Cousin Camp and Potty Training

We have completed all the necessary paperwork for our homestudy and are now waiting for our social worker to finish writing it up - should be done by Wednesday of this week! Yea!! Next step will be applying with US immigration and completion of our dossier paperwork. We are making progress. In the meantime, we have been busy with lots of fun stuff! Last week, the boys spent the week with their cousins, Nicholas and Kaitlyn, at their Mimi and Poppy's house for "Wild Mountain Safari Cousin Camp." They slept in tents and had bedtime stories by the campfire, along with many other cool activities; needless to say, they had a blast! While the boys were away, Graycen and I spent most of our time at home potty-training. She is doing great with it so far!

Here are the happy campers......

Graycen putting a sticker on her potting training chart.....

Finger painting

Hanging out the clothes with a lacing activity.....

Our Little Sweetie is Already 2!!

Happy Birthday, Graycen!

We had a Candyland birthday party for Graycen this year. Some other folks took pictures at the party, but here are a few that I have. The first one is Graycen on her actual birthday blowing out her birthday candles. I (with the help of my mom, Ryan's mom and my sister-in-law) made the cake this year (or most of it :) - I think Graycen really liked it!

And One More Makes a Half Dozen!

That’s right, folks - the Dorr family is expanding!! Only this time we are adding an Ethiopian toddler to the family. We are so excited about what God is doing in our family and wanted to share our journey with you. Many of you already know, but we are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia. Adoption is something that Ryan and I have talked about at times throughout our marriage, but became something much more than an idea over the past year. The developments over the past year all started with a little boy named Blessing whom I met in a Nigerian orphanage last summer. He was about the age of our boys at the time. As I sat there holding him in my arms, my heart shattering into a thousand pieces, I just knew that God was calling our family to be more active in advocating for the millions and millions of orphans in the world. As Ryan and I talked about my experience and the experiences of so many people we know, God began to make it clear that he was calling us to adopt from Africa. We began doing a lot of research, starting with adoption laws in Nigeria, but soon learned that adoption is very difficult in many African countries. We have learned a lot about adoption in the last year and believe that Ethiopia has an excellent adoption program. We have several families in our church who have adopted from Ethiopia and even have an Ethiopian play group in town. We are really excited about where God is taking us and ask for your prayers as we work toward bringing our little girl home!

To give you a time frame, we are currently working on our home study application (we hope to complete it by the end of July), next we have to apply with the US immigration office and complete our dossier paperwork (international paperwork) (should take 8-9 weeks). After these are completed, we will submit them all to the US and Ethiopian governments and once approved we will wait for the referral of our little girl (could take 12-14 months). Once we have a referral (means they have matched us with a little girl) we will make our first trip to Ethiopia about 6-8 weeks after the referral. We will then make a second trip to Ethiopia 6-8 weeks after the first trip to bring her home! Even though we don’t know who she is yet, God knows and we would love it if you would join us in praying for her throughout this journey.