Update From Our Agency...

So, it's been a while... I know, I know - we are evil for not updating this more often.  Sue us. 

Anyways,  earlier this month we received an e-mail from our agency with a bit of an update and current pictures of our beautiful children.

They are both doing well and looking as adorable as ever.  We can already see that they have grown some since their referral pictures.  This just makes us more anxious to travel to Ethiopia and meet them so we don't continue to miss out on their growth and development...and childhood in general! 

We did not get a court date before the court closure, which generally happens in August and September during the rainy season, so we are hoping for an October court date.  We will see...

Otherwise things are going well and moving along.  Our fingerprints expired with the immigration office (we've had like 3 sets/levels of clearance of livescan/electronic fingerprinting during this whole process) - so we have sent in for another appointment to get that done. 

Let's see...what else?  Oh, Jaime began a new position at World Vision International in mid-July.  There's a bit of travel involved in this new role and it has already taken her to Madrid for one week.  Everything is going well so far as she makes this transition. 

Now that we know the age/sex of our children we have been working on their bedroom more and purchasing items for specific children.  That last part might sound weird... "for specific children".. but, it really does change things and is sometimes interesting to get used to. 

Previously, we purchased clothing and other baby/toddler items without knowing the age and sex of our children OR anything about them really.  It is very "different" purchasing items for a child that is only imagined and/or anticipated in your head.  In reality, you don't even know if the cute clothes you just bought will EVER be used... because it could very well be a smaller size than you'll need. 

So, it is DEFINITELY more fun knowing who our kids are, having a real picture of them in our minds, and purchasing items for them personally as an individual that we have seen (at least a picture of) and know some stuff (their age/development etc...) about. 

What is really odd is going back through purchases we had made prior to the referral.  Because, before it was just:  "wow, this is a cute outfit."  Now, it is "ahhhhh, this will look so cute on him/ her...."  OR "Ah crap! This is adorable and will NEVER fit either of our children... whoops, should've left the shopping until we had the referral."   :-)

We have also received quite a few outfits from family and friends that seem to be enjoying making purchases now that they know who and what size is going to be joining the family! 

So, that's it for now.  Since we can't post any pictures of our (beautiful and nauseatingly adorable) children online (due to Ethiopian guidelines... which makes perfect sense, after all they are not even legally our children at this point...) I will at least try to post some pics in a few weeks with the progress we are making in the kids bedroom. 

We have already purchased bedding for both of the kiddos and made sure we have an over-arching color scheme that works well for both kids (since they will be sharing a room for the time being).  Translation of that last sentence:  "Sean is being psycho-anal, painting furniture like a mad man, carrying around paint color cards and swatches to make sure every item purchased passes his unrealistic perfectionist expectations, all while driving Jaime crazy in the process." 

Okay, I'm done.  If I don't stop now - I'll just ramble on forever...which I've already kind of done!

Sean