4 weeks ago today...

My three little angels.

I was elated, exhausted and so excited to unite my family of 5. I can't believe Yordy and I have been home a month now. Time passes by so quickly and yet when I look back, so much has happened.

Our little Ethiopian (from now on known as Yordy-endearment for her Ethiopian name Yordanos that I use) has made amazing improvements.

• She was pretty shaky sitting on her own. Know she is quite catty and even making attempts to crawl.
• When on her tummy her neck muscles were so weak she could not lift her head up for more than a second. Now she is on all fours in an attempt to crawl. (For all you new moms out there crawling may seem amazing, but do not encourage your children. Those of us with kids know that it just opens up the world to them. You can't leave them for an instant, you look away and they are gone and they find the most amazing things that were on your floor and put them into their mouths-yuck!)
• She was only eating rice cereal and now eats everything and anything. Maybe peas aren't her favorite, but she still will eat them.
• She went from eating bottles every few hours, because that was what she was used to to going 4 hours at a stretch and only taking 4-5 bottles a day.
• She will end up in the emergency room sometime soon from getting too much love from her exuberant older brother. Bug is a lover and smothers the poor girl ALL DAY LONG.

Bean tries to be her mommy and when I am doing mommy duties like feeding her a bottle, Bean will be right next to me feeding one of her babies.


• She is now taking 2 naps each day, although getting her to sleep is still a trial of patience.
• She cries when other people hold her...yes she is attaching well!
  

We are in love with life and enjoying our new family of five.

Praise God for these gifts He has given me.

Prayer Request

I ask for prayers on behalf of a wonderful family that was in the process of adopting their daughter from Ethiopia. They found out last night that she had passed away. Please pray for their comfort and peace as they walk this unexpected and heartbreaking path.

Laundry

I forgot how much laundry babies can create. Lucky for me I have such a cute helper!

Bath Time

Here are our little ones helping give Nora a bath. She loves the water...even when her little brother pours water in her face! She is a very even tempered baby and at this point is MUCH easier than our other two were at her age. We are just working on establishing some sort of schedule for her. She doesn't want to nap during the day and wants to be held all night right now. She had her first doctor appointment today and is headed back Friday for blood work. All just routine stuff.

Jason is back to work Monday. He is ready...I am not. Three kids is waaaaayyyy more than two. I didn't realy notice the jump from one to two, but I really notice the difference from two to three.

I am doing MUCH better. I was sick for 7 days. Icky, lay on the couch and not get up sick, but thank goodness it went away on its own and I am not hosting some parasite : )

Introducing...

Nora Yordanos

After suffering from an ear infection, a sinus infection, pink eye, and cutting her first tooth, she is doing great. It is amazing because she is a completely different child than the one I met last Monday. Then she was obviously getting sick and now she is a little spark plug with a ton of personality.

Now we just have to get me better! The doctor hopes I picked up a virus on the airplane and not a parasite on my trip. Lovely.

Formula, formula, diapers, formula, toys, formula, oh and more formula

Thank you to everyone who donated to the traveling families to get formula and other donations to Hannah's Hope. It was so amazing unloading all of our luggage, sorting and piling everything up. Almaz had tears in her eyes when she walked in and saw everything. She said she thought the formula would last a month and a half! Praise God for pulling his people together to help!

Forgive me if I don't post more now. I am sick. I just wanted to share these amazing pictures.

Amazed, blessed, excited and a little bit nervous

Those are just a few of the things I have been feeling this week.

I am so amazed that this journey if finally coming to an end and the next chapter with Dora : ) is about to begin. I am leaving in less than 24 hours and still it seems very surreal. We have been at this since last December, so it feels very unreal that this beautiful child that God placed on our hearts is finally coming home.

I feel so blessed by the number of donations I was able to collect and purchase. God is good and certainly used His people to get the needs of these children taken care of. I can not wait to get a picture of everything I was able to collect.

I am so excited to meet this little girl...to walk down that cobblestone path that others have walked before me...to know this child that God placed on my heart so long ago...to feel the weight of her in my arms. I want to take it all in...every sight...every smell...everything even though I know my heart will be broken further for these children of God.

I am a little bit nervous. I hate to fly. Enough said : )

The family and I traveled up to the Seattle area to stay with my brother overnight before the flight. I am traveling with my fabulous sil and we came up early so we could have time to get everything packed. It only took about 3 hours!! You have to keep re-weighing and re-stuffing the bags to get them just right. I was blessed that another family in our travel group had an extra bag and we went there first and managed to stuff it full of 65 lbs of donations. Then my sil and I used two of our 4 bags for donations. We overstuffed all three bags because with our airlines it is cheaper to exceed the weight by 20 pounds per bag than to pay for an extra bag.

Thank you all for the blessing you have been and continue to be...especially my sisters.