Our little neighbor, Ava, is staying with us this school year.  Ava joined her forever family in March of this year and is doing great!  She arrives each morning, giggling behind her backpack, and shouts, "Surprise!"  Ava is three months older than Maddox and, on most days, they are the best of friends.  It is definitely good practice for our little Maddox - the sharing of toys, the sharing of me, the sharing of MK - it can be a bit overwhelming at times for our littlest miss.  But, like I said, for the most part, they are the best of friends cruising around the backyard, jumping on the trampoline, playing on our playset....and belly laughing the entire time!

Maddox Ren, our comedian.  She loves to find a good walking stick and then she will proceed to walk around the yard with this stoop about her saying, "I'm an old lady, I'm a little old lady..."

Maddox is really taking a liking to writing her name and drawing pictures.  And she LOVES to join in school time with MK - she does her "homework" with the most intensity I have ever known a four year old to use.  

MK had her very last soccer game and the girls had a little half-time fun with orange slices.  Though she will quickly tell anyone that soccer is her third favorite sport - swimming and ballet being numbers 1 and 2 - she had a great experience with soccer.  My favorite MK comment from the season was when she said with a very serious face, "Mom, I am just not a kicker girl."  

One more medal to add to her collection....so proud of MK for wanting to try new things!  

Let the waiting begin.
With MK we waited in line for a non-special needs baby girl under the age of 12 months for 10 months.  We realized quickly that the wait would grow....we are still speechless when we look at the timeline and see that we would STILL be waiting for a non-special needs little girl 7 years AFTER completing our paperwork!
But we switched to the special needs program 10 months into the wait.  5 weeks later we were matched with our MK.
With Maddox we anticipated a 2 year process from start to finish.  Paperwork, match time and travel, two years.  We began the paperwork in April, received Maddox's referral in September, and traveled in March...total time = 11 months.
With our current little one, we are swallowing hard this morning after not receiving a referral after the first list release (since our LID) last night.  We all waited by the phone, staring at it, praying for it to ring with happy news on the other end.  Sadly, the phone did not ring and we did not get the news we were anticipating.  So, we will wait.  One more month and another list will be released....maybe our little one will be on there????  And if not, we will wait more.  We are being told to expect a 1-6 month wait time and we pray this is accurate without bumps in the road:)
With all this said, we do have full faith in God's plans for our family.  After all, he has opened door after door during our journey.  Please pray for our baby girl.  We feel she is alive and well and waiting for us to love on her with arms wide open and we cannot wait for the moment when we first see her face!