We accepted the referral of our little boy on October 15th. We are so excited!
I was able to connect with another family working with our agency and they are traveling to Addis next Wednesday and have offered to take more pictures for us and to bring him a little care package. We're going to include a blanket, some pjs, a little stuffed monkey from my mom, some pictures of us, and something of Beckett's so he can start to smell his big brother.
Today I went shopping for a few things for him so that can get the package together.
Now we just want to get him home.
Wow! I can hardly believe we're going to have another little boy in our family!

On October 6th while working on some rather tedious bookkeeping for my business, I got THE CALL.
A little boy 12 months (give or take) was carefully chosen for our family. And let me tell you, he is probably the most beautiful boy in all of Ethiopia. I can't believe his face. His eyes. His lovely skin. The shape of his little head. Amazing.
I know, I know. We thought we'd be matched with a girl, but there's no way we can say no to this little guy. He's already stolen our hearts.
I'd post the picture, but agency policy won't allow it. Just believe me, you will see why he's the one!

Our dossier documents have been approved and sent to dc. We are now waiting for them to be translated to Amharic and sent to Ethiopia which should happen in two weeks now. Once we are notified that they are in Ethiopia we are officially waiting!

Couple of other notes... there are something like 18 families waiting for a girl and 13 for a boy. A new regulation at the US embassy just popped up indicating adoptive children must be TB free before traveling to the US. we are not sure how this will impact the wait, but have been told probably 8 months to wait... Before we didn't mind the wait, but now I can see it may be much harder than we thought. We're so excited!

The Home Study is finally done!

After countless hours of coordinating and assembling paperwork we are finally just about ready to send off our dossier to Better Futures so that we can begin the exciting wait for a referral.
Our social worker was lovely and we spent many hours reflecting and discussing such a wide range of unexpected topics about adopting a child from Ethiopia, that I think we know ourselves and each other better than we could have ever imagined.
The report is written and approved. Once it gets here, we'll pack it all up for Minnesota and wait for a green light to wait...
It's starting to get real now. Wow!