Just for laughs

For those of you needing a goofy pick me up... this should hopefully do it. Joe shared this with me this evening, and I have to admit it's pretty funny! Don't ask me how he had time to be watching goofy videos on YouTube with all we have going on though! ;-)




Hope you enjoy!

Baby steps forward

I can tell you one thing, my heart is still receding from my throat back down into my chest. I don't know why my heart leaps into my throat anytime I see an email or phone call from our agency now. Well, I guess I do know why... until Olivia Yodit and Ezra Tewodros are officially ours, I'm on edge a bit. Anyway, I just received an email from our agency (in response to an email I sent yesterday), and saw it had an attachment. I immediately figured it was either more pictures somehow (I know, keep dreaming!), or some sort of bad news. In general, my philosophy on life is to be optimistic and look at the cup half full. Why can't I do this now?! I am so afraid of the uncertainty of this part of the process.

The update from our agency director was all good. One more step in the process of getting to court was taken, and for that I'm thrilled. According to the agency, we will hear something about our court date "in the next weeks." A bit vague, but I'll assume it means 2 or so more weeks since we were originally told it'd be 3 weeks or so after accepting our referral that we'd hear back about our court date.

I can't say I haven't been busy lately, and that should be helping pass the time. Late last night I began trying to design the quilt pattern for Ezra and Olivia's quilts, and I can't say I'm feeling like this is my forte. I love being crafty, sewing, etc., but rarely do I do it. It's been a couple of years since I've sewn a quilt, so who knows how these will turn out. I'd be thrilled to use a pattern from somewhere, but haven't found one that was easy for me to visualize it working with the fabrics and prints I have. I'm using a light pink fabric with brown accents for Olivia's, and a light blue with brown accents for Ezra. They will both use some brown/white zebra print fabric, and a brown leopard print. I also got a number of fat quarters in various light tans/browns to mix in if needed. The quilts will be the same other than the pink/blue fabrics.

Room and furniture arrangements is still in the works. Hopefully we'll get this decided upon sometime in the next week or so. We have a big, beautiful desk with a peninsula on it in our office, but since the office is the larger of our two rooms, it looks like we may have to set it up as the nursery. It's fun to figure it all out, but also a bit difficult. Once we move our big honking desk, I don't want to decide we don't like what we decided and move it again later! I also want to be able to put up the mural when it arrives, and that means we need to start prepping the wall we're going to put it on.

All in all, I'd say we've got plenty going on to keep us busy. Soon enough, we'll be getting a court date, becoming Ezra and Olivia's parents legally, and then hopping on an airplane to go meet them! :-D

And my productivity soars...

Well, I can tell you one thing our referral has done... it's increased my productivity enormously! On Thursday, my mom and I got the cribs and dressers ordered (which should be arriving April 10th or so). Yesterday, I finally decided I WAS NOT going to find the right crib bedding sets, and should just make my own. Do I have the extra time for it? Maybe, who knows. I will MAKE time. I bought fabric and am ready to start laying out the quilts for our beautiful babies.

The most impressive step we took was in deciding on names for them! We are happy to announce that their names are Ezra Tewodros and Olivia Yodit! I spent a lot of time stressing over how I could incorporate my late Grandma's name, Sue, into Olivia's name, but didn't want to give her 2 middle names, and we really didn't want to get rid of their Ethiopian names. Tewodros means "King of Ethiopia" and Yodit means "Woman from Judea." With such strong, meaningful names, we knew they had to stay. :-D



I ALSO splurged a bit and ordered this AWESOME wall mural last night for the nursery. I've dreamed of having a Safari nursery for years, long before I knew we'd adopt from Ethiopia. I worried about whether that would be cliche since our children are coming from Africa, but decided that was silly to stress over. So, I ordered a big mural (10'2" wide by 4'8" tall) to put on one wall of the nursery. It is called "The Sentinels" and is a landscape of the Serengetti with a tall Umbrella Thorn tree, three giraffes, and some zebras. There were SO MANY cool ones, it was a tough choice. I finally decided this one had a level of calm to it that some of the stampeding zebras didn't... as cool as they were! Check out the mural we chose (and others) at: http://www.muralsyourway.com/myw4-design.cfm?pid=MMIARK2003. I'll tell you what I think of it once I get it here and put up. THAT will be the challenge for me! ;-)

Joe thinks I'm nuts with all the projects I'm taking on... but staying busy is a GOOD thing for me. Since I can barely stand to be halfway around the world from Olivia and Ezra, I have to keep working on things that make me feel closer to bringing them home. Even the unnecessary things like making the neatest, most fun nursery for them that I possibly can! The biggest challenge has been trying to make it a nursery that has a little boys element AND a girly element too. Hence... I'm making my own crib quilts and bumpers! Wish me luck, I'm sure I'll need it. Sewing isn't the trouble, it's the layout that always gives me the most trouble with a quilt.

As for my job, I'm still working on a resolution. I have a meeting with my boss at 3:00pm today that I'm admittantly dreading. Her lack of enthusiam aside, I know she wants me to be working on finding a new job, and until I have one, that's stressful. Especially considering that our "side" business now looks like it'll be able to take over my job and income in the next couple of months! Not trying to count chickens before they hatch or anything, but THAT would be awesome! I KNOW we can do it! And in the meantime, I'll do whatever I can to work with my boss and try and make sure my company is happy with my efforts. I agree with everyone that's said not to let her thoughts get to me, and try to live my life that way. There are people that aren't supportive of adoption and don't understand where you're coming from. That's why I'm so glad I've met so many wonderful people to share in the excitement! Thank you to all of my wonderful friends and family, local and distant, that have supported and encouraged us every step of the way. Your love and support means the world to us!

Back to work... make it a great day!