8 days to go

More pictures of Zaid. In one week I will be one my way to get him. There is still so much to do. I can't wait. Mara loves his Zebra shirt and we are just glad to see him in boy clothes. Mara also picked right up on the fact that he had a tear in a picture and she just kept kissing his picture to make him better. Soon he will be in my arms. Very soon after that he will be part of the family and I am sure he will be fighting with Mara, and she will have forgot how concerned she was over that tear.

I am so excited to go get him and a little anxious to leave my other kids. I am so glad we have some time in Amsterdam for just Chris and I. We will definitely need some time alone before our new adventure begins.

My little man

Zaid Henok, Welcome to the family!!

So much has happened since my last post. First of all we had our court date on August 20th and everything went well. Zaid Henok is officially ours!!!! We are so excited. We have our embassy date which is on September 29th, so we are counting down the days until we travel. We have so much to do. We have to get the last of our shots and make arrangements for our other kids and get plane tickets and hotels. My head has not stopped spinning. I am gathering up donations to take to the orphanage so if anyone has clothes they want to get rid of let me know. We are also taking diapers and wipes and hand sanitizer.
We also sold our house and are building a house. So when I am not working on the adoption I am working on house plans. We are really excited about the move. Our kids had to switch schools and they weren't very happy at first but now they love it. Taylor just had a volleyball game on Wednesday and she did great. They won, so she was super excited.
Dax will be starting pre-school next week. WHOO HOO!! He is growing so fast, I am going to miss him. I bet my house is a lot cleaner and quieter but less entertaining.

For some reason I can not post pictures tonight. I will keep trying but I have some of Zaid on Facebook.

Update

It has been so long since I last posted. A few things have changed. We are getting ready to move. We will be closing on our house on the 16th of July, and moving in with my parents while we build. It has rained everyday for it seems like forever so we really haven't done to much this summer. We are waiting for our new little member of our family. We got an update on him yesterday, and new pictures. He is getting big and looks like a little man, he is adorable. It was so good to see recent pictures but now that is all I can think about. We need him here with us. Our dossier is in Ethiopia and is still being translated. As soon as that is done they will give us a court date and then we will travel in 4-6 weeks after getting the court date. We are praying that everything goes smooth and as fast as possible.

For Mothers Day Chris got me the picture that I posted a few post ago, its called the worth of a soul by Liz Lemmon Swindle. I love it!

Dax looked at the picture and said "Hey, is my brother black?" (We had explained to all of our kids that he had dark skin and he was from Africa. Well I guess in Daxtons mind he thought his brother would just have dark skin like he does. Dax is our super tan little guy.) So I said yes your brother is black. And he said "sweet! My friend Elijah is black and now I have a black brother just like Elijah. Thats sweet!" Naeve was horrified because she thinks we should say brown and not black. But either way he is a little darker than Dax.
I just love it that kids are so color blind. He's their brother and they love him. If the rest of the world could be that way it would be great.

The other day I was driving home with Naeve and we were alone. Naeve is usually super quiet but she was so chatty and asking me a million questions. She kept asking me how bad it hurts to have a baby. I told her it hurts pretty bad. Then she wanted to know who saw the baby first, like the doctor the mom or the dad.
Finally I said why do you want to know all of this? It will be a long time before you have kids. She said "Well, I need to know how bad it hurts so I know if I am going to have kids, cuz if it hurts real real bad I am not having any." So I told her that they can give you good medicine so it doesn't hurt too bad. Then I asked her what she thought and she said "I am going to be a doctor so I can be the first one to see the baby and then I will give it to the nurse to clean it off and then she can give it to the mom. Then I am going to get married to someone with a job(good idea) so I can have one girl and one boy and stay home and do fun stuff like laundry all day." Well, I could not ask for a better life for Naeve. I can't wait to remind her how fun it is to be home doing laundry all day!!

I heart homeland security!!!

Why?? Because today I got the call that we get the green light from Citizen and Immigration Services(CIS) of Homeland Security.
What does this mean?
For those familiar with international adoption, you know that nothing can proceed without that entirely sacred document from Citizen and Immigration Services (CIS) of Homeland Security that grants our family the official seal of approval to bring foreign orphans into our all-too-blessed nation as permanent residents and future citizens. Yeah!!!
So as soon as I receive the official paper. I send 19 notarized papers to Washington DC and then they send it to my agency and then they send it to Ethiopia and they give us a court date. So with lots of prayers, that means everyone start praying!! We will be headed to Ethiopia before they "close" for 6 weeks in Sep. That means we could be traveling to get our baby in as soon as 3-4 months. I will not even mention the money right now cuz I am just to happy to think about it.
So, I need everyone who wants to get rid of their "junk" to give me a call. I will be having a yard sale either this weekend or next. Any other amazing fundraisers? Let me know?

Whats in a name?

We are still trying to decide on a name for our little guy. We are debating between:
Zaid or Zade, McKai, Maddox, or Kyan.
They are all African names but not so far out there. His name is Henok right now and we will probably leave that as a middle name. Let me know your input.

His 2nd birthday is tomorrow, April 14th. Oh my heart is breaking. This is so hard for me because I just want to have him home having a big birthday party. It makes me sad to think that he will not even know it is his birthday and will have no presents to open. I bought him a couple of outfits, a blanket, a lightning McQueen car, and a ball but then I thought how sad it would be for all of the other kids to see him get all this stuff, so our agency said they would send a photo album and his blanket to him from us. It is super expensive to send things over to him and they send stuff every week. We are hoping we will have him in August but realistically it will probably be in Oct. The whole country closes for the month of Sep.

My friend Marianne is throwing a cyber birthday party for him. Check out her Extraordinary Housewives blog (on my list) for details. Thanks Mare you are the best!!

IT A BOY!!!!!

We got great news yesterday, we are officially parents of the cutest little guy from Ethiopia !!!! YAHOO!!! We got the phone call last night and then the official email this morning. Adoption is quite the journey. I have gone from total excitement to complete mental breakdown and back so many times in the last 24 hours. I'm sure Chris is so confused when one second I'm excited and the next I'm crying because of the money (or lack thereof) or because my baby is in an orphanage growing everyday without me, or then because I am thinking of his birth mother who had to make an unimaginable decision in order to save her child. I don't think I have cried as much in my whole life as I have in the last couple of months. It just really makes you put everything into perspective. I know adoption is not for everyone and I truly believe that this desire to adopt is part of a greater plan. I have always wanted to adopt and after having such a hard time with Mara I realized this is just part of the process we needed to experience to lead us to adoption. Taylor and I were talking last night about how much she already loves her little brother and he doesn't even know us. It touched my heart to see how excited she is and to see the compassion she has. I have been looking at his picture and thinking about him just like I did when I was pregnant. I even keep thinking he looks like my other kids. He just has a permanent tan:) I must be looking at his picture way to much. Chris and I spent 10 hours in classes last weekend and met some great people who are going through the same thing we are so that was great. Its always good to see people who already have four kids and are adopting more. Sometimes I feel like people think, What the heck why would you want five kids? Bring on the madness!!