Life While We Wait (part 1)

Hey Everyone 🙂 I was thinking the other day about time..How sometimes it flies and other times it creeps slowly by. It feels like the summer is flying, yet it still feels like waiting to get to the next step is taking forever. Actually it feels more like FOR. EV. ER

It’s been 88 days since we got our referral (and saw Jude’s sweet face for the first time!) It’s been 71 days since our pre-approval.. but who’s counting?

We were told that this next step could take 2-4 months. We are almost at 2.5 month wait. For those of you who pray for us and our boy, please pray specifically that we might get our approval soon!

In the meantime, we wait, we pray, look at his photos, think about what he might be doing, watch the videos, and talk about him. I sometimes hear the kids playing stuffed animals and I hear them pretending that a bear named Jude has just arrived home and all the doggies, bunnies and bears all cheer at his arrival. it is pretty sweet, I tell you.

But, it is not like we mope or watch the days slowly slip by. We keep pretty busy and have been making memories with our family of 4 in the meantime!

I thought I would use this post to give a bit of an update on Iles life 🙂

Even before the referral, we celebrated Chinese New Year.. it was so fun! Here’s a little idea of the celebration during the dragon dance.It was pretty intense but super cool!

January through March, Ava tried something new- Cheerleading.

She absolutely loved it! She had the nicest coaches and the sweetest squad. She looked super cute and happy cheering. Here’s a little clip of cheer practice:

Speaking of Ava- she is growing into quite the little lady. It’s been so neat to watch the love of Christ shine through her this year and to see her grow in her relationship with the Lord. She challenges me daily with her giving heart (I will type more about that later!) . She is really growing up. Recently I found some lists that she had made, catagorized by “Good Stuff,” “Thankfulness,” and “Troubles and Things Nervous Of.” I would like to note that I am #1 for thankfulness! Whoohoo! It does feel great to be appreciated. And who can argue with the list of “good stuff” when there are things like God, Jesus, donuts, and ice cream. I am still unsure what “Shoger” is? Kroger? Sugar? My bet is Sugar knowing this girl! Poor girl is worried about braces and her fish dying. I should probably be cleaning that fish bowl more often!

Ava did great in school this year, too! It was challenging to be a homeschooling mama for the first time, but for the most part, she made it fairly easy on me. She is a quick learner and she really seemed to enjoy all the time we spent together. I enjoyed it too. Here she is with her well earned “last day of school Krispy Creme donut.” Cute!

Jesse has had an awesome year, too. He had the wonderful Mrs. Rohly as his teacher at Tree of Life, and absolutely loved pre-school. He marched into school M,W,and F with a Sonic the Hedgehog backpack and a smile on his face. I loved being the class room mom and being involved as much as possible. He has really grown up this year! Here is a photo of his character award ceremony with his teacher:

And yes, he hated every second of being on stage! Doesn’t he know how handsome he is?! He is not comfortable in the spotlight though. He received the award for “Understanding.” The ability to reason and comprehend situations.” Pretty high achievement for a 5 year old! Loved that his teacher told me that she watched him purposefully choose not to join in with the other boys numerous times when they were disobeying this year. Yay Jesse! It takes a lot of guts to do that, especially for a boy his age- we are so proud! I think we may have a leader in the family. Now, he just needs to get used to that spotlight!

I mean, look how cute this guy is! He sure can rock a tie 🙂

Jesse played soccer again this Spring. He had little to no interest last season ( however it was fun to watch him spin around and look up at the sky last fall.) We were all jazzed to see him finally “get it” this spring and enjoy the challenge of the game.He even scored his 1st goal!