Our precious girl...

After 1st Sunday at Church

Loves to go "bye-bye" & her bottle!

Jumping like crazy!

Little Sister loves to be in the middle of it all!

Trying to get some baby food in her mouth, we figured out she likes "big people" food better!

Our little over a week here has went so fast & has been so fun...I'll try to answer our most frequent questions...

How is she doing? GREAT!!!! She is amazingly sweet, good, precious, loving (and on & on ;)

How are the boys doing? So good! They love her & she loves them right back. The adjustment has went really well for the whole family...it just feels like this is just how its to be & we thank the Lord for that!

How is she sleeping? Well, she is adjusting to a total time zone change...last night we slept 5 hours in a row...its a record!

What is she like? She LOVES to smile & scrunch her nose & laugh. She loves to bounce in her Exersaucer (just like her brothers did). She likes to eat Cheerios & be outside. But mostly she loves her bottle & to be held all the time!

We've had wonderful meals from our church family, a visit from Grandma K & more family to come & visit soon! School doesn't start for a few weeks so we are thankful for this time! I hope to get started on a little "trip recap" soon! Much love & thanks to each of you for your prayers! It is just amazing to hold her in our arms, just a 16 lb bundle of answered prayers! She got amazing care in Ethiopia, you can tell by the way she interacts, she's healthy & has adjusted so well to our family! Praise be to our glorious God!

A few pictures from the trip

"Forever Family" Day

So much to be thankful for...we will post more later! Thanks for your prayers!

Update from Ethiopia

Everything has been going very well in Ethiopia, so thanks very much for your prayers. The flight there couldn't have been better. Ellyana has received so much good care. She has bright eyes, a quick smile, and draws attention wherever they go. She only gets upset and fusses when she wants her bottle. She is sleeping pretty well at nights. So far everyone has stayed healthy, so please pray for continued health for all and for a smooth flight home (Thursday night through Friday morning).

Will you pray with us!?!!

What a big week of pulling everything together! Some moments its overwhelming with the "mountain" of a trip ahead & other times it is so just so exciting...its hard to even have 2 thoughts in the same direction. But God is faithful...and we are asking you to please join us in covering this week in prayer!

Here's what our week holds so you can pray along the way...

Thurs. afternoon Cherise brings boys to Grandpa & Grandma Blume's
Fri... BJ's 7th Birthday (on August 7) Cherise returns home, Dad K flies into Detroit, spends the night here
Sat. AM Brian takes Cherise & Dad to airport, Brian teaches MBA's in Flint, then drives to Chicago for his conference...Cherise & Dad fly to DC & have a long lay-over...We leave DC at 8:30 PM and arrive in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 7 PM Sunday evening (they are 7 hours ahead of us in Ethiopia)
Sunday afternoon the boys go from Blume's to Knobloch's
Monday AM in Ethiopia (during the night in the US), we get to meet Ellyana
Tuesday, appt with US Embassy in Ethiopia
Wed, wait for paperwork to be completed
Thurs. Paperwork delivered, fly out of Ethiopia at 10:15 PM and get into DC at 8 AM & back to Detroit at 1:43 PM
Brian will have picked up the boys at my family's & will be back on Wed. evening.
So Friday afternoon we will be together as a "forever family"!!!! We all can't wait!!!

We pray for health & safety & joyful moments for each of us in the next week! God has been amazingly faithful in this journey!

Brian will hopefully post an update Wed. evening when he returns home & we'll send pictures when we get home! Thank you for all your prayers in getting us this far, to God be the glory...great things HE has done!

We are missing someone...but not for much longer!

The Roller Coaster (again!)

It has been very emotional days, as Monday we found out that the letter that needs to be completed for our trip, the Ethiopian Government Department had taken 2 weeks off for training, and the ONE lady that was able to complete the letter...took another week off for vacation. It was not looking promising! But today, we found out that somehow our agency was able to work with this situation & we are still planning on going! Never have been sooo thankful! The flights are booked (another long story but the flights were set to be cancelled yesterday by the airline that were reserved, and our travel agent was on vacation so we didn't know...I "happened" to call today to check on things...they figured all this out...and were able to book our flights...I said this sounds like a "miracle" the other travel agent said she thought so too, the flight actually has a waiting list, she could not believe the system had not bumped us out) So we have our flights, our Embassy date is set & things are buzzing around here in preparation. And we are just so thankful to see God unfolding this before our eyes! We will continue to pray!