In. Love.

We are smitten, in love, and head over heals! We have an almost 4 month old baby girl waiting for us in Ethiopia!! She is absolutely beautiful and perfect in every way!

We have been expecting our referral....for the past few weeks I knew it would be "any day". BUT I also knew it could be a month or more away. Our dossier (paperwork) has been in Ethiopia since January 27th. Referral wait times range from 2-4 months. So we had been waiting 2 1/2 months. Every day at 5:00 pm, I would get a little sad. I knew that our agency is closed for the day and we would not be getting a call. For the first time in my life, I didn't like the weekends because I knew we would not get a call on Saturday or Sunday. Wednesday night, while I was cooking dinner, my phone rang and when I saw the number I knew it was our agency! BUT it was 5:30 so I was a little confused as to why they would call after hours. Still hoping for the best, I answered the phone and heard my adoption coordinator (Temple) on the other line saying "I am sorry to call so late, but we have a baby we want you to look at!" I ran upstairs where Brian was giving Levi a bath and all I had to say was, "Brian! Its Temple!".  Brian whipped Levi out of that bathtub so fast (I still don't know if Levi ever got clean that night)! She told us that if we were ready to see our baby girl then she would press "send" on the email. Of course! YES! I am sure her ears were hurting from all of the squealing going on. 

We opened our email and there she was....our daughter....she is absolutely beautiful! She will be 4 months old next week:) Our agency has a website where all of the parents that go to visit their children can post pictures of everyone else's children. Such a blessing! So I instantly recognized her from some of the pictures. There are so many babies, its hard to know which ones belong to what family, but I had seen her picture very shortly after our agency started taking care of her at only a month old. 

We will HOPEFULLY be traveling in July to see her, go to court, and officially adopt her as our daughter. But we will be coming home without her, until the US Embassy clears us to bring her home which will HOPEFULLY by November or December. We would of course, love to have her home before her first birthday and Christmas. :) So thats something you can pray with us about. We are working with another country so there are so many variables.

I know the next question you all have is "where are all of the pictures of her?!" Well, we are not allowed to post any pictures on the internet of her until we officially adopt her:( But take my word for it....She. Is. CUTE!

Thank you to EVERYONE who has given and supported our adoption! We are blown away at the Lord's goodness to us and how He has shown His love to us through our friends and family. We have had 85 different families give to us over the past few months! Thats a lot of people loving on our baby girl! I cannot wait to show her the list of people that followed the Lords command in caring for orphans and made it possible for her to have a HOME!

Here are some pictures of us when we saw pictures of our baby girl for the first time.....