American Cancer Society - Relay for Life

Tonight was our first year on our own team for the Relay for Life. We all worked very hard leading up to tonight. We have been, selling luminary bags, making bead bracelets and baking dozens and dozens of cookies! Our hard work paid off very well - we had a grand total of over $4251!! More than we ever imagined we could raise during our first year! And we realized a number of things that we could do different next year to make it, hopefully, more successful. Thank you to anyone who may be reading this for helping our team!

We are getting ready for our first round of vaccinations - augh! They are Tuesday, June 17. Most are very routine and our only fear is getting sore arms. Another step toward bringing our baby girl home! The boys are really nervous for this part and, once this is over, will finally be really excited to go to Ethiopia. They have really been stressing about this for a very long time. It will be nice to finally have it done!

Still having difficulty with the naming process! We are open to suggestions!

We have a court date!!

Our next step is well on its way! We learned today that we have a court date of June 24 - which also happens to be our 13th Wedding Anniversary!! The court dates are typically considered tentative because if it is a busy court day our case could be pushed back or the judge could request further information which could push it back. We could use your prayers that everything goes smoothly! After the judge makes a decision, Tarike will officially be our daughter!! We should be able to travel approximately 4-5 weeks after our court date - yippee!!

Where do we go from here...

Just a quick update regarding the process from here. I wish that I could say that now that we know who our new baby is and that Tarike needs parents right now, we are on our way to bring her home! Unfortunately, there is a process that follows the referral. At this point our paperwork goes to the Ministry of Women's Afairs and we wait 2-3 weeks from the date of the referral (which was May 22) to be assigned a court date in Ethiopia. Once our case is heard, about 1-2 weeks after we are assigned the date, assuming it goes through on that date and is approved, we are considered the legal parents of Tarike in Ethiopia. At that point I can post a picture of our beautiful daughter on this blog! We then wait for her birth certificate to be updated with Matt and I as her legal parents. This generally takes another 2-3 weeks. Once we recieve a copy of the birth certificate by e-mail, we will receive our long awaited travel date. This will give us about 2-4 weeks to get our final preparations complete before traveling to Ethiopia and bringing home our daughter!! Truly unbelievable. When it is broken up, and keeping in mind that it has already been almost 2 weeks since we received the amazing referral, it actually feels as though it is going very fast! It also seems to be going fast when I think of all that needs to be done. We still have not designed her bedroom and we are completely unprepared to have a baby in our home - especially a baby girl! Then, I look at her beautiful picture and her lovely smile and I want to head to the airport right now!! Thanks for going through this incredible adventure with us - it is truly amazing

Sad Day

When we went for our walk this morning, the boys and I discovered that our poor turtles that we were collecting for the turtle races, had been attacked last night. Apparently the frozen minnows that we put in their enclosure, once thawed, attracted some kind of turtle predator and out of 15 turtles, only 4 remain alive. We assume that it was a raccoon or, we have been told, maybe a mink. I feel very bad that we trapped the poor little guys in the enclosure but apparently did not protect them from other creatures. I also feel very bad that we now have until one week from Wednesday to find 46 turtles!!! And, since turtles like to come out and bathe in the sun, it would sure be a lot easier if the sun would actually come out! I guess a good thing is that we learned a lesson - before we had 50 turtles to lose. We now have a completely enclosed turtle cage that is raccoon and mink proof! Let the hunt begin!! (Um, again!)

Names, names, names...

When we had each of our four boys, we thought how hard it was to name boys and how easy it would be to name a daughter. Well, I've changed my mind! It is "nice" to be able to have the input of our boys. Jack has decided that he wants to name her Bill - yes, Bill!! And, he told my good friend Tracy, regardless of what we name her, he is going to call her BILL! Connor decided to give his choice as well. At first, I thought that he wanted to name his new baby sister Sausage. As it turns out, he said Susej (pronounced like sussej) - which would be Jesus backwards. It was either that or Lienad (Daniel backwards) or Dog (God backwards). I'm not sure I want my daughter's name to sound like sausage and I think the adoption agency would take her back if we told them we were naming her Dog!! Tyler and Evan tend to agree with whatever we come up with. My children can cause me stress, frustration, and embarrassment but I couldn't imagine my life without them! It is so much fun to see what they are going to come up with next. I just wish they would tell me and not other people outside of our family. Going back to our homestudy, our social worker asked the boys what they would do if someone teased their sister about being a different color. Jack said he would punch them. She then asked if he was going to hit his new sister. He answered, "Not until she gets older."!!!!! Well, at least they are honest! I am so blessed to have my life turned upside down by them.

Our New Baby

We recieved the response from the Internation Adoption Clinic on Friday and they said that Tarike appeared to be very healthy. Although she is pretty small, they said that she was absolutely beautiful (as if we didn't know!) and that they gave her the highest rating for health that they have! We immediately called Jackie at Children's Home Society and accepted the referral! It is so amazing to think that we have a daughter a half a world away! I so wish we could get her today. I already miss her.
I pray that she remains healthy and happy until she can finally join our family forever!

REFERRAL!!!!!!

We got the call today!! At 12:58 this afternoon (I was just about to get into the shower - I know, but we got a lot accomplished this morning), I heard the phone ring but I had one foot in so I let Tyler get it. He comes to the door and says, "I think it is Children's Home Society." I grabbed a towel, opened the door, grabbed the phone from Tyler, and shut the door again. I heard our social worker say, "Hi Katie. This is Angie de Souza and I have a referral for you!" I told her that I was thrilled and would love to run around the house screaming but I was just about to take shower and did not have anything on! She told me to get dressed and call her back right away - so I did. The referral was for an absolutely beautiful 6 month old baby girl!!!!!! She was all dressed in pink, appears very healthy, is 12.6 lbs. and 24 in. long. Her birth name is Tarike Jabe. This is so completely amazing!!!!! Of course, Matt had to go to the cities today so at the time that I am writing this, he hasn't even seen her yet! Once we officially accept the referral, we will have to wait for a court date. Once it has gone through the courts in Ethiopia, we will get a travel date to go to Ethiopia and bring home our new daughter! What an amazing blessing!!! God is so good!