Bedding for our baby...

In letting go of the pink...we purchased gender non-specific bedding for Henri's room. We have the painter coming on Saturday to give a price quote to re-paint the walls yellow. Once that is done...we'll be going crazy with the dots. I love Target...and it matches perfectly with our red chair...it was meant to be!

Submitted to court...

Sue emailed to let us know that our paperwork was submitted to court yesterday. Now we wait. Not like we haven't been waiting for years already...but this is a good wait. Hopefully in the next two weeks or so...we will be assigned a court date. Once we have that court date...as long as everything goes well in court...we should travel to Ethiopia about two months after that date. Now the planning, anticipation, and organization really begins. Painter coming to give a price quote for the pink room Thursday morning. Can't wait to have Henri home...

Rockin' red moose!

I have been dying to buy the red moose for our future child for months. It's a sweet little something that has been at IKEA calling our name everytime we went to visit. Thanks to a gift card--the Rockin' Moose is ours! Well...Henri's. Can't wait to have him rockin' his little heart out in his room.

Speaking of room...after four years of a beautiful "lobster bisque" pink room in anticipation of our daughter from China...we have broken down and are letting go of the pink. Henri is already going to have an identity crisis with the pink jumpers he keeps wearing...and just yesterday...we received new/old photos of Henri when he first arrived at the transition house in Addis. Pink jumper and bib...with the words...DIVA. :) When he is 15...he's going to love that shot!

Lobster pink no more...we are painting the room a sunny yellow/gender non-specific color. We bought gender non-specific bedding at Target, and will look for a new rug in the next few months. I'll post photos soon. Right now...it's just a patch of yellow on a very pink wall. :) Who chose that color anyway? :)

What we know....

We don't know much. Last week we found out that Henri was from an agency in Hosanna. Mostly...we know that we will celebrate his birthday on June 20th. He weighed 7 lbs when he was brought to Addis. In August, he had already gained 3 lbs. Now, as of October 9th, he weighs 13 lbs.

He had a great health check when he first came to Addis, and he just went to the neurologist on Oct. 9th to confirm that all is OK. He has a habit of always having his tongue hanging out. The report states he is interactive with others, has good control of his head and neck, and they feel he is a healthy baby boy.

My cousin Linsey, who adopted two boys from Ethiopia and is a nurse, thought a tongue sticking out was a sign of malnutrition. His aunt, Dimpy, always sticks her tongue out when she is concentrating--and I do, too. Maybe it's just another sign he is a part of our family...

Info for Henri...

Henri is from an "E" orphanage. E stands for the person who runs the orphanage in Hosanna.. which is 4 hours from Addis. Just ended a chat with families...learn something new every week. Trying to piece together as much history as possible for our little one.

Might be in for a long wait....

I'm just about to jump on our agency's chat...but we did see a post today expressing concern about the wait time for getting a court date. Although I am a constant worrier...I'm not going to freak out yet. The Ethiopian courts have been closed for the month of September. They open on October 13th. Unfortunately, our agency has dossiers that were waiting in Ethiopia before courts closed, and were not given a date. So...they are anticipating a giant backlog...and it could be much later than we are hoping to bring our little Henri home.

Our dossier is in DC. It arrived this morning...and hopefully by early next week...it will be ready to be sent to Ethiopia. Maybe our best case scenario...is that the court processes everything right away, and by the time we are in line, we are assigned a court date right away. Realistically....could be January before we are assigned a date...meaning March or April to bring Henri home. We are grateful anyway...but we sure would love to have him with us! The wait is going to be excruciating.

Off to DC

It's official. We sent our dossier to DC yesterday...now we wait for it to be authenticated, and then it is off to Ethiopia. This is the first big step in our way to bring little Henri home, now we wait for a package from FedEx. :) Between the copying, sending, documenting, re-sending, we feel like valued share-holders in FedEx (which is no longer FedExKinkos for those of you who have a fondness for Kinkos Copies...as I did). Here is our celebratory photo...after we completed our dossier. Cheers to Henri!