Photos from tonight's festivities...

I just had to share my excitement with all of you. First of all, my wonderful mother-in-law gave us five outfits tonight for Malia. Second of all, I went shopping today and purchased bottles, onesies, and an adorable outfit (gotta love Target's $4 racks!!). Thirdly, I purchased a neck pillow thingy for the airplane!!! Also, when Kaleb and I were in Minneapolis last weekend, my amazing aunts, uncles, cousins and parents showered us with gifts. Her closet was pretty empty a week and a half ago. Check it out now...

So many of you have heard our story how God has led us to this path of adoption, but I just have to say that He never ceases to amaze me. He used each of you to help us fund-raise the exact amount of money we needed to purchase our first round of plane tickets. THANK YOU. We have met so many amazing people on this journey and have experienced firsthand the true generosity of our wonderful friends and family. THANK YOU.

1 Chronicles 16:9 says: "Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all His wonderful acts." (NIV) His name is truly wonderful! I will continue to shout his wonderful acts, for they are numerous!! May you join us in praising Him for his faithfulness, that his mercies are new every morning, and that he loves us more than we will ever know.

While we were going through infertility treatments, I have shared with many of you that I lacked peace that we were following God's will. Every single time I left that stinkin' clinic, this song was on the radio (no kidding!):

John Waller - While I'm Waiting

I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience
While I'm waiting
I will serve You
While I'm waiting
I will worship
While I'm waiting
I will not faint
I'll be running the race
Even while I wait

I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am peaceful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it's not easy
But faithfully, I will wait
Yes, I will wait
I will serve You while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting
I will serve You while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting
I will serve you while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting on You, Lord

I'm not going to lie, I did not like hearing this song...However, I knew God was speaking to me that He had something really great in mind for me, but I needed to be patient and wait. Boy did He ever!! It is actually happening!!! In less than eight weeks, we will travel half way around the world to meet Malia. I stand tonight with arms high and heart abandoned in awe of Him.

Friday evening we enjoyed carving pumpkins as a family. Kaleb kept saying, "Boys like to get dirty." This evening we will attend the Harvest Party which will take place at our church. There will be lots of games, a childrens message and trunk-n-treat.

There are only 13 hours left on the BRAND NEW FlipVideo Ultra HD camcorder that we placed on e-Bay. Currently the highest bid is $125.00. The retail value on this camcorder is $199.99. If you are interested, you may get a good deal, check it out!! Click here to check out the e-Bay auction.

All proceeds from the auction are going directly towards our travel expenses. Read our original blog post about the FlipVideo camcorder here.

After a few stressful hours of trying to find the best flights for the most reasonable amount of funds, we finally booked our flights to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, early this afternoon. We will fly out of Fargo, make an aircraft change in Minneapolis. From Minneapolis we will fly straight to Amsterdam. We will make another aircraft change in Amsterdam and will continue to fly onto Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with a quick 40 minute landing in Kahrtoum, Sudan before reaching our final destination.

As I stated on Facebook today, there is no distance too far for this daddy who is in love to bring his baby girl home. 7958 miles one way to be exact! Two round trips is just shy of 32,000 miles and over 70 hours in an aircraft!

If any of you are ever in the need of finding great rates on flights, you must check in with Trent or Mauricio at Velocity Tours. They came highly recommended to us from our agency, CCI, and saved us well over $1000! Thanks Trent and Mauricio!!

I came home for lunch today to find a FedEx sticker on the door, as they attempted to deliver our puzzle that we will have those who helped bring Malia home sign. Once complete, the puzzle will hang in Malia's room to be a forever reminder of those who helped in bringing her home.

As you can see, our evening project is to put the puzzle together.

Reality is starting to sink in...this really is going to happen...we really are going to Africa...we really are going to bring a baby home...really, are we really doing this?

This morning I gave Ann the task of booking our room at the Addis Flower Guest House in Ethiopia as I was working on some projects outside. After several failed phone calls, frustration form 120 US minutes on a phone card translating to a measly 4 minutes international, and eventually talking to someone who had broken English, she decided she had had enough and that is was my turn.

It took me one attempt and now we have a place to stay at the Addis Flower Guest House while we spend Christmas in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The ease of me making it through this on my first attempt frustrated her even more. Since we are staying at a guest house and not a hotel, we are able to have Malia stay with us the entire time. I can not wait, nor can I imagine how precious the time will be for us to spend together with Malia, but am severely dreading the time when we will have to give her back and come home for 4-6 weeks without her. While this time will no doubt be difficult for me, I'll be honest in that I am worried about how Ann will handle coming home after spending precious time with our baby girl. I'm praying the time between our court trip and our Embassy trip is as short as it possibly can be and that God will grant Ann peace.

We continue to be overjoyed with the graciousness and support of our friends and family throughout this journey. As you will note from our fundraiser status, in less than a week, we have raised over $2,500.00. We are over half way to our goal already! Each and every donation that arrives has brought me to tears. There is not one single person who has helped us along the way, whether it be financial or emotional support, that will ever know how much your support has meant to us. Ann and I have pledged to pay-it-forward. When someone else is in need of support, whether it is financial, emotional, physical or whatever it may be, we will be there to pay-it-forward in any way that we are able.

I'm still battling the severe pain of shingles. Tomorrow will be one week since I began feeling the effects of this horrible disease. Shingles is typically found in people over the age of 60, what is going on with me? I turned 30 and am falling apart! I had myself convinced that I was terminally ill with lung cancer as this pain was like no other pain I had experience, a stabbing sensation in the middle of my left lung. Before the doctor informed me that I wasn't terminally ill with lung cancer, but in fact had shingles she asked me this, "What's going on in your life that you are stressed about?" I said, "Well, do you have a couple hours to listen to me?" My short answer was, "We are adopting..." Shingles is basically a second outbreak of the Chickenpox virus that is typically brought on by physical and emotional stress. Well, let's see, I'm stressed emotionally about the adoption and everything that it entails and was stressed physically when taking sleep for granted during the beet harvest. Hum, is my body trying to tell me something?? I have been given a narcotic to help with the pain. While Loratab does take the edge off, the fuzzy thought process and drowsy side effects are getting old. I'm glad to know I wouldn't make a very good addict.

Ann and Kaleb are in the Twin Cites this weekend visiting family. Don't tell her, but I am thoroughly enjoying the peace of being home alone, getting the things done that have taken a back seat for way too long.

God bless each and every one of you for your part in making this dream come true.

Today is yet another good day. We were informed that our case will be heard in the Ethiopian court system in Addis Ababa on December 27th. While we are sad that we will be a half a world away from Kaleb on Christmas, our hearts are overflowing with joy that we will be able to hold, smell, cuddle and love on his "baby sissy." What an incredible Christmas gift this will be!

Heavenly Father, Jehovah Jireh, Lord of all Lords, how amazing is Thee!

We have accepted the referral of a beautiful baby girl who was born on or around August 26th. Please pray for her safety and good health while we continue this process of waiting. We are hopeful that we will have her home within the first months of 2011. We are unable to post full photos of Malia Grace in public places such as our blog and Facebook, so we'll tease you with this.

As you may already know, the name we have given her is Malia Grace. Malia is the Hawaiian version of Mary, which we chose because we wanted to name her after Grandma Rosemary. And it's only by God's pure grace that she will become a forever part of the Tunheim family.

God continues to bless us...

This past Sunday while at church we were presented with a brand new "Flip Video Ultra HD" camcorder to be used towards our adoption fundraiser. We have placed the $199.99 retail value Flip Video 8GB camcorder up for auction on eBay. All proceeds from the sale will be going directly towards our travel expenses.

For more information you can check out the item up for auction on eBay here or more details at the manufactures website by clicking here.

Thank you Flemings!

As many of you may know, we are gearing up to unveil a fund-raising opportunity to help us with our travels to Ethiopia. I'm going to take this opportunity to explain where the additional expenses of a second trip to Ethiopia came from, which we did not budget for.

We started the adoption process in January (click "Our Timeline" under Links) to see our timeline of events. In May, Ethiopia began requiring one or both parents to be present at the court hearing. The court hearing occurs after you have accepted a referral of a child. During the court hearing in Ethiopia, the judge will ask us how we are going to raise our child, why we are adopting from Ethiopia along with some other questions.

The main reason Ethiopia requires families to travel for the court hearing is so that we can see our baby. Actually, since we plan on staying at a guest house, Malia Grace will be able to stay with us for the duration of our trip. In the past, Ethiopia has had some problems with families who have not accepted their child after the entire adoption process had been completed, thus the reason they now require parents to travel for two trips.

Since we did not originally budget for two trips (one trip for two parents averages $5000), we are relying on our fund-raising efforts to help us fund our court trip. Below is a brief explanation of the rest of the process that we are yet to endure.

If our case passes court (not all cases pass the first time for various reasons, all of which are typically out of our control), a week or so after it passes an Adoption Decree is created along with a new Birth Certificate, with our names on it as adoptive parents. Both of these items are needed in-order to obtain a Passport for Malia, which will be needed in-order to leave Ethiopia. Once the Passport is created, our agency then can obtain her visa. Once a few other things fall into place, our case will then be ready to be submitted to the U.S. Embassy. The U.S. Embassy interview is typically six weeks after the court hearing. We will be present for our Embassy interview and by God's pure grace, be able to bring Malia Grace home!

As I stated earlier, only one parent needs to be present during the court hearing. At this point both Ann and I would like to make that trip, however, it will depend on our fund-raising efforts. If only I go, Malia will come home on an IR-4 visa which will mean that she will need to be re-adopted in the state of Minnesota in-order to get a Certificate of Citizenship. If we both travel, she will come home on an IR-3 visa which will mean she will become and immediate United States Citizen upon landing on US soil.

We trust that God will provide for us. Our hearts are overflowing with gratitude for the support we have already received. Thank you for following along with us, supporting us, loving us and praying with us. May you be blessed!!!

We have been loving the 70-80 degree weather in the FM area! It has been a beautiful week for the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that has been taking place in our neck of the woods. It has been an amazing process to follow. Nick didn't want to fight the crowds to land pictures, but you can go to www.extrememakeoverfm.com to check out the amazing new home and the amazing family who received it.

The amazing temperatures weren't as amazing in regards to Nick's latest endeavor. He has been hauling beets from 2 a.m. - 2 p.m. for a few days to save money for the adoption. Apparently you can add the title "farmer" to his list of talents. The only photos we have of Nick hauling beets are the two that he took observing his truck being stuck and while waiting in line at the piler.

Due to the kindness of our high-school friend T-Jay, we were able to go to Sesame Street: Live this past weekend at the Fargodome for free. I have to admit, even I thought it was pretty cute! Kaleb did not want to leave when it was over.

Saturday we had fun playing with Mishayla and Ariella. I realized I'm not quite ready to be a mom of 3, yet...

Today we spent some family time at the pumpkin patch. I don't ever recall sweating while at the pumpkin patch in previous years.

Kaleb and I cleaned out "Emily Elizabeth's" closet today. Yes, she has a middle name now. Based on her middle name, we have come to realize he came up with the name Emily from the little girl in the Clifford books. Anyway, we got her toys out and moved lots of junk out of her closet. Of course, I just moved the junk to another room. :o) Did you know we have more computers than a Dell store in this house??? Seriously, don't let Nick fool you into believing his is Mr. Organization, he is a HOARDER!! :o)

We are waiting for that phone call that our baby is ready to be referred to us. You will all likely hear me when the call comes in!