The weirdest thing...

So, I get back from the neurologist with Chloe (our mini dachshund who was in for a follow up on her inflammatory brain disease), and see I've gotten an email from our agency. I anxiously open it, wonder what it could be about. It states the following:

"Hello
how are you? We do have the court date:
Court date March 17/2008"

Ummmm.... yes, I KNOW we have a court date, and I DEFINITELY know it's on March 17th! I hadn't sent any emails/questions prompting this, but our director sent it as a response to an email with questions (that he'd already responded to) from late last week. Ok... yep... weird. I would love to know what that was about. It seriously got me hoping and freaking out while trying to open the email and figure out what he meant. I've heard of families who had a court date a few days away that got a call saying they'd made it through court... so yep, the thought crossed my mind as I began reading an email that said "court" in it. Ugh... toy with my emotions, seriously! I'm not complaining because I'm seriously excited about our big day on Monday, it was just weird I guess. And I'm glad that at least he confirmed it's still the same date... I would've been devastated if it was an email about the date being rescheduled!

As for other news, 3 out of 4 pieces of our baby furniture finally arrived today! They had to inspect it before we could pick it up, and then we got a call back. Apparently only ONE crib and one dresser made it. We were told TWO cribs and one of the dressers were being shipped, and the other dresser was on backorder until late April. They're looking into what happened with the other crib.... we kind of need TWO of them, ya know?! Such a bummer... but I'm so excited to go pick up the pieces that did arrive! We've never even seen the furniture in person, so I hope it's as beautiful as it looked in the pictures! The nursery furniture was a gift from my incredibly generous, and WAY too giving parents. Otherwise, I think we would've been shopping at garage sales for everything! ;-)

My mom may even help me hang the mural today.... then the nursery will be JUST ABOUT there. I still need to touch up the paint in a few places, do my artistic grassy stuff on the bottom half, and then put up the chair rail... but we're GETTING there! Oh, and I also still have to paint the inside of the closet. Psh... details. I've been a painting machine though, and have gotten the room painted quite quickly so far! Soon I'll be able to get back to my sewing and finish up the quilts and baby blankets!

3 days til court! :-D

An incredible video

As we inch our way towards the big day on Monday, I'm spending WAY too much time stalking blogs and reading forum posts on the various Ethiopian Adoption boards I'm a part of. This evening, I saw a post with a link to this video. It melted my heart... what an incredible story. I had to share.

http://abcnews. go.com/Video/ playerIndex? id=4416303

We're hanging in there as we get closer to the big day. Only 3 more days! Wow, how exciting to say that! I think the next few days will go relatively quickly too... the weekends usually seem to fly by!

Baby updates from our agency!

My apologies for not getting this information posted sooner, it's been so busy, I'd nearly forgotten to add updates on our wee ones. We heard from our agency director last Thursday upon his return from Ethiopia. He returned with pictures and medical updates on Ezra and Olivia. At that point, we hadn't gotten any information on their sizes since they were three weeks old (we got the referral when they were five weeks old). Obviously they should be growing (quite a bit at this age...), yet the news was still shocking. Our little guy is now tipping the scales at a hefty 11 pounds! Yep, that's our boy! He's got a couple of chins now, and a few neck rolls... and we love them! No failure to thrive there, not a bit! Olivia hasn't gained as much, but is still growing rapidly and now just a bit shy of 10 pounds! They both look so much bigger!

It's exciting to see them doing so well (obviously no failure to thrive here!), yet also a bit heartbreaking missing these changes. It's partially that feeling of being so close, and yet so far. I look at their tiny little bodies from their referral pictures and sit in awe at how much they've changed! Olivia has the CUTEST little smile in one of the pictures, finally showing a bit of personality. Ezra still definitely has a cold, which means he's been dealing with it for at least a couple of weeks now. :( His nose is plugged up and you can see he has to breathe through his mouth. :'-( He needs his mommy! Ugh! This part is hard, I know they are SOOO well taken care of, but it still doesn't compare to having them home with their mommy and daddy!

On another positive note, we are now a mere 6 days (ok, 7 days if you include what's left of today) from court! Our babies are officially eligible for court as of Saturday, so we are SOOOO close to the point where we're "in the clear" and don't have to worry about any of those remote chances of something not going as planned. I think soon I may be able to breathe once again! Holy smokes... by this time next week we should officially be MOMMY and DADDY! WOW!

I'm going to go breathe into a bag now to try and stop hyperventilating...

Just kidding. I'm actually wavering between utter excitement and total peace about all of it. As we get closer, and make progress around the house so I can SEE how close we're getting to them, I've begun to feel more and more peaceful. Our children and beautiful and are thriving. I'm sure we'll make plenty of mistakes as parents, and I know twins is a scary thought for many people. Yet, I know Joe and I will manage and do we'll be an awesome family! We truly have been doubly blessed!

That's all for now... back to making progress! (I got the lower portion of the nursery painted, now I've just got to get the top half done... then we'll be ready to put up the mural!)

Taxes are D-O-N-E -- DONE!

Yep, that's right! Finally got my booty in gear and did our taxes this afternoon! I would have loved to have been painting the nursery (which is now skim coated and ready to go!), finishing the baby quilts, or running some errands that I need to do, but instead I forced myself to get those darn taxes out of the way! I knew I was quickly running out of time, so it feels great to have one more thing checked off the to-do list!

Now... on to errand running (my CostCo coupons expire TODAY!) and then maybe painting a bit!

Hooray!

8 days until court!!!!