Introducing Adam Ezekial (Zek)

We are home and so happy to be!!!!! Zek is doing well. We are exhausted so I will post more pictures later.

Leaving tomorrow morning for Ethiopia

We are getting everything ready to go (i think i may have overpacked!) and spending the evening with our girlies. Our plane leaves at 6 am tomorrow morning. We will be headed out from our house at 4 am. We are super excited!!!

We will be flying into Washington/Dulles airport and leaving there for Ethiopia. We will arrive in Ethiopia at 8:30 am Saturday morning!!!!!

I am still a little nervous about leaving the girls. I know that they will be ok, but it's still hard.

Pray for our safety and for peace for us and also safety and peace for our girls while we are gone.

We will meet Zek in 3 days!!!!

We will post as soon as we can when we get back!!!! Can't wait to share pictures!!!!

December 18th

If any of our family and friends would like to welcome Zek home at the airport please email me and I will give you our return flight information. My email address is cld123789@gmail.com. We return home on Dec 18th.

We are busy packing and preparing. I hope to get lots of stuff done over this weekend.

Continue to pray for peace for us and peace for the girls. Maggie said today that she didn't want us to go. She is really excited for her little brother, but scared to be apart from mommy and daddy for so long. I know she is going to have fun when we are gone. Just pray for peace for our two girlies.

8 more days to go!!!

We have been so busy around here preparing our trip to bring home Zek along with everything else that has brought business into our life's. Adam started a new job recently, so lots of changes going on around here! I feel like I have been neglecting the blog!

Here are some things that we have been doing lately...

This is our 3rd annual "Decorate a Gingerbread House" Thanksgiving morning. The girls had lots of fun decorating and eating. :)

Here are the girls playing in the leaves. After 6 1/2 years the trees finally make enough leaves to play in!

A few weeks back my mom and Adams mom threw a shower for me. It was a wonderful time! We are so blessed to have such great family and friends! Zek got lots of new stuff. I think he has a different outfit to wear everyday for a long time!
Adam was at the shower too, but he was behind the camera the whole time :)

Friends...Erin and Berkley, Kristen, (me), Maggie, Laura...and the top of Hazels head

My little brother Brandon, Dad, and little sister Brianna

Adams grandma, my grandma, Joe, my mom, my sister -Miranda and Ashton

The church gang. Patricia, April, Stacey and Olivia, Tabitha, Ashley, Lynda, and Katie

Adams mom doing a great job with the shower games. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it. I think the games were great!

Zeks new bouncer. Our referral pictures of Zek are of him laying in this same chair. So, it means alot. And we can put him in it when we get home and compare his pictures to him in it. We can see how much he has grown.

This shirt says it all. We do and cant wait to love on him in 13 days!

We, of course, need lots and lots of these!

That is a little of whats been going on around here. We have been packing and going over lists, and packing and going over lists. I am waiting to pack our stuff. There is alot of stuff to pack for a 3 month old! We received a package from our travel agent today with our tickets and stuff! It is beginning to be a little bit more real, but still not totally "real". We will be in Ethiopia so soon picking up our baby boy!!!!! Wow!!!!!

Please everyone pray for us as we are feeling anxiety about leaving the girls. I know it's only 7 days, but we have only left them overnight once! It will be good for us and good for the girls. They get to spend lots of quality time with there grandma and granny. We have presents for them to open everyday and a little note to let them know what mommy and daddy will be doing that day. Their first day they will be opening Build a Bear gift cards. I know that they will enjoy that!

I am also feeling a little anxiety about flying. I have no idea why. I have flown before, but not often. I have never been on a plane for 15 hours straight. I think that is what I am a little scared about.

I know that God will ease my anxieties and we will have peace throughout this trip.

We leave in 11 days!!!!!!!!!!! Soon we will get to kiss on those adorable cheeks, hear his coos and cries, and hug him and never let go.

We got the GREEN light

We got a call earlier from AGCI and they said that we have the green light. Our travel dates are confirmed!!! Adam was actually on the phone with the travel agent at the same time that AGCI called, so we booked our tickets right then. Worked out perfectly!!!

We leave on December 11th and will arrive in Ethiopia on December 12th at 8:30 AM. We will meet Zek the very next day!!!!!

3 weeks from today we will be on our way to our son!!!!!!

It still doesn't seem real!!!!

We will be there very soon baby boy!!!!!

I started packing. Right now it looks like a big mess because I am not really sure how to pack everything. We have 3 weeks to figure it out. :)

Tentative travel dates!!!!!!!!

We just got tentative travel dates from our agency!!!!!!!!!

We will need to be in Ethiopia on December 12th (zeks 3 month birthday). Gotcha day is the very next day December 13th!!!!!!! We will leave Ethiopia on December 17th putting us back home on either the 17th or 18th!!!!!!! From the start of our adoption for bringing Zek home is less than 8 months!!!!! Thank you God!!! You are amazing!!!!!!

I have called our travel agency already and they are looking into flights for us.

I really hoped that this is when we would be traveling and we are!!!!! Well, not confirmed yet. It will be confirmed next week and then we can book our tickets!!!!!!

We are coming little Zek!!!!!!

We also got an update on Zek. He is already 8 lbs and 8 oz and about 21.5 inches long!!!!! Our update says...

How to Approach the Child based in his Personality: You can pick him up and hold him. (so he wont be scared of us!!! :) )

Personality Adam is a content baby most of the time. He is sweet and adorable, loves to be held. (I love to hold my babies ALOT)

LIKES Classical Music – baby lullabies before bed while being rocked.

I am feeling anxiety about leaving our girls. Please pray for peace for us and for them!!!!

I cannot believe that in 23 days we will be leaving for Ethiopia!!!!!!! This is amazing!!!!! We have to start packing!!!!!

I had a baby shower thrown for me this past weekend and I will post pics soon!!!!

Guess What?!?!?....

WE PASSED!!!!!!!!

Zek is now legally our son!!!!!!!!! We are now a family of 5!!!!!!

We are so excited and so relieved!!!!! God is so good!!!! Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!!

next step: tentative embassy appointment and tentative travel dates (i really really hope its really really soon)

Also, today is Zeks 2 month birthday. So, Happy 2 month birthday baby boy!!!!!!

Above is a picture of his big beautiful eyes!!!!!! We cant post any full pictures of him until he is in our arms, which hopefully wont be too much longer!!!!

court

So today our paper chain is down to one link!

Tonight we will go to sleep (if we can sleep) and sometime while we are sleeping (Ethiopia is 8 hours ahead of us) a judge in Ethiopia will be making the decision on whether Zek is legally our son. We really really really pray that we pass court the first time. Some families do not pass court the first time for various reasons. We hope that everything is in place and we just pass! and we find out that we passed quickly!

Praying for Zeks birth mother as she has to be at court. I know that this must be hard for her. She is putting him in front of herself so that he can be provided a better life. The love she has for her child is amazing. We will be forever bonded as we share this same love for the same beautiful little baby boy.

Please pray that we pass and that we hear really soon!

update on our baby boy

We got an update on Zek today. Our case manager got the word that he is doing great and starting to eat more! They said that for an Ethiopian baby of his size the amount that he is taking in is good. They are also giving him a multivitamin and flax seed oil. I still need to figure out what this flax seed oil is. I have heard of it, but not sure what it is.

We are really happy to hear that he is doing great!

We have 3 days now left until our court date! I didn't think I would, but I am starting to get really anxious about it. I just want to hear really quickly that we passed and Zek is legally ours!

Passing time as we wait

A few things that we have done this past week...

Adam and I enjoyed the David Crowder concert :)

david crowder

David Crowder

Us at the show

The girls on Halloween...they were both starting to feel icky (they have both been sick since - yuck!)

The girls making our "huge" cupcake

The girls with our paper chain a few days ago. Counting down the days until our court date...It is now much shorter! only 4 days 'til court now!!! yippee

We also had our travel call this past Thursday with our agency. We went over what to expect when we are preparing to travel and also when we do travel!!! so exciting!!!!

This past week we have had lots of not feeling well. Maggie was sick first, then Hazel, and now me. Hopefully it passes by our house soon!

Last week we received word on how much formula Zek was drinking a day. It was only about 12 oz. This amount is not enough! They should be starting to mix cereal in his bottles, so hopefully this will help. The pediatrician is still thinking that he might have the floppy airway which could be why he isn't wanting to take in much formula (we will see). So we are praying that he starts eating better. We are also praying that we can bring him home even sooner than we think. We need to get to the bottom of his eating issues and also all the other things with him being in the hospital. I just want him home so we can figure it all out. It's hard being a mother to a baby so far away. I think especially when he has been so sick. We miss him so much!

We have court on Nov 12th!!! Its only 4 days away !!!

We are praying for Zeks birth mother as I can imagine this will be a hard time for her. Pray that she is able to make it to court and that everything is in place and we pass! We are also praying for peace for her.

Once we pass court Zek with officially be our son!!!!! We will travel a month or so later! Again, hopefully sooner than we think. Our pediatrician wrote a letter to try to expedite things since he has been sick. Although, we don't know if this letter will help things move quicker, but we sure hope so!!!

We love you Zek and we will be there to bring you home soon!!!!

He is back at Hannah's Hope!!!!!

We received word today that Zek is out of the hospital and back at our agencies transition home (Hannah's Hope)!!!!!

They said that he was doing well. There is a concern for his eating. They said that he wasn't feeding quit normal. I am a little alarmed by this and asked what that means. Our case manager obviously isn't in Ethiopia so she wasn't sure. I sent her an email to see if she would forward it on to Ethiopia so we can know exactly what is going on with his bottle feedings. They had the president of AGCI take some rice cereal with him when he left yesterday for Ethiopia. Our international pediatrician had recommended they do this, but there is no rice cereal in Ethiopia.

We are so overjoyed that he is back at Hannah's Hope! We are still concerned for him with his bottle feedings. Hopefully this gets better soon.

We received two pictures of him while he was in the hospital. I am really glad that we didn't get these while he was still there. Seeing him with little tubes coming out of his nose and an IV and just not looking well is sad. We did receive one picture of him back at Hannah's Hope. He is so super cute and looks like he is feeling well!

So we are glad that our baby is feeling better.

Please continue to pray for him and for complete healing. Also, pray for all of the other children at Hannah's Hope and that they stay healthy.

13 more days until court! We are so very excited!!!

update on our little guy

Zek is still in the hospital but doing better. The day before yesterday he was transferred back to the first hospital that he was at. The second hospital was a large hospital and the risk for him catching something else while there was high.

He is still on the antibiotics. He is drinking his bottle well.

I hope to hear that he is out of the hospital and back at HH soon. He has been in the hospital for a week now.

We still have concerns for him since one of the doctors had said that there was a mass in his airway. Though, now there is said to be nothing there. Obviously we will have this checked out as soon as we bring him home.

Our pediatrician is looking at his medical records that we received for his stay at the hospital. We are trying to figure out if it is aspiration pneumonia. Which would be from a floppy airway. He could easily get pneumonia if this is the case. We will have to send rice cereal to add to his bottle to help with this. It is where formula leaks down into the lungs because of the floppy airway.

We are having our pediatrician write a letter to try to expedite things after court to try to get him home faster. We dont know if this will push things along, but it is worth a shot.

Thanks for everyones prayers. Please continue to pray for healing for our little Zek. We feel so helpless not being able to be there for him. He is in Gods hands and God is really taking care of him.

Hopefully we will have awesome news soon that he is out of the hospital!!!!

Update on Zek

Thanks you everyone for all of your prayers for Zek.

Kiersten, our case manager, called a little bit ago and she got an update that Zek is doing better. He is not on oxygen anymore and they just diagnosed him with having pneumonia and not what they were thinking with all of the surgeries and things. She hopes to get more of an update later on today. I hope so too! :)

He is still in the hospital and on antibiotics. Please pray for complete healing for him and that he gets to get out of the hospital soon and back to Hannahs Hope.

We were relieved to hear that he is doing better!

continue to pray for our Zek

Friday our case manager called us with word that Zek had worsened.

This is what the email said from the representative in Ethiopia to our case manager...

"Adam is very ill . Adam was admitted to the hospital near us. And today, at 8:30am, we received a call from the special mother they are telling us the Dr has written referral for Adam to go to the Black Lion hospital, because they think he needs special kind of surgery by a specialist. Later I called for more info and talked to a nurse since the doctor was too busy to speak with me and was told that Adam has some growth somewhere by, or right on, his air pass area of his throat that has affected his vocal greatly and the condition can block his breathing. We said OK we were ready to go anywhere, but then there was not any oxygen machine that can be released with him to get him to the Black Lion. The hospital has a small oxygen machine but it was not filled with oxygen so they went to fill that up and said it will be coming soon. We waited and waited and waited until 4pm in the evening. Finally at 5pm, Adam was at this Black Lion hospital.

Initially we were told, they will do one of two kinds of surgeries on him: One is called Tarceostpmoy (this is how they spelled it for me not sure), the doctor explain to me to open tiny opening to help him breath and restore his vocal. And the second was to go from his mouth and to try to drain the fluid, but then they called the specialist who does this kind of surgical procedure but he will not come to the hospital to do this because they don’t have the equipment to do this procedure.

So then another doctor comes to do his examination and looks at the x-ray, looks at his breathing sucking level and then concludes that he might not need the procedures anyways, because they are not sure what his issues are. So, they are going to go head just observed him while treating him with two kinds of antibiotics, ceftrixon and hydroten (not sure the spelling) but I know they are antibiotics. So I am at home now. Nurse Mesekrum is with him. I am not sure what is going to happen. "

Our international pediatrician read over this and gave some recommendations as to what she thinks and we emailed a series of questions that hopefully they (in Ethiopia) can answer for us. This info was really confusing to us as well as the pediatrian.

Needless to say we are scared. Scared because we cant be there to make decisions for him and the medical care there is not what it is here. We know that God is in control, though. There are so many people praying for our little guy right now. We feel a peace today that everything will be ok.

Last night when traveling home from visiting my Dad's house I was looking up in the sky and saw the moon. I was thinking about how Zek was asleep under that same exact moon and that we see the same moon living so far away from each other. As I was thinking about this Adam said "do you ever think about how Zek is asleep right now under the same sky and sees the same moon?" It was pretty amazing that God gave us that at the same time. Bringing us peace.

This morning on the way to church we were talking about Zeks condition and how we were feeling and I looked up and saw the bright sun shining and making this awesome rainbow thing in the sky. It hadnt rained, so it wasnt that typical rainbow that you would see after a rain when the sun came out. We felt like it was God saying that it will all be ok.

We also had prayer at church this morning and feel much more peaceful.

In saying this we are still so concerned for our baby boy. It is really frightening and we have been really disturbed. Lots of tears.

Our case manager said that if she got an email from Ethiopia over the weekend that she would forward it on to us. We havent received anything, so I guess we will have to wait until tomorrow when she calls us. I pray that she has wonderful news for us.

Please continue to pray for this baby boy.

Please pray for little Zek

Our case manager called us today with two things to let us know.

Zek is in the hospital. He has pneumonia. He is on an IV and antibiotics. She said that he is eating well. I think that is a good sign. A special mother is with him at all times in the hospital. I am feeling like a wreck right now. We should be hearing an update tomorrow on how he is doing. Could everyone please pray for our little guy? He is only 5 weeks old and so tiny.

On the other hand she also had great news for us. We have our court date set for November 12th!!!!! So maybe as long as we pass first time around then we can bring our baby home before Christmas?!?!

Please pray for peace for Adam and myself and for healing for little Zek.

This phone call sent me on an emotional roller coaster. Such sad news that our baby boy is so sick, but such exciting news that we have our court date in just 3 weeks!!!! The court date is on his 2 month birthday :)

second new post

The post below is new. I wanted to update it with a picture, but if I try to put it on that post it places it at the top. Anyways, we decided to try out the moby wrap with my girls. This is my 5 year old in it! I thought it was pretty funny...they thought it was funny too. I think Zek will fit in it a little differently! :)

pumpkins, nursery, waiting...

Today marks 2 weeks since we were introduced to our baby boy. We have been floating since. We have been preparing things for his arrival since now we know how old he is. We cant stop looking at his pictures. There are only 3 pictures, but they are the most adorable pictures ever! We cant wait to hold our little baby boy for the first time. I cant wait to hear what his little coos sound like, what his cry sounds like, what his skin feels like, what he smells like, and I cant wait to get my hands on that hair! We are longing for you baby Zek. Mommy and Daddy are ready! Hope to hear of a court date soon!

This week we have gotten Zek a moby wrap for mommy and daddy to caring him around in, a bundle me for his car seat, and a bumper for his crib. and grandma bought him his first piggy bank. It's so much fun buying new or new to us baby stuff!

We had a call with our case manager tonight about the next steps. Getting court date, passing court or not passing court, embassy appointment, and everything in between. She said that she thinks we will have court in November. I sure hope so :) She also said we may not get any updates on Adam Jr. until we travel! :( He is going to change so much! We will just pray that we can get him home quickly!

Below are some recent pictures...

Pumpkins!!!!!

The girlies and their pumpkins. Maggie drew a dog (daddy carved it) and Hazels is a cat. (mommy drew and carved hers)
This is Hazel playing in her doll house. She has a picture of baby brother and is making him go down the dollhouse slide. too cute! she loves to play with her little brother already! :) She calls him "tacta" (Africa)
This is Zeks nursery. There are a couple of white shelves that don't have much on them that we hope to pick up a few things in Ethiopia and put on them.
I made the wall hanging of Africa with the heart on it. (new moby wrap sitting on dresser :) )
More of his room. The new piggy bank is by the window. The bumper we got is really cool. It is called Breathable baby. very neat and safe!

Tom's Shoes

Ethiopian Courts are officially open!!!!

We heard today from our case manager that they were open!

A great family that we have been following along with their adoption journey heard the news that they passed court!!!! Yipee!!!!!

We are ready to hear of some more upcoming appointments!!!!!! and ready to hear about ours too!!!!!!!

Referral paperwork off and some new pictures

We have mailed in all of our referral paperwork to AGCI and they will receive it all today sometime. Everything is notarized and signed. We picked up our Social Worker Approval paper on Monday and also received our International Pediatrician review on Monday. We mailed it all that night. I wanted to overnight, but Adam decided on the two day delivery.

We had our transition call with AGCI's family education coordinator last night. We went over our transition plan for our baby. One thing that will put the grandma's in shock is that Adam and I are the only one's that should hold our little guy for the first 3 to 6 months. I am not sure if we will be able to stop them from picking him up when we get off of that plane. :) After that I am sure that they will cooperate. :)

I am ready to hear of the courts being open and families passing their scheduled court dates this week. I am really ready for our court date to be scheduled. I am ready to hold our tiny little guy!


Here are a few new pictures. I haven't posted any in awhile...

Daddy and Mommy seeing little Zek for the first time

Things we sent to AGCI to mail to our little guy at Hannahs Hope. Adam and I made the bear at Build A Bear on our last date. And the little photo album is filled with pictures of Daddy, Mommy, and big sisters.
This is my little reptile lover. It's funny because not even 30 seconds before this picture was taken she was screaming because there was a lady bug flying around her! This python is 30 lbs!
Hazel yesterday at the playground
Maggie swinging upside down. She has become my little monkey.
Hazel my little daredevil!

We cannot stop starring and thinking about this baby boy...

We cannot wait to hold him for the first time...

We are hopefully going to be able to send our referral packet all filled out and notarized back to
AGCI either tomorrow or Tuesday. We are waiting on a paper signed by our social worker and our transcript from our phone call with our international pediatrician.

We have our referral call on Tuesday evening.

We are still on cloud 9 and LOVING every minute of it!

Our call

(i just looked over all of this and it is a REALLY long post...)

Ok, so we have been floating around here....it's been a whirlwind of emotions!

Our call story will actually start out Tuesday October 6th. As you can see from the post two below this one I was a little bummed. I had come to believe that we were unofficially #1 on the boys list. Kiersten, our case manager, emailed us our official wait list number Tuesday evening. We came in at #2 on the boys list. Oh, I was bummed...

I had been really stressed over this call. I tried not to be anxious, but I was. I checked my phone every 5 minutes, my blog every 5 minutes, and my email every 5 minutes. I was literally driving myself crazy! I had our video camera set out and our camera ready to go. If I left the house I made sure that the camera was with me. I was beginning to feel really impatient.

After the update on Tuesday I realized that I need to completely give this up to God. No wondering when it would be or wondering what other people were posting. I decided to not look or update my blog until our referral, not looking at any posts on the listserv (yahoo group for our agency), and just not worrying about it. I prayed about it that night and also during my quiet time on Wednesday morning. I felt really peaceful all morning and really joyous, like a burden had been lifted. Not that it was a burden, but I always had my mind racing. I was watching my nephew, Ashton, as I do every Wednesday for my sister, so we were pretty busy around here. Schooling my 5 year old and looking after two two year olds. Amazingly I was very calm and relaxed. So we took a walk because it was a beautiful day. We went to the playground in our neighborhood and played. The kids really had a great time together. After I got the two year olds in the stroller and Maggie and I started walking back home my cell phone rang. I didn't think anything of it. I looked and it was the area code for Portland. I was like "I wonder why she is calling?" (i had gotten the official numbers about 15 hours previous to this call.) I answered "hello". "hi christie this is kiersten with all gods children"
me - "hi kiersten"
her - "how are you?"
me - "good we are just going for a walk because it is such a beautiful day"
her - "its nice to enjoy this fall weather"
me- "yep it is"
her - "well the reason for my call is i have a baby boy i would like to talk to you about"
me - "are you serious?"
her - "yes" (giggle)
me - "no way"
her - giggle "yes" "is now a good time or do you want to get back to your house?"
me - "i will wait until we get back to our house"
her "ok give me a call back and we can conference adam in"
me- "ok, it will be about 20 minutes"
her - "ok i will talk to you then"

So now here I am wanting to run as fast as a can home. I have a double stroller with two kids in it and another walking. So I take Maggie my 5 year old and put her in the seat that my two year old Hazel is in and put Hazel on her lap. Now I am pushing the stroller plus like 90 lbs of kid. I get home as fast as I can. I think I burned alot of calories! On the way home I call Adam and say "Adam Kiersten will be calling you, do you have somewhere you can talk in about 20 minutes?" I tell him she has a baby boy she wants to talk to us about. Oh wow so exciting!!!!

So I get home sweating and shaking and wondering if what just happened was actually me imagining things. So I turn on the tv for the girls and ashton. Barbie fairytopia or something. Set up the video camera and get the camera out. Tell Maggie that I need her to take a picture of me. She resisted a bit, but then she said "only a few" So I sit down at the table and call Kiersten. She tries to call Adam on his cell and his work phone and he doesnt answer. I was like I just called him and told him she would be calling. So I called him on our home line and he said that it hadnt been 20 minutes and he was headed back to his office right then. Kiersten gets back on the phone and says she tried again and he didnt answer so we hung up. She finally get ahold of him and they conference me in. But before they got me conferenced in she accidentally dropped Adam and had to call him back.

Since the first call from Kiersten it now seems like an eternity, but it had been about 30 minutes.

She goes into telling us about our baby boy. He was born Sept 12th which makes him 3 weeks old. oh how sweet!!!!!! We were so amazed that he was so young. For some reason we imagined that he would be older. He weighs just over 6 lbs...oh he is so tiny!!! my two year old weighed 9 lbs and 15 oz at birth!

She then tells us his name. She said that this she finds really interesting.....(I know I am not supposed to post the baby's name here, but I have to) His name that his birth mother gave him is non other than.....Adam!!! Wow, God, you are amazing!!!!! This baby was definitely meant for us. What a sign!!!!! He shares the same name as daddy!!!! and daddy is so proud!!!

She told us about his birth mother and her story...She told us about all of his background info...She told us about his medical stuff, which looks really good!!! Alot of what she told us was a blurr, so fortunately everything she told us was in the email she was sending us.

She also told us to let her know as soon as we could if we wanted to go ahead and proceed and get our referral packet. I said I can tell you right now that we want to move ahead. So she overnighted the packet to us. (we got it this morning)

So then we got off the phone and Adam couldnt leave work for about 45 minutes. So I decide to start calling our family so I can keep busy waiting for him to come home to see this sweet baby boy for the first time.

So Adam gets home and we open his pictures. We got 3 of them. I wanted more so bad! He is so tiny and so adorable!!!!

We were so excited and so so very surprised by our call. I wanted a surprise and a good call story and we got one!

My heart is aching for little Adam's birth mother. We will forever be attached to this women and I will forever pray for her. It is so hard imaging her circumstances and my emotions are pouring out for her right now.

This little guy is so amazingly handsome. I so wish I could show him off to all of my bloggy friends right now!!! He has so much hair!!! and it is really straight! I am not sure if this is baby hair and it will come in differently or not. If any of you out there know feel free to let me know.

Our international pediatrician already got back to us this morning and she gave us the green light! He looks perfectly healthy and all of his medical stuff checks out well and all of his tests were negative!!! yay!!!!!

So now we are gazing at his pictures at all times. We had a bunch printed and I put some black and white ones in the frames in his room. I still need to post pics of his room!! I will try to do that soon! Right now we are working on all of this referral packet and we have our referral call this next Tuesday!!! Moving along so quickly!!!

It hasnt even been 6 months since we were first approved with AGCI! This has been an amazing journey that God has sent us on :)

And before I forget...I said I would tell you his name that we are giving him when we got our referral...Ezekial and calling him Zek and putting his African name as his middle name...but wait...with that name Adam we have been thinking differently....His name will be Adam Ezekial, but we will still call him Zek. Adam said that he had thought about this earlier in the day today and I actually had as well. So that is what his name will be!!!

Here are some pictures for you all to enjoy...

I am going to bed!

His sweet little hands

Look at all of that hair!!!

We got....

THE CALL!!!!!

more to come...

Official waitlist numbers

We just got an email from Kiersten, our case manager, with our official wait list numbers. Much to my surprise we come in at #2 on the boys list and #3 on the siblings list (in case of twins).

I am very excited to be #2. I shouldn't have made myself think that we were #1, because it is a bit of a disappointment. But, I guess that means I can relax a bit because the call my not come as soon as we thought. I also guess this will make for a better surprise!!!

So in saying all of this...I really am excited!!! I guess it was wishful thinking...

look at email - check

look at our blog - check

look to make sure I didn't miss "THE CALL" even though the phone is at my side at all times -check

repeat...

I may be driving myself crazy...

Friday night Adam and I had our first night away since we have had kids. The last time we stayed away was when I was pregnant with our 5 year old daughter! It was so nice leaving the girls for a night. We got to sleep in until 9:30!!!!!!! We got to go out to dinner, sit in the hot tub, relax and watch HGTV! We dont have cable so watching HGTV was a treat! If I had that channel at home I dont think the tv would ever leave that channel. Love it! So all in all our night away was fabulous!!!! Now we need a few more nights away before baby #3 comes along really really soon!!! I brought our camera, but we forgot to take pictures!

On the adoption front we are still pretty sure from some insider tips that we are for sure #1! I guess we will know this week either by our official monthly update or by a referral. Please be a referral! I didnt have to stare at the phone all day for the past two days, but tomorrow is Monday so I guess it's back to checking my phone every 5 minutes!

Hope to have wonderful news soon!!!!!

calzones, phone calls, minivans and getting older

Is it normal for me to not be able to concentrate at all? All I can think about right now is "The Call". I was making calzones for dinner tonight and I accidentally made pie crust instead of pizza dough! Good thing I realized it before I stuffed them and baked them! Then I made the calzones and forgot to put ham in the cheese mixture! I remembered after they were half cooked so I tried to open them, but I couldn't so I just stuck the ham on top of them! They turned out to be really good. My mind is mush!

I thought I was crazy before we were expecting our call any day! Now I really feel crazy! And people keep on calling and right before I answer the phone I think "I hope its All Gods Children". I get disappointed every time. We don't have caller id, so I wont know if its her until I pick up the phone. The call will be soon. I keep on reminding myself to enjoy this excitement.

God has the perfect day picked out just for our referral. I really wanted it to be on my birthday yesterday, but I was thinking today that the day needs to be it's own special day.

Adam and I went out tonight to look at minivans and found one that we may buy. It will be a fantastic deal with our trade in. We are borrowing it for a few days so we can have it checked out by a mechanic. The girls love it! Getting older yesterday and now buying a minivan really makes me feel old! With 3 kids a Mitsubishi Lancer really isn't gonna work! I tried to figure out how to squeeze 3 car seats in and it just doesn't really work!

Praying for the perfect peace while we are so anxiously waiting and for our minivan shopping...

Every time the phone rang today...

My stomache did a flip.(i hadnt experienced this yet)...

No call yet, maybe next week?!?!? I dont want my stomache to have to do flips for too long!! :)

Our referral will come the day the hour the minute and the second that God intends it too. I just need to keep on remembering that! :)

We are ready

We are now definitely #2, but I just have this feeling the the mystery family in front of us already received their referral so we may be #1!!!!!! Come on Call!!!!! We are ready to hear about our baby boy!!!!!!!!!!! Still praying for patience :)

Monday would be a nice day for the call. It's my birthday and that would make the perfect birthday gift!

Congrats to the families who just received their referrals yesterday!!! What exciting news!!!!!

Its really hard...

Being the mother of a baby you have never seen and dont even know...

Going a little crazy waiting...

I am ready...

Maybe more posts soon to come...I have lots of new pictures of the girls, just no time to post them! :)

unofficial but official to us

A wonderful family received there call today for a baby boy. I have been following them from the beginning of our adoption and I am overjoyed for them. It's nice to be able to follow along with others on this journey!

So this now puts us at #3 on the boys list!!!

We are so so excited!!!! My emotions have been here and there and everywhere!!! I am so anxious for our call, but I know God has His timing. I have to wait on His timing. Can His timing be tomorrow?!?!? I cant wait to hear about our baby boy and see the pictures of this child that we have been praying for and that has been growing in our hearts. God has this child handpicked for us and right now the hardest part is not knowing. Not knowing the situation that he is in right now and not knowing what he is doing. I guess really we just don't know anything! With Maggie I will ask her what she thinks her brother is doing right now. It's fun to imagine what he is doing, sleeping, eating, playing...

ok I am ready...

So now we know who is #1 on the boys list, but we have no clue who is #2...this is going to be hard for me. But maybe it will make for a bigger surprise when we do receive our call!!!

Continue to pray for our family and the finances of this adoption. We have applied for grants and are just waiting to hear back from them.

New official numbers!!!!

Kiersten (our case manager) called Thursday night and gave us our new official numbers. During the call she went over what to expect when we get our referral call. That means that very very soon we will be receiving our call!!! We cannot wait to see our baby boys face for the first time and cant imagine how that will feel. Soon we will find out!

So on the boys list we are officially ......

We are also #7 on the siblings list. We are getting so close and cant believe how fast everything is happening. We started our adoption a little over 4 months ago and we are already this close!!!! God is amazing!!!!!!

Now that Hazel is in her big girl bed in her big girl room we can really get to working on baby Z's nursery. It will be sad to paint over the pink, but we are excited to decorate for a baby boy! Oh and yes that is the first time I have said on our blog what his name starts with (the name that we are giving him). We will announce it when we have the referral!

Hopefully soon we can post some photos of his nursery finished!

birthday, big girl bed, first days of school...

Last weekend we celebrated Hazels 2nd Birthday! She had a Hello Kitty birthday party and got to go to Build A Bear and build her very own Hello Kitty! It's hard to believe that it has been two years since welcoming our 9 lbs 15 oz new baby girl into our family. She has done so much changing the past two years. Now saying lots of words, showing her likes and dislikes, climbing on everything, seeing how everything works (we call it being curious!), being so lovable, sleeping in her big girl bed, and playing right alongside big sister. She is an amazing little girl with so much energy and imagination. (pictures below)

On Hazels birthday she decided that she wanted to sleep in her big girl bed, so we let her try. On previous attempts it has not worked out! This time it did! and now she has slept in it for 6 nights in a row all night long! We were actually looking into getting another crib for baby brother because we didnt think that we would be able to get her to make the transition! She did it on her own! God you are so good! Now lets work on the potty training thing!

Another big even this past week was Maggie starting Kindergarten. She goes to a school that is 3 days a week home schooling and 2 days a week at school. It is a hybrid school. We are so very excited about it and think it is the best of both worlds! Although it has been very difficult dropping Maggie off the two days this week! She is my baby girl and really hasnt been away from me much! I cried both days. Hopefully next week I will feel a little better about it. Hazel was very upset the first day. She probably wondered why we were leaving Maggie. Maggie LOVES the school. She couldnt wait to go back for her second day! It is nice getting one on one time with Hazel. I had never been anywhere with just the two of us. We got to go to the zoo on Thursday and it was a lot of fun just focusing on her. So we will enjoy that for the next few months until baby brother comes and then we can enjoy time with him too!

Our 9 lb 15 oz newborn Hazel
Happy Birthday to you!
She doesnt like to get her hands dirty!

Loving her kitties
us on her birthday
sisters
Build A Bear
Picnic with Olive Garden (tradition now...its what i ate right after giving birth to Hazel so now we get carry out from there on Hazels birthday every year. )
First night in the big girl bed!

Maggies first day of home school

getting ready to go to school for the first time


Maggie and her new teacher
Hazel upset to leave her sister.