How we are doing..

We are without words to describe how happy we are right now to be matched with our little Solomon. Well maybe I shouldn't say little...Solomon is a good eater apparently. I went out shopping this weekend to get Solomon some stuff to send for a care package. Our 7 month old guy is in 12 month clothing according to his height and weight measurements from when he was 6 months old. Crazy! I am so glad that he is a healthy growing boy.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for being so happy for us. Can I also just say how wonderful this Gladney adoption community is. Everyone has been so encouraging. Right now there are families in Ethiopia and getting ready to travel who are going to love on our boy. This family is going to give Solomon a gift from us. It was so hard to narrow down what we wanted to give him. We ended up giving him an outfit and pjs (I hope they fit him) along with a photo album of us.

Referral - the call story!!!!

Ahhh!! We got our call today!! It still feels like a dream and hasn't really set in yet. Here is how it happened:

So I was at work and it was after 2pm. I was thinking that since Gladney hadn't called yet that we were not going to get our call today because they were having an Ethiopian conference call for families this afternoon. So I figured our caseworker would be busy preparing for that conference call. So I went on with my day.  I was across the hall from my office and I heard my phone ring, but I didn't make it in time. Before I could see who it was it started ringing again and I saw the famous 817 area code.  I immediately started shaking and my heart was about to beat out of my chest. I answered and Kristin, our caseworker, told me she had our referral ready for us. All I could say was Oh my gosh like a million times. I told her that Matt and I wanted to be together for the call and could call her back in 30 minutes once we met up.

So I called Matt and he did not believe me that Kristin had actually called me. After several seconds of telling him I was not joking and that this really was the call, we agreed to meet at his work to hear about our referral after he went home to pick up the video camera. I left work and went straight to his office. Once we got the camera and computer all set up we called Kristin back. She sent us our email and we saw the cutest, I mean cutest baby boy ever! God has truly blessed us.

He is 7 months old and has the biggest brown eyes and chubby cheeks. He is just amazing! He is described to be very social, smiles easily and loves attention. I can't wait to get my hands on him. We have decided to call him Solomon.

So for all of you who are not in the adoption community, you may be asking what is next. Well now we wait some more. They are busy getting Solomon's papers ready and in order and will then submit them to the Ethiopian court system. In Ethiopia the court system closes down for the rainy season sometime in August and opens back up in October. Once we receive a court date we will travel over to Ethiopia for the court date and then come back to the US. Upon passing court we will then travel back to Ethiopia and bring Solomon home. We hope to have him home around November. Please continue to pray for us as now that we have seen his face it will be hard to be patient and wait for a court date.By the way we are not allowed to post any pictures of him until he is officially ours.

Number 1

We are number 1!!! I just read all about Shannon's call and then saw that Joanna got her referral yesterday too! So that makes us number one for a boy and a girl. I can hardly contain myself. AHHHH!!!!

8 months down...

Today marks 8 months on the wait list. I sometimes feel like this picture as all I think about is our baby and when we will get the call, court date, travel..etc. Hopefully our call will come soon. Unofficially we are number 1 for a girl and number 3 for a boy. Yeah!!!! We need to get on the ball with girl names..we don't have any yet that we both agree on. We have about 4 that we are considering for a boy. I am guessing that we will not make it through courts before they close for the rainy season as they have not yet given anyone a court date who has to travel twice as far as I know. So I am coming to grips that sometime in Oct/Nov we will have baby E in our arms.

While we are waiting

So "the call" really could come any day or it could be months. But just in case it could be any day I am carrying  my phone around with me wherever I go and for that one split second when it rings I think this could be it. Although we haven't gotten the call yet, I did get an important phone call today. We found out that our crib had arrived at the store and was ready for pick up :) Luckily my dad was able to help us bring it home because it never would have fit in Matt or I's car. Thanks Dad.  Here is Matt putting it together:

Here is the finished crib with my current baby in it! I love how it came it..ordering online can be tricky when you can't see or touch the object so I was a little nervous, but I am so happy with it.I can't wait till there is a real little baby in this room!