One step closer!!!

Just received confirmation from our social worker today that we received Lydia's birth certificate last Friday the 25th!!!! This is another huge step overcome due to the possibilities of RENAP (the place that gives out the birth certificates) could have kicked us out for any reason. So....passport was applied for and hopefully all our paperwork will be submitted to the US embassy by week's end!!! We are so very close to bringing her home!!! Hopefully by this time next week we'll have exact dates and will be making plane reservations!!! I just can't believe that she's almost home! We're camping this week again with Greg's family and received the phone call this afternoon - we just need to go camping more often!! (the phone call saying we were outta pgn came on our last camping trip to the conference grounds!!) So before I get eaten alive any more than I already have by the mosquitos out here....i'll sign off. Thanks again for checking in on us and praying!
Jolynn

Yet another delay

Well, we just got word yesterday that Lydia's birth certificate won't be ready until the end of next week. we were suppose to have received it last thursday!! once again we keep saying "we'll believe it when we see it". So we just lost another 2 weeks. this ending phase is truly horrible!!! If receiving word that we were outta pgn was like having my water break - these last few weeks are like pushing for ever and ever - OUCH!! It just seems like the carrot is being held right in front of us and then it's like..."nope, don't think so....come a little farther" So, we go camping next week with greg's family - looking forward to that, looks like great weather. We opened Abby's gifts last night for her bday (which is on Sat). It was extremely hard finding something for her this year!! ended up with a new outfit for her, one for her american girl, and a cute beach bag. We then opened up Seth's memory box that his teacher had put together of all his school stuff. we hadn't opened it before.....just too hard. He was such a little stinker!! there was a journal that the students wrote their memories of seth. one girl wrote several memories of him including him trying to give her a wedgy and then breaking her belt!!! Another remembered him sneaking out of class when it was time for lunch! It was nice to read those things - brought him back to us a little. It was fun to read the "naughty" things he did - he was such a little stinker at times. I only wish for a few of those things now! You know you miss someone alot when you wouldn't even mind seeing him being naughty! Makes me wonder if he's as sneaky in heaven as he was here. i just picture him sneaking up on God and trying to scare him - although...He's God, he'd know that Seth was there!!! :) you wonder about the strangest things sometimes!

Happy Birthday, Seth!

today is a day that i have been dreading for the last 8.5 months. today is seth's birthday. i could just hear him running down from his bedroom asking for his presents. instead it was andrew - our sweet andrew- "it's seth's birthday today mom, we need sausages and eggs for breakfast" (sausages were seth's favorite breakfast - eggs are andrew's :) luke came to me first thing and said "i think it's someone's birthday.....and i think that mom & dad need a present" to which he runs downstairs to retrieve a football card he has been saving just for today. i had no clue who it was, what team he played on, what position he played but in all honesty i didn't care, for his name was seth (seth joyner i believe). "i saved this one just for you and dad because of his name". i could have cried right then and there. i told him that if he wanted he could leave it at seth's grave later today and he thought that was a grand idea. he put it in a plastic box so it wouldn't "get wet in the rain" along with a note he wrote to seth....."happy birthday seth, i know it's not much but i thought you'd enjoy it. i wish i could see you get it. love you luke" and that is the way that this special/awful day started. we ended the day by taking the kids out for abby's birthday dinner at pizza hut and then went out to the cemetary. there is just something wrong about seeing your name chizzled in stone in a place like that. we had cupcakes, let off balloons, had sparklers (andrew's idea) and cried. oh how i miss our little guy (although he'd probably HATE being called a little guy). he'd be 11 today. during my devotions God told me not to think of it as our first birthday without him, but his first birthday in Heaven (to which i wondered to myself if birthdays are celebrated in Heaven). so......seth's first birthday in Heaven......getting up and having sausages, playing with all the other children, playing basketball, eating cake, having sparklers, and wishing that we were all there with him celebrating too. someday seth, someday... until then....happy birthday seffers, happy birthday. i love you to the moon and to the stars......mom