My little guy...

I am so grateful to have received news about my little one at the HOH. I am told by a visiting parents that he is big and healthy with long eyelashes! He IS walking! When this parent was visiting he was asleep and was pulling the blankets up over his head. Three of my kids slept this way when they were babies. It made me so nervous that they wouldn't be able to breathe, but they loved it that way. My heart longs to hold him, but I can't express the peace and gratitude I have felt by hearing accounts of folks who have actually laid eyes and hands on him. I am going to do my very best when we travel to bring as much information as I can to the families still waiting. It is invaluable.

WE'VE GOT A 12 MONTH OLD WALKER!!!!!

35 days until court.

39 Days To Go

Happy Birthday, Amani!

Today our little one will celebrate his first birthday in Ethiopia at the House of Hope. My heart is aching to hold him, comfort him and know him. We are going to go to our local Ethiopian restaurant with the family to celebrate - but the guest of honor will be missing.

43 days until court

47 Days and counting.....

We have 47 days left until our court date. I know there are so court dates from our agency coming up this week - and I hope a trend of passing on the first try begins. I have booked our flight and our guesthouse. It seems more real everyday.

I am the kind of person who always carries around a very long to-do list. Sometimes I joke that if I spent as much time doing things on my list as I do transferring my list and making it longer - I wouldn't need a list anymore! My newest list is "Things that need to be done before March 31st". March 31st is the day we are scheduled to leave. This list is very long, but at least it is only the most pertinent items. It feels great to cross off "book Flight" and "book guesthouse". Today I have also been able to cross off "baby shower invite list to Carrie", "wash Amani's carseat cover" and ""wash Amani's clothes".

There is a family in Ethiopia right now that may look in on our little guy when they are at Numan. I would be so thrilled to get any news. CHI has also promised photos - although with our baby at Numan, I worry that we may be last on the list for photos.

Here are a few pictures from Av's 9th birthday. She picked out a cat from the shelter as her gift. It is a great cat. We all love her!

Hair Continued.....

I just wanted to sat that during her "break", Olivia fell asleep and slept for 2 hours. when we started back in she was much more equipped to deal with the situation and really held it together quite well. We wrapped up hair day at about 7:30pm. A and J were already in bed! Here is the finished product - I hope we get a few weeks out of it.

Olivia's Hair

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Today was a hair day. It comes around every two weeks or so, and today was the day. I needed to take out O's current hair-do, wash it, comb it and re-style it. She is not a happy camper. It went SO badly that right now she is in her room laying down to take a break. I love her hair. It has taken about 4 years for it to get to its current length. We are able to do all kinds of fun things with it - but it is labor intensive. Four to five hours per session labor intensive! It is thicker than anything I have ever felt, except for maybe a lamb. As a little girl, we kept it very short. She would look at Avonlea's hair and say she wanted straight long hair. She would put tights or leggings on her head most days to have the feeling of "long hair" down her neck and back. I have learned a lot over the years and my process gets better and better as time goes by, but it's still no fun for her. At the salon is even worse. We've done that a few time and she cried and screamed in the salon. The stylist would tell me this is part of her life and that she better get used to it and toughen up. So now she has her long hair and she is begging to take it all off. She wants to go back to the very short "boy hair" (her words) that she used to have. I am torn because I know how long it takes to grow. I know that she could change her mind. Part of me if very excited at the prospect of making the hair routine so much easier, especially with the baby coming. I feel that it is a bit of a strain on our relationship because I am the hair person. My husband could never do it in a million years, bless his heart. In fact, I have told him if anything ever happened to me he would need to make her a standing appointment at the salon for her so they could keep it up. My older daughter gave it a shot once and lasted about 10 minutes. So I am the evil hair lady so as she screams how mean I am and how she needs to get away from me - it makes me sad. Because she is in a play right now, we signed a contract saying she would not change anything about her appearance until the show closes. So we can't cut it today. In a half hour, I will try again and hope we can get through it and wait another two weeks before we have a hair day again.