Spent the night in the ER with Judah. He hit his head at my in laws' house, and about a half an hour later started throwing up and acting sleepy. I freaked out. We rushed him to the closest ER (which involved high speeds on snow covered country roads) 30 minutes away.

One CAT scan, and a few hrs later we were released. Everything came back fine on the scan. They said to keep an eye on him and we woke him up every three hours last night. This morning Judah has a low grade fever. Hoping it was just coincidence that he started puking after the head injury (which really wasn't all that bad) and he's just got a bug! The real bummer is, it was our last night with Sunshine, Aaron, and their kids. They head home to New York today. We've got one more day here in North Bloomfield.

Praying this isn't a new sickness that will run it's course through all of us, as tomorrow we are supposed to be headed to Findlay to spend some much needed time with our cronies. Halle is so stinkin' excited to see the kids. She's been talking about it the ENTIRE break. It would just break her tiny heart if we couldn't go due to sickness.

Sometimes I wonder, if I hadn't lost two children, would I be so quick to panic when "little things" go wrong? Would I be so quick to rush off to the ER? On some level, I think I am always trying to prepare myself to lose one of them. When Judah bangs his head, or Halle is throwing up for 24 hrs straight, I think to myself, "Yup. This is it. This is the moment I have been dreading. This is when they will be taken from me forever." I know I need to release them to the Lord and not live in fear. But I'm just not there yet. I find myself standing in the ER, crying, begging the Lord that he won't take my children away just because I don't have enough faith to release them yet. And I really don't believe that's who God is. I guess it's just the irrational panicked voice of a mom. I don't know if it's normal or not.

Not that we needed a reminder of how "off the chart amazing" our friends and family are, but . . . Kevin & Many Peterson knocked on my parent's door (in Dayton) this morning to present us with over $6300 in cash and checks, donated by you wonderful people, to help us bring Phineas home! It was a COMPLETE surprise! We ...were blown away, to say the least!

There was laughter and a lot of tears. Again, through faithful people, God has provided, and we will now be able to officially submit our dossier to Ethiopia!!!! PRAISE GOD!!!! Mandy recorded the moment and we are hoping to have it up on our blog sometime soon. Check back and THANK YOU!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Found out today that the major adoption grant we applied for denied us. Just so very discouraged right now.