Ok, so I FINALLY got ahold of our family coordinator from our adoption agency. Here's the scoop:
Our daughter passed the 8-week wait period on May 12. They are currently finishing up the paperwork needed for her to go to court. They are waiting for one more document to be signed. Once that happens, our daughter can go to court in Ethiopia! We should hear about a court date sometime in the next week or two.
I also asked our agency about the possibility of our daughter not getting to court before the closures at the end of July. She seemed very optimistic about getting to court before that time. It was a HUGE relief to me. However, there are always variables beyond our control when it comes to international adoption. Please continue to cover this issue in prayer.
Finally, we got another picture of our daughter this morning from Ethiopia. They shaved her head! She looks so different without hair. She is still as beautiful as ever, but now she has a shiny bald head. It's adorable!
Craig's dad and sister came out to visit last weekend. We had a great time. I am including a picture of myself and Craig's sister Ashley taken while we were hiking in Sedona. ENJOY!
Friday, May 30, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
No News
Hello everyone! I haven't posted recently because we don't have anything new to share about the adoption. We have been waiting for over a month now to hear about our court date in Ethiopia. Our daughter has one more week to go on her 8-week waiting period in Ethiopia. Some of our friends who received their referrals on the same day we did have gotten their court dates--June 10th. We are so excited for them, but are a little confused on why we didn't get our court date for the same day. Hopefully we will hear from our agency soon.
Last week we received some new pictures of our daughter from Ethiopia. She has gained some weight and looks very healthy and happy. We sent her a little book with pictures of us and the family. They took a picture of her with the book. The book looks so big on her lap! It was cool to see her with something that we had sent her. I guess it made the whole thing feel more real.
Last week we also received a short video of our daughter taken by the Harbaugh family when they were in Ethiopia last month. It was only a few seconds long, but it was unbelievable to get to see "live" video of our baby. My heart aches to be with her and to hold her in my arms. I could just kiss those chubby little cheeks for hours on end...
Please be in prayer for a court date to be assigned to us soon.
Have a great day!
Laura
Last week we received some new pictures of our daughter from Ethiopia. She has gained some weight and looks very healthy and happy. We sent her a little book with pictures of us and the family. They took a picture of her with the book. The book looks so big on her lap! It was cool to see her with something that we had sent her. I guess it made the whole thing feel more real.
Last week we also received a short video of our daughter taken by the Harbaugh family when they were in Ethiopia last month. It was only a few seconds long, but it was unbelievable to get to see "live" video of our baby. My heart aches to be with her and to hold her in my arms. I could just kiss those chubby little cheeks for hours on end...
Please be in prayer for a court date to be assigned to us soon.
Have a great day!
Laura
Thursday, May 15, 2008
New Video!
Hi everyone! I don't have a lot of news to share today except to say that I have finished the video of our daughters room. It is on youtube at www.youtube.com/ducommunfamily . I am going to try to add it to this blog page, but just in case that doesn't work you can view it at the site above. It turned out ok, but the audio is a little wonky.
Today is also my nephew Travis' 12th birthday...so happy birthday T!!!! We love you!
We have 3 more weeks until our daughter is eligable to go to court. We do not have a court date scheduled yet, but please join us in praying that we will get a date soon.
love, Laura
Today is also my nephew Travis' 12th birthday...so happy birthday T!!!! We love you!
We have 3 more weeks until our daughter is eligable to go to court. We do not have a court date scheduled yet, but please join us in praying that we will get a date soon.
love, Laura
Monday, May 12, 2008
Mother's Day Surprise
Ok, so I still can't get Craig to post anything, so you are stuck with my ramblings again.
Yesterday I go in to work to find a mother's day gift on my desk from my friend and co-worker, Cody Bayles. He is an artist and I have been dropping very un-subtle hints that I wanted him to make us some art for our daughters room. So I open the gift to find this amazing picture for our daughter! He also included an incredible poem--it make me cry. Perhaps I will put it on the blog later this week. So first of all I want to thank Cody for this heartfelt gift. It is amazing! Also, here is my shameless plug for his work: go to www.sole1.etsy.com to view more of his work.
Also this weekend, Kari Gibson (an AWAA family who received a referral the same day we did) called me hysterically laughing. She had just received a video from the Harbaugh's (another AWAA family) of the Transition Home in Ethiopia. I ran to check my mail...but the video was not there. Kari proceeded to describe the video. There was something about our daughter laying next to their daughter on the floor, our daughter's crazy hair, and how our little peanut was looking right into the camera. I didn't catch the whole thing because Kari was laughing so hard. Anyway, she tried to send the video via email, but it was too big. So, now I am eagerly awaiting our mail carrier to show up so I can run out and meet her at the curb. Anyway, thank you Kari for calling me and sharing the video via the phone. I hope it comes today! I can't wait!
I want to thank all the people who texted me this weekend wishing me a happy Mother's Day. I felt completely loved and honored that everyone would think of me, even though we don't even have our daughter home with us.
Lastly, I want to wish both my mother Mary and Craig's mother Sharon a happy mother's day! You both have been so supportive of our adoption. Thank you so much for putting up with my tears and rants along the way. I hope that I can even be 1/2 as good a mom as both of you were to us growing up.
Love, Laura
Yesterday I go in to work to find a mother's day gift on my desk from my friend and co-worker, Cody Bayles. He is an artist and I have been dropping very un-subtle hints that I wanted him to make us some art for our daughters room. So I open the gift to find this amazing picture for our daughter! He also included an incredible poem--it make me cry. Perhaps I will put it on the blog later this week. So first of all I want to thank Cody for this heartfelt gift. It is amazing! Also, here is my shameless plug for his work: go to www.sole1.etsy.com to view more of his work.
Also this weekend, Kari Gibson (an AWAA family who received a referral the same day we did) called me hysterically laughing. She had just received a video from the Harbaugh's (another AWAA family) of the Transition Home in Ethiopia. I ran to check my mail...but the video was not there. Kari proceeded to describe the video. There was something about our daughter laying next to their daughter on the floor, our daughter's crazy hair, and how our little peanut was looking right into the camera. I didn't catch the whole thing because Kari was laughing so hard. Anyway, she tried to send the video via email, but it was too big. So, now I am eagerly awaiting our mail carrier to show up so I can run out and meet her at the curb. Anyway, thank you Kari for calling me and sharing the video via the phone. I hope it comes today! I can't wait!
I want to thank all the people who texted me this weekend wishing me a happy Mother's Day. I felt completely loved and honored that everyone would think of me, even though we don't even have our daughter home with us.
Lastly, I want to wish both my mother Mary and Craig's mother Sharon a happy mother's day! You both have been so supportive of our adoption. Thank you so much for putting up with my tears and rants along the way. I hope that I can even be 1/2 as good a mom as both of you were to us growing up.
Love, Laura
Thursday, May 8, 2008
More Pictures
So, several people have commented that we have not posted in a few days--we did get your voice mail Angie! : ) We have actually been gone at the annual Arizona Pastor's Retreat. It was very fun, but we are glad to be home and in our own bed. The speaker was a pastor from Flat Irons Christian church outside of Boulder Colorado. He had some very challenging things to say about the direction of the modern church. I found his honesty to be both refreshing and thought provoking. We have been challenged to rethink our own ministry and philosophy about church. I think I still need a few days to digest all of what he said.
On another note, this morning we received several pictures of our little baby. She is so cute! It really is killing us to not be able to share pictures yet. Still no word about a court date, but we really weren't expecting to hear anything so soon anyway. Well, our little peanut has changed a lot in 2 weeks. She has gained some weight and is very healthy. We received one picture from Rachel Ward at the Transition Home in Ethiopia as well as several pictures from a family that just arrived home with their son yesterday from Ethiopia. It was so selfless of them to take some pictures of our daughter while they were there--thank you Jill and Marshall, you have been amazing! We are looking forward to also getting a short video taken by another one of the America World families who was in Ethiopia last week as well. We have been blessed to get to know these amazing families who are also adopting from Ethiopia. We cannot believe their support and friendship through this whole great adventure. Since we still do not have a name picked out (by the way, make sure you have voted for a name!), Craig likes to call her our little "mocha cub". (this is for all you Scrubs lovers out there!)
That is about all of the exciting news that we have right now. I have been trying to get Craig to post here, so hopefully he will post something in the next few days. In the meantime, you have to put up with me.
On another note, this morning we received several pictures of our little baby. She is so cute! It really is killing us to not be able to share pictures yet. Still no word about a court date, but we really weren't expecting to hear anything so soon anyway. Well, our little peanut has changed a lot in 2 weeks. She has gained some weight and is very healthy. We received one picture from Rachel Ward at the Transition Home in Ethiopia as well as several pictures from a family that just arrived home with their son yesterday from Ethiopia. It was so selfless of them to take some pictures of our daughter while they were there--thank you Jill and Marshall, you have been amazing! We are looking forward to also getting a short video taken by another one of the America World families who was in Ethiopia last week as well. We have been blessed to get to know these amazing families who are also adopting from Ethiopia. We cannot believe their support and friendship through this whole great adventure. Since we still do not have a name picked out (by the way, make sure you have voted for a name!), Craig likes to call her our little "mocha cub". (this is for all you Scrubs lovers out there!)
That is about all of the exciting news that we have right now. I have been trying to get Craig to post here, so hopefully he will post something in the next few days. In the meantime, you have to put up with me.
Friday, May 2, 2008
It's been 1 week since our referral
Hello everyone! It has now been 1 week since we received our referral for our little daughter. It has been an amazing week! However, now that we have our referral and are waiting for a court date the days seem to DRAG on and on.
On Wednesday I took a little shopping trip to Old Navy. We have been waiting to buy anything for our daughter until we knew her age and size. It was a fun trip. They had a TON of cute clothes on clearance. I tried to be good though. I only bought a few things that will be appropriate for her age and the time of year she will be wearing it. Buying the clothes made our daughter seem even more "real". If we had the money, though, I think I would have bought the whole store!!!
We have been waiting to hear from Rachel Ward in Ethiopia. She runs the Transitional Home where our daughter is currently living. We had several questions for her as well as wanting to get more pictures of our daughter. She wrote back this morning letting us know that her camera and computer are on the fritz so she couldn't send any pictures yet. She did mention that she has a picture of our daughter smiling. It was great news since our daughter was crying in her referral picture. We can't wait to see the picture!
On Monday we sent our official referral acceptance letter to AWAA. We also sent along an infant photo book that will be sent to Ethiopia for our daughter. We filled it with pictures of us and family. She is definitely too young to even know what she is looking at, but it was fun to pick out pictures and to know that she will have something from us with her in Ethiopia. Today I am working on a blanket to send over to her. I have heard that it is a good way to get your baby used to your smell. I don't know if this is true or not, but I plan on sleeping with it for a few days before sending it off.
Well, that is all the news we have. Make sure you vote on a name if you haven't done so yet. And Craig wants me to mention that YOU CAN ONLY VOTE ONCE! ...so no cheating by voting 100x!
On Wednesday I took a little shopping trip to Old Navy. We have been waiting to buy anything for our daughter until we knew her age and size. It was a fun trip. They had a TON of cute clothes on clearance. I tried to be good though. I only bought a few things that will be appropriate for her age and the time of year she will be wearing it. Buying the clothes made our daughter seem even more "real". If we had the money, though, I think I would have bought the whole store!!!
We have been waiting to hear from Rachel Ward in Ethiopia. She runs the Transitional Home where our daughter is currently living. We had several questions for her as well as wanting to get more pictures of our daughter. She wrote back this morning letting us know that her camera and computer are on the fritz so she couldn't send any pictures yet. She did mention that she has a picture of our daughter smiling. It was great news since our daughter was crying in her referral picture. We can't wait to see the picture!
On Monday we sent our official referral acceptance letter to AWAA. We also sent along an infant photo book that will be sent to Ethiopia for our daughter. We filled it with pictures of us and family. She is definitely too young to even know what she is looking at, but it was fun to pick out pictures and to know that she will have something from us with her in Ethiopia. Today I am working on a blanket to send over to her. I have heard that it is a good way to get your baby used to your smell. I don't know if this is true or not, but I plan on sleeping with it for a few days before sending it off.
Well, that is all the news we have. Make sure you vote on a name if you haven't done so yet. And Craig wants me to mention that YOU CAN ONLY VOTE ONCE! ...so no cheating by voting 100x!
Thursday, May 1, 2008
National Day of Prayer
Today is the national day of prayer. Of course, we should be praying every day, but it is a great reminder to pray and to realize that there are people all over the country praying for our world, our nation, our cities, and our families. Take a few minutes and lift up a prayer today.
Spend your time in the car praying for your friends and family.
Take a walk around your block and pray for your neighbors.
Write a note to a friend and let them know they are in your thoughts and prayers.
Pray through several of the Psalms.
Please continue to lift up the orphans around the world.
Spend your time in the car praying for your friends and family.
Take a walk around your block and pray for your neighbors.
Write a note to a friend and let them know they are in your thoughts and prayers.
Pray through several of the Psalms.
Please continue to lift up the orphans around the world.
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