Happy Four Months Little Man!!!

Yesterday our little guy turned four months old. We also got a wonderful little gift from this family, they just returned from picking up thier daughter in Ethiopia and they sent us updated photos of our little guy. It is so great to get to see more photos of him and have updates as we wait for our turn to travel. We wish we could be there with him, but hopefully we will be soon.

Only SEVEN more days until our scheduled court date... if all goes well we will legally be his parents on Monday, January 4, 2010 and we will be able to post pictures of him then.

We love you little man!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

So many wonderful things have come our way this year. We are anxiously awaiting the new addition to our family, hopefully he will be home with us soon. We also found out today that we will be an aunt & uncle again soon - Ben's sister is now expecting her fourth child YAY!!!

We had a wonderful Christmas. We were able to spend a very relaxing day with our family and enjoy the holiday.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Going to Court... (in a good way)

Yesterday, exactly one month to the day (four weeks and two days... but who's counting), we recieved notice of our court date. Our adoption is scheduled to go before the Ethiopian Federal courts on January 4th. We are so excited! There are still several factors (power outages, paperwork issues, etc) that could delay the our court date, but if all goes well we will officiall, legally, be parents on January 4th. When we pass court we will schedule an appointment to travel and meet with the US Embassy in Ethiopia to get a visa to bring our little guy home.

If things go well, we could travel as soon as early February... HOLY COW!!!

We love you little man... and can't wait to meet you in person!!!

Marking the day...

Today our little man is 3 months old! We wish we could be with him, but we are happy that a fellow adoptive family is in Ethiopia right now loving on him and hopefully able to take pictures for us (thanks Elisa & Brandon).

We love you little man - happy 3 months!!!

Nana & Papa are so excited to meet our little man - they decided to go birthday shopping to help prepare for his arrival... quite a haul!



Aunt Erin, Uncle Steve, and baby Stephen also gave him a little gift...

Thankful!

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We are very lucky to have an amazing family and group of friends who have all been so supportive during our adoption process. The obvious highlight of our year (so far) came a week and a half ago... most of all this year we are thankful for our little man.

On our way

We recieved notice from our agency today that they have recieved our official paperwork accepting the referral of our "little man." Now they will have thier staff in Ethiopian begin processing our paperwork to get a court date. It will still be several weeks before are notified of when our court date will be, but things are moving along!

Stay tuned for more news as we move through the rest of the process...

It's a...

...BOY!!! That's right, today was THE day, we got our referral call! We were #24 on the overall list, but we knew we would probably be getting a boy and that we were probably getting close (because most families ahead of us have requested girls or siblings). But we were still SHOCKED to get the call, we figured it would be AT LEAST a few more weeks.

He is PERFECT... I know all parents say that, but seriously he is the cutest baby ever (no bias - just honesty :) ). He is 11 weeks old, born on August 27, 2009. Currently 8.5 lbs and 19.7 inches long.

Sorry we can't post photos of him online yet - not until we pass court in Ethiopia, which should (hopefully) be a couple of months. But, rest assured we have seen photos and he is BEAUTIFUL!!! We can't wait to show him off to the world... stay tuned.

Aunt Kyla and cousin Blake came over after we got the call to see pictures of the little man, and they brought him something special...

So, tonight we are celebrating with something we have been saving for just THIS occasion.