was really how I got so much of my information when we first started out and well I guess since I am not really a newbie anymore......(definitely not an oldie either saying that we aren't anywhere near to being done with this process and have so much to learn still!) but I am totally open to any questions that anyone has! Adoption can be really complicated and a scary journey but is really not so bad once you understand the processes. So any lurkers out there with questions, time to de-lurk. I am an open book:) I will try my best or point you to one of my more adoption seasoned friends!


oh and I plan to post an ode to our monkey soon......I think you find it very funny:)

um yeah....

I had to drive back to the church......in the rain. see below for clarification:)

Please Nap.....

I am sitting in my room praying that Jackson goes to sleep..... You see, Mommy just did the ultimate No-No. I left the monkey at the church. Yep, we went to the church this morning to meet with the other teachers at my school to do some planning for next month and apparently he brought the monkey in with him and well, it is still there in the nursery..... How could I have possibly done this, you ask? I don't even know, some days I feel like that monkey is velcroed to me.

I really don't want to drive back to the church.....please nap, Jackson, plllllleaaaasseee!

Lifting You Up in Prayer Sweet Girl

I don't think it is possible to post too much on this sweet little beauty. She is such a little fighter....we are praying for you, Abby! visit www.riggsfamilyblog.com

unofficially 9

Ok so we have been going back and forth on whether we are really 9 or 10 and now we are really 9! Congratulations Kim on your new baby boy!! We did find out that Kristi is at #2 for those of you who are trying to keep up with this craziness but as referrals keep pouring out, it seems like her day is coming VERY soon!!! We are definitely praying!

25

So I hit a new low over the weekend and I thought I would share. On Friday we left for the youth retreat before AGCI closed and I realized at about 9 pm while driving in pitch black in the boonies that I didn't check our bi-weekly email. So here I was with barely a bar on my hubby's cell phone checking my email only to realize I didn't get it! So then I had to blog stalk on a 2 inch screen in the dark with the slowest internet ever to figure out how to get my precious email. Paul thought I had lost my mind....maybe I did.

On Saturday I turned the big 25 and if I was a good blogger I would leave you with 25 things about me but since I am not you will just have to do with some pictures of how I spent my birthday weekend......Enjoy! oh and if you are here to see more student pictures I will put those on my facebook.

I love this picture:)

child labor

bound teenagers

bound teenagers playing volleyball

playing with daddy's hat

hours of fun

oh man, some of the leaders jumping rope

Brian doing his thing

fun in the hammocks

our huge cabin

playing on our deck

more crazy teenagers

I can't count

Ok so apparently I can't count..... If Kristi is #1 (there was a mystery person between kim and Kristi) then we are #9, if she is still at #2 (which I don't think she is) then we are at 10. So I guess I'll just say we are 9 1/2 until Kristi gets her call and then I can for sure be 8:) Let the shopping begin.

:) so happy

unofficially....

my husband and I will be out of town for the weekend because we work with the youth group at our church and it is retreat weekend. We are bringing Little Mr. so please pray that it all goes smoothly....sometimes he doesn't like sleeping in strange places. I told myself that I could start buying stuff and getting the nursery ready when we hit single digits......look out.

Thursday Hi/Lo

So the Riggs family is starting a Thursday Hi/Lo where you post about your high and low for the week so I thought I would try it out.

Low for the week:

I work at a Christian Preschool and we (the teachers) all get together in the mornings in an empty classroom and pray for each other and our students every morning. Normally the teacher's kids just sit in their laps quietly. Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, Jackson is a little bit curious and doesn't ever sit still. So, he normally walks around stealing other people's breakfast while we pray. Well this morning, while my co-worker is sharing a rather serious prayer request for her husband, I find myself giving a huge guttural scream and crawl over three people to get to my son who is trying to stick his finger in the electric pencil sharpener. Thankfully he was fine and I got to him in time. Let's just say that my heart beat did not return to normal until much later in the day.


High for the week:

Also has to do with work:) Work has been crazy the last couple of weeks and we got a new teacher on our pre-kindergarten team, which will hopefully relieve all of our stress. She is really sweet and has a lot of teaching experience. But the best part is that she is an adoptive mom! She is also apart of Tapestry, the adoption ministry we attend, but we have never met. I am totally looking forward to getting to know her better! It is so nice to have other adoptive moms as friends:)


Don't forget to keep praying for sweet Abby Riggs!

today

Today marks 3 months of waiting to see our precious daughter's face. We are excited and anxious to see what the next 3 months bring. We know that the Lord has hand picked a child for our family and we feel so blessed to be able to pray her home....would you join us in that prayer?

Please continue to pray......

for this sweet girl.....

OH MY!

unofficially. Congrats NEELY on your referral!!

Officially......

and still I think unofficially


Julie also said 30 families are traveling from the last week in December to the first week in February!! That means lots more room for our babies at HH! ;) Praise God that everyone is getting through court.....I know that our most stressful time is ahead of us but it is so wonderful to see these precious families pass and get their babies.

waiting.....

ah...if you only could be here to see my son, still in his jammies, bring me every snack available from the pantry as I sit here checking my emails, you would seriously die laughing. Cracker? Cracker? He has only had about 25 crackers and 2 slices of cheese this morning plus breakfast! and yep its 10:04 am.

Anyways, today should be the day we get our official but incorrect numbers! So I should be 3 less than whatever our caseworkers says but I don't know.....this detective stuff is hard work:)

12

Well, we are home finally and our walls are back in place. Not textured or painted yet but at least its not a construction zone in here any more. We also got our Christmas tree down tonight so hopefully I get the rest down sometime this week. For some reason the decorations not being down has given me some anxiety....I know, I am weird.

I also am pretty sure we are number 12. I am also kinda anxious about that as well. See, we have this agency website and we all put it what numbers we are so we can effectively stalk each other. Well kristi is 3 and nell ann is 9 but 2 on the boys list and neely is 11 (but not waiting for an infant).....other than that I HAVE NO IDEA who these other people are....which means after nell ann and kristi get their precious referrals next week (yeah I am calling it!) we are in the dark people. I will have relatively no idea when our referral will come other than bi weekly vague updates..... I am going to go crazy in a closet somewhere.......

confused....

wait am I 12? or 13? I am so confused......

unofficially 13

Ok from what I can tell 2 referrals went out today and we are now #13! I am SO HAPPY that agci is back open and referrals are going out....being closed for Christmas break was really hard for me for some reason....maybe just being away from our daughter during the holidays is just hard period.

Ok AGCI moms let me know any news and if you think my unofficial number is correct!

belated posts

Edited to add where you can get these cool things for yourself!

Day 3 at my mom's house. Hopefully we will be home tonight or tomorrow:) Here are the cool presents I received for Christmas....you can tell who was on our minds!

The Product Red Nano:)

Compassion's Global Food Crisis Tee It says "Please" in Amharic!



This shirt my friends found for me at cafepress.com


This necklace helps support adopting families! find it here.

I was very excited to get these wonderful things to remind me of our little girl.



Now for some of my favorite pictures of 2008.....only 4 days late:)

Jackson's first haircut


In March Jackson turned 1


Then we went to Orlando for my friend's wedding. We went to Sea World and had breakfast with Elmo.





First trip to the zoo

Our family picture taken in May

Just some of the chaos of all the wonderful donations to our Adoption Garage Sale in June.

Jackson and Daddy at the lake in Chicago for July 4th

Silly Boy

Jackson's first day at Mother's Day Out

At the Plano Balloon Festival in September

Our Dossier mailed out October 1st!


Jackson chowing down on some Ethiopian food...we have a to-go ethiopian restaurant by our house.

At the State Fair in October


Hosting our 3 sweet boys from the Ugandan Orphan Choir

at the pumpkin patch

somewhere between october and christmas I obviously forgot we had a camera....I'll do better this year!

Hope you enjoyed....Thank you for following us on our journey to add our little girl to our family! We can't wait to see what 2009 brings! (Other than termites and broken pipes!)