Four Good Reasons

He's a mover and a shaker

2008-05-23T08:55:00.004-06:00

I am really slacking when it comes to important updates and I apologize. Last week the big guy started walking. We were reading stories to the kids at bed time when Jen noticed that Tarik was standing. He has this favorite spot on our fireplace, it is a little ledge that he sits on and he just loves to sit there and play with his toys. Anyway he apparently decide to stop sitting and stand up without pulling up on anything. We were of course excited and saying way to go kiddo when he took a couple steps! He wasn't the most graceful but since then a couple of steps has turned into a few, and a few more. He is currently crossing the room from the couch to the love seat and he is pretty proud of himself. We are too! Of course I don't have a picture to share but will put one up this weekend.

Last weekend we went to Chicago and got together with 5 of the families we traveled to Ethiopia with, unfortunately 3 families were not able to make it. I think everyone had a great time. We stayed at one of those waterpark hotels, which I am becoming less of a fan of. (Too loud but the kids love them.) On Saturday night we all ate at the hotel restaurant which was pretty dead so we had the place mainly to ourselves and had a blast. Afterward I held the first Ethiopian Dad's meeting at the hotel bar and we agreed on our bylaws and mission. Meeting notes are available but may not be legible.

On Sunday we ate an Ethiopian restaurant in Chicago. The place was fantastic, food marvelous and the staff amazing. They all kept coming over and talking with kids, carrying them around and just making us feel welcome. Afterward we went to Lincoln Park Zoo and enjoyed a cool but pleasant Sunday afternoon. We talked about getting together again in September, maybe Minneapolis, and I am hoping that all 9 families can make it.

Here are a few pictures, enjoy!

more bday pics

2008-05-12T21:11:00.008-06:00

I didn't get my word in - Happy Birthday my sweet little baby boy! Tarik was 23 lbs,6 oz at his 1 year checkup and 29 1/2 inches. Annalise was 30 pounds and 36 inches at her 3 year appointment, the week before. Funny 2 years apart and just over 6 pounds and 6 inches. This might be part of the reason.

Oh, no, I'm not hungry.

Ok, well, I will try alittle bite.

Wow, that was good

Mmmmm

WHAT?

And one last pic of my sweet big boy after his Tiger Scout Blue and Gold Banquet - the orange marks have something to do with him graduating from a Tiger to a Wolf (? maybe).

Happy Birthday Big Guy!

2008-04-30T07:39:00.004-06:00

Somebody turned 1 today. Here is a hint...

It is kind of a strange day for me. I understand Tarik is a year old today but since we have only him for 7 months my brain is having a hard time reconciling this. We got together on the east side of the state last weekend for a big combined birthday party. Tarik's cousin Ben turned 1 last week so we thought it made more sense to do them together and save family the expense of traveling twice. I am not sure about the final count but we had to be close to 50 and it was fairly organized chaos.

In other news Katie celebrated her First Communion the on the 20th. I have pictures but not accessible to me right now. (I will post one tonight sometime between swim lessons, a softball game, bath night, and Tarik opening his presents.)She looked so beautiful and I couldn't believe how grown up she has gotten. Funny story about her dress, Jen wanted to get a veil for the outfit and I looked at her like she was nuts. I mean I could not picture ever seeing a veil on a First Communion outfit, at least not is the last 30 years. Anyway so I took Katie early on Sunday for pictures and noticed almost all the girls wearing these cute lacy trains, head bands what ever you call them. Then I thought, hmmm is that called a veil? Turns out it is. I thought a veil went over your face, you know like at a wedding? This shows once again I no nothing about fashion and that I should never question my wife and let her do whatever she wants.

We had a nice day, Katie got to give one of the Prayers of Intention and did a great job. Afterward we took everyone out to eat. The weather was finally perfect and we were able to eat outside on the patio at the restaurant. Really just the perfect day.

On the same day Katie celebrated her First Communion, Jen turned 26 (Okay I realize that we are celebrating our 11th anniversary this year and that would imply she was 15 when we got married, one more reason math can get you in trouble!) and in celebration went to see that Bon Jovi guy again. He was in town on her birthday (coincidence? I hope so) and her best friend bought her a ticket so I had no say in the matter. She had a great time and came home to me that night so I guess I win Jon!

That's it for now. I promise we will do better posting.

Memememe, oh and #8

2008-04-08T19:50:00.003-06:00

First things first, Tarik got tooth number 8 last week. Just after he turned 11 months! Hopefully he will get a little reprieve for awhile. He has gotten 6 teeth in 2 months!

Oh, and we had the 4 babies together at Easter and had to take more pictures that will surely make me the 'worst mom ever' at some point in the future. (I think the dads are starting to be on the babies' sides, so this might be the end of the cute baby booty pics!)

I was tagged by my friend Niki , so I guess I will attempt to continue the little game. One problem is that I read very few blogs...

Here are the rules for the meme:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you. [done]

2. Post these rules on your blog. [done]

3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.

4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry.

OK, so 6 unimportant things about me.

1. I have 3 sisters and no brothers, so when I had an ultrasound and found out my second baby was a boy, I seriously didn't know what to think. It was just so weird to picture a boy in the family (my poor daddy - as if he isn't a boy). He would also be the first grandson, so my mom wasn't alot of help. She seemed as confused about it as I was... We got over it and I couldn't love my sweet boy anymore. Gramma thinks he is pretty awesome too.

2. I lived in the Mississippi until I was 14, but both of my parent are originally from Iowa. I developed a slight southern draw, but still never understood many key southern phrases, such as "over yonder" (I never could figure out where yonder was), "y'all come back now, ya here" (I was confused by this comment, in places where I might never be back to), and "fixin' to start" (so are we starting or not?). We didn't drink tea, eat greens or grits. I know many of my friends thought we were alittle odd. I lost any southern accent I had very quickly when moving to Iowa in 8th grade.

3. I love 80's/90's hair band music, such as Metallica, G&R, White Zombie, Ozzy, Danzig, AC/DC, Bon Jovi. I can't help it, I flip stations and really like lots of new stuff, but get sucked back in when I hear any of this music. I crank it ridiculously loud, and I know I look cool in my minivan. heehee

4. I told my new sweet husband that I would move anywhere when we got married. But when the real conversations of moving started, I chickened out and am 35 minutes from my parents. We are a whooping 2 hours from much of the rest of the family, which is alittle too far. And I think the 5 hours to my sister in Chicago is way too long. But to what may be the extreme, my grandma lives on the same street as two of her children, which is a few blocks away from another daughter, and a couple of my cousins. And another daughter and my grandpa used to live within a block of her too. But talk about a close family, there is always someone to talk to, ask for help from, and hang out with.

5. I have worked at my employer for 10 1/2 years, and it is the only 'real' job I have ever had since I graduated from college. I like it there and have had tons of experience and many roles, but my resume sucks. I am alittle too old to list my part time college jobs.

6. I spent a couple hours on Saturday picking up dog poop in the back yard. We had friends coming over on Sunday and we had TONS of cleaning to do Saturday, but it was an amazing day (and we have had a cruel, long, cold, snowy winter). So, I was happy to pick up poop, just so I could have an excuse to be outside. It was a good thing too, Sunday turned out to be decent and the 7 kids in addition to our 4, were dying to play outside. Since the guests were all 5 and under, we were outside supervising and I would have died if any of the little ones were to step in poop. **On a side note, despite our carpet cleaner and fridge breaking down a couple days prior to the get-together, we were able to pull off the appearance that we live in a clean house, despite 4 kids, 2 dogs, and 2 cats. Until...my 6 year old swung open the door to the storage area, right off the family room. You see, to get our house to this miraculously clean state, we had to hide a few things and the storage area was crammed with junk. I about fainted since we were all right there and screamed, 'quick, Jack shut the door'. He was climbing through like it was a jungle gym with another boy following right behind. He said 'why mom', and I responded that 'it was a mess and dangerous to climb through there'. He said 'I always do this mom', which is not true. Anyway, I was embarrassed and everyone was laughing, with me, not at me I am sure ;)

I am not sure who to tag, so if you read this, you are tagged. Sorry for the lame transfer there. Did I 'break the chain'??? :)

Happy Birthday Baby!

2008-03-30T20:43:00.011-06:00

My little Annalise turned 3 on Friday! She got a call from her Papa that morning and when he asked how old she was she said 'o-most free'. She seems to think 'almost 3' is the actual age - 1, 2, almost 3, 4, 5. I have been talking it up for a long time, and I am sure I have completely confused her.

No big party, since Easter was the week before - it is tough to ask the families to make the long drives. We took her to Jumpin Jacks that night and the kids had a great time on the inflatables slides and jump house-thingies. We went right at 5 and the place was pretty empty, so they had it to themselves for awhile. Tarik thought the kids were pretty funny and he got a kick out of watching them. I did let him crawl around in one, and he liked it until he got stuck on his back in the corner. He just couldn't get himself rolled back over.

Here are a couple pics of the big girl!

The other man

2008-03-21T06:19:00.009-06:00

I fell in love with him before I knew my sweet wonderful husband, and never stopped loving him. I have only seen him a few times over the years, but think and hear of him frequently. He is busy with his own life, though I hope we will see eachother again some day. Of course, I will have to fight off my own sisters for a chance at him. I did have the pleasure of seeing him recently in Chicago, thanks to my main man. Here is just a little picture.

Isn't he awesome?! It was a great concert - really great! And I do get to see him again, with my BFF in April. I am the luckiest girl in the world! :)

Back to my favorite topic - teeth! They just do not stop coming in. I posted last that Tarik got his 5th tooth on the 10th. He got his 6th on the March 13th and his 7th tooth on March 16th. Seriously, that is quick. 7 teeth and he is not quite 11 months. He also got his second haircut last week.

It is Spring Break week, so Gary and I have been juggling days off, with the help of G&G M. Last Sunday we went to Omaha's awesome Henry Doorly Zoo. Then we surprised the kids with a stay at a hotel with a waterpark. We haven't ever been to one, but since we weren't doing anything else on spring break, we figured we would splurge. They were very surprise and had an awesome time. Tarik loved the water and would have drowned himself if I had let him. He just crawled and crawled around the baby pool, which slightly sloped out from zero depth to about 2 feet. And he crawled right into fountains of water shooting up and under dumping water from above, never cried, never sputtered. He loved it. Annalise was quite happy in the baby pool too. She was not happy if we took her in anything deeper. And the one slide she tried splashed her in the face, so she was done with that. The place had 4 small slides, 3 medium, and 3 big ones (that actually went outside the building). Katie and Jack thought it was pretty cool!

They grow so fast

2008-03-10T20:15:00.005-06:00

So, 2 days after my last post, Tarik got his 4th tooth, and then 4 days after that he had his 5th tooth. And by-golly, there is a big lump on the other side, so tooth number 6 is close.
And the weekend after my last post, Tarik mastered pulling up to his feet and now is starting to 'cruise' around the furniture. He particularly like to hang on to the rails overlooking the steps to the basement and shake them - making his poor momma have a heart attack. They are attached pretty well, due to some gluing (ask Gary about the one that is upside down), so nothing to worry about... HA!

Annalise is doing great going on the potty chair - and she still gets excited every time she goes. So cute. Some days she still insists on wearing a pull-up, but she keeps it dry all day and has been dry all night a few times too.
She is learning so much from her big brother and sister, mostly the bad stuff - like saying NO to me. They do it and know when I am serious and they need to cut it out, but she hasn't figured that part out yet, so she tends to get herself into trouble. I have also caught her giving Tarik stern little lectures, 'No Thank You Tarik. We do not hit our friends!' He looks at her with these confused big eyes trying to figure out why the toy he was drooling on was just swiped from his chubby little fingers. This is a phrase I know she hears at daycare and it just is so funny to hear her say it, but I have to scold her about treating him like a little brother and not a doll.

Katie seems to have grown up alittle lately. And I am sure it will pass, but lately she has accepted punishment with a simple 'OK'. Such as no more TV, because she bolted from the dinner table in 4 minutes flat to see the same (but it's my favorite!!) episode of SpongeBob for the 100th time. And she has been better about helping me with simple chores. And she comes in from school and super politely asks me how my day was. Now, she did have a fit about not getting to sit by me at dinner the other day and threw herself on the floor-as if she was Annalise's age. But, in general she seems easier to reason with and knows when she needs to suck it up and deal with it.

Jackson - not so much. He is 6, and it is often hard for me to remember what Katie acted like 2 years ago. So, I am not sure when I am expecting too much. He still has the shortest attention span. (jack put on your shoes, jack your shoes, Jack, JACK, JACKSON - huh? PUT ON YOUR SHOES. then it starts over with the coat.) But, he must be the most cuddly, huggy thing. He loves to crawl in bed with us and play with my hair until he is back asleep. When he can't sleep with me, then he will try for one of his sister's beds and there they are arms around each other and they all seem to sleep better that way. He is a momma's boy for now. I am sure it won't last, so I will take it while I can.

Only 3 more days of work this week, then Spring Break and Gary and I are juggling a few days of vacation, with the help of Papa M! YAY!

#4

2008-03-04T12:39:00.005-06:00

I had meant to post something this week about the kids, what all has been going on, etc. since I had not posted since the end of the Packers season. (I have not and will not discuss that ending with anyone outside of a true-green fan.) I was feeling guilty about that. Jen posts about the kids, I post about football. My priorities were mixed up and I was going to remedy that. But then today happened, Tuesday March 4, 2008. The day we all knew would happen eventually, HE retired.

So do I post on and on about HIM and football or do I try and forget the fact and post something about what's truly important? Let's try both.

Since that Sunday when HE took the field for the first time (and I do remember that game) here is what has happend:

Great moments in my life since September 20, 1992

I fell in love
Got married
Witnessed the birth of three of my children
Traveled half-way around the world to bring home my other child
Watched all my siblings get married
Welcomed 15 nieces and nephews into our family
Became a godfather to 3 of them
Bought our first home
Built our next home
Been laid off
Found a job/career I love
Watched two of my children start school
Traveled to Europe and Africa
Put on weight
Lost weight
Made new friends
Lost contact with old ones
Sat on a beach in Mexico with my wife at sunset realizing how great life can be.

And through all this I got to watch, on TV and in person, a game played by someone who loved to play. (Just ask John Madden)

So, Thank you Brett.

LTNT

2008-02-26T20:16:00.008-06:00

Hey - yeah so...where do I begin? This isn't that hard, yet I can't seem to make the time.

Tarik was 20 lbs 6 oz (50th %tile) at his 9 month and 27 1/4 inches (25th %tile). So, he is a little chub, but I did verify that my first little love was a whopping 22 lbs and 29 1/2 inches at her 9 month checkup. So, she was a bigger baby, all around.
Tarik is crawling like a little mad-man now. He started out about 3 weeks ago and it was such a sight - he looked like a wind-up bug or something - very slow and mechanical-like. His daycare teacher described it like 'baby alive', a doll that used to crawl. Now, he is quick and pulls up to his knees, trying to get to his feet. He is across the room in an instance, which makes the top of the steps worrisome. With Jack, we didn't use the basement quite so much and didn't seem to need a babygate. Annalise was patient and easy and didn't dare the top of the steps (ok, she did fall once, I fell down them later that same day-it was weird). Anyway, now we are up and down the steps a dozen times a day, so I know he is going to be tempted. We have round banisters (poles or whatever) at the top of the steps, so we can't use the pressure mounted kind of gate, and I hate to drill into the wood... And then there are the gates with multiple sides, that maybe we could use somehow, but they run over $100. Kinda pricey... and I am not sure they would solve all the problems.

Annalise, our little love bug, is very well on her way to potty-trained. It happened quickly, well quickly once she decided to do it... When I was on leave last fall it was my goal to get her potty-trained and she spent many days running around without a diaper on and I managed to get her to 'go' 1 time. I knew she was holding it though, so I figured it would be coming soon. Fast forward 4 months, not so soon, I guess. But a week ago, on a Sunday, she spent the entire day in big-girl panties and only had 1 tiny accident. She wore diapers to daycare last week, but we switched to underpants in the evenings and she never had any accidents. Then this Sunday on the way home for CR, she stayed dry for the 2 hour drive. So, she is wearing underpants to daycare this week and we haven't had any accidents yet!! She is amazingly proud of herself and SO excited. I just love it too!

Katie and Jack both had wonderful reports at school during the parent-teacher confernces. Both of their teachers seem to really like them. And that is great, since due to snow days, we may be going all summer.
Jackson participted in his first Pine Wood Derby with Cub Scouts. He designed and painted a Cheetah car. It was super cute. No big winner this year (he did come in second in several races), but it was a good start.

Gary and I just had a big weekend. Gary and my brothers-in-law got tickets to Bon Jovi in Chicago last Saturday for Sarah, Elizabeth and me. So, we stayed in a swanky, modern - yet retro (and too expensive) hotel called, The James. It was a cool place. And we had an excellent dinner at The Republic, across the street. The concert was amazing, we did alot of swoonning, which I wouldn't think I would do at this age, but man, I love the music, and he is so darn CUTE! We had very good seats, thanks to Adam!!!! We were straight to the side of the stage - 10th row up the first risers. AND the stage went out on the sides into the seat alittle and ended where Jon was 5 rows in front of us. He did not spend nearly enough time there... I will be posting a pic as soon as I get one from Sarah, since my dumb camera was dead!

Happy Birthday Niki! Happy early Birthday Gretch! Miss you both, it has been awhile. :(

#3

2008-01-29T22:04:00.000-06:00

Hi - I have been bad at posting lately, just busy I guess.

Little Tarik is not so little anymore actually. According to the scientific 'hold him and get on a scale, then hop on the scale by myself' method, he weighs 21.4 pounds). We will have an official weight tomorrow after his 9 month checkup.
He definitely out weighs his 2007 cousins and I am fairly certain he outweighs any of my other kiddos at 9 months. The only contender is Katie, so I need to dig out her baby book to double check.

He FINALLY has his 3rd tooth. I think (but am too lazy to check) that he got his first and second teeth in late October - like his second week at daycare after I went back to work. So, it has been 3 months and I kept thinking it should be anytime. I found out tonight when I heard him grinding his teeth. He kept doing it and I had to try to distract him with toys to chew on. What a little trooper, he doesn't seem bothered by it all.

Tarik is close to crawling, but at this point it is mostly getting on his hands and knees, then rocking for awhile - excitedly eyeing the toy in front of him, then going backwards and eventually getting stuck under a chair. Poor baby. But he doesn't seem to mind. He is also close to pulling himself up. If I stand him up against the couch or in his crib, he loves it and can hang out for awhile.
It is just so fun to watch him grow. He is a sweet little baby and just makes me giggle when we play. Oh yeah, he also waves - bye or hi - now! (sheesh, it has been obviously been awhile since I posted!)

Updates for the other 3... same old, same old. Not quite as many changes when you are older than 1, I guess. Annalise is still not potty-trained, but she is almost 3 (can you believe it?!??) and I have convinced her that 3 years olds HAVE to use the potty. So, we will see how that goes.

Katie and Jack are both having a good year in school. We have conferences in a couple weeks, so I guess we will know for sure then. ;) They can be huge helps for me with Tarik in the mornings, when we have the daily time crunch. They still love to feed him, or hold him for me when I need a minute. Nothing makes me happier than when I am watching Jack smiling and talking to Tarik and I can see the total love in his heart. He is a wonderful brother. And Katie is a great little momma to Tarik. She wants to help with it all, except the poppy diapers. Annalise is like Jack too - she baby-talks to Tarik and he eats it up - smiling and babbling back at her.

Ahhhhhh, life is great!

20-23 (OT)

2008-01-20T22:19:00.001-06:00

42-20

2008-01-17T21:09:00.000-06:00

Okay I know this is a little late but I have been somewhat busy basking in the glow of a glorious win by the Pack last Saturday. They are now one game away from the Super Bowl, and thanks to the Cowboys, that game is in Lambeau against the New Jersey Giants. We were all decked out for the game and I just thought I would share a couple pics, minutes after the game.

We are headed to Chicago this weekend to visit one of Jen's sisters. It's her birthday and her husband is at the Sundance Film Festival this week. Quick plug, Adam had a great movie review podcast called Filmspotting. Click the link below or you can catch him on NPR. I am not sure of the times or which markets for sure but you may want to look in your local listings. Or you can just subscribe to Filmspotting on iTunes. Okay enough of the free publicity.

So we are coming home Sunday, hopefully in time to see the game, but just in case, we are all bringing our Packer gear to wear in the car ride home. To all you nonPacker fans out there, it's not too late, join us. To the rest GO PACK!!!!

Filmspotting

Next Big Step - Late news

2008-01-07T20:56:00.000-06:00

Last Thursday, January 3rd, Gary, Tariku, and I went to court ("isn't court a bad thing " asked Katie - not this time, angel!). We had Tarik's Re-adoption, or Adoption Finalization hearing. Our new friend Jeremy represented us and briefed us on what would happen and what we needed to do. (I didn't realized we would actually be sworn in...)

My dad came over bright and early to get Katie and Jack off to school and watch Annalise. Heck no, we weren't taking them! Oh yes, it would be nice, but I am sure they would have behaved in such a way that the judge might have had a second thought about whether we could handle 4 kids! As we walked out the door, Jack asked "what if the judge said no, that we couldn't keep him". I assured him it wouldn't happen and then when we got there, Jeremy assured me that it couldn't happen either. (unless I started talking crazy up on the stand - luckily I was able to keep my cool!)

The hearing wasn't very long, but I basically went through the whole process from deciding to adopt to being here with Tarik today. Gary was second and got to just agree that everything I said was true. Tarik was a doll and happily tapped his plastic toy against the table the whole time.

So, we are nearly done. The Proof of Ciitzenship or Naturalization is our last step that we starting right now. Oh, except the next 18 years of post-placement reports that are due to Ethiopia. Gotta get that on the calendar...

Here is a pic of us with the judge (sorry Jeremy - you are blog-worthy, but I have my eyes closed in the pic!)

Bad dad, even worse husband

2007-12-28T16:05:00.000-06:00

I am leaving town for a couple days and leaving Jen alone with all of the kids. The reason? I am going to Denver with some friends to watch a football game. I know I should feel guilty and I do a little bit but I am also pumped for a weekend of fun. (not too much I promise Jen.) I got to go see the Packers in Green Bay a couple weeks ago but I was only gone a day and a half and I drove so it didn't seem so far. we are flying out Saturday morning and will be back Monday afternoon. The purpose of telling you all this? Please post comments, call the house, send an e-mail, to help make Jen feel less crazy. And me a little less guilty.

Here are a couple pics from Christmas, the kids had a blast seeing everyone and opening presents. Jen and I? It seems as the years go this holiday gets less fun and more work. I would like more fun for Christmas next year. Peace.

First Haircuts

2007-12-22T15:19:00.000-06:00

So, after much pushing by daddy for the last few weeks, Tarik had his first haircut today! I was very hesitant because I liked the curls and I figured 7 1/2 months was too young for a haircut. Especially considering Anna had not had one yet. SOOOO, she got her first haircut today as well.

We went to a haircutting school. 1 - because I am cheap, 2 - because I didn't have an appointment and figured it would be hard to get in anywhere on a Saturday morning, and 3 - because I was hoping that they would be learning how to cut African-American hair and might do a better job than the local cost cutters or whatever.
They did a nice job - took off at least an inch or more from the top, then cleaned up the (bozo-like) sides, and teensy bit in the back just to even things up. And I really like it and now wish I had maybe done it prior to pictures. Oh well. It still has at least an inch, so hopefully I can still get my curls.

Annalise took her haircut very seriously, and just sat extremely still and wouldn't crack a smile or answer any questions. I just had them cut about 2 inches off of hers to even the back out. She was super cute.

Jackson also got his hair cut (not his first of course). He wanted a mohawk, but we opted for a buzz. It may be alittle too short for winter, but it grows pretty quick, so it will be long again in no time.

Sorry for the delay in posting - at least by me, I know it has been awhile. We have been really busing getting ready for Christmas. We started so early, but then all of a sudden it was just a few days to go. Jackson had strep again in the midst of it.

If we don't post again before Christmas, we would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas, or a Happy Holiday of whatever you celebrate. Peace to all.

Who needs sleep?!

2007-12-06T10:35:00.000-06:00

If you had told me years ago that it was possible for the human body to run on less than 5-6 hours off sleep each and every night I would have laughed. I remember a time when 8-10 hours was the norm, more than that if sleep was preceded by a night on the town. (For me that was most nights.)

I am bringing this up because Jen and I can't remember what a good night sleep means. I would love to blame this on having a new infant but he is just a small part of the equation. Since we have been home with T, he generally gets up once in the evening and we have been giving him a bottle. At 7 months does he need that? No, but when you are half awake and just want to go back to sleep, that was an easier option that rocking or walking him to sleep. (FYI, it is possible to feed a child in the middle of the night and not exactly be awake.)

Well after the doctor poked fun at Jen, asking her if she was a first time mom, we have decided to try and cut out that bottle and so far it has been okay but we each have spent a few hours sleeping on the couch with T in our arms.

Next up is our youngest daughter. She wakes up every night crying and will not be consoled until she is in bed with us. This in itself is not great and when you add the fact that she sleeps spread out and seems to like to kick me in the face periodically, it makes for more lost sleep time.

Now let me introduce our oldest son. He is 6 and can't seem to stay in his bed. We will on average take him back to his room 3 times a night. We have literally woken up with him in the bed, unaware of when he got there. I have put the CIA on notice since I think he will make a great spy when he gets older. He also walks around the house kind of in his sleep. I don't know if he is "sleep walking" but I suspect maybe.

Then there is the dog. She sleeps at the foot of the bed, usually not on our feet but not for lack of trying. We kick her off at least a half a dozen time. Once when T wakes up, once when A comes into our bed and 3 times when J sneaks in. I know that is only 5, the six is when I get pissed in the middle of the night and just start kicking!

Finally 5:30a rolls around and on occasion the oldest decides to join the group. I have woken up in the morning after my 4-5 hours of sleep with 3 kids and one dog in my bed and my wife asleep on the couch holding our youngest. And you know what? We make a pot of coffee, work through the day and start it all over again in the evening. And I wouldn't change a thing. Well... maybe the dog.

So I ask again. Who needs sleep?

New Look

2007-11-30T13:20:00.000-06:00

Well we have officially made the switch to our new url. I hope we haven't lost anyone, though I suspect we may have. We will try and make the rounds and update everyone, but if you know anyone who may read this from time-to-time you may want to let them know. We have also changed the name and look of the blog. Since our son is home with us now we have decided to blog more about raising a transracial family in the midwest. Hopefully you all won't find that too boring.

On a side note I have also transferred this blog to another site. Take a look and let me know which you prefer or if you don't care at all. Thanks!

http://4goodreasons.wordpress.com

Weekend Reunion and Ch-Ch-Changes

2007-11-21T13:12:00.000-06:00

Well after an eventful week, "Our Adoption Adventure" is back! After last week's phone call, the wife and I had some discussion about internet safety and whether or not we should continue writing this blog. (After all we started this to keep everyone informed on how the adoption process was going and we brought our son home in August. So maybe end of story?) But we have also enjoyed doing this and still have lots we can talk about. So after some cleansing and a couple tweeks, we are going to continue blogging. We have made a few chnages, the biggest will be our url. After this week our new address(assuming it is still available) will be:

http://4goodreasons.blogspot.com

I put our blog there for a couple days so I think we should be good. If not we will let everyone know. Also we are going to TRY to limit access to our personal information. Most of you know who we are, so we may not be posting our names or where we live very often. Probably a little paranoid but my better half would feel better if we didn't put that out there and I respect that.

So on to the news. We got together in Wisconsin this past weekend with a few of the families we traveled with. We had not seen any of them or the kids since we all parted ways at various airports. It was a lot of fun and we were even able to go out to eat at an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. We spent the night and the kids, especially the oldest two, thought staying in a hotel was really cool. I am posting a couple pics of the kids for you to enjoy.

We are also starting to get ready for the holiday and Tariku's upcoming baptism. (See I just put in a name, man this is going to be hard!) Basically that means LOTS and LOTS of cleaning, so 40 some people can come into our home on Sunday. If we don't get that done I guess we take everyone out to eat instead. It's not looking good.

Weird phone call

2007-11-15T22:15:00.000-06:00

So, tonight, about 4:00, Annalise was throwing a tantrum about something and Gary is feeding Tarik. The phone rings and some man asks for Gary or Jennifer XXXXXX(mis-pronounced our last name, as always). 'Long O' Gary says, as always.

The man said he saw our blog and was thinking about adopting and had some questions. He asked if all 3 of our children were adopted, Gary muttered over the chaos 'Well we have 4 and only 1 was adopted, the other were biological'. Long silence from this man.
Then he says again HE was thinking about adopting but didn't know alot about it. Then he asked if our adopted child was American or adopted overseas. Gary said it was an international adoption. Another long pause. The guy said 'international is kind of expensive isn't it'? Gary said 'it can be'. Again he said he was just looking for some information on adoption and Gary asked if he lived here in our state. The man said 'no, he lived in Illinois, but was thinking about moving back to our state'. Gary then told him we used CHSFS and he could contact them with any questions. The man said he had looked at lots of agency websites, but couldn't find any pictures. Gary said alot of times they don't post pics and then told the man that it wasn't a good time to talk. The man said he might call back if he has more questions.

Gary called me at work and said it was a weird conversation, something about it made Gary feel uncomfortable. Gary really felt like there was more to it and was waiting for either some racist comments or comments against international adoption. Nothing like that was said though.

And we both wondered why, if he had read our blog, he would need to ask most of those questions. And of course now we are wondering if we should never have started this blog, or at least made it public. BTW - there were 2 hits from Illinois on our blog today - one a couple hours before the call and one just after.

Of course, after the fact, we wish we would have responded differently to this man. And maybe got his name, or just stopped him at the very first question. Like 'You SHOULD NOT be calling us at home and invading our privacy. Yes, we have a blog, but our phone number is not on there, so we are not inviting such calls.' Don't get us wrong, we love to talk about our adoption, but this didn't seem the appropriate way to do it. The guy could have posted a comment and asked if he could speak to us about adoption. That would have seemed more normal.

Personally I do not think normal people call up total strangers with such odd questions.

I have so many thoughts and worries going through my head. I would like assume it was harmless and he is really considering adoption, and maybe he doesn't have any social skills and didn't realize how weird it felt to us.
But in reality, we are now considering locking up the blog, or taking out all pictures and personal information (though it may be too late).

Any advice, are we over-reacting, over-worrying? And this is an FYI in case someday you trying to get into the blog and it is locked down.

And - sir - if you are reading this, I don't mean to be insulting, but we do not wish for you to call us again. Even if your questions are legitimate and your intentions are harmless, it was very uncomfortable and inappropriate.

Ethiopia, Chapter 6, The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-quarters

2007-11-14T11:28:00.001-06:00

Since I have been labeled either a dork, or nerd, or both, I decided to embrace my geekness and go with it. Letting you gentle reader, figure out today's title.

OUR journey in Ethiopia continues.

Monday was the day we went to the National Museum of Ethiopia. I was initially looking forward to this because this is where Lucy is. If you want to learn more about Lucy, just click on her name. However just before leaving the US I read an article in "The Daily Prophet" which mentioned that Lucy was going on tour in the States and what we would see in Ethiopia was actually a model, not the real thing. Then I learned that it is always a model so my chance of seeing the actual skeleton was always going to be 0.

To get to the museum we did not have to go to King's Crossing and board a train, instead we all piled into two vans and off we went. Traffic in Addis is interesting and very hectic. Not as bad as Cairo but definitely a close second. Both of our drivers for the week were very skilled in the art of placing a van in a lane of traffic designed to fit a Yugo which was very helpful. After about a half hour we arrived in one piece at the museum.

Once there we had to go through security and have our passports checked. I started thinking they might have "The Philosopher's Stone" inside, but alas all in all I was very disappointed with the place. It is incredibly small and Lucy's exhibit is in a corner in the basement with little signage to even let you know where she is. There was lots of art which I loved but not as much artifacts showing Ethiopia's history as I would have expected. After all Ethiopia has been considered the Cradle of Humanity.

After the museum we went back to the guest house and then went over to the care center to see the kids. We would have gone in the morning to see them but they were at the embassy getting their passport photos taken. Tariku was tired and slept most of our visit. We wrote it off as him having a long day and the fact that he was 4 months old and really at that age all they do is eat and sleep. Again we probably would have known he wasn't feeling well if he had been in our care and we were able to watch over him 24/7. I am not criticizing our hosts, they really did a great job and we understand they still had some last minute details to take care of including the passport photos. I just meant that since we did not have him with us the whole time it took us longer to realize he was sick.

Tuesday was the day we had Tariku the longest up to that point because it was US Embassy day. The kids had been to the doctor in the morning and had their blood drawn and then they were dropped off at the guest house. I have never seen so many excited adults in one room. Except maybe at the finals of the Quidditch World Cup.(Okay I will stop now. I promise!) Back to reality the children arrived and we all piled into the two vans again and headed through town to the US Embassy. After another half hour trip in the vans, security not once but twice, where some families had to drink the formula out of their baby's bottle, and another 2 hours of waiting we each went to the window answered a few questions and were told that our children were our and we could bring them home! Of course throughout the entire day Tariku slept and ate a little bit.

I should mention eating and then leave Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for next time. The babies in the care center are cup fed from these tiny metal cups. It is amazing to watch. We even saw an infant under 15 days old in Hossana's care center eating this way. They say it is safer on the children since it is easier to sterilize a cup that a bottle and nipple. I believe this is part of the reason they do this. It is also a lot quicker to feed the kids this way and when you have lots of hungry kids who need to eat every 4 hours or so, you need to do it quickly. (Just one man's opinion) Anyway, Jen fed Tariku on Monday out of a cup and she did a great job with it. On Tuesday we all brought cups and bottles not knowing if our kids would take from the bottle right away but all of us wanting to transition them to that point. Tariku took the bottle right away never once needing us to go back to the cup.

Eating for us included a great mixture of American cuisine and Ethiopian. The cook at the guest house made us breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday and we walked away from most meals way too full. I never knew you could have dessert with every meal!

Again, this is way too long of a post so I am calling it quits. I better go make sure Jen doesn't think I am too much of a dork. Besides I am getting this pain from the scar on my forehead. Peace!

Growing Boy

2007-11-12T21:46:00.000-06:00

All I have to say about the previous post is my husband is a dork. I didn't get the title, he had to explain what it meant, so maybe I am a dork and he is a nerd!

Anyway, Tarik had his 6 month checkup last Monday (not today, I am just slow). He weighed in at a whooping 17 lbs, 2 oz. This is just 50th percentile, I was kinda surprised because he has such chubby cheeks and an adorable big ole belly. Well, his height was just 25 1/4 inches, and that puts him at 15th percentile. Alittle on the short side at this point, which makes him look so chubby. He had to get 4 shots and had some big tears from that, but he was just fine the rest of the day. After his first set of shots, he had the worst mood we have ever seen from him, so I was alittle worried.

He is still working on his sitting, which he has been doing for quite awhile and not improving at any monumental speed. I would blame this on my lack of setting him down. I am sure that if he spent more time on the floor practicing, then he would be getting better. His cousin Ben has been a pro at sitting for a few weeks. Also, he is so funny because for the longest time he had only rolled from his back to his belly, which I think is the harder way to go. The a couple weeks ago, he finally went from him belly to his back. And for about 3 days, he rolled alot. Now it is like he forgot how.

The rest of the kids are doing great! Anna and Jack switched rooms, so now it is the girls in one room and the boys in the other. It was an easier transition than I expected. Hopefully after the holidays we can re-paint and decorate their rooms.

Gary had today off work for Veteran's Day, so I took a vacation day and we got a large chunk of Christmas shopping done. It was fun to spend the day together and the stores weren't too full. Still lots of people out, but not like it will be in a couple weeks.

Ethiopia, Episode IV, A New Hope

2007-11-08T09:04:00.000-06:00

After only two and a half months we have decided to post some pictures and tell everyone a little bit about our time in Ethiopia. I know what you are thinking, "But Gary, we were really hoping you would wait another 6-7 months."

Let's see, when we last left our heroes...

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away"

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy….

Ooops, wrong story. WE were in Cairo. In my defense it did seem a lot like another world.

So let's see, we arrived in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia on Friday night. We were met by a representative from our agency. His name is Masey and he was pretty much in charge of getting all of settled and assisting us with any and all of our needs. We were the third family to arrive. The rest of our group were due in the next morning. The guest house is amazing. It is a very large home with 7 or 8 bedrooms. It has a large living space were we gathered to watch TV and chat. There is a kitchen upstairs but it was not really used. The kitchen and dining area downstairs was were we all gathered to eat.

Saturday morning we got up and got ready to meet our children for the first time. I can't properly describe how it felt waiting to see Tariku for the first time. We were led into a large room at the care center and one at a time, each family was led to another room where their child was. The agency creates a video "Life Book" for each family and part of the video is our time there including our first meeting.

So once we were led into to room and shown Tariku, Jen of course started crying. I being the manly man decided not to.
On a side note, it must have been really dusty at the time because dust particles got into my eyes and made them water. I hate when that happens.

We only got to spend a short time with Tariku because we had to get to the office and meet the rest of our travel group and discuss the agenda for the week. What I remember most about our visit that day was how quiet and sleepy Tariku was. In hindsight I should have realized he didn't feel well.

Meeting the rest of the group was interesting since they had all just gotten off the plane and looked half dead. You are pretty much on a plane traveling for close to 18-24 hours and I can't even imagine what was going through there heads at the time or even how much they remember. After introductions they all left to meet their children. The rest of the day was getting to know everyone and preparation for our trip to Hossana the next morning.

HOSSANA

Sunday morning we all got up early, 4am early, in order to make the trip south. This trip is optional but it is an opportunity to maybe meet the birth family, see the care center where the children were dropped off at, and also see Ethiopia. Each family had it's own Land Rover and driver and at about 5am 8 vehicles drove out of Addis. The trip itself was really something, watching the sun come up and burn off the mist from the mountains was amazing. We were able to see small huts in the distance, some were close to road, and watch the Ethiopian people start their day.

Once we reached Hossana we went to the CHSFS office and waited for our visit. At first no one from Tariku's birth family was there and when it seemed that we would not be able to meet anyone, word came down that his birth father was on his way. Once he arrived we went into an office and had a nice conversation and afterward took some pictures. There is probably more to say but we want to wait until Tarik is older and we can tell him about it first.

On the way back to Addis we stopped at one of the homes and visited with the family who lived there. We were also able to go inside see how they lived .While we were there lots of children and adults appeared and watched us. We interacted a little bit with them. I found a small group of children who were facinated with my video camera. Once I turned the screen around and they were able to see themselves they about flipped and I had them had a large group of children. I did end up giving some change to them, we were encouraged not to since it has in the past caused some problems, but we were in the car and it seemed like the right thing to do. I forgot to mention that while in Hossana we stopped in the care center there. Jen and I had brought some gifts for the children in the area, crayons and granola bars if I remember right, and we asked the guard at the care center to hand them out to the children that had gathered outside the walls.
We made it back to the guest house in Addis late afternoon and spent the evening watching a movie I brought along. Thanks Netflix!

Jeez, I am only thru Sunday! I better call it quits for now and take up the next chapter later. (SPOILER ALERT!!! We find out some interesting news about Luke's father. You don't want to miss it.)

Oh, we also got new pictures taken and wanted to share some of them.

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T12:22:00.001-06:00

Grandma K called it

2007-10-20T13:08:00.000-06:00

Gary's mom was in town for a concert last night and stayed over. She was checking out Tarik's new tooth and said she thought the next one was right there too. She was right on the money. She left town about 2 hours ago and tooth number 2 is popping through!!! That sweet little baby, not a single cry from him about it. Maybe a little more drool than normal, but that is it.

So, this was my first week back to work. It was no fun. Tarik is not shy with strangers yet, so he happily went to his teacher each morning. By Wednesday he seemed to recognize her or her voice and was smiling away at her each morning as I left. He slept well, ate well and seems to be very happy there. Annalise is a different story. (BTW-we switched daycares while I was on leave, so this is a new place. We did visit a couple times last week to help the transition, but it didn't.) The first day, I kinda 'tricked' her. Stayed for about 30 minutes and she didn't want me to leave her side, so I finally told her I had to take Tarik to his room and I would be back to check on her. I did come back, but just poked my head in and saw she was OK and left. Well, she isn't a dummy...the rest of the week she insisted we drop off Tarik first each day. That way I couldn't sneak off. I stayed about 1/2 hour on Tuesday and Wednesday, but each time had to leave her in the teachers arms crying. They, of course, assure me that she is fine within a couple minutes after I leave and I am sure she is, but it is heartbreaking to just walk out when she is crying. Thursday I only stayed about 15 minutes and Friday about 10. One of those days I heard her wailing as I walked out, "My Daddy come pick me up!" over and over. The teacher said he will be here in alittle bit (or in other words - 7 hours). I think she is treated very well, the teachers seem very competent and all the other kids seem very happy. So, it was a really rough week for us. I expect next week to be bad too, but maybe by the 3rd week she will be doing alittle better.
Gary did confirm that the first couple days she seemed alittle sad when he came in, but by the end of the week she was happy and said bye-bye to everyone and the other little 2 year olds said bye back to her.

Tarik has his first cold. I think I thought he had a cold the second week back after we got home, but it only lasted a day. Now, Tarik, Jackson, Annalise, and I have icky colds. Jack and Tarik have a nasty little, croup-y sounding cough with it. Annalise and I 'just' have the runny nose, sore throat. No fevers or anything real bad though. I will officially blame daycare though. heehee When we were there visiting last week, I saw lots of runny noses. The daycare has the kids wash hands (in this cute little bathroom with 5 mini sinks and toilets) before snacks and meals. And they wash the kids hands after diaper changes, but I totally know they are going to pass it around. Just thought it was funny, because we were all doing really good, then started at daycare and now we are all sick. Oh well, it will only make us stronger or something like that.

Gotta run, lots to do on this beautiful weekend for the last 2 soccer games, me logging into work alittle last night, this morning, and tonight, AND visits from Grandma K, Grandpa M (thanks a billion for helping with the Halloween party last night!), and the Hickman family. Oh yes, and we need to squeeze in a visit to the pumpkin farm!!

Getting ready for a toothy grin

2007-10-18T07:27:00.000-06:00

Okay I know I promised some video for my next post and I WILL get to it, but I wanted to spread some news today instead. It appears Tarik has decided to get his first tooth. We have joked since we picked him up that we would never be able to tell when he was teething since he loves to suck and chew on everything. Turns out we were correct. Last night Jen was having her finger munched on by the little guy when she felt something a little different. After checking and then having everyone in the family clustered around and in his face, we can say our little boy is growing up. Shouldn't be too long now until he is walking, saying "No," telling us he hates us, sneaking out at night, dating, graduating, telling us he loves us, going to college, getting married, and giving us grandchildren.

Damn! I'm getting old.

No pictures yet but if we can figure out a way to pry open his mouth...

Reflections

2007-10-11T10:19:00.001-06:00

Well we are back from our trip and really had an amazing time. Most of what we did probably could have been done at home, but you know how it is. There are always projects you could do around the house, friends to play with, errands to run, etc. Getting away from all that allowed us to spend time together without those interruptions and that was nice. I got to spend some quality time with Tarik, which I haven't been able to do much of since I went back to work. Boy has he really grown and become part of our family. I also took Jack and Katie to see an IMAX movie called "Mysteries of the Nile." I wasn't sure exactly what this would be about but thought the kids would like to see an IMAX, so off we went. Turns out it was a movie about a rafting expedition from the mouth of the Nile river to the Mediterranean Sea. The mouth of the Nile is in Ethiopia so the movie spent a great deal of time talking about and showing parts of Ethiopia. The river then runs through the Sudan and into Egypt where it flows into the Mediterranean. I found this amazing because it was a movie about all the places Jen and I were in only a short time ago. I also spent most of the movie answering questions from the kids who were thrilled to see the places mom and dad went.

I am bringing this up because it made me really reflect on our trip and also realize that we haven't said much here about our journey. I told you all the funny stories from Cairo and we kept people up-to-date on Tarik's medical issues while we were in Addis, but we have never given our thoughts on the trip as a whole. We haven't posted any pictures or videos except for a couple from Cairo. Well starting today I hope to rectify that problem.

Cairo

This was an adventure as anyone who has read our blog knows. Overall it was an amazing place, very hectic and noisy, and if we had to do it all over again, we would probably do everything differently. (Except maybe lodging. We LOVED our hotel) We tend to be independent travelers, liking to do things on our own terms and this has worked for us in the past. Not so much here. I would strongly suggest anyone traveling to Egypt to go with a group, preferably a escorted travel group. I think that 99.9% of things that drove us nuts there would have been eliminated if we had had that kind of buffer. It seemed to us that the people there (okay maybe only the ones we dealt with) enjoyed trying to take advantage of tourists. The things we saw were simply unbelievable but the manner in which we were treated at times, took away from this incredible place. I think Jen regretted taking the trip because it made our trip that much longer and by the the end of the two weeks she missed the kids terribly. I have to agree that it was a very long trip and would I never have guessed how much I would miss them, however I don't regret going. Seeing the pryamids up close is something I will never forget. I probably won't forget the taxi cab drivers either and that is not a good thing.

One other interesting piece of information. There were two main roads which you travel on extensively to get around Cairo. One was called "26th of July", the other the "6th of October." In case you don't know, Jen and I were married on the 26th of July and our first child, Katie, was born on the 6th of October.

I am going to try and find some good video from Cairo this week and post it and I will also see if Jen wants to add anything about Cairo. Next stop will be Ethiopia, and soon, I promise.

A good idea or sheer lunacy?

2007-10-02T09:59:00.000-06:00

In about 6 hours Jen and I are packing our four kids into the car and taking our first family vacation. We decided last summer that since we couldn't take a vacation at that time we would do it now. The kids are out of school for part of this week and Jen is still on leave so we thought now was the best time. Did I mention we are taking all four kids on a trip? Did I mention we are driving to Branson, MO., about a 6 hour drive? Did I also mention we HATE country music and don't have a clue if there is anything to do in Branson that doesn't involve country music? So I give you this question.

Are we great parents who just wanted to give our children a little late summer fun?
OR...
Are we stark raving lunatics who will be lucky if all make it back alive?

Wish us luck!

No worries

2007-09-27T19:40:00.001-06:00

I just wanted to make sure no one got too worried if they see some strange chic with my kiddos. That would be me! I got my hair completely whacked and colored today. In the back, I think I got about 12 inches cut off. Seriously, my hair was down to my bra line (always the ultimate goal in high school) Now it is ABOVE my hairline on the back of my neck. I have NEVER, EVER had my hair so short - she actually had to use the clippers on my hairline, which is a first. It is an inverted or concave bob, I think. So, the front is alittle longer than the back. I was looking for styles and printed off a Jenny McCarthy pic and that is what I was going for. I don't think she angled it quite as much and mine is shorter than Jenny's - but I really like it. It is colored brown - basically back to where it should be.

This all came about because I had bought a home highlighting kit and did a horrible job. It wasn't so bad in the front where I could see and reach, but the back was spotty, I missed sections up at the top and I couldn't stand it. So, I had to get it colored and then I figured since my hair was in a ponytail every single day, I might as well try something new. (check the ISU family pic from 2 posts ago - not cute!)
So, I will attach a pic of the inspiration and if you can picture it shorter, much darker, and with my face - that would be me.

BTW - Jackson cried about it and I had been warning him for weeks that I was wanting to cut it. He is obsessed with my hair, has been since a baby - he would put himself to sleep by playing with it and he never grew out of that. Poor kiddo.

So, that was off-topic, but I just needed to warn y'all.

Otherwise all is well. Tarik rolled from back to tummy on Monday and is getting pretty good at sitting for several seconds. I am still having a wonderful time at home with Annalise and Tarik. I totally dread going back to work. Katie and Jack are having a fun week at school. It is homecoming week and they dressed up - crazy hair day, pj day, cowboy day, dressup day (since it was picture day) and tomorrow is black and gold day. Here are a couple pics.

Lastly, but not leastly, Happy Birthdays to my wonderful Sister, Elizabeth and mother-in-law Cheryl!!!

The Perfect Weekend!

2007-09-20T10:07:00.000-06:00

Hello all. I am back from Washington and wanted to take a brief moment to share some non-adoption, non-family news. I have had a desire for what I call the Perfect Sports Weekend for a very long time. Basically all the teams I love win and those that I am not partial to, lose. (I am trying to say that nicely since I have family and friends who may root for those teams and I don't want to make anyone angry.) Suffice it to say, this has never happened for me before; at least that I can remember. Maybe it is because I like bad teams and dislike too many good teams. For what ever reason it has been a dream unfulfilled,...until last week.

Iowa State - Won
Iowa - Lost
Packers - Won
Vikings - Lost
Cubs - Won*
Cardinals - Lost

In a word - Nirvana!

*A quick note. The Cubbies played three games against the Cards. A double header on Saturday and one on Sunday. They took two out of three so I think that counts.

Nap time

2007-09-17T13:25:00.000-06:00

Both Annalise and Tarik are asleep, though I am sure Anna will be waking up soon. So, just a quick update. Gary is in DC for a few days. My parents came yesterday for awhile so I wouldn't go crazy. Not that I can't handle it, but it is nice to have some help and an adult to talk to.

Katie and Jack both had AWESOME soccer games this past weekend. I think they both soccer 2 or 3 goals. They are having tons of fun. We also are signing them both up for scouts this year and they are very excited about that.

Annalise is still being a wonderful big sis'. Always tickling Tarik's toes and marveling at him, saying 'mr tarik is so tiny' - with the cutest little voice. She has decided to bite him a couple times, not sure what that was about. I think they were both kisses that turned into bites, once on the thumb and once on the cheek. Poor baby. She got in major trouble the second time, so I am hoping she is done with that. (Katie was a big biter between 1 and 2 years old, I had bruises all the time, along with some of her best pals at daycare - it was not alot of fun. I don't think Annalise will develop into that though.)

And Mr Tarik - he gained 1 lb, 7 oz in 2 weeks!!! He was 14 lb, 1 oz at his appointment last Wednesday. He was still making up alittle weight from his loss in Ethiopia, where he was at 13 lbs on August 15th. He is doing well, contining to do alittle more each day. He was full of smiles right before his nap, talking and gurgling. He is a sweety pie.

Lastly, go Cyclones. They miracloulsy won against the Hawkeyes last Saturday. Here is a pic of our family cheering them on!

Welcome to the crazy life

2007-09-09T20:36:00.000-06:00

The 4 cousins (booty order - Ben, Tarik, Quinn, Lucy - 7 weeks apart)

(mommies and babies)

Great-grandpa and grandma with newest grandchild

It has been 2 weeks and 1 day since we got home and I can't believe it has been so long. And at the same time it seems like forever since we were in Ethiopia.
Here is a quick replay of the last couple weeks.

We were all feeling pretty good that first week after we got home, once we got caught up on sleep. (I really felt like a walking zombie that first Sunday and if I had stopped moving, I would have fallen asleep wherever I would have been standing/sitting.)
Then on that Friday, I almost fainted at the store. Like seriously had to make a sudden move to a bench and then ended up laying on the floor, otherwise I would have went down. I came home and had lots of 'tummy' troubles. I slept most of Friday afternoon and Saturday. I don't take naps, ever, so this was weird and I slept and slept. Vomiting, icky stuff. Miraculously, I felt tons better on Sunday and Labor Day. We spent those days introducing Tarik to the Mangrich's and Krob's and had a wonderful time! But then on Tuesday and into Wednesday, I was back to the icky stuff and just felt plain awful. In the mean time, Gary started feeling bad on Wednesday but trudged into work for his first day back on Thursday. Thursday night he was sick as a dog, a very sick dog. He went to the doctor on Friday. Tarik has been feeling great throughout all this, but his diapers were alittle weird and pretty stinky - more so than a usual BM. So, I took in a sample and he has Clostridium Difficile, or c-diff. Gary too. They are both on meds now. But since my symptoms are gone, my dr said they wouldn't treat me. It seems odd that Gary and I would have such similar symptoms and I don't have it, so we will see what happens. (BTW - poor G - the meds he is on causes a violent vomiting reaction with alcohol and he has to avoid it for the 7 day course of meds plus an additional 3 days!)

So, you think that is it?!?! Nope, Jack came home with a note on Friday saying Strep is going around 1st grade. Guess who got it? Oh yeah, Jackson! Poor kiddo!

But now to the star of our show! TARIK! He is growing and changing every day. He is now finishing those bottles like a champ and easily getting in 30 ounces a day. He is grabbing toys, loves the kick-start gym, can supports his weight on his legs - at least for a few seconds at a time. He coos and squeaks and squeals - sounds like R2-D2 from Star Wars sometimes. It is so cute. We have gotten a few laughs out of him, but that has to been when he is in his best moods. Lots of smiles (when he wants, which is not when the camera is ever on and available!). What a little joy he is.
And alot of work! Despite being an extremely easy baby, it is still alot of work. Part of that is because I have terrible mommy-guilt if I am not holding him or interacting with him at some level anytime he is awake. I was that way with all my kids. When they are awake I want to hold them or sit by them and talk to them while they play or have them in a chair by me so I can look at them while I am cooking. And with him, I feel it is even more important due to his rough start at life. I have to catch up on all that lost time. Lost time with him and me as mother and son. As well as lost time just for Tarik to experience things. I hope I am not over stimulating him, but I just feel like he needs alot of interaction.

Tarik has regressed in one area, the first few days we were home, he woke up once a night, but the last few nights it has been twice. That is tough, and I am so tired and will do anything to get back to sleep that I feed him. Not sure if that is what he needs, but it works. I did spend 35 minutes walking around the house with him last night but it didn't work, so I just fed him anyway. And that just makes me thing, 'if I would have fed him right away we could have been to sleep that much sooner'. So, I need to get that figured out. I have never been good at the let them cry it out methods...

I am trying to make sure we spend some one-on-one time with all the kids to be sure that we don't have any jealousy issues. Not doing too bad so far. I do have to share some of the funny things Anna has done though. Tarik is a big thumb sucker, so Anna has decided to stick her thumb in her mouth a few times, just to get alittle attention. When I am holding Tarik, she loves to climb into my lap too and say, 'Mommy have 2 babies' (and I assure her that I do have 2 babies). She also likes to lie next to him on the play mat and play with his baby toys. And - the best - she insists on taking a bath in the plastic baby bathtub. I let her once, should have taken a pic, it was like an elephant trying to squeeze into the regular bathtub.

OK, I guess that is it. In general things are going pretty good now, between illnesses and I really am thinking those are behind us now. So, if anyone was wanting to visit and needed an invite. Here it is, please feel free to stop over, just don't look at the house - it will be a mess.

Updates

2007-08-29T13:15:00.000-06:00

Well, it is hard to believe have been home for 4 days! Gary is home this week with me and the kids are in school, so you would think we would be accomplishing so much. Nah, just playing with Tarik and Anna and buying the baby stuff we seem to still need after 3 kids.

We needed a new mobile and a new baby bath. We also got him a new floor play mat with lots of fun things overhead to look at. Tarik was definitely loved and cared for at the care center in Addis Ababa, but the visual stimulation was lacking, so we need to get him caught up on a few things. When we first got him, we didn't get much eye contact. I am sure it was partially because of his illness and partially because of his environment. But since last Friday, his eye contact has greatly improved.
In addition Tarik isn't (wasn't) reaching for toys, isn't supporting his weight on his legs (an activity I never witnessed at the care center), and isn't laughing out loud. These are all milestones he should be reaching around the 4 month mark - which he will be tomorrow. I really feel like all this will come with alittle time as long as we are giving him the opportunities.

Tarik had his first doctor appointment today and it was pretty much a check-up and we kind of got a baseline for a few things. His last height measurement in the care center was 22 inches, but today he measures 24 (she measured him twice to double check) - this was 25th percentile. He weighed 12 lbs, 10 oz (10th %) today, which is 5.7 kg. He was 5.68 the day we left Ethiopia. So he has not lost weight, but hasn't gained much. He is doing well with the bottle, but still only takes around 3 ounces at a time, so we are having trouble getting enough in. He had 18 oz on Monday and 24 on Tuesday, and it looks like he will be higher today. Dr says he should be in the 24-36 range, so we will continue to work at that. Dr didn't seem too concerned with anything at this point, but we will be back in 2 weeks to re-check his weight and make sure all is going well. And probably to get some immunizations. :(

We had Open House at school last night and got to meet Katie and Jack's teachers. It was nice and fun for the kids to introduce Tarik to their teachers. They are both enjoying school so far and really like their teachers.
While we were gone, soccer started up and Mom and Dad got to run ragged between 3 practices a week and 2 games on the weekends. Now we get to take over, starting tomorrow with Jack practicing from 5:45-6:30 at one park and Katie from 6-7:30 at a different park. The religious education starts, then cub scouts, and the fun begins!!! But, we like it this way, hardly know what to do with ourselves when it isn't like this. (Yes, we COULD spend more time cleaning or something, but what fun is that?!)

OK, sorry for the long post! Just had to try to get caught up alittle.
One last thing, thanks so much for leaving comments on the blog. It is awesome to 'hear' from all of you!

Sweet Home Iowa

2007-08-26T04:38:00.000-06:00

Well it is 5am Sunday August 26th and I am sitting here at MY computer holding our son. We were able to bring Tariku home, and although he is still having some minor problems we are very happy to be here. After a flight from @^&$ we finally arrived in home last night around midnight. Tariku and I got around 5 hours sleep and we decided that was good for now. (Drat)

Our flight home was horrible only because of one place that I hate more than any other in the world, O'Hare International Airport. We got in on time and should have left Chicago around 2:45. The first time on a plane we were speeding down the runway to take off when the pilot suddenly, and I mean suddenly, stopped the plane because a gauge went out. Back to the terminal we went and off the plane we came. About an half hour later we were ushered back on the plane. This time we only had to move a short way down the runway when another guage went bye-bye. Back to the terminal and off the plane we came.

Hold on a second Tarik is saying some to me and being cute.

Okay I am back. Back at O'Hell we spent the next six hours being ushered from one gate to another. Having one flight after another cancelled or full until there was one last flight out. (The one that got us home at midnight.) I am currently downloading pictures and should be able to put something together soon, but until I do here is a shot of Tarik at O'Hell International.

Now I need to introduce my son to SportsCenter. Goodnight, or good morning, what ever it is.

Nervous Parents

2007-08-23T03:56:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, it has been had to get to the office computer and we have been busy worrying about Tariku. He has gotten sicker each day we have been here and he is still in the care of the doctors and nannies in the care center. He has lost quite a bit of weight over the last week and they have been trying to keep him hydrated. Besides the vomiting and diarrhea he had a slight fever last night(100.8). They did some blood work to check his white cell count and that number came back normal.

This morning and this afternoon he has been alittle more alert and babbling a bit which is nice to see. He is still very sleepy and needs to gain some more of the weight back. The staff here has been very friendly and helpful to us during this time and have told us not to worry. It is kind of hard not to when all you want to do is take him home. And that is where we are right now, we want to come home, see our kids, family and friends, and for our son to be better. Hoping to see all of you soon.

Ethiopian Holiday

2007-08-22T04:44:00.000-06:00

So, we met Tariku Saturday morning and then saw him Saturday afternoon and
Sunday night. We haven't gotten him to smile at us yet. The nannies and doctor
assures us that he does smile, but said it does take him a little more time to
warm up then some babies. So, we will keep working on that. :) We met the
doctor Monday and they said he had diarrhea and vomited the previous night and that
morning, so they put him on Pedialyte and then decided to start antibiotics,
since we are leaving on Friday. They want him healthy before we go. We went to
see him that afternoon, but he was sleeping and we figured he needed to rest.
We are worried that we got him ill with all the kisses we have given him.
I did get to feed him Sunday. They cup feed out of these tiny tin cups, but
it was pretty easy and very quick. On Tuesday we went to the Embassy with Tariku and got his Visa approval. We had him with us most of the day and feed him with the bottle. He did great!

Things are going good, we had a special dinner last night which was authentic Ethiopian food and dance. It was a really fun time. Today we went shopping and bought tons of stuff. Tonight is the farewell ceremony and we still want to go to AHOPE to drop off donations, but we are ready to come home. It is super hard being away from the kids. We just hate it. I can't wait until Friday/Saturday.

P.S. Pictures are not uploading on this computer so you all will have to wait until we get back for photos. Sorry.

Internet conncetion not great but Tariku is.

2007-08-20T00:36:00.000-06:00

Well we are here and having a wonderful time with Tariku. We have a lot of things on the agenda so we have not gotten to see him as much as we would like but that should change after today. He seems very healthy and in good spirits. We have not been able to get a smile out of the little bugger yet but WE WILL!!! I was going to attach a picture but the internet connection is not great here. We will be at the Hilton tomorrow I think and I will try there. Sorry for the brief info but people are waiting to use this and I should go. Miss you all.

Gary and Jen

Cairo: The Pyramids

2007-08-16T23:22:00.000-06:00

I'm back. If you haven't read our earlier post from today I would suggest you do so before continuing with this one. There are some more funny taxi cab stories to continue with and you need the background information to understand. I'll wait....

Okay, so after leaving the museum, which again was awesome, it was time for lunch. We ventured out again on our own. That took some courage after the morning debacle., but we found a great restaurant that was suggested in our guidebook and had a marvelous lunch. Afterward it was time to hail a taxi and go to the pyramids. We got a driver and agreed on a price, slightly more than we wanted to pay but we were in a time crunch. On the way our driver talked about taking a camel ride at the pyramids. We said no thank you. (We had read about that scam in the guidebook) So when our driver pulled into an alley and said here you go, we were a bit confused. When the camel owner came up to take us on our trip, we were pissed. We started arguing with everyone, I decided screw this and started to walk away. Jen continued to argue and got the driver to agree to take us the rest of the way to the pyramids like we had asked. Score one for the wife, following my lead we would have had another long walk. Once we got to pyramids our driver said that we could get a ticket for his cab and he could drive us around so we would not have to walk. Cost 2LE which is about .40 cents, we said fine whatever and went to get our tickets in.

At the gate a nice older man said we did not need the driver, and sent him away. He helped us get our tickets and get us in. THEN he offered to be our guide. I was like GREAT! is everyone here after something. I said no thanks and he said that he was not going to charge us anything, I then said thanks. He started walking and telling us some interesting facts, took some humorous photos of Jen and I, and showed us old burial grounds but in the process lead us away from the Great Pyramid. He lead us to a horse drawn carriage and said this was best way to see the pyramids. To say I was disappointed in the old man is an understatement. After much haggling we agreed to the ride but told him and our boy driver a hundred times we wanted to see the pyramids not go shopping. (Another scam we had read about)

The pyramids can't be described. We were awestruck at the size and how unbelievable it was that they were even built at all. When we got to the Sphinx we were having a great time. When the carriage tried to leave the area and head to the market we were pissed again. I nearly jumped out, yelling that we DID NOT want to go shopping and had made that clear. Luckily he was a little boy and agreed to stop. We got out, thanked him for his time and walked into the Sphinx. Again it was truly amazing, and again truly frustrating. There were vendors everywhere trying to sell us stuff. They were in our faces constantly until the tourist police would show up and make them back off. Aside from all that we were very thankful to see this place. Here is a another picture.

When we got back we showered and went to dinner in the area here. It was a great place and we had a nice time. We are now getting packed to head off to Ethiopia and get our son. I think we are going shopping for a little bit as well. Wish us luck and talk to you soon.

Cairo: The beginning

2007-08-16T21:21:00.000-06:00

I was going to give this a clever title like "Cairo: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" but have decided just to play it straight. Sorry if you are disappointed. It is actually 6am on Friday here, Thursday night around 10p for most of you. We are leaving this afternoon and have had an amazing, crazy, and at times chaotic time here in Egypt.

Thursday night after I posted, Jen and I decided to take a felluca ride on the Nile. (Kind of like a sail boat)I went to the owner of our hotel and told her what all we wanted to do and she gave me a itinerary on how to do it all, including how much to pay for everything. It seems in Cairo that there are no set prices on things like taxis and felluca rides. So we set out hailed a taxi, told him where we wanted to go and the fun began. The dock we wanted to go to was right by one of the big hotels downtown. It seems that our driver had no idea where it was. He asked a couple people on the street, who helped interpret for us. He still didn't quite have it but off we went.

I should pause here and say something about driving in Cairo. I COULD NEVER DO IT!!! Lanes are really more of a guideline that you can follow if you choose. Most drivers do not. Honking is a religious pastime and can have many meanings. The main one being "I am going to try and squeeze into a space between you that would not fit a car half my size." Also people walk across the street anywhere and in any type of traffic, which is good since there seems to be no traffic lights anywhere so you would wait for ever to cross if you didn't. In fact Jen and I have gotten quite good at it. I don't think we are ready to cross on of their major highways where cars are going close to 55 yet, but I have seen it done, with small children in tow. Anyway back to the taxi ride.

Luckily I saw our stop and was able to let our driver know that this was where we needed to stop. When I handed him the money our hotel owner told me to pay, the fun started. Seems he thought that was not enough and started to yell at us in Arabic, we just walked away which is what we were told to do. We were also led to believe that would be the end. Instead he got out of the car and followed us down the street, continuing to yell in Arabic. A couple other taxi drivers tried to get him to stop as well as a police officer and he finally did. As of this writing I still don't know for sure if he was actually offended but since them I have tended to give a little more that was suggested to us. American sucker I know. (FYI the ride cost us about $1, I have given $2 since for a similar trip and everyone was happy. Go figure)

So now we are stressed but we continue on and find the fellucas. We are a little worried about the price we were told to give since the taxi cab incident but we went forward and everything went like clock work and the ride was really great. Here is a beautiful shot.

The trip back was uneventful and our night was over. Next up the Egyptian Museum and the the Pyramids.

I was going to stop here but no one is waiting for the computer so I guess I will continue. Day two started with us getting money exchanged and some water for the trip. We walked around a bit and found what we needed including the bridge over the Nile which put us in about the right area for the museum and since we had a interesting trip the previous night we decided to skip the taxi and walk. We had a city map which showed us exactly where we need to go, so off we went, the world travelers we are. After walking close to an hour and not finding the museum we knew something was up. Here is where I mention that our hotel in on an island on the Nile called Zamelak.

Note: Now for those of you who don't know, islands have two bridges which cross over a body of water, and if your map shows your island don't assume the bridge before you is the bridge you want. In fact you may be going the exact opposite direction from where you wanted to go. Also if you are in a city which does not have street signs you can walk to close to an hour before you discover your mistake.

After hailing a cab, and going the right way we arrived safely at the museum. (Taxi cab fact #3 it seems they don't know where the museums are either. After showing pictures and the map of the city he was able to figure it out.) The place itself is completely unorganized but one of the most amazing places I have ever been. The things they have on exhibit actually took our breath away at times. I would love to post a picture but cameras where not allowed inside. Someone is waiting so I am going to have to talk about the Pyramids later. Peace.

Cairo Day 1

2007-08-15T09:04:00.000-06:00

Well we have finally made it to our first destination. We did spend the night in Addis Ababa but it was only because our flight to Cairo was not until the next day. Can't say much yet about Addis since we only saw it at night and briefly this morning. I am sure we will have much more to say next week! Speaking of which I checked e-mail before posting and we had an update on Tariku as well as his birth certificate and a new photo! Everything looks good and we can't wait to get our hands on him.

Cairo seems nice so far. The hotel is very comfy, kind of like a bed and breakfast. We are sitting on the patio having a few beers right now, trying to get caught up on everything and trying to figure out what we want to do tomorrow. We also are trying to get a hold of the kids and make sure everything is going okay.

Guess that's it for now, gotta get back to the patio, my beer is getting warm.

11 hours 'til takeoff

2007-08-12T22:13:00.000-06:00

OK, in 11 hours (10:15 AM) our plane takes off. I am (oh, yes, again) freaking out alittle. We have weighed and re-weighed our bags like a gazillion times. Same with carry-ons, which have given us the most grief. Ethiopian Airlines has a 15 pound weight restriction on carry-ons and since we want to put all out Cairo clothes in those, it has been tough. 15 lbs?? The 2 rolling suitcases, that are the correct size for a carryon are 9 lbs EMPTY! So, we decided to use duffel bags. And then I think the scale is getting tired because every once in awhile it gives me a really weird number. (it is digital with a battery).

But, I think we are ready to go now. Gary is double checking the list as I type. I have 2 more lists for the morning. One is all the last minute stuff that cannot happen until we are walking out, turn up the thermostat, fill the cat water bowl, put the weekend feeder in the fish tank, etc. The other is last minute tips for Dad. I have a 3 page word doc that I sent him twice and now this list is all the things I have thought of in the last 2 days. Such as soccer practice. Jack's coach called yesterday and Katie's today, both wanting to start practice this week. Ugh. I was sure that would happen though.

Kids are packed and ready to go too. They have been real excited, but I am getting hints of sadness now. It will be a very tough morning. Heck, I am tearing up right now. We took some pics at the fair today and had them printed, so they could each have some to look at so they 'won't forget us', as Jack said. :)

I have not had time to get really excited yet. In fact, I just don't even want to go yet. I am nervous, about Egypt (will the Hotel driver really be at the airport?). And I am very nervous about Addis. I cannot beleive I am going to meet my new little baby in 6 days. That is exciting, if I can just get on the plane, maybe I can think about it alittle.

Nik, I got the first 3 of those books you mentioned, The No 1 Ladies Dective Agency. I thought a trip to Africa might be a good time to start reading them.

Happy birthday little Sis! You looked great yesterday, Laura!

Here are a couple pics from today at the fair! I am not sure you can tell it was in the 90's and a heat index of 103! You should have seen us walking to the car, not a pretty sight.

Finally an Update on Tarik

2007-08-08T13:02:00.001-06:00

We have an update on Tarik's growth. This is very exciting and looks like good news.
On 5/31 he was 6 lbs 12 oz and 19 1/2 inches
On 7/1 he was 9 lb 15 oz and 20.8 inches
On 8/1 he was 12 lb 5 1/2 oz and 21 1/2 inches

Sounds pretty chubby, huh?! Seriously, my first three kids were all in the 7-8 pound weight at birth and were 21 inches. So he is 21 1/2 inches and over 12 pounds. :)
Isn't that just great news? And it might adjust my packing needs alittle. I was going with all 0-3 month clothing, but I might be able to do 3-6 for some things now (like pants which I was short on anyway).

Speaking of packing...it is totally stressing me out. It takes me 10 minutes and a couple tries to pick out clothes for work each day and I have a current weather forecast and a whole closet. NOW I have to pack for 12 days in 2 climates (100 in Cairo and 60 in Ethiopia). AND I need to fit it into 1 suitcase. And then there is makeup, toiletries and enough meds to last a year. Should I take 2 pairs of sandals? I was just going to take an older, though very comfortable pair that are brown. But then realized my outfit to wear to the Embassy is a long black skirt, so do I take a whole other pair, just for that outfit? Yes, I guess, the brown ones will look stupid and are very casual. Hairdryer?? Straightening iron?? UGH, decisions, decisions.
I need to relax, but I can't - might be time for a couple glasses of wine (not RIGHT now, it is 2:00 in the afternoon, maybe tonight - heehee).

Things that make you go hmmmm...

2007-08-01T09:27:00.000-06:00

So we have been busy getting things finalized for our trip. Tickets have been purchased and are in our hands (yes, they are the old-fashioned paper kind, no e-tickets). We made reservations at a nice little hotel in Cairo, Hotel Longchamps, and are starting to get all of our packing organized. In the midst of this I had an interesting conversation and revelation I wanted to share. I was talking with a co-worker about our adoption and she asked when Tariku's birthday was. I told her that he was born on April 30, 2007. She asked if he had been conceived before or after we started the process. That got me thinking and started some goosebumps.

Assuming a normal pregnancy, and I think we can assume that because we have not been given any information that he was born prematurely, Tariku was conceived around August 7th or so. If you click on the link titled "Our Adoption timeline" you can see we have kept track of all of the dates throughout the process. On August 2nd we decided to use Children's Home as our agency and on August 9th we completed our registration and on August 17th we sent in our application. If that isn't a sign that Tariku was meant to be ours, I don't know what is.

Also, it is quite neat that we will be in Ethiopia exactly 1 year from the date we sent in our application.

There is so much to do in the next (gak!) 11 days! Having 3 children, I assumed we had everything we needed for a new baby. But we headed to Wal-Mart with a long list of things we need for Tariku.

Lastly, but not leastly...HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACKSON!!!!! My little guy is turning 6 today! How could that be? It seems so old! Love you little buddy! xoxo

The Judge said Yes

2007-07-23T21:04:00.000-06:00

We were talking to the kids this weekend about Tariku and how his case had to go through court on Monday. We had to explain what court was and how a judge makes a decision.
This morning, as Jack was crawling into the car for daycare, he said with a little hope in his voice, "I hope the judge says yes." For just a second, I wasn't sure what he was talking about, then I realized. 'How sweet of you to rememeber' I told him. And it was. So, tonight at dinner Jackson says, "Mom, did the judge say yes?". I said he said yes. Katie and Jack were very excited. Man, I love these kids.

And my new little one. I just love him so much! Here he is, our little guy at 6 weeks. Officially ours and ours in our hearts.

Travel preparation 101

2007-07-19T12:36:00.000-06:00

Even though we haven't received official clearance for travel we have started to do some of the preliminary work. Vaccinations are almost all done. We went in yesterday to get our Yellow Fever shot but were told we need to come next week. It seems since we had our MMR shots done about three weeks ago, there needs to be 28 days between live vaccinations. (Probably should have checked with one of the three medical professionals in the family on that one.)

We have spoken with a travel agent up in Minneapolis, one of three recommended by our agency, and have gotten a tentative itinerary and costs. Let's just say after we picked ourselves up off the ground, we talked about the fact that we knew it was going to be pricey, and how what is really important is why we are going, not the cost. Currently we are looking at leaving on August 13th (a Monday) and spending three days in Cairo before we go to Addis Ababa. As is turns out a round trip ticket to Cairo with a stopover in Addis is cheaper than a round trip ticket to Addis. Not a lot cheaper but enough that we thought "why not." After all, there is not telling how soon, or if we will get back that way.

The other thing we started was a massive list project. If anyone stops in our house now our fridge is currently covered with 5-6 different lists. Each one is for a different subject and lists everything we need to do under that subject. We have a list for getting the kids ready for the start of school (which we will be missing), a list for packing, a list of things we need to get before we leave, a list about Jack's birthday (which we will NOT be missing), a list of housework projects that need to be completed before we can leave, etc. Looking it all over, we have decided we have no free time left between now and when we leave. Of course after making that observation we have decided to go out with friends on Friday night and camping with the Hickman's on Saturday. Might as well make things interesting.

Here's to hoping for some good news on Monday!

Blue Nile Falls in Ethiopia

Tentative Travel Date!!!!!

2007-07-14T06:39:00.000-06:00

Jan called yesterday and to let us know that Tariku's case is scheduled to be in court on July 23rd. That means we should plan to be in Ethiopia on August 17th. This is all tentative right now because we won't know for sure until the court date but with the Millennium celebration in September, CHSFS wanted to let all the families know as soon as they could so we could start making flight arrangements. So now all the fun, panic, excitement, panic, and organizing, panic starts!

We also want to apologize for the lack of posts over the last couple weeks. We have been trying to get some home improvement projects finished around the house. Now with 4 1/2 weeks (crap!) before we leave we should have lots to share. I am also thinking about bringing the laptop along and posting while we are gone. There is an internet connection at the guest house but I am guessing it is not high speed, so my plans are to type up our posts before hand on the laptop and then copying them into our blog. Thus not tying up the phone lines for the rest of our fellow travelers. Well I better go, so much to do and so little time...

To Tariku,

Nafekenye betam (I miss you a lot)

I WUB TARIK

2007-06-27T20:23:00.000-06:00

Annalise plays this 'game' with me. Every night, I say "Night, night, don't let the bed bugs night. If they do, hit them with a shoe, and I love you!" But she loves to steal the last night and say "I wub momma!" So, we go back and forth with I love Anna, and I wub momma, over and over and over. It is quite cute and she laughs and laughs. Sometimes, I throw in I love dada, or I love Katie, or I love Jack. Last night Anna said "I wub Tarik!" I thought it was neat that she is thinking of him too.

We sent a care package to Tariku yesterday. Gary and I went shopping separately, and ironically picked out matching things. I picked a cream and sage blanket, that has silky patches and really soft cotton-y patches. Gary picked out a sage baby/blanket. It is one of those things you are supposed to sleep with before giving to your baby. The parent's scent stays on it and the baby learns our scent (or mine, I hogged it all night the 3 nights we slept with it). Then we had a picture book made by Kodak Gallery. It has 10 pictures of us and the kids and then 1 each of the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins (from a recent holiday or something). He might be alittle too young to look at the pictures, but hopefully they will show him anyway. I hope the scent thing works. It would be neat if he recognized us in some way when we get there.

We had a conference call today with our agency. It was information on the trip south to Hosanna. This is the city many of the children and babies are from, or near there. We will take a day trip down there, so they wanted to go over the specifics of that. It is 4-5 hours each way, by LandRover. Though she said the paved road is almost complete, so the trip is much smoother and less dusty than it used to be. We have to bring a snack because we won't stop for food and will be using traditional Ethiopian pit-style bathrooms, which is a hole and she mentioned there is nothing to hold on to. I think I will go light on the beverages that day. I avoid using a porta-potty at all costs, and this sounds very much worse. She said we would make one stop at a hotel, where there are more modern bathrooms, but even those don't flush. I know it seems stupid and naive of me to be so surprised by this, but I just hadn't thought about not having flushing toilets. There will be much more important things to think of that day. We will (hopefully) be meeting Tariku's parents. What an emotional experience that will be. I really can't even imagine how it will feel. It will be very, very sad and alittle scary - what will they think of us? what will they ask us? But, I am happy we have the opportunity to do it.

I gotta go, need to clean up the house and get to bed. (Sorry for the abrupt end, I never was good at the endings of my papers back in school.)
I WUB TARIK!!

Additional donation information

2007-06-22T08:50:00.000-06:00

I mentioned in our last post that Jen and I plan on bringing donations to our care center and another organization, AHOPE, which cares for HIV infected orphans. Since 2004 with ARV medications becoming available for the HIV positive children in care, their mission has changed from providing care for an expected short lifespan to providing care and education as appropriate that will allow the child to develop skills for an independent adult life. The following message was posted on our message board this morning and I thought I would pass it along. It gives a little more information about AHOPE and some of the things they are needing. Thanks for listening.

AHOPE donations
Hi Everybody (and my apologies to those that will get this more than once),

This is Erin Henderson... I have taken over as the donations/supplies coordinator for AHOPE for children, an organization that provides a nurturing home in Addis for orphaned HIV-positive children and helps to educate the community about AIDS prevention. At the moment there are about 80 children (which is up from the 60 or so kids they had last year, thanks to increases in sponsors and funding) living in AHOPE's orphanage, from infants to 14 years old. The children are now receiving antiretroviral drugs--thanks to Jane Aronson's Worldwide Orphans Foundation--and are all thriving. (For more about the organization, please see the website: www.ahopeforchildren.org)

We adopted our daughter from AHOPE in the fall of 2006 and the children at AHOPE are very much still in our minds and hearts.

Because AHOPE has a very limited budget for basic items like clothing, diapers, and toys, we depend on the generosity of individual donors for these things and on traveling adoptive parents to help deliver the donations. We realize that the adoption agencies also rely on traveling parents to transport supplies for their orphanages, and we do not wish to commandeer luggage space that the agencies depend on. But if any of you think you might still be able to squeeze some extra things in your baggage, we would be very grateful for your help.

Below is the list of items that are currently most needed.

In the past we have had people gather some things off of the list and carry them over on their adoption/volunteer trip. If you are willing/able to gather some of these supplies and are not traveling, I can put you in contact with someone traveling that is willing to carry stuff over.

And on the flip side, if you are traveling and have room, big or small, to carry over donations, but do not have time to gather them, let me know and I can put you in contact with someone with donations to send.

Every little bit helps...even a gallon-sized Ziplock bag of things would be appreciated. I have found that many dollar stores carry a lot of the medical items for $1 or less, and have heard from some families that Walgreens and other stores have been willing to donate items when asked.

Once in Addis, we can arrange for the items to be picked up from you at your hotel or you are more than welcome to deliver them yourself if you would like to visit the orphanage. You can contact me for more details.

The best way to contact me is at ahopesupplies@gmail.com
Thanks so much for your help and support.

list of needed items March 2007

Eye drops
Anti fungal for oral thrush
Benadryl for allergic reaction
De-worming agents taken orally
Oral Suspension Ibuprofen
Antiseptic and Pain reliever
Savlon Antiseptic
Benzalkonium Chloride towelette Antiseptic
Instant Hand sanitizer
Burn cream
Poison Ivy Cleanser
Povidone Iodine USP Prep Pad
Plasil drop
Infants Mylicon
Gloves
Digital thermometer
Bandage (roll)
Sterile dressing gauze (packed)
Cold compress (Hot compress).. Pack which is reusable
Cough syrups
Gas Relief
Hyopan (Hyosine Syrup)
Hyosine tablets
Cloxacillin 125 mg/5ml syrup
Cloxacillin 250 mg/5ml syrup

always needed
1. Cotton diapers
2. new/gently used kids shoes
3. kids' underwear and pj's (like sizes 6mos. to 12/14)
4. antibacterial lotion
5. rubber gloves
6. simple English books for the new library
7. balls, simple games/puzzles (that don't require language knowledge)
8. arts and crafts supplies

Are we there yet?

2007-06-20T07:48:00.000-06:00

Well it appears that week one in our wait to pick up Tariku has passed. Only 11ish more to go.

"When do you leave" seems to be the number one question followed closely by "How do you pronounce Tariku?" We have touched on this but I thought I would take a second to explain, as best as we know, how the process works.

We officially accepted our referral of Tariku on Friday. That means that our dossier has arrived in Ethiopia (or will shortly) and has been prepared and submitted to court for processing. Once the dossier has made it through the court process and the court approves our adoption of Tariku we should then be given a travel date. This is when we will go over to Ethiopia to pick him up and to go to the US Embassy and finalize all of the paperwork needed to take him home. Since the courts close by the end of July due to the rainy season, we assume we will know by then when we leave.

DONATIONS
Jen and I plan on filling one suitcase with donations for the care center as well as for AHOPE, an organization I think we have mentioned before. We have lists from both on the types of items they need. If any of you out there would like to help we can send you the list. We would be more than willing to pick any donations up as long as you are in the contiguous United States or in Iowa, which ever is a closer drive. Just send us a message by either clicking on the little envelop below this post or emailing us at krobzoo@mchsi.com. I am also including a link to AHOPE's website and a blog posting from the person here in the U.S. who handles donations. Thanks for any help you can provide.

Oh and we have heard from a family who was over there recently that Tariku is pronounced like Erik with a T.

AHOPE
http://transracial.adoptionblogs.com

*Almost forgot to mention that on Sunday we had a surprise visit. Our neighbor brought her sister-in-law, husband and baby Silas over. The Bottomlys went to Ethiopia in May to pick up baby Silas and were in Iowa visiting family. It was really neat to meet them and their son. The only downside was that it made me want to leave NOW and pick up Tariku. I know the wait will be worth it, but it still is going to seem like forever. That's it for now. I will have Jen post something beautiful and thought provoking next time. Her posts put mine to shame.

Tariku

2007-06-15T19:05:00.000-06:00

Wow, it is amazing how you can love someone you don't know yet. Someone that has only been a dream and only has been a face for 36 hours. Really, truly, I love this little baby boy. I think about him so much, and what he is doing right now, what his temprement will be like.
Having a picture and just a little information on him has made this long wait end with such joy. He is going to be one of my children. I still cannot believe it. I just feel so blessed.

I pray for Tariku's family and the decisions they had to make, and the difficult life they have had to live. More difficult than many of us can even fathom.
I pray for Tariku and his health and happiness and growth until we can get there to pick him up.
I pray for our family to work through the challenges of bringing home another child.

So, the kids are excited. Annalise insists on calling him Benamin, (Benjamin) as she does all babies. And she really seems to be OK with bringing him home, as long as I call him Benamin. She can say Tarik very well too, but still wants to call him Benamin. Katie is eager to get to know him and Jack is excited to have a brother. He is 25 months younger than Annalise. Katie and Jack are 22 months apart and they really have fun together. So, I bet Anna and Tarik will be buddies. Katie is 5 1/2 years older than Anna and they have lots of fun together. Jack will be 5 1/2+ years older than Tarik, so I hope they also are able to have fun together. I guess I am just trying to put it all into perspective.

Also, I think Tariku will have so much fun with his cousins. And can you believe that there are 4 cousins within 7 weeks of age?! That is amazing. They are going to be such pals.

8-12 weeks to travel - I think that puts us between August 10 and Sept 7. I really think August will be here fast. It is summer and we have several things going on, so I imagine it will go quickly. (that is my attempt at a positive attitude). The kids go back to school on August 20, I think. So, I just have a bad feeling we will miss the first day of school.

OK, that is it for tonight, I just wanted to share some of my thoughts since Gary has posted the last couple times.

IT'S A BOY!!!!!!

2007-06-14T06:07:00.000-06:00

Well we have had some news and it makes for a fantastic birthday gift.

I had been checking messages all day yesterday and was getting a little depressed since there was a bit of activity on the message boards. Three people ahead of us had gotten the call mid afternoon and I was so sure we would be next, but there was no call. I went out for drinks after work, tried to call Jen and let her know about the other referrals and also tried to forget about everything for a while. Around 6:30 or so things broke up and I finally was able to get a hold of Jen. We were happy for everyone on the boards but a little sad, trying to stay optimistic. I hung up the phone and decided to call home one more time and check the machine. Keep in mind I am currently 10 minutes away and could have waited. And there it was, THE MESSAGE from Angela to call her back. I quickly called Jen again who was still on the road coming back from Iowa City, she said to hang up immediately and call Angela back without her. I did just that.

Our son's name is Tariku Adnew, he was born April 30, 2007 making him 6 weeks old right now. He weighed 6.75 lbs and was 19.5 inches long when he was brought into the care center on May 31st. We have not received all of the paperwork yet because our Internet was down last night. When I got it fixed I tried to get a hold of Angela so she could send it, but she was gone for the night.

We are not supposed to post pictures on the internet until the case has made it through court and the child is legally ours. This is at the request of the ET government. We will of course e-mail the pictures to family and friends as soon as we can. I am sure there is more to say but I am emotionally exhausted right now and just want to see my son. Only 12 weeks to go until we can. Damn, and I thought the referral wait was hard.

And then there was one

2007-06-13T06:11:00.000-06:00

Well the last of Jen's sisters had her baby yesterday. Laura gave birth to Lucille Helen around 2:47pm in high paced style we do so well in the family. Jen and the kids are going to visit them today while I am at work. I should be able to post a picture sometime soon.

So that leaves just one baby left to arrive, ours. There was of course no news on the boards yesterday and with 3 days to go things are getting a little tense. On the plus side I fixed the garage door opener, I was able to get a good night's sleep and I am going out after work this afternoon for some drinks to celebrate my B-Day tomorrow. Things are looking up, and I feel good about today. (Of course I have "felt good" about other days but who's counting.) Enjoy the day, congrats Laura and Mark, and welcome baby Lucy.

Also, wanted to share a picture from Jackson's kindergarten graduation. What a handsome little man.

And the clock keeps ticking...

2007-06-12T06:30:00.000-06:00

I had planned on writing a quick note at the end of each day this week just to keep everyone informed on what I am calling "Hell Week." Yesterday sucked! Not sure if this waiting had anything to do with it but I was just grouchy all day, I had a hard time concentrating on anything. Last night Annie was in bed with us and woke up crying around 1:30. Jen got her a drink and the two of them fell back asleep. I was awake for the next two hours and finally fell back asleep on the couch downstairs. Now I am tired, grouchy, and at work. Jen just called to say that the garage door won't go down. She doesn't know what to do so I am going to have to go back home in a little bit and fix it. Did I mention I am tired and grouchy? Oh and before I forget, there was no news yesterday.

This is SO hard

2007-06-07T20:56:00.000-06:00

OK, it has been a really hard week. I am thinking about this little baby all the time and really want to know what he looks like and feels like and smells like. All that baby stuff. I just want to get a call so bad!
There has been no movement on referrals this week. There were 7 people that posts on the adoption agency's forum with travel dates today. Gary is guessing that is good. It means those babies and children are getting through the court process and then they can start on the next group of children who are waiting for a family.
Gary did send an email to our social worker on Monday and she forwarded it on to one of the head people over the Ethiopian program at the agency. No promises, but she said they were waiting for referrals from Ethiopia and she was really hopeful for our family. NOW, would she say that if she suspected it was unlikely we would have a baby before the deadline???? I would hope not. I am considering that a good sign. Also there were two other little things that might be good signs. Maybe Gary and I are reading too much in to it... A couple weeks ago a check we wrote in December for some fee to Ethiopia was cashed. Then last week there was a note on the checklist (that the agency updates for us online)that our dossier was sent to Ethiopia. Seems like something is happening... Or the other thought is somehow our paperwork was misplaced for the last 5 months. HAHAHA - I will try to not think about that possibility.

It has also been a good week. The kids are out of school (need to post a picture of Jack in his cap from his Kindergarten graduation). So starting this week, I am working 4 - 9 hour days and then a 1/2 day from home on Wednesday. It is working out wonderfully so far. The kids and I had a great time Wednesday afternoon, made cookies, played outside, went to the library. I think it will work out nicely. Gary is also working 4 - 9 hour days with a half day on Fridays, so they get even more time home with him.

I'm an aunt

2007-06-05T20:53:00.000-06:00

Sarah and Adam welcomed a baby boy last Friday. Alexander Quinn. He looks alot like his big brother from first pictures. Those cheeks. :) What a cutie! We can't wait to see him, though we will have to wait for a bit. :(

2 down, 2 to go. Laura's due date was 2 days ago. Should be soon (maybe, unless this little one is like my Katie, who had to be forced out 1 1/2 weeks after her due date).
And the 6/15 cutoff is looming. And there has not been any progress since last week. It is hard not to think about it ALL the time!

Also on the last posting, the article on the NY Times. I got it from someone else's blog and thought it was really good. CHSFS is our agency and they had lots of good comments in there. It is long, but explains the process fairly well.

Hoping and Praying for good news soon!

NYT article about adoption from Ethiopia

2007-06-04T19:56:00.000-06:00

In Ethiopia, Open Doors for Foreign Adoptions

By JANE GROSS and WILL CONNORS
Published: June 4, 2007

ST. PAUL — Ethiopia was not on Mark and Vera Westrum-Ostrom’s list when they first visited Children’s Home Society & Family Services here to explore an international adoption.

From Ethiopia to Minnesota Ukraine was first, because of their family heritage, until the couple discovered that the adoption system there was chaotic, with inaccurate information about orphans’ health and availability.

Vietnam was second, after they saw videos of well-run orphanages. But the wait would be at least a year and a half.

Then they learned about Ethiopia’s model centers for orphans, run by American agencies, with an efficient adoption system that made it possible for them to file paperwork on Labor Day and claim 2-year-old Tariku, a boy with almond eyes and a halo of ringlets, at Christmas.

From Addis Ababa, the capital city, they traveled to the countryside to meet the boy’s birth mother, an opportunity rare in international adoption. And at roughly $20,000, the process was affordable compared with other foreign adoptions, and free of the bribes that are common in some countries.

It is no wonder, given these advantages, that Ethiopia, a country more often associated by Americans with drought, famine and conflict, has become a hot spot for international adoption. Even before the actress Angelina Jolie put adoption in Ethiopia on the cover of People magazine in 2005, the number of adoptions there by Americans was growing. The total is still small — 732 children in 2006, out of a total of 20,632 foreign adoptions, but it is a steep increase, up from 82 children adopted in 1997.

Ethiopia now ranks 5th among countries for adoption by Americans, up from 16th in 2000. In the same period, the number of American agencies licensed to operate there has grown from one to 22.

The increasing interest in Ethiopia comes at a time when the leading countries for international adoption, China, Guatemala and Russia are, respectively, tightening eligibility requirements, under scrutiny for adoption corruption and closing borders to American agencies.

Ethiopia’s sudden popularity also comes with risks, say government officials there and in America.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to handle it,” said Haddush Halefom, an official at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, which oversees adoption. “We don’t have the capacity to handle all these new agencies, and we have to monitor the quality, not just the quantity.”

Capping the number of agencies is one solution. And that is what some international adoption officials in the United States are now urging the Ethiopian government to do.

Of concern is the ability of agencies to handle the rising demand, which may have contributed to a recent mix-up involving two families sent home with the wrong children by Christian World Adoption, an established agency, although relatively new to Ethiopia. That case prompted inquiries by the State Department and the nonprofit Joint Council on International Children’s Services in Virginia, a child welfare and advocacy organization, and the adoption agency itself, said Thomas DiFilipo, president of the joint council.

Officials at Christian World Adoption did not reply to e-mail messages or telephone calls. But Mr. DiFilipo said the agency was reviewing its procedures and has hired immigration lawyers to resolve the mix-up.

The consensus, Mr. DiFilipo said, is that the mix-up was “an honest mistake.” But, he added, “This could be the byproduct of a staff handling 35 placements when they’re used to handling 20.”

Children’s Home Society & Family Services, founded in 1889, began working in Ethiopia in 2004. The agency completed about 300 adoptions in its first three years in Ethiopia, and expects to complete that many in 2007 alone. Along with Wide Horizons For Children in Waltham, Mass., the society is credited with helping Ethiopia create a model for international adoption.

Ethiopia, with a population of 76 million, has an estimated 5 million children who have lost one or both parents, according to aid organizations. Many African nations have outlawed or impeded the adoption of their children by foreigners. Ethiopia has welcomed American and European families who are willing to provide homes for children who have lost both parents to AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis or starvation, or who come from families too destitute to feed and clothe them. (The adoption process includes routine screening for HIV infection.)

Two elements distinguish Ethiopia’s adoption system, according to dozens of experts. One is the existence of transitional homes for orphans, in the countryside and in the capital, with services and staffing that are rare in the developing world — paid for by American agencies.

Not long ago, Sandra Iverson, a nurse practitioner from the University of Minnesota’s international adoption health clinic, the first of its kind in the United States, was invited to visit the Children’s Home Society’s Ethiopian centers.

She arrived with a neonatal otoscope, to diagnose ear infections; the Red Book, the bible of pediatrics; and scarce antibiotics. She left confident that Ethiopia’s orphans enjoyed unusual care.

“You don’t hear crying babies,” Ms. Iverson said. “They are picked up immediately.”

The other signature of the Ethiopian system is that adopting families are encouraged to meet birth families and visit the villages where the children were raised, a cutting-edge practice in adoptions. Some agencies provide DVDs or photographs that document the children’s past.

Russ and Ann Couwenhoven, in Ham Lake, Minn., recently showed one such video to 6-year-old Tariku, one of three children they have adopted from Ethiopia. The boy seemed proud of the beautifully painted house he had lived in, they said, and the uncle who had sheltered him for as long as he could.

Linda Zwicky brought 2-year-old Amale home five days before the Memorial Day weekend, with a letter from the child’s grandmother that described holding the motherless infant at her breast even though she had no milk. Sometimes such vividness is too much. Melanie Danke and her husband, of Minneapolis, adopted 6-year-old twins and a 3-year-old, all siblings. One of the twins “would work herself up until she was inconsolable” looking at photos of the aunt and grandmother who raised her, Ms. Danke said. So she has tucked the photos away for now.

David Pilgrim, vice president of adoption services at the Children’s Home Society, said the agency spends $2 million a year on its Ethiopian facilities.

At the main transitional home, on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, a staff of 170 care for about 120 children, ensuring that the children have consistent contact with adults, which experts say mitigates the most damaging psychological effects of institutionalization.

During a reporter’s recent visit, the two terra-cotta buildings where the children live, usually for no more than a few months, were spotless, with staff members scurrying to pick up toys and food spills as they hit the floor.

The transitional home has a primary school, open also to local students, where the children begin learning English. There is a medical clinic with two full-time doctors and 10 nurses. Down the road is a guest house for adoptive parents, who also can stay in a sleek hotel.

The children also enjoy the services of a “laugh therapist,” Belachu Girma.

“These kids come here and are very depressed at first, all with their heads down and not talking,” Mr. Girma said. “I come in and try to help them relax.”

There was laughter also at the nearby guest house, more of the nervous kind, as American parents waited to take their children back to St. Paul from the Horn of Africa.

Araminta and Jason Montague, from Atlanta, who picked up 17-month-old Natan last week, compared their experience in Ethiopia to an earlier adoption of a girl from China (where Americans adopted 6,493 children in 2006).

“Our daughter was in an orphanage with about 300 children and she was very dehydrated,” Ms. Montague said. “We were never told her origins. Her sheet just said ‘Status: Abandoned.’ ”

Some parents anguished, as did Karla Suomala of Decorah, Iowa, when she arrived in Addis Ababa to adopt 5-year-old Dawit and his 21-month-old sister Meheret.

“It’s hard to know what the right thing is to do,” Ms. Suomala said. “Should we just give all the money we’re spending on this to the children’s mother?” Ms. Suomala and her husband, David Vasquez, had already spent time with her.

“It was obvious the birth mother loved her children,” Mr. Vasquez said. “She said to us, ‘Thank you for sharing my burden.’ ”

Alessandro Conticini, the head of child protection at Unicef Ethiopia, is one of many who believe that international adoption is a good thing but must be “part of a larger strategy” that focuses on keeping children in their families or communities, with the help of humanitarian organizations.

Indeed, the Ethiopian government has taken the unusual step of requiring foreign agencies to provide social services and document the results. As a result, agencies like Children’s Home Society and Wide Horizons have built schools and medical facilities — including one for HIV-infected children.

But Mr. Conticini, of Unicef, worries about the mushrooming number of private adoption companies that “are not properly regulated by the government” because two different ministries are involved and working at cross purposes.

At the State Department, visa applications for children adopted from Ethiopia are getting extra attention, said Catherine M. Barry, deputy assistant secretary for overseas citizens services. “We will very quickly see if patterns are emerging,” she said, “and we will intervene in a timely fashion with anyone doing less than quality work.”

While the governments collaborate to protect a delicate adoption system from the perils of growth, adoptive families arrive each week in Addis Ababa to ease their children into new lives.

Last week, these included Mr. Vasquez and Ms. Suomala. While she had no trouble escorting Meheret from the orphanage, Dawit refused to budge, so Mr. Vasquez carried him toward the gate.

There, the child grabbed the bars and would not let go. Mr. Vasquez considered prying his hands loose and thought better of it. Instead he told Dawit that it was O.K. to cry.

Jane Gross reported from St. Paul, and Will Connors from Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian Census

2007-05-30T12:39:00.000-06:00

No news on our referral yet! Right now we are #6 on the "unofficial list," with 16 days to go before the cut-off. YIKES!!!! I ran across this article at work and since census data is my life I thought I would share this with everyone. Enjoy and keep sending positive thoughts.

Ethiopia Starts to Take a Census
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:49 p.m. ET
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- Ethiopia began counting its population Tuesday, a daunting task in a country where asking personal questions is considered socially taboo but where the government and international donors sorely need more information to plan economic and social programs.
More than 100,000 census takers, most of them schoolteachers, fanned out across Africa's second most populous country as part of a 10-day program to find out from every household details such as how many of them there are, their ethnicity, religion, and the languages they speak.
One out of five homes will also be asked questions about their education and even the condition of their homes.
''In some cases, some people do not like to be asked such questions,'' said English teacher Tsedale Endale, 32, a census worker who allowed a reporter from The Associated Press to accompany her. The problem is most prevalent in rural areas, where most Ethiopians live, she said.
''They think that if they count their children, one of them will die soon,'' Tsedale said, referring to a popular African superstition.
The last census was in 1994 when officials found out there were 54 million Ethiopians in the country. Preliminary results of the 2007 population count will be released in five months, and final results in 1 1/2 years.
''It is a huge activity especially in this country, where the majority of the population is not literate, where transportation is not adequate, and so many people live in rural areas,'' said Mekonnen Tesfaye, a census official and statistician.
The difficulty of conducting a census in Ethiopia is compounded by the nation's nearly 90 different ethnic groups and as many languages.
The terrain and weather also make it difficult, delaying the count in some areas such as the remote Afar and Somali regions. The largely nomadic population in those regions disperse over a wide area during the rainy season, which has begun. They will be counted in November when they return to more accessible areas.
That count will be in addition to the 10-day one that began Tuesday.
Taking population counts in African countries has long been difficult. In Nigeria, for example, four censuses have been aborted since independence from Britain in 1960 because of logistical problems and allegations that ethnic and religious groups had sought to inflate their numbers.
The U.N. Population Fund's 2006 report estimates Ethiopia has 79.3 million people, ahead of Egypt with 75.4 million people. The most populous country in Africa is Nigeria, with 134.4 million people.
Because most of the officials doing the population count in Ethiopia are teachers, schools closed three weeks early this year to allow them to prepare for the census.
On Tuesday, Tsedale and geography teacher Zemeny Ali, 32, wound their way through the Ethiopian capital's serpentine neighborhoods to reach a large apartment project where they worked through 40 apartments in four hours.
Residents were for the most part cooperative, many offering tea and food to the census takers. But many also complained that the numbers they cared about were not addressed by the census.
''Life is becoming very expensive,'' said 33-year-old Merkineh Mohammed, who fixes fire hydrants for the fire department. But he added, ''I don't expect anything from the government, because the government is also living on aid.''
As much as a third of Ethiopia's budget is funded by Western aid.
Others complained about the census itself.
''The process is too long,'' said Mekonnen Alemu, 29, of the 47-question form, which took him half an hour to complete. ''We're asked too many questions.''
The census takers, who are being paid $6 a day, also found the process tedious, but persevered because they believe the exercise is important.
''I think it's actually a little boring,'' Zemeny said after asking two dozen people the same set of questions.
But, Tsedale added, ''We do it because we love our country.''

And the wait continues...

2007-05-14T11:35:00.000-06:00

I am not sure who coined the phrase "No news is good news," but I seriously doubt they were talking about adoption. Things have been REALLY quiet on the referral front and the June 15th deadline which a few weeks ago seemed no big deal, is starting to get a little scary. We sent an e-mail to our agency about 2 weeks ago just to get an idea of how things were looking. Jan was, as expected, not able to give us much information. She just confirmed where we were in the process and that she couldn't guarantee a referral before the June 15th cutoff, but to remain optimistic. We are trying to, that's for sure, but it is hard. Running around taking the kids to practice and ball games every night of the week helps.

There was a great article about adoption from Liberia in the Sunday paper. I am including a link and really recommend reading it. Also in honor of Mother's Day I am including the Amharic word for "mother" - Enat or Emaye

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007705130328

June 14th & 15th

2007-05-02T07:28:00.000-06:00

Two important dates coming up. June 14th is my birthday (Gary) and while not important to most, it is something I look forward to. The second date, June 15th is a biggie. We just heard from our agency and as some of you know, the Ethiopian courts close every year. The closure typically lasts from the end of July or early August, until mid September. During this time the judges have vacation and a new schedule is made for the upcoming year. Due to the closure referrals will not be given after June 15th. Anyone who receives a referral before June 15th is expected to get through the court system before closure. The referral process will begin again approximately September 15th.

As of right now we are sitting around the 12 spot on the "unofficial list" so we are still very hopeful that we will get word before the 15th of June. However now there is a known cut-off date and the panicking has started.

Outreach Africa

2007-04-24T07:29:00.000-06:00

Jen and I were watching the news last night and heard about a organization in Iowa called Outreach Africa. Outreach was created to supplement the work currently being undertaken by the Iambi Hospital Project, Inc. a non-profit organization. Iambi Hospital project is a five-year program to rebuild Iambi Hospital and expand its function to include certified nurses, training programs, and AIDS / HIV hospices services. Another program they are involved in is called "Kids Against Hunger." Each food package they produce provides six nutritionally complete servings to feed the starving children around the world and the hungry here at home. All for the low cost of 25 cents per serving. I am including a link, please take a look.

The first of Jen's three pregnant sisters had her baby on Sunday. Elizabeth and Zach welcomed Benjamin David into the world at 5:00a. Mom and son are doing well. I am pretty sure I saw some more grey hair on dad.

Finally lots of activity on the adoption front. We have moved up to 15th on the "unofficial" list. So far in April there have been 15 referrals we know of so our hopes of a May, early June referral seem good. Now we are trying to make sure we get all the vaccinations we need, we have talked with our doctor to make sure he can look over the medical report when it comes in, and figuring out possible names.

EXCITING TIMES!!!!!!

http://www.outreachafrica.org/index.php

$20 or your child

2007-04-14T14:32:00.000-06:00

I didn't even know how to title this post.
I read this article from another blog and am brought to tears. Little Mark Kwadwo. His picture, look at that face. That could be any little boy or girl. The story is about child slavery in Africa.
http://www.wehaitians.com/africa%20world%20of%20forced%20labor%20in%20a%206%20year%20old%20eyes.html

A couple months ago a friend had told me about an Oprah episode she had seen that sounded like the same story. I had meant to try to find more information on the story, and I am just sure this is it.

This story is about the same little boy. http://www.thevillageofhope.com/former_slaves.htm

This little guy, Mark, has been saved. But it is just so awful to think what he and so many, many, many more are going through. I don't understand why this has to happen, why there has to be injustice this great in a world. A world where I have too much food and worry about getting new clothes or a better car or house or whatever. It makes me sick and sad.

Quick programming note

2007-04-10T11:09:00.000-06:00

A documentary on Ethiopia coffee farmers called "Black Gold" is being shown on PBS. If you check local listings you can find out when it will air in your area. It will be shown here in Iowa on April 22nd at 10:30pm.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blackgold/

Alittle excitement

2007-04-06T20:09:00.000-06:00

OK, I am in a reeeeaallly greeeaaat mood tonight!!!! There have been 9 referrals this week!! That is really high!
As you may or may not remember, our adoption agency has a website with forums for each country they have programs with. The Ethiopia board is HIGHLY active, seriously can't keep up with everything that happens each day. They estimate 50 to 60% of the people using CHSFS for Ethiopia adoptions are active on the forum. So, of the people on the forum - 9 got referrals this week and we are now 20th on the list! The babies this week have been fairly young - 2 months, 3 mo, a couple 4 mo, a couple 6 mo, 7 mo, and 17 mo old. And more girls than boys, interestingly enough.
That still puts us alittle behind my first guess or hope. Our dossier was approved Jan 11th. When we started the process last fall, the wait time for a baby boy was 0-4 months, but then around November or December it changed to 4-6 months. Still I was hoping for less than 4 months - I don't know why. So, I was hoping for a referral by the end of April. Now, I am hoping for one by the end of May.
After that we wait 2-3 months to travel. My guess is we will be traveling in August, maybe September.
Wow - now that seems like a long ways off. We have lots to keep us busy, but we would love to go get our son NOW! I think about him alot and wonder where is he and what he looks like. I think he is probably already born and with a loving mother, but a mother that is not going to be able to take care of him for some reason. I don't like to think about what they are going through or why she will have to let him go. I cannot imagine making that decision. I tell myself I would never be able to leave my child, but I also know that I have no idea what their lives are like and what they suffer through every single day. So, as much as I DO NOT want any woman to be forced to let their babies go, I want to have my son now. I want to get him and make him safe and healthy and happy.

OK, on to another topic, because my mood went from really good to kinda sad.

My baby girl - Annalise Lucille - is 2 years old!! Let me count them 1 - 2!!! Holy smokeroos. I cannot believe two years have passed since that little darling was born. She had a fun birthday! Well a couple of them - one with her cousin Holden who is 5 and all my family. Then on her birthday - just cupcakes at 8:00PM, because we had swim lessons and Katie had religious ed and we weren't all home together until that time. And finally another with the real cake and presents the following night. She is getting real good at singing Happy Birthday to herself and blowing out candles. She is a very expressive little one - big wide open eyes and mouth about everything - it was fun watching her open her presents. My mom gave her a beautiful dress with a very fluffy skirt. She tried that one and ran around twirling and fluffing it. Just makes me smile thinking about her.

So this is Easter weekend - it will be awesome to see all my sisters with their bulging bellies. I think we will be skipping the egg hunt at the high school Saturday morning, since it is supposed to be 22 degrees with a wind chill making it feel like 7 degrees. (You know, it was 80 degrees two weeks ago!) Thanks for reading!
Happy Easter!

Site meter fun!

2007-03-29T10:18:00.000-06:00

Okay, as it will become obvious, I am starting to run out of things to talk about. This week's topic is is the wonderful world of the site meter. When we started this blog one of things I wanted to put in was a site meter so we could see from where and how many people were reading our blog. I admit it may seem geeky but I am what I am. Let me just say it is COOL!!!!

If you click on the site meter below you can view reports and maps about where all of your traffic is coming from. We have people across the globe reading this, not all of the time mind you but once in a while. There is also a referral link which shows how people are finding our blog. Seems we are links on a couple of other people's site. One of sites linking to us are the relatives of our neighbors which Jen has mentioned before. (Big shout out to Stephanie and Brian, now that the weather has improved we need to get together and chat. I still can't believe the connection!)

I can also see from looking at the reports that most of you check our blog early in the week. Of course since this is being posted on Thursday, I am obviously not taking advantage of this knowledge.

*Personal goal will be that we get back on track posting Sunday or Monday.*

However please keep in mind that I also have personal goals to lose more weight, somehow grow hair on the top of my head, and to retire at an early age.

So now that I have shown you all the wonders of the site meter, what should we do with this knowledge? I want to take a family vacation activity and bring it into the 21st century. When we were kids, we took the car practically everywhere for vacation. On the trip mom would try and find license plates for all 50 states. I want to do one better, I want to get comments from as many states and countries as possible! So click the word "comment" below this post and let us know where you are. You can post as "Anonymous," just select that option, write in the box above that and click "Publish your comment" Really quite simple. Also, if you wish, you can click on the envelope below and send this blog to anyone you think can help us reach our goal.

Drinks are on me if we can get all 50 states and let's say...30 countries. Don't let me down.

All's Quiet on the Adoption Front

2007-03-22T07:25:00.000-06:00

We just realized that we had forgotten to post anything yet this week. This in an indication that we don't have much to share. It's Spring Break this week for the kids and we had plans to make a short trip up to Minneapolis. Unfortunately the U.S. Census Bureau decided this would be a great week to release the 2006 county population estimates. That meant I have spent most of the week getting all the data together and getting the website updated. Today I get to field calls from the press and local municipalities asking me what the numbers mean. Yippee. Since this all came up and we had to scrape our Minneapolis plans we took the kids to the Omaha zoo on Sunday and plan on taking them bowling and to the movies later this week. They seem cool with it all but I felt like crap that I had to change our plans. Quick question, does money still buy happiness? When I get a chance I will post pictures from the zoo, the kids had a blast and truth be told Jen and I like that zoo probably more than the kids.

Adoption news: Waiting and more waiting. As of right now there has not been any referrals given out this week. We would really like to see a big bunch given out before the end of the month but we are not holding our breath.

This week's Amharic word: Konjo - beautiful

Can it be? Is Spring here?

2007-03-12T09:42:00.000-06:00

We don't have a lot to say this week other than this past weekend was beautiful!!! After being stuck in the house for the past three months, and having two big snowstorms hit us the past two weeks, it appears that the worst MAY be over. (It is Iowa after all so I will not be surprised to see another big storm.) Yesterday it was just over 60 degrees so we were able to take a couple walks with kids, grill out, and I even caught Jen sitting on the deck reading a magazine. Personally I think she was trying to get some sun and those of you who know her, know I am right.

Nothing new on the adoption front. There were a small number of referrals given out last week so that has moved us up "the list."

Right now we are trying to come up with ideas for this summer. We want to come up with some things so the kids can have a good summer but we need to save up our vacation time for the big trip to Addis. Any suggestions for some fun, short trips we can take in June and July would be met with great appreciation. Even better would be a couple beds, good food, drinks and nice conversation while the kids go crazy. Boating and camping with the Hickmans wouldn't be too bad either.

Finally for all of you looking for an ethiopian music video, well you are in luck. Enjoy!

Video link

Yeah, we're still here

2007-03-04T22:12:00.000-06:00

Hello, Gary has been bugging me to post since it has been a couple weeks since we have posted anything and because he posted the last 2 or 3 times. I have been meaning to, but haven't had anything real exciting to add. But I can talk about the adoption forever, so I will give alittle update.

First of all...waiting is hard. Jeepers, I thought it was hard when I was pregnant and in those cases I had a due date and the doctor will only let you go so far past it. So it was hard to wait, but we knew what we were waiting for - we had a fairly specific date.
Well, the wait for a baby boy is 4-6 months, but that is just an estimate. And the wait to travel after that is about 12 weeks, though it seems alot of people are only waiting 9 or 10 weeks. So, who knows when we will have a referral and then when we will get meet him. I use our adoption agencies message board list as a guide, but it isn't anything I can hold my breath on. So, we watch and wait and wait. We get excited when other families post that they received their referral or their travel date, because it so exciting AND, very selfishly, because it means we are moving up on the list. Best guess for us is a late April/early May referral (where we get the babies information and picture) and traveling in July. I kinda don't like giving myself a date, because then I might come to hope and plan for it and if things slow down then I will be disappointed.
From what I remember reading, there are 4 millions orphans in Ethiopia. Why then does it take so long? Many reasons, I think I have heard the government has to wait a certain amount of time to allow an orphan to be adopted, maybe to be considered an actual orphan, in case someone comes to claim the child. But still there are so many already orphaned. Our adoption agency, Children's Home Society and Family Services, runs the care center that the children are in. There is only room for so many children, I can't remember the number, say 60. Those children are evaluated and then matched with a family. The family accepts the referral and then a court date it set and the family travels to Ethiopia to adopt the child. When the 60 kids are anywhere in this process but haven't been picked up yet, there is no room for more children to come into the care center. So, basically a child has to be picked up so another can come in and then the process starts again. I think the slow down comes in with the Ethiopian court. I am sure they are so, so busy, and the dates get pushed back, so everything gets pushed back. That is all my interpretation from what I have read here and there. Pretty logical, but I had to think it all through to understand why we have to wait.

And so we are back to waiting is hard.
It is hard on the kids too. Jack said - out of the blue, I think we were at the store - I wish we could get our baby brother now. Summer, I tell him - but that is a long wait for a 5 year old. Katie is the same way, talks about her baby brother all the time, wants to know how old he will be and when he is coming, etc, etc.
Annalise LOVES babies. Every time we see a stroller, say at the mall, she will wriggle away from me to go check out the baby. Same with carseats, someone is carrying one and she is trying to peek in to see the baby. She has a little kitchen in her room and 2 high chairs and she loves to feed her dolls. Every kid under 4 years old that she sees, 'baby, baby!'. But, I think a new baby in her momma's arms all the time is going to be a little different. Jack, my cuddle bug, climbs onto my lap and Anna can be busy doing anything, but she will drop it to come running across the room screaming, 'MY MOMMY!'. She pushes him off my lap. Hmmm, so I think she is OK with the wait.

OK, so I said I would give a little update, and I just rambled on about poor me waiting.

Some friends of ours from nearby left on Saturday for Ethiopia. They are picking up their little girl. I know they will be really busy after they get back, but I can't wait to meet her and here about their trip.

That is it for tonight, I will post again soon.

Fingerprints to Big Brother...Check.

2007-02-20T07:34:00.000-06:00

Teanastëllën,

Well we had our appointment with USCIS (formally INS) Thursday to get our fingerprints done. I had all kinds of smart alec comments in my head to use while there. Stuff like "I hope they don't solve any old crimes with this data" but when the time came I quietly went up and let them have their way with me. The whole process only took us about 15 minutes which was also a little disappointing. I got to leave work and was hoping to be gone longer.

Saturday night we had dinner with another couple who are adopting from Ethiopia. They have their referral, a beautiful baby boy (13 months old I want to say), and are waiting for their travel date. We had actually gotten together with them in December when the larger group of us met at David's. Nice night, good food, great conversation.

One of the questions that have come up a lot recently amongst ourselves and from others is what are we going to name our child. To be honest that is a tough question for us. I may ask Jen to hop on later and give a better answer, but in a nutshell we don't know. We are kind of waiting to see what our child's name is before we make any decisions. It seems from the people we have met and those on the boards that it is a about 60-40 in keeping the original name. For us it will depend I think on what that name is. At the very least I think we plan on using a combination of our child's Ethiopian name and one that we pick. I am including a link which gives a sample of some of the names used in Ethiopia. Any comments and suggestions about names will be greatly appreciated.

Ethiopian boys names A-T
Ethiopian boys names T-Z

East Africa Coffee Dispute

2007-02-15T14:48:00.000-06:00

Starbucks to Buy More E. Africa Coffee

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Starbucks will double its purchases of fine coffee from East African countries by 2009, the vice president for procurement said Thursday at a coffee conference in the Ethiopian capital.

Starbucks Corp. also announced it would help small-scale coffee producers by providing $1 million in micro-financing loans and would set up a farmer support center in 2007 to improve bean quality.

"We will double our coffee purchases from East Africa in the next two years," said Dub Hay, Starbucks's senior vice president of coffee procurement. "East Africa is not only the birthplace of coffee and the origin of some of the finest coffees in the world, its coffee trade is tied to the well-being and economic development of the region's countries and people."

The announcement comes following a dispute between Starbucks and the Ethiopian government over the trademarking of certain coffee names. British charity Oxfam accused the coffee giant of denying Ethiopia from earning $88 million a year by blocking its bid to trademark three types of coffee beans _ Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe.

Oxfam's Horn of Africa regional director Abera Tola said the new measures taken by Starbucks were appreciated, but that they should also increase the price they pay for coffee.

"The volumes they are asking for are quite high," Tola said. "They are not talking about price."

Starbucks buys 294 million pounds of coffee a year and posts sales of more than $7.8 billion a year. Currently, Starbucks buys 6 percent of its coffee from Africa, but that is expected to reach 12 percent by 2009, Hay said.

Half of Ethiopia's 77 million people live on less than $1 a day. Starbucks already provides $4.2 million for social development projects in East Africa.

The announcement came at the largest-ever coffee conference in Africa. More than 500 industry leaders attended the meeting, the Eastern African Fine Coffees Association said.

East African growers account for about half of the world's specialty coffee. Producers have increasingly sought to brand their coffee in order to capture higher consumer prices. Most coffee growers in Africa live in poverty.

Pictures, message boards, and other stuff

2007-02-05T08:47:00.000-06:00

So sorry for the lapse in postings. I would love to say it is because we have been so busy, but when the temperature outside starts with a "-" it is safe to say we haven't been going anywhere. So why the long interval? Basically we haven't been able to come up with anything new to say. Well enough of that I say, today I plan on throwing about a dozen different things out here. (If I lose you all I apologize)

Jen asked that I post some pictures of the kids from our Chicago trip as well as some outdoor playtime so I will be putting them in at the bottom of this post.
On Saturday night we met with another family in the process of adopting from Ethiopia. We got their e-mail address from Angela our case worker. Jen had been e-mailing her over the past month or so and we decided to get everyone together. They have two boys and have received their referral for a beautiful baby girl. They are now waiting on their travel date. Oh I forgot to mention they live here in our area too. There are a couple other families we have been in contact with who were unable to join us this weekend but want to get together next time. It is so nice to have other families close by who have adopted or are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia. We really think it will be helpful to our family to have these connections close by.
Ahhhh, message boards. You could say I am slightly addicted to them. (Jen is slowly becoming a junkie as well.) The wealth of information as well as the camaraderie that is out on the web is unbelievable. I think Jen mentioned the CHSFS board in a previous post, but if not this one is GREAT! The Ethiopia forum is the biggest and most active of all their boards. As of today there are over 12,000 posts. What is nice about this board is that everyone here for the most part are using CHSFS or have used the agency in the past. If you have a question you can post it and have a reply in minutes. I also have subscribed to a number of boards on Yahoo! There is an Ethiopian adoption board which has people from all of the different agencies, there is another board for people using CHSFS and recently I stumbled across an Iowa international adoption board. This one has posting from people in Iowa about adoption, it is not as active but still something I check with some frequency.
We didn't mention a nice little get together we had in early December. We got together with about 4 other families at David's Place in Iowa City. I mention this because David's Place is an Ethiopian restaurant and I highly recommend it. In fact I beg of you, if you are in the area stop in and give it a try.
We love that people have been posting comments! Please do so if you have time, it lets us know that we have people reading this and actually makes doing this blog a lot more fun. We have not replied to the comments because we weren't sure if that was the "right way" to do things in the blogging world.
Finally, Jen wanted me to mention that I have ended a couple of my posts with a word in Amharic. So for those keeping score at home:

Dehna hunu - Goodbye
selam - Peace

I guess that's it for now. I know that isn't quite a dozen but I tend to exaggerate at times. Just ask Jen. Here are the pics.

To my wife and family, Afekrishalehou!

Video Clip

2007-01-24T21:31:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to post this link to a video about orphans in Ethiopia. It is kinda long - 20 minutes, but I really thought it was good. Just a small glimpse of what is happening there.

The main character of the book that I just finished, "There is No Me Without You," by Melessa Fay Greene, is Haregewoin Teferra. She was in part of this video. I thought that was kinda neat. This book (have I said much about it before, I can't remember) is amazing and a true current day story of this woman and the orphans she has taken in. The book also tells stories of these children, which you just don't want to believe could be true. I will write more about this book another night.

Ethiopian orphans video

weekend in Chicago

2007-01-22T20:52:00.000-06:00

Hello, this is Jen. Just wanted to post a note, though there are no adoption updates for us. Children's Home Society and Family Services has forums or chat rooms on their website for the various countries they adopt from. The Ethiopia forum is by far the most active with over 10,000 posts and 1000 threads. It is actually hard to keep up on if you miss a day. But, it is so helpful, you find people who have the same question you do and lots of other people who know the answers.
Anyway, my point is, many families post updates on their adoption process. There is also someone who keeps track of families who are in different stages of the process, if they want her to. I think they guesstimate that about half of the families adopting from Ethiopia provide updates for this. During December there were 23 children referred to families, 14 of those between Dec 19-22. In January, there has only been 1, so I expect a big flurry of referrals any day now. It won't be us for a few more months, but I am still excitedly waiting for the families who are next.

We spent the weekend in Chicago. It was my sister Sarah's birthday on Saturday and we wanted to celebrate her big 3-0 with her. My niece, Maggie, turned the big 3 on Sunday, so even more to celebrate. Very nice, yet quick, weekend. All 4 sisters were together with the 7 kids and 2 of the hubbies. We went to the Shedd Aquarium on Saturday and to the Du Page Children's Museum in Naperville on Sunday.
Did I mention that all four of us are expecting???? Elizabeth is due (eek, can't remember) April 20-something. Sarah is due June 5th. And Laura is due June 4th. And my due date (minus the growing belly) is alittle more up-in-the-air. My parents will go from 7 grandkids to 11 in a few months.
So, maybe if I can sweet talk my guy, we will post a couple pics of Chicago or all the snow we got while we were gone. :) Take care.

Ethiopian Calendar

2007-01-15T19:45:00.000-06:00

Ethiopia gears up for millennium party
© afrol News / UNWTOafrol News, 15 January -

Ethiopia is still living in the year 1999, according to its own calendar, meaning that Ethiopians can look forward to yet another millennium party later this year. And authorities are planning a magnificent celebration for citizens and the many expected foreign visitors; launching projects worth birr 290 million (euro 26 million).

The Ethiopian calendar is unique in the world, developed by the indigenous Coptic church leaning on ancient Egyptian astronomic calculations, the Jewish calendar and the Julian calendar - adopted under Julius Caesar and the root of all Christian date calculators. Europe in 1582 shifted to the Gregorian calendar, now putting most of us in January 2007.

According to the Ethiopian calendar, we are in mid-1999. Here, "the year is divided into 12 months of 30 days each and a 13th month of 5 days and 6 days in leap year," the Ethiopian Ministry of Culture explains. The Ethiopian calendar is 7 and a half year behind the Gregorian calendar, also having 365 days in a normal year and 366 days in each leap year, so the distance remains almost constant.

According to Harvard University Professor Ephraim Isaac, most scholars that have studied Biblical times agree that the Ethiopian calendar is much closer than the Gregorian to start its calculations of time around the birth of Jesus Christ. Some put this event in the year 0 of the Ethiopian calendar, while most historians hold the founder of Christianity was born in year 3 of the same calendar - or year 5 in the Gregorian.

To read the rest of the article:
http://www.afrol.com/articles/23759

Officially "Waiting"

2007-01-14T17:07:00.000-06:00

Well we received word on Thursday (1/11/07) from CHSFS that our dossier has been approved and we are officially "waiting for a referral." What this means is that clock has started ticking. Wait time for an infant boy is currently running 0-4 months. After we get our referral and accept we have to wait for an appointment date at the embassy in Addis Ababa. Travel time from when we accept our referral to when we actually leave can be up to 12 weeks. So let's do the math: we could get our referral anytime between now and May. Let's assume May, we could then expect to leave for Addis sometime between late June-August.

That's in a perfect world where dates don't change, the courts don't close in late July and world events don't play a factor (F.Y.I. Ethiopia and Somalia are not getting a long currently. So far this has not had an affect on international adoption, but we are keeping up-to-date with everything that is happening just in case.)

Since this isn't a perfect world, we don't really have a clue for sure about anything. So that is the long answer to the question we have already been getting "So when will you leave to get your new son?" The short answer we have been giving is a blank stare and a shrug of the shoulders. Now you know why.

Selam.

Busy times ahead

2007-01-07T22:29:00.000-06:00

Hi - this is Jen. I don't have any big updates, but thought I should write a quick note.
We took down Christmas decorations this weekend. We always put up a fair amount - 2 trees, several wreaths, lots of garland and lights, a little village and train set, outdoor lights, etc, so it takes awhile to take back down. It is kinda sad, the house just doesn't feel so festive and fun. But, the house does feel cleaner. Less clutter. Katie asked what the next holiday is, I think she was alittle sad it was 'over'.

We also made trips to Lowes, Menards, and Home Depot this weekend. The kids were thrilled to say the least! NOT! They did find some excitement in trying out all the shower, bathtubs, and toilets we were looking at. At one point, the 3 kids and I were all squeezed into 1 shower stall with the clear glass door closed. We had a couple strange looks from fellow shoppers. I think the sight of toilets inspired Anna, so we visited the real restroom in every store. We are (we - whatever!, I meant Gary is) going to be working on building a bathroom in the basement over the next couple months. Gary's buddy Scott will be coming in 2 weeks, so we need to make some decisions on what we want to do. I had dreams of a really cool bathroom, but the price tags have brought me back to the reality that we really just need it to function.

We are getting ready to sign the kids up for softball and tee-ball. And swim lessons. But that is all! Last spring, we had t-ball, dance, swim lessons, soccer, and tae-kwon-do. We were busy every night of the week. The spring before, we had t-ball, soccer, swim lessons and a new baby born in the middle of everything. (I cannot imagine what things will be like when the kids are older and all 4 will be in activities.) For some reason, we always over do it and really run ourselves around like crazy. So this year we are just letting them do 2 things each.

Well, the point of this is that it should make the waiting time for the referral time of our little guy and then the wait to travel go alittle quicker. I hope.
Bye. :)

E-mail assault

2007-01-05T08:54:00.000-06:00

Well it is possible some of you woke this morning to about 100 e-mails from us. (Actually it was not that many but it WILL seem like it) Jen wrote a brief e-mail to everyone we had in our address book mentioning this blog. When she went to send it she started getting multiple error messages. After a little digging she found the bad address and resent the message. In the meantime the e-mail kept trying to mail itself, hence the multiple copies you are seeing in your Inbox. Sorry about that. The moral of the story is that we need to look through out address book again and make sure there are any other problems before we try that again. Oh and if you are reading this and saying to yourself, "Hey we didn't get 1,000,000 e-mail messages from the Krob's this morning." That means we might not have your address or the one we have is old. Please send a comment below with your name, e-mail address and bank account numbers and we will update our list. Dehna hunu.

Article from eMediaWire

2007-01-03T15:16:00.000-06:00

Adoption Agency Sees Surge in Applications for Ethiopia Program

Children's Home Society & Family Services celebrates 200th child from Ethiopia placed with an adoptive family in 2006.

Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN (PRWEB) December 23, 2006 -- On Saturday, December 23, 2006, a couple from Burnsville, Minnesota, will arrive home from Ethiopia with their adoptive daughter, marking the 200th adoption placement from that country in 2006 through St. Paul-based Children's Home Society & Family Services (CHSFS). This is the family's second adoption from Ethiopia.

CHSFS' Ethiopia adoption program started in April 2004 and since then, 345 children have found stability and permanency through adoption and is the fastest growing adoption program in the 117 year history of Children's Home Society & Family Services.

CHSFS receives at least one adoption application each day from parents hoping to adopt from Ethiopia and averages 16 children placed into families each month. CHSFS is one of only a handful of US-based adoption agencies authorized by Ethiopia to provide adoption services and works with families across the country.

Some reasons for the increase in interest for adopting from Ethiopia are:

• The need is great. For years the media has shown images of the plight of children in Africa suffering from the effects of famine, disease, war and extreme poverty. Adoption provides a meaningful way to reach out to a child in need. There an estimated four million orphans in Ethiopia.

• The process is efficient. Once an adoption application has been approved, it only takes two to six months to get a referral from the country, a timeframe that is considerably shorter than other adoption programs. Also, the Ethiopian government has created an environment that is well-equipped to facilitate international adoptions.

• The cost is affordable compared to adopting from other international and domestic infant adoption programs.

Anyone interested in learning more about adopting from Ethiopia is encouraged to contact Children's Home Society & Family Services at 800-952-9302 or email.

About Children's Home Society & Family Services: Since 1889, Children's Home Society & Family Services (CHSFS) has met the needs of children and families through our adoption, child abuse and neglect prevention, early childhood education, and comprehensive family services. As a statewide non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, CHSFS is committed to help children thrive and to build, strengthen and sustain individual, family and community life. For more information please log on to www.chsfs.org or call 651-646-7771.

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2006/12/emw493606.htm

Small World

2007-01-01T21:42:00.000-06:00

Can you believe it is 2007??? When I really think about it, I just can't. I mean what happened to the 90's for goodness sakes? And now it is well over half way through this decade (I knew know what to call it). Time really does fly when you are having fun.

We (the very exciting couple that we are) rung in the New Year on the couch flipping between old Twilight Zone episodes and the various New Year celebrations. Had some mixed drinks and champagne and actually made it up to nearly 1:00AM. Earlier in the evening, we had cheese fondue and buffalo burgers and then chocolate fondue for dessert. The kids had sparkling cider in wine glasses and just thought that was the greatest. We played Battleship and had lots of family fun. I was in a super excellent mood because the work-work that I had thought might take all weekend was done by 2:00 on Saturday (after starting at 6:00AM).

We spent today trying to figure out where all the new games, toys, and other gifts from Christmas would fit. We have Katie and Jack's room very organized - hopefully it can stay that way for awhile! Annalise's room is all done, too. We will have to do some re-arranging in her room when our son comes home - but that will be several months.

Anyway, I had not intended to use this blog to bore you all will the daily tasks of our lives. I do have to post a really interesting little story.
The week before Christmas, Gary and I and the kiddos delivered little goodie bags to the neighbors on our cul-de-sac. We included a Christmas card and note to say hello and give the news of our adoption. The next day on the blog, we had 2 comments. It just so happens that our very next door neighbors, Brian and Stephanie, have a family member who is adopting from Ethiopia as well. What in heavens is the chance of that? And it sounds like Amy, who is Brian's sister, and her husband Josh are pretty close to being in the same parts of the process. That is really amazing and so exciting.
Part of the reason I think it is exciting is because it shows how adoptions and specifically Ethiopian adoptions are growing. I cannot remember the exact numbers/details, but Children's Home started doing Ethiopian adoptions in 2004 with less than 50 adoptions. In 2006, they placed more than 200 children. Children's Home adopts from about 10 international countries, and said that the Ethiopian numbers could be close to overtaking China in the next few years. Wow!

Off topic - Packers vs Vikings

2006-12-24T08:28:00.000-06:00

"It was a damp, slightly cool evening at Lambeau Field when the Packers took the field..."

I was going to write a little bit about the football game, Jen says I can post something about it but only if I somehow include our adoption into the conversation. As it turns out we mailed our dossier to the agency yesterday so now we are officially waiting. After a hectic and fun holiday with all of our families, we are exhausted and need another vacation just to catch our breath. Getting the dossier in is a nice way to end 2006, waiting for our referral is going to be a nice way to start 2007. Now on to the game. The final score unfortunately tells most of the story. Not the prettiest game, but for my first trip to Green Bay to see one, a win is a win. Also any season when we beat Minnesota twice is a good one. We hope everyone has a great New Year's Eve. Jen's working all weekend so for us if we make it to midnight it will be just the two of us. Could be a lot worse ways to start the new year. Peace.

Why adopt?

2006-12-17T21:21:00.000-06:00

This is Jen again. We had a really nice weekend. We spent Saturday at a family Christmas and saw my Grandma and many of my aunts and uncles and cousins. I think there were 8 or 9 of my mom's 12 siblings there, which is a pretty decent turnout. We spoke to several people about the adoption. I do have a hard time bringing it up - 'hi, how are you? good here, by the way, we are adopting.' For some reason, I feel weird saying it. My sister Sarah is pregnant (due June 6th, I think) and she said she kind of feels the same way.

The questions we of course get from many people - family and friends - is why did we decide to adopt and why did we choose Ethiopia. Those are really big questions and I figured I would try to give some answers here. But, I will say that it is hard for me to verbalize my answers, so writing them down will probably be less descriptive and informative.

Why did we decide to adopt?
Gary and I have talked about adopting for several years, and probably in the beginning, I didn't necessarily know that we would actually make the decision to do it.
Gary's youngest sister, Kara, is adopted. So, to begin with the concept is not foreign to us. Gary also has an aunt and uncle that have provided foster care and adopted several children. I have had a couple friends, Debra and Ann, from work who have adopted in the last couple years and then Gary's brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and April adopted Emma from China last year. As this all happened, we talked more and more about it. Early last summer (2006), we talked and Gary said, here are our 3 choices: no more kids, get pregnant, or adopt. I knew I wanted another child - so it was either to have one or adopt one. I also knew I would probably be done after number 4, so I thought this is our last chance to adopt - if that is what we want. And it just was.
So, it is kind of an easy answer, but not really.

How did we choose Ethiopia?
It just felt right. This may sound like a strange answer. I remember reading other people say that on the forums or in the chat rooms and thought it sounded fake or weird. But, it is true. For Gary too, it just feels right.
But, to give the long answer: we started researching adoption: adoption agencies, adoption options, and places we could adopt from. We looked past the United States because we knew we wanted a baby or at least a child younger than Annalise. Private adoption - we feel like - is for couples who are unable to conceive a baby. (I do not mean to offend and I cannot speak for others, so if I am off-base, please don't hold it against me.) Then the other option is children through foster care. I think being able to help these children would be a wonderful thing to do, but again - we wanted a baby. From what I see and understand, foster care has more older children that need homes. Babies would be accepted quickly in most cases, and I don't think there is an extreme need for people to adopt babies in the US.
So, we looked into international adoption. When you look at the different countries, they all have different criteria - things like years of marriage, number of children in the home currently, age of parents, income. Then they also have differences in the children that can be adopted - ages and sex - as well as waiting time. So taking many of these into consideration, led us to Ethiopia, as well as a few other countries. And from there Gary and I talked about what we wanted to do and ended up at Ethiopia.

Another question that we don't get asked quite as often, but I think is also important, is how we chose our adoption agency.
This was actually our toughest decision. We talked to the people we knew who had adopted. We went to an informational meeting at a local agency. We really like this agency, but they do not work with Ethiopia. We then spoke to another agency on the phone many times, and though we felt comfortable with them, we weren't so happy that they were in Washington. We ended up at Children's Home Society and Family Services. This agency is based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. There is also an office in a town a couple hours away. They aren't quite local, but close enough that we can attend some events. We have had a great experience so far. Angela is our case worker and works in the CR office. She has been really great to work with. I think we have learned a lot from her.

So, there are some answers for the curious. And I am sure many of you are. I would be.
I can't tell you how excited we are, though I do have to admit, whether good or bad, we do not think about it every second of the day. The process has went quicker than we expected to this point - probably because it has been a super busy time of year for me at work and then once I get home, it feels like we are always busy. I am really looking forward to some calmer time in January and February where I can really spend some time keeping up with the forums and so I can finish some of my reading. I am in the middle of 2 books about adoption - one on Ethiopia specifically called, There is No Me without You.

Not sure I am supposed to say good bye at the end of these posts. But, I will. I need to go wrap some Christmas presents. So, goodbye!

Our introduction

2006-12-14T21:27:00.000-06:00

Hello! This is the first post for our adoption blogging site. This is Jen typing and I am not terribly technical - despite the fact that I work at a computer all day - so don't laugh at my terminology above, as I am sure it is wrong.

Gary and I are starting this blog to track the adoption process we have begun. We hope it will help us to remember some of the details better, so that we can share it with our son as he grows up. We also hope it will help us to stay in touch with family and friends, since we are not so great at doing that sometimes.

First, though I am sure most of you who visit this site will already know us, I will go ahead and introduce the family. (Gary will cringe when he reads this - he always hates this type of thing for some reason.)

We are Gary and Jennifer. We have been married for 9 and 1/2 years. We met in Ames, Iowa while attending Iowa State University. After living in a 2 bedroom home in bit town midwest for about 3 years, we were quickly outgrowing as we were expecting our second child. We built a home in small town, midwest where we still live.

We have 3 children now. Katie is 7 and in 1st grade. Jackson is 5 years old and in Kindergarten. Annalise is 21 months. They are all wonderful children with their own unique characteristics.

Katie is a very good reader and often climbs up into her bunkbed to read alone for awhile. She has been asked to join a special book club at school and really enjoys the extra learning that brings. She is also very social and has lots of friends. She loves animals, especially dogs and horses. This totally reminds me of myself as a child. She and Jackson play 'pet shop' all the time. She is also a very girlie-girl sometimes, very much enjoying pretty things and pink clothes - not like her momma so much there. Katie is a good little mommy to her little sister and loves to play with and read to Annalise.
Jackson is really enjoying Kindergarten. He is a young 5 - turned 5 on August 1st and then started school a couple weeks later. So, we were very interested to see how it would go. He is turning out to be a very good student as well and was even named Character of the Month in October - voted on by his classmates and with an award presented in an assembly. We are so proud of him. Jackson loves to play games. He also really likes to play dinosaurs, superheros, and to do crafts - coloring, painting, cutting, gluing - he is quite creative and has always been a very good artist. He is also a really good snuggler. :)
Annalise is just the apple of our eye. Nothing is better than walking in the door after a long stressful day at work and having her run across the kitchen screaming, "Momma!!!". What a good little baby, she really had made having 3 kids easy. She is easy going, friendly, cute as a button, and just plain fun! We spoil her - OK, I do. It is hard not to when she gives you that sweet little smile or sad little pout. She is approaching the terrible two's - but I am sure our little pumpkin will be just perfect. (I know, I know, I am going alittle over board now!)

Oh yes, and giving our Krobzoo name the complete affect - we have 2 dogs and 2 cats! I know, we are crazy, but 3 of those pets did come prior to the kids. Casey is our 10 1/2 year old English Springer Spaniel. Roxie is our 3 year old Boxer. Chloe and Zoe are sister cats from before I even met Gary (gift from old boyfriend-oops) -they are 12 years old I think!

I will have Gary - my little techie - add some pictures of us so you can see the fam.