Dress #12

Dress #12, completed tonight:


I don't what takes more time, sewing the dress or parading it around to Lee and now blogging about it. But I have to enjoy my accomplishment, right?

Although it's difficult to see the fabric is corduroy and has little white ducks on it. Sweet, vintage fabric. It's my favorite so far.

There's a Party in My Tummy

James declared last night, "There's a party in my tummy" after eating his pasta. I said there would be a party in daddy's tummy soon too, when we had the enchiladas mommy made especially for daddy. James said, "No. Only there's a party in the tummy when you eat two bites" and started making all kinds of rules for parties in tummies. This continued on into a discussion of music being played in one's tummy, how many people are invited and whom, and how long the party would last.

This is a sampling of our dinner conversations these days.

Pictures of Ethiopia

I already updated the side column! Can you tell I've been sewing today? Up to 11 now - are you proud mom? :-)

It seems like since we've started the process to adopt from Ethiopia, I've been starved for information on the country, the culture, the landscape, and most of all the people. As I come across pictures, I will share them. Here is an interesting post on some one's blog about visiting Addis Ababa. I'm a little scared of the hyenas though.

Paradise Found in Ethiopia

New Page Components

I have just added two new components for the blog.

The first is a blogroll of links to our favorite blogs. It's located in the 2nd section down on the right side column.

The second is a section, "Dresses for Ethiopia". It's a status report of how many dresses have been completed for us to take with us for the orphanage. 100 - is it possible? There are the nay-sayers that don't think so. I'm hoping to prove them wrong. :-) Stubborn that I am. (Of course I reserve the right to adjust that goal to 50 if necessary). You can find the number that have already been completed at the top of the column to the right.

Sending in Paperwork

Our agency said that this week they will be sending in our dossier for US approval. This could shave off a month of time after our referral, as we wait for Ethiopian country approval.

So we're looking at 2-3 months from match to travel.

3rd or 4th on "List"

Talked with Holt yesterday. We are 3rd or 4th "in line" for a baby girl. There are a lot of factors here. One being the request of families in front of us. Some request a baby girl of up to 12 months. Others up to 24 months, and so on.

So we are expecting a referral around the March time frame and will be very pleased if it happens before then.

I can't believe this may actually happen! Where will be keep her clothes? Where will she sleep? Who's going to make all those dresses?!

5 More Referrals

I just read that Holt made 5 more referrals this month for families with the Ethiopian program. This is great news! The program must be gearing up and I hope we are just around the corner. I will call tomorrow to get more details. So that is 7 children total between December and January!

Could next month be our month?! Better get sewing - really.

We're Back!

James and I returned from Oregon late last night. We slept in late and are now adjusting to the time zone.

It's very cold here so we stayed in today but will venture out to do some grocery shopping and playing tennis for me tomorrow.

We had a great time in Oregon visiting friends and family. Thank you everyone for always welcoming us. I wish Daddy could have gone too but not enough vacation, since he is saving it for Ethiopia.

Speaking of Ethiopia, I get many questions about when it will happen. We don't have any more news, except that I think it will be March at the earliest when we get our referral. I plan to call Holt again tomorrow to ask more questions, such as, "can we expect matching to happen monthly?"

Meanwhile we work on the dresses. Thanks to my mom, we now have about 15. My goal is to make 100 dresses to take with us for the orphanage. Home-made dresses. Quite a goal. Maybe if I get those done, we will actually get our referral.

It will be 3 years of adoption process for us in June. So we have set this as a deadline for the adoption. Hopefully we will have good news soon!

No More Fever

James is finally well - after days of staying down with a fever, throwing up, and a horrible cough. Now I'm realizing why fevers exist - to keep you down. He needed to rest and he got plenty of it over the last days. We haven't left the house for 3 days, except for the doctors yesterday. He, the doctor, did a test for strep and it came back negative.

Now we prepare to leave tomorrow morning for Oregon! Looking forward to seeing family and friends. James is excited to spend time with cousins, and we will both get to meet our new cousin Vu! What a special time that will be.

I hope to take a break from all the TV watching that I've subjected onto James. He's singing songs from Chicken Little like, "Do you wanna be my lover". It's really quite funny out in public. I hear him singing it when he's in his own world, just bobbing his head to it. We get a great laugh from and with him every day.

Transformers

This is James' latest song that he keeps repeating: "Transformers, more than eats the eyes. Transformers, robots in the sky (with a really high pitch on the end there for emphasis". We've been hearing this over and over today. Love it, and Lee and I can't help but turn away and smile.

James has also been reading us stories from his books, and uses such words as "wondrous", "especially", and phrases like "at some point" and "by the way". Oh, and lots of rhymes as he plays along with his cars/markers/toys. Funny things happening in our household.

He has a cold today. It's so hard to keep him still as he only has super fast speed and then crash speed. But if he gets going too much, he starts coughing to the point of gagging. Poor little guy.

We're gearing up to go to Oregon - only 5 more days!

New York

Our trip to New York City...

Here is the Baltimore train station, the ceiling was beautiful and the stations was bustling about for the holidays and business travelers.

Here is James acting goofy upon exiting the train station and being in NYC. He had just said, "Look! There's the vampire state building". We were very impressed he recognized it. Better than Emily or I, when we tried to go up in the Chrysler building, mistaking it for the Empire State Building.

Riding the giant Toys 'R' Us ferris wheel inside the store...


The famous Rockefeller Center Christmas tree...


Yes, these were the crowds of people. We tried to stay away as best as possible.

More to post later. This was only the first day!