We have received our I-171H which is a "Notice of Favorable Determination..." from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in response to our I-600A approving Ann and me as being "able to furnish proper care to an orphan."

We are yet another step closer, praise God Most High!

Tuesday night we attended our first Redhawks game. We went with all of the wonderful people of Wright Funeral Home, courtesy of Steve Wright. Steve had a box reserved for us all and treated us to some lovely food. Kaleb ate cotton candy, lots of Sprite, and a push-up...Needless to say, he was wired. He entertained the group with his booty shaking to all the songs. I have no idea where he gets that from...

It is so easy for me to become disheartened these days. Sometimes the days pass quickly, and other times it feels like we have been waiting an eternity for our precious baby. Sometimes we feel like others know just what we are going through, and times like today it feels like no one can quite understand the anguish we feel in our hearts, wanting all this waiting to be over. Then God speaks and we remember that He is working out His purpose in us and through us. He directs us to the cross to remind us of the sorrow and the horrendous suffering he endured when His Son hung on the cross for us that we might be reconciled to him. Today, these words from Lamentations gave me great comfort: The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. Oh how we love Him and seek Him.

We heard from our case manager at our international agency. (Part of the reason I am disheartened.) She told us that Ethiopia is requiring more documentation on adoption cases. When our agency first started doing adoption work in Ethiopia, the time from referral to bringing the child home was approximately 6 weeks. Now it is 6 months or more. We are starting to get ourselves acquainted to the fact that she may not be here until March or April of 2011.

What a day brightener it was to come home to this...Kaleb made it with JoJo when I was working summer school this morning.

We had the annual summer daycare picnic Monday night. We had a blast visiting with friends and watching the kids play.

I will end with a funny Kaleb story...he is such a blessing! We were walking Maggie tonight when she hunched to go #2. I loudly sighed, "UGHH." Kaleb turned to see Maggie doing her thing. He said, "Mommy, do you like poop?" I responded, "Um, NO." His response, "Well I do." Yes, child, that was evident on Saturday night when you had the diarrhea and were laughing hysterically in the bathroom at all the noises it was making. Oh, and when you then imitated those noises back to us after you were done, I was pretty sure already that you liked poop. I'm already feeling better about our waiting...hope this cheered you up, too!!!

It has been a few days since we posted so I thought I would post a photo of Ann working on our "homework" that we need to have done by the end of July. Some of you may have seen Ann's Facebook status today that said, "So far, no morning sickness...but the paper cuts are terrible!"

We are lovin' summertime at the Tunheim House. Nick has been off since Thursday, and we are enjoying the 80+ degree heat. Yesterday, we took Kaleb to a "BIG" pool that he has been dying to go to. We also, of course, did some swimming in our own backyard. Today, we ate lunch with Grandma Barb and then went to Buffalo River State Park. What a blast!

In the adoption world, it has been a rather busy week. We have been busy working on our adoption education for our International Agency. It is due by July 26th, and we have been doing some major procrastinating up until this week. We both had our USCIS appointments this week and got our federal fingerprinting done. That was cool...We both loved the fingerprinting machine. We want to share picture of our authenticated dossier, since so many of you have said, "What in the heck is a dossier?" By the way, we learned in our education this week that it is a French word for documents. :o)

We continue to wait on the baby girl list. We will be informed when we are reaching the top of the list. As we wait please pray for our little girl. Pray she is protected from harm. Pray that her belly gets fed. Pray for her birth mother/father. May they know how much their child will be loved and cared for by us. Pray for the staff caring for her. Pray for the Almighty Presence of Jesus to be with her and give her peace.

We had the privilege this weekend of spending lots of time with my parents. We took Kaleb to a local swimming pool, swam in the backyard, made puzzles, went shopping, read stories and just had lots of fun! Kaleb was not happy to see Grandma and Grandpa leave today. In fact, when Grandma left he said, "I'm sad, I don't want Grandma to go." He repeated this throughout the evening, and when bedtime came, he had an all out sobbing session. I guess he reacts the same way to Grandma leaving as I did when I was a kid.

We are so appreciative of everyone's support of our adoption. Without the particular love and support of my parents, I don't know that we would have been able to make this dream a reality. We are so thankful to them. Mom has made us several blankets and purchased several gifts for Baby Emily. Ok, her name really isn't Emily, but Kaleb is certain it is. He will tell anyone who will listen that he thinks it is a great name for his sister. Enjoy the photos of our special Grandma Rosie and the beautiful gifts she has showered on "Emily".

We sure have been enjoying our 4th of July weekend and hope you are, too!!!! As many of you know, we are officially on the waiting list for a baby girl from Ethiopia. We are still waiting to hear what our exact number is in line, but we know it is somewhere around 17. During this time of waiting, we will be doing lots of education through reading books, researching on the internet, and of course...shopping!! Please pray for a continued peace for us as we wait, that God would provide financially, and most importantly pray for health, strength and comfort for our baby girl.

We had the pleasure of having my Aunt Linda, Uncle Bob, Mom, and Dad with us this weekend. Uncle Bob bought Kaleb a new Toy Story 3 book yesterday. After reading it about 10 times to him, he has the entire thing memorized. I am not kidding you when I say he has a photographic memory...which isn't always a good thing! :-) We included a video of Kaleb reading his book from Uncle Bob. Don't you love how he shows the pictures to his audience? :-)

Thank you for following our journey. Your support and prayers mean so much to us.