So while the adoption is moving along, there’s always life moving right along with it.

Today was parent-teacher conference day for both Gab & Pierce.

We went to Pierce’s teacher first…I wasn’t sure what to expect. Anyone that knows him knows he’s either fire or ice, black or white, angelic or…well…not so much 

I was pleasantly surprised that his teacher said he’s doing very well. He listens well, pays attention, raises his hand, asks for help when he genuinely needs it, is kind to others, shares well, etc. I loved hearing that!! I know he’s smart and he loves to learn. But to hear it from the teacher is amazing. She was surprised he’s never gone to school/daycare/pre-K of any kind.  I had to laugh a bit and really wanted to say, “Yeah, well, there’s other ways to teach a kid…like the mom teaches the kid!”

So the boy earned a donut.

Then we went to Gab’s school…the middle and high schools do conferences differently than the elementary. They just do a walk-in-whenever thing. We wandered around and talked to a few teachers, and I’m proud to say, I was bored slightly. Why?? They said the same thing…”She’s got an A, doing great, pays attention, does her work, studies seriously, etc…”

So it was a great day! I hope they’re as proud of themselves as I am of them.

Thursday night, (2 days ago) I was doing a spa night for the teen girls at church. Paul was out of town all week so I had the boys with me, and Gab as my lovely assistant.

Midway through my phone rang…I saw a 435 area code (Utah) and figured it was my sister, so I figured I’d call her when I was done. But then by the time we got out, it was after 8pm and I was in a hurry to get the kids home and to bed. When we did finally get home, I told everyone to get pajamas, and took that opportunity to check my email.

And there it was ….”CONGRATULATIONS!!” from our adoption agency! I clicked on it and it read something like, Congratulations, we’ve matched your family to a darling baby girl….

me: What? BABY?? I clicked on the attachment to see her info and photo…birthday read October, 2009! A baby!!! Almost 12 months old. And her name…a beautiful name…Darling photo…she was perfect! (due to Ethiopia’s request, I can’t/won’t post photo or name online until she’s legally ours…but I will tell you her middle name will be Grace, so we’ll go with that for now)

I hurried and called Paul and told him and he said, “Oh, man,  you have her photo there? I can’t see her until tomorrow!” So I had sympathy on the guy and forwarded the email to him. Nice of me, I thought

We’re very, very excited and began telling everyone the next day.

But here’s the really funny thing….In January, Paul was out of town. That’s when we decided to adopt. Now, 9 months later, when he was out of town again, we got the referral! I had a feeling it might go down like that, and it was amazing how it worked out.

So the next step is to mail our acceptance paperwork in…then it gets sent to Ethiopia and they will set up a court date. We’ll travel to Ethiopia for the adoption itself and to meet Grace. Then we come home (and I post pics!!!) and wait until her new birth certificate and visa are ready for her to travel. When those are done, I travel to pick her up and bring her home!

Not much going on right now. Still waiting, but September is the estimated month that we should get a referral, so I’m praying hard!

We got our USCIS approval today, so that’s a big load off.

A few weeks after we sent in our form, I got a letter back from them saying our dossier was not complete and needed to be re-done. I was freakin’ out!! So stressed. I called our home study guy and told him what was going on, faxed him the letter and he mailed the revised copy the next day to us. Unfortunately, the mail seemed slower than normal and it took a week to get it. Then, of course, we had to make a copy for ourselves and send the original to USCIS and hope it was good enough. Finally, after 3 weeks of stressing out over it, we got the approval.

Now I will mail a copy to our adoption agency and then we continue to wait for our referral.

I remember when I lived in Texas growing up, my parents would watch this guy every once in a while. So when I found him on YouTube, it was really exciting! It just brought back a lot of memories of what I consider home. The culture, the flags everywhere, the accents, and the warmth that Texas is. I’m still homesick.

For those of you who remember this, or want to get a feel of what I grew up with, check out the video under my Texas Jokes page.

Yesterday Dean got is 2 month old shots. Two in each leg and an oral vaccine. He took them rather well. He cried for a little while, but after a couple minutes of rocking him and cuddling him he settled down. The problem arose at 2:45pm.

He was taking a nap; I was cuddling him and he started screaming and screaming and screaming. This was so unlike him that I got Paul out of the basement and had him run to the store for some Tylenol. He screamed for about a hour. We read on the take-home pamphlets that the doctor gave us, that if an infant cries for 3 hours after shots, to visit the doctor again or go in to the hospital. So we were getting pretty worried after an hour. Luckily, shortly after he took the Tylenol he seemed to settle down. Most of the rest of the evening went all right. He had another crying episode right before bed. He just seemed very tired and very sad. I’m thankful we don’t have to do that again for 2 more months.

I know that vaccines are worth it in the long run. It just makes a hard day on a poor baby.

Vaccination Schedule

Vaccination Safety

I know the vaccine topic can be very controvercial and a lot of people are choosing not to get them for their babies. That’s why I am so much more adamant about getting them. If there are more kids out there spreading around scary preventable diseases it’s even more reason to protect mine so they can have the advantage of not getting polio, hepatitus, rotavirus, and any number of other things.