Christmas thoughts and almost 4 months down

Almost two months between posts is a *bit* longer then we planned. But honestly that's a good sign from my point of view. Two more months of waiting is done and it has flown by! Here we are a few short days away from being officially 4 months into our wait and something exciting has happened. Well, it was exciting to this mama's heart at least! The bedding that I have been eyeing for months for the baby's room finally went on clearance at Target! So we made a happy trek to Target amongst all the last minute Christmas shoppers and finally bought it. We were able to get many of the coordinating pieces because everything was 50% off. This was a big deal to me because there is so little I can be doing right now to practically prepare for him. And I'm a planner, an organizer... I like to be ready for whatever's going to come, whenever it decides to show up. I don't know how old he's going to be when he finally comes home or how big he'll be so buying clothes is not a smart option. (Now I may or may not have bought a few pairs of shoes, but I figure he'll need them at some point!) So being able to buy this bedding for him was a wonderful moment for me. It makes him real, tangible; it makes me feel connected to him because I'm doing something to prepare for his arrival. I need to be able to do that from time to time because this waiting can get old.

Our sweet boy, wherever he is, has been on my mind a great deal this Christmas season. It's so strange to not know if he's even been born yet; is this his first Christmas? Or will it be here with us next year? Regardless, he is on my mind A LOT. The Lord, in His infinite graciousness, allows that longing for my baby to come in small doses. I don't think I could handle it otherwise!

Christmas has also found me remembering that while we celebrate that He came as a baby, what I really need to focus on is that He's Coming Again! May I long for His return more then anything else!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

-kate-

Two months down...how many to go??

Our poor neglected blog! It's been a month since we last posted despite our best intentions to post once a week (ha!). Honestly, there just isn't much to say. I was amazed when I just looked down at today's date and realized that we have been DTE for two months already. Time is just flying past us and I know then next 2 months are going to be even busier for us.

So there is no real update to share...just us, waiting. But we're okay with that. We are confident that the Lord has the day planned for us to meet our son so we are trying to enjoy the closing moments of life as a family of three. Haven is going to be the best big sister! Her favorite thing to talk about is what she can do for/to her baby brother. We talk about it everyday, usually multiple times. I can't wait til she can put all those ideas into practice!

Two months down...four or five (hopefully no more) to go!

AWAA Ohio family gathering

Yesterday we were invited to join all the other Ohio America World families adopting from Ethiopia. We were delighted to meet the Richardsons, the Lows, the Harbaughs, the Mozombites and the Gomez family. We met up at a park in Columbus and then made our way to the Blue Nile for an Ethiopian feast together. It was nice to put faces to the names of all the people we've met through our Yahoo group and their blogs and to be surrounded by people who "get it". Most of these families are much farther along in the process (and one family is already home with their kids) so it will be exciting to follow along with them as they bring their sons home. All of us are awaiting referrals for sons! We laughed at the idea of how busy our get together will be next year with 4 more baby boys running around. We can't wait for that to be true.

Matt Low, Jose Gomez, David Mozombite, Cale, Roscoe Richardson and Seth Harbaugh at the Blue Nile
Jackie Gomez, me, Haven (!), Kristy Low, Amy Mozombite, Julie Richardson and Apryl Harbaugh

Thanks to Kristy and Julia for organizing. We look forward to gathering with these families again soon!

Another Z on the way!

We are DTE today! Basically that means that our dossier is on its way to Ethiopia. We have officially been added to the list! We are so thankful that this day has finally come and are praising God for His perfect timing. We have hoped for almost a year that we could be at this point in the process by the end of August. We just made it!

So from this point on we will be referring to ourselves as being "paper-pregnant". We're about 9 months away welcoming another beautiful baby into our family (5-7 months wait for referral and then 8-10 weeks to pass court and then travel). We are so excited!

We're off to celebrate. Let the wait begin!

Out of our hands

And it's off! Our dossier is on an overnight trip to our agency's office as we speak. I went this morning and made 3 copies of everything and then we crammed it all into a flat rate Express Mail envelope. Honestly, it's not as much paperwork as I thought it would be, but I am still impressed with our stack.

Three sets of everything!

Haven wanted to carry it down to the post office (we walk to ours), but then decided it was too heavy for her.
Not our best family portrait, what with the sick Cale, the glaring glasses and the goofy girl, but it's a historic day in the history of our family and we wanted to remember it. (Sadly, this is the best picture we could get after several tries!)

And just like that, it's out of our hands. It's certainly been in the Lord's hands all along, but physically letting go of all that we've been working towards for the last 5 months is a huge moment. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that all these pieces of paper some how will add up to us adding another child to our family. I'm not quite there yet, but I've got a 5-7 month wait ahead of me to figure it out.

-kate-

We got it!

The mail this morning contained an especially happy piece of mail: the I-171H that we've been waiting on for exactly 4 weeks! We were so excited, and actually surprised by it's presence, that we decided to just drive up to Columbus today to get the necessary certification. Thankfully we made a few calls before going and knew exactly what we needed to have before we got there or we would have been in some trouble. So a few stops near home for a notarization, a county certification and we were off. It was really a quick and easy process once we got there and we couldn't be happier.

Tomorrow I will go make 3 copies of every document we have and hopefully by tomorrow afternoon all our paperwork will be in an overnight envelope on it's way to America World's offices.

We are officially done paperchasing! Praise the Lord!

-kate-

Ethiopia at the 2008 Summer Games

We watched the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics the other night (on 8/8/08) and saw the atheletes from Ethopia march in. They have 22 competitors this year, all but one of which are distance runners (the other is a flyweight boxer). We're excited for the distance running events to start in a few days. We'll be cheering them on!

Still waiting on the I-171. Hopefully it will show up soon!

-- cale