Wow

Court Date

This past Wednesday morning I was doing my regular babysitting in Macker's class at church during our women's Bible study. My phone rang but when I said hello they were already gone. I noticed that the call was from our adoption agency and my heart started to race. About 3 minutes later Scoot peaked his head in the door (yes, he's in the same building) with a huge smile on his face...
"We're going to Ethiopia!!!! APRIL 5th is our court date!!"
Our Bible story that morning was about Hannah and how she prayed and prayed for a child and God answered her prayers and gave her S*****!

This is my little Mac giving Baby S***** his bottle.

++++++++++++++

We booked our tickets this morning. We leave on March 30th. It's spring break for the kids so they will be going to my parents house in Iowa. Please pray for all the details to come together. Thank you all for being excited with us.

FYI- We will not be bringing him home this trip. This is a trip to stand before an Ethiopian judge and tell them that we want to be his parents. After we pass court we are submitted to embassy which could take anywhere from 3 to 12 weeks. When we have embassy clearance then I will go back and get him. (Anyone want to join me?!)

Surprise

Stand-by tickets, full flights, days in the airport, snow storms in Sedona, none of those things could stop us from surprising Mikele for her 35th!! It was a precious 72 hours filled with love and SUNSHINE. I am thankful.

Toes

Macker

June- thumbs up!

Shorts

That's grass you see in our front yard!! It's going to be almost 60 today and we're hoping more of this snow melts away! (the weather is calling for more snow next week.. boo) Junie wanted to check out what's left of our snowman. Macker was scared!?

Scott stopped home to pick up his lunch. The gentlemen were pretty excited to see him.

I love my boys.

Wacky Wednesday!

Today is crazy sock day at Junie's school. He took it to the next level...

Haircut

Before:

After:

A Song

Enjoy the video and try to ignore Scotty's hand placement.

Melting

Do you know that this means?

Spring is just around the corner...

Ice "Festival"

I don't think it's a secret that winter is a little hard for us. The Murray family is always looking for adventure. We love free community festivals, free band concerts etc. So today Scoot found a Family Ice Festival online. It was only about 25 minutes away so we bundled the kids and headed to Downers Grove.

I really don't think I'd call it a festival.

It was just busy streets with random ice sculptures every once in a while.

JUNIE!!! We asked him about 100 times to just look with his eyes... he said this just fell into his hands.

Kissing booth?

Heart.

Crazyface.

This was one of Scott's personal favorites. It was a blank piece of ice. Neat.

This was actually my favorite exhibit.

These were cute statues.

The end.

Is it spring yet?

Timeout

Macker has been pretty spicy the last couple weeks. (read: naughtiest boy ever!)We've tried everything but today I think we might have found something that works. If he is snotty, mean, nasty, crabby etc. he has to sit in a timeout. Thus far it has done nothing he just screams and yells, gets quiet for one second then lets himself get up. (not our best parenting)

Today we made the rule that the timeout doesn't start until he is silent.(I realize this in not a new concept) When he was silent then I would set the timer on the stove. Can you tell he was not a big fan at first? He would just scream,"I. SAID. I'M. DUST. SO. SORRRRRY!!!"

After his 3rd long fit in the timeout chair he abruptly stopped yelling and said in a total man voice.

"Start the timer."

Two minutes later the timer buzzed he said sorry and I let him down. My guess is he will never be naughty again the rest of his life ;)

I asked him to show me his happy face.

I'm crazy about my Macker, spice and all.

Super Heroes

Today, a friend stopped by with 2 huge bags of clothes for the boys! So thankful!

Scotty loved having his nice friend Abby to play super heroes.

Crabby Macker woke up and joined the fun!

**Super hero outfits are courtesy of a cool neighbor!

More Winter

Frozen water.

Scott has been away at camp since Friday. Amelia has had Influenza B since last Wednesday. (poor girl) She still wanted to play outside for a little while.

The sun was shining and the kids had fun making a snow fort.

This is the little path that the neighbor made so that we can all get to our mail.

He's All Mine!

Password: toocoldtoocold

Warehouse Student Ministries "Winter Camp Baby" Music Video from LyonTamer Productions on Vimeo.

Buddies

Scooter was so happy to have these buddies in town. Jeff Durbin was the camp speaker and Sean came into town for a meeting. (and to spend time with us)
Our friend Sean arrived from AZ and he hardly had his shoes off before the fighting began. Junedog had been dreaming a battle.

Junie wants to marry Sean's daughter.... Sean told him only a really tough guy could have her...

Who are the crazy guys in the helmets?
Serious fighting.

The blizzard hit and it was great to have Sean here. He and Scott shoveled for no less than 4 hours. They also went and did a neighbors driveway too.

Do you think Scoot was happy to have his buddy helping?

I overheard Sean said something like, "I'll never complain about the heat in AZ again..."
Time for more fighting... yeah!!

He's gone back to sunny AZ and we already miss him.