Turkey. Yum!!

Happy Thanksgiving!! Hope you all had a great day and didn't eat too much...I, unfortunately, cannot relate to the second half of that statement...


They wouldn't let me have any turkey...all I have is this yummy teething biscuit...you wanna bite??


Maybe I'll find some leftovers down here on the floor...Where's Aunt Jana? She let me have some of her sweet potatoes earlier.....

An Early Thanksgiving Blessing

As we approach Thanksgiving, we have so many things this year to be thankful for...the opportunity to serve our God freely, an awesome church family, great friends, wonderful family, good jobs, a roof over our heads, food on the table, clean water to drink, medical care if we need it...and last, but most certainly not least, we are thankful that we are "expecting" our first little one and that God is providing for us to expand our family in ways we never, ever expected!

We received a letter a couple of days ago from Kenny's aunt and uncle in Alabama and I wanted to share with you (with their permission) a story that had me in tears and struggling to see the road as Kenny read it to me over the phone...

Hi Ken and Jana (we always know it's Kenny's family when it's addressed to "Ken"...)

We got your letter when we got back from vacation to the Great Smokey Mountains in Gatlinburg, Tennessee today. We really enjoyed the beauty of God's creation in the mountains.

I must tell you this story. The week before we left for vacation, a check came to me in the mail from an insurance company. I thought, boy what a blessing to come out of nowhere. I was really busy before leaving but got the phone number and was going to call when we got back. Today I called to reluctantly inform them that surely it was a mistake because I had never heard of this insurance company. They asked several questions and it was NOT a mistake. It was a policy my Mother had taken out on me in 1960. That was one year before I became a COOK. The insurance company had changed their name and I was not familiar with it. This policy was a small endowment that matured at my age 65. God works in mysterious ways!! NOW I know why I got this unexpected check at this very point in time.

THE MONEY IS TO HELP BRING OUR NEWEST COOK BABY HOME!!

I set here writing with tears running down my face as I feel so blessed that we can be a part of this with you. We will continue to pray for you and this or these babies that God is sending your way...

May God continue to bless you as you follow His calling.

Much love to you both!

We started this process about 6 months ago, but I think it's pretty cool that God had this in the works back in 1960...over 48 years ago!! It's hard for me to wrap my head around the reality that our God cares so much for this unknown child of ours that He begin working on bringing him or her home in 1960! We know no name, we wonder what he or she looks like or what their favorite foods are, we wonder how old they are or what they like to play with...But our God knows a face, knows a name, knows the number of hairs on their head. And knows the exact day they will become ours. Wow...

Happy Thanksgiving to us!! (And "Thanks!" Uncle & Aunt Cook...you have blessed our socks off!!)

"The Map"

Last night we had Combined Worship, and for those of you not familiar with a multi-campus church, this is where all six of our campuses get together for...well, a combined worship service. I love Combined Worship! Anywho, I took a picture of "The Map" while I was at Fegenbush. I don't believe that I've referenced "The Map" before, but I have told you that our church has a great adoption ministry and is very supportive of adoptive families. We have a ginormous map in the hallway...


...that includes many of the families that have already adopted or are waiting to travel or for a referral. As you can see, we have families that have adopted from ALL over the world, both domestically and internationally. I love the map and often looked upon it with jealousy before...But LOOK! Now we are on "The Map"!




I can't wait for that picture to include a couple more smiling faces! And for our status to be changed to "Home Forever"!! I love, love that our church is so supportive of adoption and believe that the support and encouragement they have provided is very much part of the reason that this season of our lives is where God prompted us to pursue adoption.

(Props to Tera for keeping up the map and for leading an awesome adoption ministry at Highview!)

They do have good grits...

The tree is up.

Yeah, I know it's before Thanksgiving and you can judge all you want, but my tree is up and it smells wonderful in my house. And apparently we started a new tradition in the Cook household today. Kenny loves (as in, slightly obsessed with) Waffle House. We NEVER go there on account of eating there once means you get all the calories you need in one week in one meal. Waffle House just reminds me of grease and cigarette smoke. Yuck. But he talked me into going this morning for breakfast, then decided that could be our Christmas-tree picking morning tradition. We both survived the ordeal...we'll just see if the new "tradition" sticks next year...Is it safe to take a baby into Waffle House?? (No offense to those who may frequent Waffle House, I just prefer Cracker Barrel.)


Don't want to lose it on the way home!


Magnificent! We went scotch pine this year which was a first for us. We are Douglas Fir people, but they all looked rough. I'll let you know how the scotch turns out...

My guardian angel's name is Carl. His girlfriend is Sarah.

Let me start with saying that last night, it was absolutely freezing. Literally. And it had been snowing. And the wind was blowing fiercely, making that freezing temperature seem more like 47 below zero. Literally.

So, I met with our adoption group last night for desert and coffee and had a grand time. Upon leaving, I discovered an unfortunate occurrence. I had a flat tire. Seriously? I'm beyond cold and at least 30 minutes away from my Knight in Shining armor...that's Kenny, in case you didn't know. I didn't realize my tire was flat until after everybody else had pulled away and now, here I stand in an empty parking lot.. Then Carl pulled up. He and his girlfriend had actually stopped for desert and were leaving too, when they notice I was just standing outside, staring at the Explorer. This was odd, because I mentioned above, my contacts were literally frozen to my eyeballs. This kind soul stopped and offered a helping hand, which turned out to be more than he probably bargained for, since obtaining my jack to change the tire required moving no less than half a million boxes from the back of the car. (Operation Christmas Child had landed in the back of the Explorer after our service project with the kids on Wednesday night.) And to our most pleasant surprise, it was SO cold, the tire was literally frozen and wouldn't release its fierce grip to be changed. After tug-a-war with the tire (the tire won!), we decided to go the fix-a-flat route.

The point of this story is that I had a random person, who didn't know me from Eve, stop, help me, actually left to go buy fix-a-flat for me, and then followed me to Kroger to fill my tire back up...and, here's the kicker...followed me home!!! 30 minutes away! He didn't want me to get going and have trouble so he insisted that I let him follow me. I know, I know...y'all are probably thinking, you shouldn't have let this stranger know where you lived, follow you, be alone with them...but Kenny knew where I was and what was going on at all times and I at no point felt threatened by either of them. It just goes to show you that there are actually still good people in the world who are just willing to do the right thing. While I would have much rather just gone straight home to my warm bed last night, I spent an extra couple hours with a very sweet couple who I would have never met otherwise. God was definitely looking out for me...because, it would have been humerous to watch 7 ladies trying to change a tire that was frozen to the car!!

Note to those who unfortunately have a flat tire in the future: Fix-a-flat ruins tires. Promise. It eats the rubber and if left long enough will eat through the rim. Fortunately, I took the car in this morning to get the tire patched (I had a nail in it) and minimal damage had been done, although we ruined the tire valve which has an automatic sensor to tell me when the tire pressure is low (and has a hefty price tag to replace). I opted for replacing it with the FREE regular tire valve. I can check the pressure myself. Who needs a little light to tell me? The fix-a-flat had literally eaten the aluminum off the sensor, making a big melted mess. But just word of warning...that stuff should be renamed..."Ruin-a-Tire"...

Need I say more.

Why, you ask? This is why..........



I just mailed over 125 letters to our closest family and friends. This may be your first visit to the blog and I hope this video opened your eyes to the tremendous need in Ethiopia. More than that, I hope it helped you see a little bit of where our hearts are right now. And where they will remain for a lifetime, as we forever connect ourselves with this foreign country on the other side of the world...

A picture worth a thousand words...

Our friend Gracie was visiting the other day and drew us a picture. (Grace is 8...not all of our friends love us enough to draw pictures for us when they visit!) She knows we are adopting and they talk about it often at her house. So, she drew a picture of an airplane (we are in the airplane) flying over a building that is well labeled as "orphanage"...spelled correctly, mind you. At the "orphanage", is a window with a tiny face saying, "Hi!". She did this all on her own and without any prompting. It just makes me smile to think that she knows what adoption is and knows well enough to be able to put it into a picture. My best friend growing up was adopted, but I don't think at age 8 I could have told you what adoption was! I'm impressed! This picture will stay on the fridge until our little one comes home and then will definitely be added to the scrapbook!

There's gonna be a wedding.

My little brother and sister-in-law-to-be had engagement pictures taken. (It is NOT the pictures you see below...) But if you would like to check out their smiling faces, you can do that here. Interesting fact: My madien name is Hill. I married a Cook. Cliff is a Hill. (You can laugh...Yes, my parents named my brother Cliff Hill. Fortunately, they didn't continue the trend of naming their children after land elevations. Believe me, I got my share of, "Haha...Your name could be Jana Mountain!" in highschool...Yeah, funny. Like I haven't heard that a million times. By the by, Clifton is a family name, so I guess we can't blame them. Still slightly amusing though.) I digress...He is marrying a Cooke. Funny, huh? He didn't want to take Heather's name so we could have matching last names again...I don't know why...



So, there's gonna be a wedding...sometime in the next couple of years. Until then, I guess we can just gaze at these lovely engagement pictures. You kids and your long engagements...

Waiting? Praise the Lord!!

I don't really have much in way of any update, because all we do now is wait. Wait to find out when. Wait to find out what. Wait to find out how many. Wait to find out how old. Wait to find out what color to paint the room. Wait to find out what size clothes to buy. You get the gist of what we are doing these days? In case you misunderstood...we are just waiting. But waiting with prayerful and joyful hearts! I keep reminding myself...All in God's timing. All in His most perfect timing...

And the praise...we found out Tuesday from Lifesong (which is an agency that works closely with our church) that they will be able to support us in our mission with a $2500 matching grant!!! Yahoo!!! The Lord is AWESOME and provides for all our needs! Words really can't explain how much of an answered prayer this is!

For my sweet, football-obsessed husband...

Can I just say...Roll Tide Roll!!! We went to the wedding of one of Kenny's co-worker this afternoon. Problem: Alabama was playing LSU at 3:30 pm right in the middle of full mass and communion! Kenny's solution: To have his dad call him with updates on the score throughout dinner! What was even funnier was all the guys coming up to him wanting to know the score for this game or that game as the evening progressed! So, Bama pulled it out and we won...Kenny was overjoyed! And we go another week undefeated...

Kodak earning their money...

The [normal] pictures I promised you from the girl's trip this weekend. You put the four of us together with a camera and we go crazy...this is a very small sampling of the pictures taken. Please remember that we have all known each other for 15+ years (20+ for me and Dara!) and tend to act like raging idiots when around each other. Ha! Makes me laugh just thinking about how many goofy pictures we took...

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Costume Night @ AWANA's

Last Wednesday night at AWANA's the kids wore their costumes...might as well get another wear out of them!


This is our Cubbie class...as you can see, had there been a fire, we would have been fine with our Firefighters Jake & Joshua!!


This is one of my favorites...all is right in the world when you have two Jedi Warriors and a baseball player to protect you!


Nicole as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (the kids didn't know who she was, which made it funny..."Hey, are you that lady that clicks her shoes together?") and Baby Jana...any excuse to wear my footie pajamas!!

Welcome to the 80's!

My 3 college roommates came from Texas and Alabama this past weekend and besides being completely exhausted, we had a super silly time! There is just something about these 3 girls that can make me laugh until my stomach hurts, which we did until the wee hours of the morning (big shout out to Kenny for tolerating us all weekend!).

Spencer County Campus participated in "Trick or Treat on Main Street" on Halloween Night like we have for the past 3 years. We set up a mini-festival of sorts on Main Street with games, bouncies, food...the works! (It was a super success, by the way, with a huge turnout, going far smoother than we could have ever expected...besides the popcorn machine breaking...but we can improvise and fix anything!) Then the 80's busted on the scene... I feel like we should play some Madonna or Bon Jovi!


Dara, Emily and Jennifer decided they would dress up with a throw back to the 80's. Lots of blue eyeshadow and 2 cans of hairspray later, they emerged for their public. If you can't tell Dara was the mom of the group, sporting her black sparkle sweater! Emily and Jennifer were sporting the layers and they all three had the jewelry going on, too!


I have to say I was impressed...they really looked the part.

More [normal] pics from the weekend to come...

Dossier Where-a-bouts?

The paperwork that has consumed much of our life for the last 4 months, requiring several trips to multiple courthouses and Frankfort, has arrived in its final resting place. As of 8:06 am this morning, our dossier is in Ethiopia!

Part of us is in Ethiopia...I've never been so thrilled about the location of paper!

That's far. Real far.

Did you know that there is 7,595 miles between our house and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia? Unfortunately, I was unable to pull up directions on MapQuest.

Random. Welcome to my life.

Boy or Girl?

So, I liked having a little interactive blogging going on and since our I-171 has arrived, let's change the poll...

We are now basically at the point of waiting on a referral. Question is...will it be a boy or girl?? And yeah, we could potentially get a referral for two, but just to simplify things, let's just assume we are only getting one referral. Check out the sidebar and place your guess...I'm interested to see how this will turn out...and to clarify, we are open to either sex and haven't made a request one way or the other! So, VOTE!! ALL of you!

We met this evening with Susan (our link to Ethiopia right now!). We were supposed to be at a class all weekend that Susan was teaching...adoption education, but around 3:00 this afternoon, it appeared we were the only ones coming, so the class was cancelled. We were still able to meet and just chat for a little while about what is going on and the progress that we had made. I don't think I can say enough about how thrilled I am that we are now in the same city and state as our adoption agency. This gives me such a piece of mind that I didn't have before.

Now we have a "free" day tomorrow since I thought we were going to be in a class all day...why do I have this uneasy feeling that it will involve football? All...day...long... But Roll Tide!

The news you've all been waiting for...

Okay, so maybe not THE news, but you have to admit, now you are interested...

I pray almost everyday on the way home that our I-171 approval papers will be in our mailbox. I'm not really sure why I was so anxious to get this because I still feel like we will have a while before we will get a referral...I guess it's just a milestone of sorts, another step in the process. So, today, me and God were chatting and I threw out my normal request for my mailbox contents. You probably have figured out where this is going...we got our I-171 TODAY!!! Yea!!! (It took 51 days!) My favorite part is the top line..."It has been determined that you are able to furnish proper care to an orphan or orphans as defined by section 101 blah, blah, blah..." I'm glad we have been deemed appropriate parents by our great government...I feel honored [enter sarcasm].

So, all you yahoos that voted for October 16th or the end of October (a total of 60%) can split the $1000 Monopoly money prize...

And I checked on our dossier and it is making the rounds in DC this week. Our I-171 is on its way to Ethiopia and our dossier will hopefully be following next week.

Now we wait for the REAL news...

Virtually Tagged

I've been tagged. I've never been tagged before. You know, virtually tagged...I was the king of tag in elementary school...well, not really...I was a slow runner. I have actually been tagged twice, but I only chose one "list" so as to not bore you with random facts about myself.

Without further ado, 7 random things you may, or may not, know about me...

1. I took piano lessons for 3 years as a child. I could probably pick it up again pretty fast if I tried. I must publicly apologize to my mother for hating every second of those piano lessons...I really wish now that I could play. Sorry Mom. You were right, I was wrong. (How long have you waited for that??)

2. I have decided this week that I like hamburgers. For the majority of my life, I have refused to eat hamburgers, not out of a dislike of beef, but a dislike of the burger combination itself. I am turning over a new leaf...a hamburger-eating leaf. Hot dogs, mind you, are still strictly off limits.

3. I cannot stand to be in the same room as someone else who is brushing their teeth. As I have aged, I have learned to deal with this strange phobia in situations such as camp, retreats, marriage, etc when I must share a bathroom. But I still find it quite repulsive to listen to or watch someone else brush their teeth.

4. Kenny and I met in August 1999 and within a year I knew that this was who I was going to marry, despite the fact that we both dated other people during this time. Hey, I didn't say we were smart! (There was only a select handful of people...like maybe 2, who knew my secret.) On the other hand, it took Kenny no less than 3 years and 7 months to come to this conclusion and another 10 months to ask me. What was he waiting on?? :)

5. I was once hovered over by a rather large and ominous cow, while sun bathing at a desert hotel in New Mexico. I then received a painful skinned up knee and elbow after falling out of my chair when I realized that the shade I was enjoying was coming from a drooling dairy cow. (Note to New Mexico travelers: In parts of the state, they allow their animals to roam wild among those who are not used to dodging cow pies and chicken poop.)

6. I have no less than 15 holes in my left knee. And have had more staples and stitches than I care to count (all of which I have removed myself, not allowing a doctor or tech to remove them...I've done it so many times, one doctor even let me remove them at home and told me to give him a call if I had any trouble). I can not feel the flesh from my knee cap over and most of the way down my leg. My goal: a knee replacement by age 30. (Not really, it's just a joke...but as I get closer to 30, I often wonder...)

7. I cannot walk around my own house barefoot. Each foot must don socks or shoes before hitting the floor. Shoes are preferred since socks are still really close to being barefoot. Shoes or socks remain by the bed for when I first wake up...flip flops or crocs accompany me to the bathroom for immediate occupancy after a shower. For some strange reason, it is not as near a big deal to walk around someone else's house barefoot (although, socks are still preferred). My floors are clean. I know, I'm weird.

I'm tagging the following people. Please don't feel obligated to participate in this rousing game of virtual tag, but if you do, share with the world 7 random facts about yourself...

Jessica
Lauren
Nicole
Jaime
Kim

It's out of my hands.

Then again, has it ever actually been IN my hands...

I mailed our dossier (I just can't resist saying "dozer"!) to the Assistant Stork in Virginia yesterday...Hopefully, it will arrive there by Monday. They will do their thing in DC and it will be on it's way to Ethiopia towards the end of the week. All we can do now is pray that all the paperwork ends up in the right hands at the right time...

Is anyone else stressed out about this??

Four!

We walked through those church doors four years ago today, recently dubbed Mr. & Mrs., without a clue as to the path God would lead us down! We have learned lots (sarcasm = love in the Cook house!), cried lots (I wouldn't trade the trials we have faced for anything), and laughed lots (at each other, mostly).


And since it's been four fab years, here's the top four reasons to love Kenny...Okay, so there is like...13 reasons...but now I have a head start on year 13...And of course, this isn't all inclusive, just some of my favorites!

--Even when he snores (incredibly loudly), he looks cute!
--He rubs my back to put me to sleep at night...a necessary step if sleep is to be obtained before the snoring starts.
--He cleans the bathroom!
--He makes a mean pot of spaghetti with fun curly noodles...we are talking from scratch here, not Ragu!
--Although weird, it's cute that he has to have HIS pillowcase with him at all times. And I'm not joking when I say, ALL the time...just ask him...
--He is better than a can of Raid...killing most anything I need him to that has more legs than me.
--The way he helps me on Sunday mornings with the kids...not every man would give up conversation with adults to chase 2-year-olds and wipe snotty noses!
--Can we say dimples??!!
--He laughs with me at stupid things. (Now that I'm thinking about it, he laughs a lot AT me, too...)
--He takes care of me. When I don't feel good. When I feel fine. All the time.
--He kisses my forehead when I'm upset, making everything okay for the next few minutes...
--The way he prays for our family, provides for our family, loves Jesus, loves me...
--He's mine.

Can I get a collective "Awwwwww!"........?

Happy Four Years! I love you more!