Love!

All I can say is that WE ARE IN LOVE!!! Yesterday was a dream come true in every way!

Our kids are absolutely amazing. We were able to spend nearly 2 hours at their orphanage yesterday. The first meeting of them was quite overwhelming for all 4 of us! I choked back most of the tears in effort not to scare them, but emotion was right under the surface for both of us. Brian was immediately handed Baby T and I took Lil' A.

Baby T fell asleep in Brian's arms within 10 minutes of meeting her and she slept for over an hour on his chest. She made the most adorable sleeping noises and wrapped her little arms around his belly. She's got daddy wrapped around her little brown finger already!! Her hair is filling out and is soooooo silky and curly. She has chunks all over her arms and legs. We've yet to see a smile from her, but that's my goal today. :)

Lil' A was momma's boy yesterday - his 29 month birthday. He was so content sitting on my lap, staring at us with his enormous brown eyes, and he fell asleep on my lap in the counseling room when we were hearing about their history more. He slept on my lap for over an hour, too. We just held them on a bed and talked about how beautiful they were. Very surreal moment!!

They didn't cry once, but they did seem quite overwhelmed with us. Their eyes are as big as saucers. They loved their little monkey and bear security blankets. :) We hope to pass court on Wednesday so we can begin posting pics like crazy!! I think we took a couple hundred pics. :)

The Tikuret orphanage is wonderful - incredibly clean, organized, well kept, and joyful. All throughout the orphanage there are signs that speak of God's love and family. The mission and vision for the orphanage are proudly displayed in the greeting room. All the nannies are attentive to the children and they seem VERY well cared for. It's a relief for this momma, but definitely know the 1on1 attention is needed.

We're headed back to their orphanage this morning to spend a couple more hours with them. Baby T turns 9 months today. It's so great to be able to love on them on their monthly birthdays! Our family is together!!!

More news after our 2nd visit...

A Million Details. One Purpose.

Since we found out 6 days ago that we'll be leaving for Ethiopia in 2 days, we've been at Mach 2. Immediately 5 pages of lists started forming to get "things-to-do" out of my head and onto a checklist.

"Overwhelmed" doesn't begin to describe how Brian and I have been feeling. Overwhelmed at what we need to do to get on a plane. Overwhelmed to figure out work stuff while we're gone. Overwhelmed at the reality that we'll be holding our babies a couple months sooner than we anticipated. Overwhelmed at how God's re-written systems and policies enabling us and other families to be united with their babies sooner. Ovewhelmed that we might have a Christmas miracle in the form of the kiddos home! Overwhelmed at the prayers, comments, texts, calls, tweets, and messages from people like you exclaiming celebration, hope, prayers, and belief. Overwhelmed at a few incredibly sacrificial gifts allowing us to travel without any debt. Overwhelmed at the manna God's providing us every day. Overwhelmed at ridiculous offers to help us get outta here and get the kids' room ready. Overwhelmed that this is REALLY happening!!!

We are taking off for our trip on Thursday, and if you'd like to pray us through the journey here are a couple ways:

• Our court date on the 10th - pray that all that needs to happen in court on that day would be successful and that'd we'd become Lil' A and Baby T's legal parents that day.
• Bonding with our kids - we get to spend a few hours on a few days with our kids. Pray that God would knit our hearts together and allow that time together to to begin connecting our family together.
• Stayover in Germany - Brian and I have been gifted with a couple days to spend in Germany after Ethiopia. We hope to use those couple days together to celebrate, rest, and process our time in Ethiopia with our kiddos. Pray this time would be well spent, fun, and enlivening as we officially begin our journey as co-parents.
• Smooth Logistics - this isn't the most important thing, but obviously problems with flights, hotels, transportation, language, or courts could be really discouraging and unnecessary in our trip. Pray that satan wouldn't have a foothold in any of that stuff and we could have a smooth trip.
• Health and Rest - I've been fighting a cold for the past several days. Both of us haven't been sleeping well. We've found ourselves wide awake in the middle of the night. Needless to say, we're tired and a little under the weather. Not the best way to start a 24-hour trip to Ethiopia.

We hope to post while we're in Ethiopia. See ya on the flip side! :)

Baby Bucket List

As we are in our last phase of waiting to bring home Lil' A and Baby T, Brian and I have been thinking and talking a lot about how we want to make the most of these remaining months of just the 2 of us. For lack of a better catch phrase, we've loosely constructed a bit of a baby bucket list. Clarification: we do not think there's a death in parenting, just a massive change in our 9+ years of married life!

What's on the list? I thought you might ask. I don't know if we'll be able to accomplish all of what we've dreamed about for time and money reasons, but here's an unofficial list in no particular order:

• See as many movies in the theater as possible, even a few crappy ones!
• Go to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach and have dinner at Sevilla's, where we celebrated an anniversary a few years ago that launched us into a new way of partnership.
• Drive to NorCal to visit our friends who recently moved to San Fransisco.
• Overnight trip to Santa Barbara. [Brian's never been, and I only went for a day with my parents years ago. How that's possible, I have no idea!]
• Visit a couple art museums in L.A.
• Watch football all day on as many Saturdays as possible.
• Sleep as much as possible, especially on the weekends.
• Spontaneously go out with friends when the opportunity presents itself. [Brian's done that 3 times in the past couple weeks with buddies - including tonight. Love it!]
• Go out for breakfast on a Friday morning a couple times.

Any suggestions? Do you have any plans like this for your life transition?

**BTW: we got 6 more pics of Lil' A this week for no particular reason.!!! He's just really, really cute! I can't get over how in love I am with this little guy and his little sister.