WE PASSED COURT!!!!!!!!!!!

We found out this morning that we passed court and Zinabu David Czarnecki is officially our son! We aren't sure when we'll travel yet, but should find out soon. Usually it's just a few weeks from court until travel so we're starting to pack and check things off our many to-do lists! Thank you SO much to everyone who was praying and thinking of us - we are so blessed to have this kind of support. God is so good!

Court date approaches!

We are anxiously awaiting our court date, which is this Friday, April 24. Ethiopia is 11 hours ahead of us so it will actually happen Thursday night for us but we should find out Friday morning. We are, of course, hoping that we pass and can travel in May but the reality is that we may need to have another court date if the judge feels that everything is not in perfect order (as far as paperwork). Keep us in your thoughts and prayers Thursday night and Friday as we wait on pins and needles to see if our little boy is finally legally ours!

It's Spring!

Today was absolutely gorgeous and we spent most of it outside. Stefan brought my parent's goats over so they could start eating down the huge patch of blackberries (patch actually seems an inadequate word for the large area they cover) and the kids had a picnic outside with them.

Video footage!

We received a video yesterday of all the babies at the care center in Addis. Z was awake and alert, looking sort of like he had just woken up and had a camera shoved in his face. Super cute - seriously, everyone who has seen it just melts! I wish I could show it on here but rules are rules - soon enough we'll have more pictures than we know what to do with!

Court Date!

We found out today that we have a court date of April 24th!!!!!! This means that the Ethiopian court will review all our information and either decide they need more info or approve us as parents of Baby Z! Of course, we're desperately hoping for the second option but we're trying to be realistic. About half of adoptive families have multiple court dates. This has really nothing to do with the child or the family or even the agency, it has to do with the government and whether they lost paperwork or didn't present it to the judge in exactly the right way or something. If we do pass the first time, we would probably travel sometime in May. We're getting really excited now that we have a date - it feels like this is actually going to happen soon!

Update!

We received our first update on Baby Z today! We were so ready for more pictures and information! I wish, wish, wish I could share the pictures with you but just believe me when I say that he is absolutely darling, getting cuter by the minute it seems, and very healthy! At four months old he is 13 pounds and 24 inches long which is about the 20th percentile on US growth charts and pretty darn big on an Ethiopian growth chart! He should probably enjoy having his cheeks to himself right now because the best word to describe them is KISSABLE!!!!

We are still waiting for a court date but we're hoping to hear about that soon! We would love prayers for us to get a court date soon, and for us to pass the first time so we can bring him home to his family! Aidan already talks about how much he misses him, and wonders whether he's lonely without us . . . talk about breaking a mother's heart!

New info

We are lucky enough to live just down the street from another family who is adopting from Ethiopia through our agency! Brandon and Sunshine just got back from picking up their twin boys who are a year old. They were able to visit Z in the care center, and brought back the good news that he has been moved up to the facility in Addis! This means that he is with fewer kids and in the facility that we're going to pick him up in, hopefully in just a couple of months! 

We are so thankful that Sunshine and Brandon were able to see Z and give him love for us. Sunshine said he was content and alert to what was going on around him, and very sweet! They are exhausted from their trip and dealing with jet-lagged toddler twins (seriously, could you think of a more difficult combination?) and have not gone through all their photos yet, but they assure us they got plenty of footage of the care center. There are strict rules regarding photos so they weren't allowed to take photos of him, but we're hoping they got a picture of his bed or something :) We're still waiting for a court date and updates from our agency with new pictures but this news was enough to keep us going for now.