Prayer request

I promised I would let you all know if there are any news in our adoption process. Today we received an email from our coordinator Duni:

Dear Families,

According to our staff in Ethiopia, The Ministry of Justice will be giving court dates to AWAA on Monday. I shall have news for you on Tuesday. Please bear in mind it is entirely up to the court to set a date and AWAA has no control over this. We anticipate that the court dates will be sooner (end of January) rather than later but again we do not know for certain.

I understand that this is vague but I also know you all want to know everything that is happening relating to your adoption. Please be in prayer over the weekend for an immediate grant of court dates when our staff member appears on Monday. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.

Grace & Peace

We would like to ask all of you to join us in prayer for us and other families who are waiting for court dates. It has been a long process and even though we can see the end in sight it seems sometimes too far.

I was looking at some new adoption blogs on Mary's blog at Ethiopia Adoption Blog and came across many great families adopting from Ethiopia as well. On one of the blogs I came across devotional from C. H. Spurgeon and I have to say it was something I needed to hear this morning. I wanted to share it with all of you.

The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.”

Proverbs 16:33

If the disposal of the lot is the Lord’s whose is the arrangement of our whole life? If the simple casting of a lot is guided by him, how much more the events of our entire life—especially when we are told by our blessed Saviour: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered: not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father.” It would bring a holy calm over your mind, dear friend, if you were always to remember this. It would so relieve your mind from anxiety, that you would be the better able to walk in patience, quiet, and cheerfulness as a Christian should. When a man is anxious he cannot pray with faith; when he is troubled about the world, he cannot serve his Master, his thoughts are serving himself. If you would “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” all things would then be added unto you. You are meddling with Christ’s business, and neglecting your own when you fret about your lot and circumstances. You have been trying “providing” work and forgetting that it is yours to obey. Be wise and attend to the obeying, and let Christ manage the providing. Come and survey your Father’s storehouse, and ask whether he will let you starve while he has laid up so great an abundance in his garner? Look at his heart of mercy; see if that can ever prove unkind! Look at his inscrutable wisdom; see if that will ever be at fault. Above all, look up to Jesus Christ your Intercessor, and ask yourself, while he pleads, can your Father deal ungraciously with you? If he remembers even sparrows, will he forget one of the least of his poor children? “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain thee. He will never suffer the righteous to be moved.”My soul, rest happy in thy low estate,Nor hope nor wish to be esteem'd or great
To take the impress of the Will Divine,Be that thy glory, and those riches thine.

Morning & Evening, December 19th, CH Spurgeon

Walk though the neigborhood

It was so nice today in New Hampshire that we couldn't resist taking a walk in our neighborhood. It was so nice and warm that we didn't even have to wear jackets. The boys pulled out their scooters.... .... I put Emma in a jogger hoping she would take a nap.
On our walk we found out what is going on in our neighborhood. We saw this sad little tree. I guess it couldn't handle all the snow we got in December...
...we saw who was voting for who today...
... we saw several sad snowmen....


... talked to our mailman ....
... finally saw the fire hydrants (since they have been covered with snow for awhile)....
...admired some mailboxes and saw who was is in winter spirits ...
And there is always one that puts smile on my face. Way to go Lisa!

Ski lessons

We are back to ski lessons. This year we started on time not in February like last year.

Here is Nate warming up before he headed up the hill. Nice pose Nate!



And here is Sam coming down the hill.

This year the boys have 2 hour lessons in the afternoon and it gets crazy on the hill. We saw some of our friends out there and it was good for me to catch up with them. Even though we do have the option to sit inside the lodge to stay warm Emma preferred to be outside the whole time. It gave me the opportunity to practice with my new camera.
She was willing to pose any time I asked. She also made lots of new friends. Fil even made it on his way home from work for the last 15 minutes so he got to see boys skiing.

Save the Planet

I don't know about you but our family buys a lot of stuff online. Around Christmas time there were packages coming all the time. We ended up with a ridiculous amount of boxes. But one instance takes the prize. I wait every year until after Christmas to get my calendars. They go on a 50% off sale the day after Christmas and that to me is much better deal than paying the full price (they only come a few days late). Anyway this year we ordered them online from Barnes & Noble since we are members so we got an extra 10% off and there is better selection online then in the store (plus they didn't have the calendar I wanted in the store). The one order came in three large boxes as you can see above (total of 4 calendars). They all came from the same warehouse in NJ and all three boxes came via different route by UPS. Now that is what I call a green company. So much for saving the planet.
Here are the kids trying to make me go crazy. I was cleaning our closet today and found this small kid piano. Now I remember why it was well hidden in my closet. They had a blast playing with it but believe me it will get lost again as soon my darlings are in bed.

I AM NOT ....

...going out today. If you are wondering why that is it is due to the fact that the temperature is around 0 degrees Fahrenheit (that is around minus 16 Celsius for people outside of the USA). I am sure you agree with me that it was a good day to stay at home. We all snuggled on the sofa during our school and even pulled out extra blankets. Emma sat down with us to stay warm. Later when the boys were working on their math she brought down her hat and it all day long. She wrapped up all her babies so they would stay warm as well. This is the time of year when we start seeing commercials on TV for Florida vacations and each time I see them I think of you Mel how nice it must be down south. I am sure it is nice in Phoenix and California as well. We got snow but that comes at a price in times like this.
Here you can see ice on our windows. Brrrrrr it is cold. I wasn't so sure if I wanted to go out to get the mail. Ultimately in the end I did because there were some books we ordered. However they were so cold I couldn't even touch them.
I worked a little bit on a new world puzzle. I put together Africa, Europe and North America without any problems (and Australia and New Zeland :). I also learn that I pretty much suck at the rest of the world. Time to refresh my map knowledge.
Here is Emma still in her hat looking at one of the books we got today in the mail. It warmed up by dinner time and here she is with me in the kitchen while I was cooking.

I sure hope it will warm up soon. I believe it is time to watch Pride and Prejudice (that kind of night). I am not sure I will watch all 5 hours but we'll see.

Movies

Here are movies we watched during holidays (12/19-1/2).

Once is a Irish musical film. I wanted to see this movie for along time. I heard about it back in Spring. It caught my eye early on since the main actress in the movie is from the Czech Republic and you can hear a few Czech phrases thoughout the movie. Overall we liked the movie a lot but I have to warn you there is a lot of swearing like in any other European movie. I am sure we will hear about this movie around Oscar time for its great music.



Hehehehe. Ok Shrek the Third had some good jokes in there. Much better then the Second one.















Again we are probably one of the last people who saw this one. We liked the first one a lot and didn't care for the second one and I believe I can say ocean's Thirteen is pretty much same as the Ocean Eleven.


We did see the last Pirate movie when it came out but it was time to see it again since it came out on DVD. I wrote earlier that both of us are big Jerry Bruckheimer fans so there is no surprise we like all three movies.









I am sure most of you saw Meet The Robinsons. I didn't go to the movies with the boys so it was a first time for me and I liked it a lot.





I liked Ratatouille a lot. Well I do like to cook but rats in my kitchen. Emma got inspired by this movie and was cooking in her little kitchen throughout the movie and after.






Star Wors Episode IV, V, VI


I am sure I am one of the last people on this planet who haven't seen Star Wars. We let the boys watch first three episodes over the summer and uncle Vit got the rest of the three episodes for Christmas. So we have seen them all. My favorite is Episode IV.





Sky Captain


This is one of the movies I've seen few times since my hubby fell asleep in the past. The film takes place in an "alternate" late 1930s where there is no sign of Germany preparing for war or that America is in the grip of an economic depression. The fantastic technology, a mixture of super-advanced science and early 20th century points to an alternate history. Over all I like this movie.

Hot Rod


Ok Vit just because you asked.

I am sure I am one of the few people who saw this movie and Fil's brother made sure we saw this Oscar worthy film this Christmas. Please don't go out to get this movie because you saw it on my blog. You have to know Fil,s brother to enjoy this type of movie.

New .....

...... blog template. You are in a right place if you are looking for the Steiger's. I thought it was time for change. I may work on it a little bit more but for now welcome to our blog.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE

I wanted to congratulate the Carpenters on their successful court date on the 28th and on their travel arrangements. They are leaving in less then 3 weeks!!!!!! We are so excited for them. We also pray that the other AWAA families waiting for embassy appointments will be successful as well.

When it comes to our adoption process there is not much to report. As of December 18th our wait for our court date began (all AWAA families ahead of us finally had successful court dates) and we are praying that we will hear something soon. We are hoping we will get to travel by April but anything can happen. Some of you know that I already had to get my visa since I am not an American citizen and it will expire in April so it seems likely that I will have to apply for another one. Also Fil's parents and Vit are leaving for a vacation the second half of March so it looks like we will not be able to travel in March since they are the ones who would be watching our kiddos when we are gone. That means we will either make it before end of February or not until April. I know it looks like a long way off but it is still under one year since we started the whole adoption process which is well within the expected time frame AWAA states is typical for an Ethiopian adoption. Of course we would love to have our girl home as soon as possible but we also know from experience how difficult it is sometimes to deal with various government agencies in foreign countries. Sometimes it is hard to see other families moving much faster but we believe that our agency is doing everything they can to make sure all of the paperwork is in order. I am sure I will post any news as soon as we will get any. We are looking forward to the Carpenter's and other AWAA families upcoming trips and hoping for more pictures of Jordan.

One thing that I have learned from this adoption experience is never to set time frames for yourself. For example I thought for sure we would get referral by the end of summer and when it did not happen I was so disappointed and sad and mad. Since then we left everything in God's hands. We were hoping to travel before Christmas or at least know our court date by then and it still hasn't happened. We go through phases where we loose our patience and be become discouraged but we always come back to realizing we serve a sovereign God who is in charge of the entire process so any disappointment is shortly lived. Each time we have had a problem or question all we had to do was to write our adoption agency and they responded within a day with all answers we needed. We just hit a big bump in the whole process. Since we saw the first few AWAA families get through the adoption process so quickly we assumed that we would as well. But it had to hit a bump sometime and it happen to be us. We are looking forward bringing our girl home soon in the mean time our household stays busy with our three little ones.

We had a great holiday and in a way we are looking forward to a normal schedule. We got over 4 inches of snow this afternoon. December made it into the record books with the most snow ever recorded for NH (45 inches). Let's hope it will stay for a while so they boys can enjoy ski lessons starting next week.

Again Happy New Year to everyone.