a bit out of order...

Well I tried to keep the photos in order....but they got a bit out of order. When I try to re-arrange the photos I get all messed up.....so I will just say - the photos of R in the Spiderman shirt and M in the blue and yellow dress are from July and the pictures that are my fravorite from our trip to Haiti in May '06 are the next two up. Also.....did you know you can click on the photo and see it full size..... :)
Enjoy!

a series of photos....

Here is a series of pictures taken of M and R over the last 18 months. Hopefully I got them in order. The first few are our referral pictures of them. I love these pictures! They bring back memories of a very special and spiritual time in my life. I really needed to see photos of them smiling so I asked if they had any pictures of them smiling....and I was sent these photos(dressed in yellow - We received these pictures 6 weeks before we traveled to Haiti to meet them.) Not exactly smiling! In fact R was crying. Later I found out he was crying because they hurried him away from his breakfast to take pictures before the adoption coordinator left for the airport. Don't mess with him and his food! And that goes for M too (we learned that while in Haiti!) The next two photos are my favorite pictures from our trip in May '06. We finally got our "happy" pictures of them. Next are photos taken in July '06 - this time they knew the photos were for us and they both had a new and happier look. I like to think belonging to a family changed their disposition for better. Oh, one of my favorite photos....M and her hair! This captures her sweet and fun personality.... then how beautiful she is wrapped up in the bright towels after swimming. R's sweetness was captured in his photo too. And the other photo....just happy to be eating! He sure knows how to eat! These are 4 of my favorite pictures from my trip back to Haiti in September '06. Next are a couple of pic's from January '07. Then we received a few surprise pictures from March '07 and finally our latest pictures from May '07. Notice they are wearing the same clothes but you can tell the photos apart by their hair. M's hair was styled differently and R *had* hair in March ;)

Boy have they changed! A good change. Now we just need to get them home and growing! Neither have changed much in weight and height over the last year.

We pray for our children in Haiti everyday - and we live for the updates and photos that come every three months. With each new update we read about their progress but mostly we *see* amazing progress to their sweet little spirits patiently waiting to belong and be with their family! As for us... we are trying -- to be patient.

Haiti pictures....

Here is our latest picture of Katiana! Look how she has grown! The picture of her in her blue school uniform is from September '06. Next is the picture we took of her on our last day in Haiti, exactly one year ago. The next two photos are the first pictures we saw of her - almost two years ago! June 11th will be our two year anniversary of finding her and beginning the work to bring her home. We hope she comes home soon.

Spring "testing the waters" tradition....

All that is needed is a couple of really cute guinea pigs...oops, I mean boys! Every spring....Z volunteers. This year M joined in. The air was warm this day in April...but the water was a bit chilly at 60 degrees. Look closely at the picture of M jumping in the pool. Check out the dog? He has gone mad!

camera fun...

Zac had a little fun with the camera one day.....
I think this one is so unique it could possibly win a contest! I love the fun imagination of children....

a touching video....

Apparently American Idol did a special on "giving back" a week or two ago. They went to Africa and raised some amazing amount of money 70 million? I think. WOW! Here is a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaZdYJl7WTo that you should watch. It is very touching.

tash

FRUSTRATION City...

Here is an example of WHY adopting from Haiti takes soooo long! (this is a post from an orphanage director describing -another change- to the Haitian adoption process.......the story of OUR adoption has had *stuff* like this with each step :(

HI everyone,

I am posting a message from Dixie which is located on the gla website:

UPDATE April 26, 2007

We are unable to give new proposals as quickly as we always have done them. We
used to give a proposal to a family within 1 month of their dossier arriving in Haiti. Today, it is taking 3 to 5 months for a proposal. Due to some delays with adoptions, we have not been able to send children to their forever families for a couple months. This means that we have no beds to take new children into the orphanage. We have to turn them away.

We have 32 children waiting for passports. The Ministry of Interior, responsible
for approving the passports, has added a step in the process. They did not tell
anyone that they were adding this step; however, no adoption passports have been
approved since January. Finally in early April, we were told that the lawyer needs to fill out a form. They have since changed their mind, and now anyone from the
orphanage can go to the Ministry of Interior and fill out this special form asking
for the child's passport.

The form is very long, asking for a lot of information about each adoptive parent.
LaDawn spent one whole day this week just finding the information for the forms, so
that Terriot can go and fill them out. Of course, when he arrived with 32 forms, they would not receive him and gave him an appointment for Friday, the 27th. They told him they could not do all of them in one day, and he would need to come back three days next week to get them all filled out. They will not give us the forms so we can fill them out in advance. Rather, we must fill them out sitting with the person in charge of doing the form.

We are praying that once we have filled out and submitted these forms, that
the passports will be approved quickly and we can get some children home and beds
opened up!

Parquet is better, but still not going quite as smoothly as we would like. We have
heard that they are adding lawyers (commissioners) to approve the dossiers. They
added one person already and immediately we received a dossier that said the
parents could not adopt because of a problem! It was sent back to Parquet and a
commissioner that had been there longer fixed it. However, we fear there might be
more problems until the new Haitian Adoption Law is legalized.

Now, having said all of the above, we did take in 4 children this week. Two are
newborn babies that we felt needed to be taken in now. Please pray with us that we
can get passports quickly and children out of Haiti to their forever families. Pray that we can find beds for the children coming in to the orphanage. For those of you
waiting for a proposal, I look at your dossiers every day. I have not forgotten any of you! Hopefully, I can start giving out some proposals in the next week or two.

And Life in Haiti goes on...

THIS JUST FRYS ME! I'm on one at the moment so I will leave it at that!