Bend The Light » Photography in a new light

If you’ve read our blog for any amount of time, you know that I’m absolutely obsessed with my little niece, Annalin. Technically, she’s my brother’s daughter… but I think of her as my own. I love this little girl. She cracks me up. Probably because she’s a mini version of me. She’s strong-willed, smart, makes up lyrics to her own songs, and loves chocolate milk more than anything. Yea, she’s pretty much the most awesome girl on the planet. And this Sunday, she turned FOUR. If there was a “pause Annalin” button, I would totally use it right now. I’m loving this age and I don’t want it to go away. She’s growing up so fast. Here are a few of my favorite photos from her party. A princess-themed party for our little princess. :-)
-Kaylinn

L to R: That’s me! My dad, mom, grandma, grandpa, and brother Wesley (who was apparently trying to get in touch with his inner princess).

L-O-V-E this shot!! Annalin, you are beautiful.

Annalin getting her first look at her fancy cake.

Annalin and her best friend, Gabrielle. Love the frosting mustache. :-)

Still working on her table manners…

GIFT TIME!

The aftermath… It took her about 1.4 minutes to open 20 gifts.

And at the end of the day, she wanted to play with a toy she’s had forever. Figures. :-)

If you’re our friend on Facebook (and you should be our friend on Facebook!), you may already know this, but I wanted post about it officially. Chris and I are adopting an infant girl from Ethiopia! We are so excited that we can hardly stand it. I’ve started a brand new blog to chronicle our adoption journey. You can check it out here: www.PureandLasting.com.  Let me catch you up on what you’ve missed so far.

As Julie Andrew’s characters says in the Sound of Music: “Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.” So here’s a little history… Chris and I met for the first time in December of 2007 at a Christmas party that neither one of us wanted to be at. Someone introduced us by saying something like “Hey, you guys both own our own businesses.” He asked about my business, but I blew him off. I thought he was cute, but felt like he was just being polite by talking to me and didn’t think much more about it.
 A few months went by, my life was consumed by my mom’s cancer. In January of 2008, I spent 2 weeks in New Orleans taking care of my mom before and after a very extensive surgery to remove hundred’s of cancerous tumors. After I returned home, I was invited to go to a bible study at Chris’ house. I find out that they all had been praying for me and my mom and that Chris specifically had been doing a lot of praying for her.  We had several mutual friends, so I would see him around from time to time. One of my friends played on the same soccer team as his sister, so I ended up sitting by him for a game and he challenged me to join the team. He said he would help me practice. I was still clueless that he was interested in me and just thought he was a nice guy. We went to a local park for him to coach me. We played soccer for about an hour, but sat on the field talking for hours until after dark, then got dinner afterward and talked until the restaurant closed. I remember thinking that night that the girl who marries this man is soooo lucky!! Within 2 weeks, we were officially dating. Here are a few images during our dating.

He proposed in June 2008. This was taken right after the proposal. Excuse the cheesy pose : )

We were married January 31, 2009 at the Antique Rose Emporium. It sounds so cheesy, but it was truly that happiest day of my life. I could not stop smiling all day. It was absolutely perfect.
All wedding images by Sarah Q Photography. Love her!!

Ok, so now that we got all that out of the way…What? Huh? You are adopting? From Africa?!

When Chris and I decided to adopt, I was somewhat surprised at the responses of those around us. Instead of an immediate “Wow, how exciting!” it was more like a hesitant and curious, “Why? Is something wrong?” Nope, nothing is wrong. As far as we know, our baby-maker’s work just fine : ) We are not adopting because we cannot have biological children. For us adoption is not our Plan B, but our Plan A to creating a family. We realize that adoption is new and different to many people. We hope to answer many of the questions by inviting you to follow along with our adoption journey.

We have decided to adopt because we have been called by God to adopt. Our hearts are broken for all the children in the world who do not have families, homes or even food. There are millions of orphans in the world. It is overwhelming to think about. We cannot save them all, but we can save one. Our journey will have an amazing destination. One less orphan.
 Our conversations about starting a family always led to adoption. I truly believe that as Christians, we are called to care for “the least of these.” So “Why international adoption?”
And again, that is what God has placed on our hearts. We can’t explain it. To me an orphan, whether in the US or in a foreign county, needs a home.  God created the whole world, not just the United States of America. The same way that you just knew that your spouse was “The One,” we know that our child is in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, a country that is about twice the size of Texas there are an estimated 4.3 million orphans.

As Chris and I began to talk more and more about adoption, I was contacted by Billy and Cindy Foote to take promotional photos for them. You may remember them from their session. Here’s a quick reminder:

They had no idea who I was or that I was interested in adoption. We met for lunch. Kaylinn and I are in line with Cindy and she says, “Billy is over there…with the Chinese girl.” She was talking about Libby, their daughter who was adopted from China and right next to Billy was Gracie, who had just recently been brought home from Ethiopia. I was amazed. While I had always wanted to adopt, I had never seen adoption with my own eyes or known anyone who had adopted internationally. Here they were beautiful, smiling, friendly girls and their amazing parents. And they found me! How cool is God? That was it for me. They did it. It could be done. We would do it. We talked mostly about their session, a little about adoption, but I didn’t want to look like a crazy girl with a million questions about their family. Soon after, I contacted Cindy and told her that we wanted to adopt. She and Billy invited us over for dinner and have been so gracious, truly an inspiration. 
Chris and I then began talking about adoption more specifically. We decided on Ethiopia. Since then, I hear Ethiopia all the time. From friends of friends, wedding clients (Hello Melissa and Austin and Lyla and Stephen!), facebook updates, etc. God’s little ways of reassuring us that we are moving in the right direction.

Here are a few pictures of the information packet we received from our agency.

So just how long is this all gonna take? We filled out our agency application a month ago and have been accepted into their Ethiopia program.  Right now we are “paper chasing” or  “paper pregnant” by adoption lingo :) We have been assigned a Family Coordinator and are now collecting all the necessary documents for our dossier (pronounced “doss-e-aye”).  The dossier is a set of legal documents and adoption papers used in international adoptions. The adoption papers will include our home study, marriage license, financial statement, and health certificates, police background checks, etc. This step is expected to take 6 months, but but could several months longer if we run into any complications. After all our paper work is completed and we have all the correct approvals, we will get in line for a referral (to be matched with a specific child). The current wait time for a baby girl from Ethiopia is 8-11 months. At the time of referral, we will get photos of our daughter and all the information that they have on her background/medical history. Next we will wait about a month to get a court date. Chris and I will then travel to Ethiopia (to the capital city, Addis Ababa) to appear in court before a judge and state our desire to adopt. This trip will be about a week long. During this trip we will get to meet our daughter for the first time! After this court date, there is still more paperwork and approvals needed, so we will have to return home empty handed (Ahhh!). In 8-12 weeks, once everything is in order we will be able to go back to Ethiopia to pick up our daughter. So, from start to finish the process will be 18-24 months. However, adoption is a crazy process, dependent on our government and the government of a third world country, so we are expecting the unexpected, but praying that it will be as smooth as possible.

Here are some images of us filling out our first round of paperwork and sending it off.

At times, this journey will be difficult, but we are stepping out in obedience and in faith. We believe in a faithful God, we choose to seek after Him, to run after Him even when His heart for us is in Africa. We are ridiculously excited to get the process started. I knew we were called to adopt, I knew that we would be obedient to the call, I have heard others say how amazing the journey is and how God transforms their lives through it, but I didn’t understand what they meant until now. We feel so blessed that God chose US for this journey, that He would deem us worthy to be ambassadors for these precious children. Better yet, I know this is the very beginning, it is a small glimpse of what God has planned for our family. We feel so blessed to have been called to such an amazing path. We want to be open and inviting to anyone who has questions. We are learning the answers to many of the questions ourselves, but we are happy to share our journey with you. I know that God’s path for us will be even better than we can imagine. We are coming for you beautiful Ethiopian princess!
-Jenn (and Chris!)