Hoping for the Best

Well, there is little to no hope of me posting the rest of our Christmas in pictures. I am totally not motivated to sort through pictures right now...lazy, yes, but I'm just not gonna do it. I think it is because I psyched myself up just to get through the holidays and now that they are done, I have moved on to my other projects. Like preparing for Ms. Ellie...

Our court date (January 27th...actually, it will be in the wee hours of the morning while we sleep....who am I kidding....while YOU sleep, I will not) is fast approaching! Garrett and I made a little countdown chart a few weeks ago and when I first looked at it, I thought that we'd NEVER get down to the single digits. BUT, we are 11 days and counting (some beg to differ on my counting methods but trust me, 11 days). ELEVEN. The single digits are right around the corner!!!

Just for clarification:

1. We do not travel over to Africa for our court date. Our adoption agency representatives and attorney go on our behalf.

2. There is a good chance our court date could either be delayed or initially denied on the 27th. From what we have seen with other families, it is quite typical for the courts not to hold sessions on any given day for a variety of reasons...no electricity, judge not showing up, etc. And, from what we have unfortunately seen with other families is that the judge may hear our case but require further information before finalizing our adoption; doesn't mean our adoption is denied, just that it may take 2-3 (please Lord, no more) dates. The word in the adoption arena that just came through this week is that 30% of all cases require 1+ court date sessions. We've been told our case "looks favorable" but you just never know.

3. Once we do "pass" through court, our adoption is final and we can travel 3-4 weeks later. Right now we have flights tentatively on hold for February 20th-March 1st.

There are so many thoughts and emotions and to-do list swirling in my mind right now! So, if you don't "hear" from me for a while on this blog, you'll know it's because I'm busy just being a part of this process!

Celebrating Christmas: Round Two-ish

The second day of celebrating Christmas 2008 entailed our annual family trip to the Gaylord to see Santa and all of the fun decorations/trains AND then celebrating with Kenny's extended family. I did a decent job of photographing the first part of the day but TOTALLY forgot to whip out my camera for the second. Here is the first half of the day in pictures:

We got in line early that morning before the doors opened near Santa's chair, and while we were waiting in line Santa snuck up behind us! Garrett (who is really not a shy or quiet child) got VERY quiet and even hid behind Kenny's legs. After Santa moved on to the next family, Garrett got giddy and his eyes lit up with excitement. He proceeded to tell us all about Santa!

I wish I had a digital picture of the actual "Seeing Santa" visit because it was even more priceless. No, I do not have a scanner. Yes, I am behind the technology of 2009. Yes, I hope to get one soon. Anywho, there were these LARGE decorative boxes on each side of Santa's chair and Garrett sat down on the edge opposite of Santa to chat with him. The picture is just priceless!!

This is Garrett's annual picture in the poinsettias. You can see from past pictures that he has grown, grown, grown. Tear.

Our little family in a sleigh....


A little candy cane action..

And, if you remember from various posts, Garrett is a big fan of benches...not sure why but here he is checkin' one out! I love that he never disappoints!

Icebergs

I have no excuse as to why I haven't blogged the rest of our Christmas and in an effort to get back into the swing of blogging, here is a little glimpse into our icy day:

Having our "popcorn and books" picnic by the fire this morning!

Garrett just couldn't wait any longer and insisted that he needed to go outside and take the "icebergs" temperature with the digital thermometer.

Garrett not only took all of the "icebergs" temperatures, he also proceeded to knock them all down off his swing set. Hmm.

Celebrating Christmas: Round One

Today we celebrated our first round of Christmas with Brandon, Jess and Jordyn! We had so much fun hanging out, eating pizza, opening gifts, decorating gingerbread men cookies and letting the kiddos play! Here are some pictures from our time together:

COURT DATE!!!

This morning we got a call from our agency saying that we have a court date of January 27th!!!!! We are thrilled with this news (along with a few other answered prayers) and hope you will mark your calendar and join us in praying for this day that our adoption might be finalized.

Another Family Formed

Take a peek here and see two beautiful children who officially became a part of their new family! Although we have never met the Seay's, we have been inspired by their journey and know you will be, too. We are using the same adoption agency as the Seay's, and their children live in the same orphanage as our daughter.

We are beyond thrilled for ya'll - Seay Family - and look forward to meeting your WHOLE family in the near future!

Knowing of Her

While we still have no news of a court date assignment, we did get a report today that our sweet Ellie T is growing, growing, growing! We had suspected that she hit a growth spurt after seeing 75+ pictures of her from our friends' trip to Africa in early November....but wow, she has grown!

She now weighs 18 pounds and is 27 1/2 inches long at 10 months of age. From what we can tell from the pictures, Ellie is also getting a bottom tooth, can sit up and looks as if she is learning the crawling stance (but no movement just yet)!

It's a little strange that I cannot track her exact growth or developmental milestones on a daily basis; with Garrett I had a great little calendar that we kept on the back of his closet door and each time something new or fun or big happened, we marked it. I pulled it out a few months ago and was amazed at how much I had forgotten about (sleepless nights do that to you).

And, I guess if I'm being honest, it really hasn't been awful or sad or anything of the like that I (we) am/are missing her "baby" stage. Sure, would we prefer to be with her from day one? Yes. Do we want her here now? Yes! But did we know going into this that we'd miss many "baby" milestones? Um, yes. Can I buy another calendar and track the second year of her life? Um, again, yes. There will be so many more "firsts" and "milestones" that we WILL get to witness and track and log onto a calendar.

I guess the bottom line is that it doesn't really matter what part of her life it is that we are missing....we just miss her. And want to close the gap between knowing of her and knowing her.