Today's Surprise

So today as I walked into school a friend told me to come down to the library. Little did I know that there were 25 of my coworkers waiting in our adoption t-shirts to take a picture with me!!!! Two of my friends worked with my husband to order and deliver the shirts without me even knowing. This is a huge accomplishment, because I am always curious about everything and usually find everything out. Brad and my friends were happy they pulled this one off!!
What a blessing it was all day to walk around and see almost every teacher where our adoption shirt and show their excitement for us bring Jacob home!!! I also love all the questions the students had all day. It was so neat to hear some kids that I don't even know say things like "I didn't know you are getting a baby from Africa, cool" or "I want to go to Africa too" or "those are cool shirts" or "Can you take some of my toys to the kids in Ethiopia?"
Thank you to all my coworkers for all your support, not only today, but every day that you ask about our process or ask to see pictures of Jacob- it means the world to me to be surrounded by people who genuinely care about us. I am very thankful that Brad and I work with people who share in our excitement each day!! I can't wait until we have Jacob home and we can bring him to school to meet everyone!!!

Becky came late so we got a picture with her too! There were about 3 other teachers I didn't get a picture with, but thank you to all of you too!!


Thanks to Angie, Erin, and Brad for pulling off this surprise! What a wonderful way to end a wonderful week!!

Tickets Booked

Yesterday we got our tickets booked!!!!!! We will be leaving on March 23rd to fly to Ethiopia!!!! We will get into Ethiopia March 24th and meet Jacob on March 25th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Less than 4 weeks!!!!!! Each step makes this feel a little more real and is more and more exciting!!!!!!!! We also line-up a house-sitter. It makes me happy to know that someone will be staying at our house and feeding the cats while we are gone.
I already have 1 tote packed with donations. This weekend I plan on packing some food, medicine, and supplies. We have a long to-do list, and I am ready to start checking things off!!!!!!

Court Date!!!

We are beyond thrilled to know that we have a COURT DATE!!!!! Our court date is March 31st!!! We will be leaving sometime the week before to meet our son!!!!! I can't believe we will be holding him in our arms in ONE MONTH!!!!! Now to make travel arrangements....

The funny thing is Brad and I were both doing the same things today that we were doing when we got the referral call. I was reading with the same student and Brad was at the same TCI training. Weird! I told that student that he was my good luck charm and he thought I was some crazy lady crying and squealing at a phone call, LOL!!!!!

Can you tell that I am excited and like to use !!!!! to show it?? haha! We are coming Jacob!!!!!!!!!

Every Bump in the Road

It is awesome to be able to look back on the last 1 ½ years through our adoption journey and now see why we had each delay and bump in the road. There have been many times that we have felt so helpless and unsure why things were taking so long. It was frustrating to wait for papers to be signed or approved that were just sitting in a pile for months. But each bump or delay put us in God’s perfect timeline that led us right to Jacob. He wouldn’t have been ready for us if we had all our papers in earlier, so we are thankful that God had the timing thing under control so He could build our family with the exact right child.

We got some new pictures from the Garrison Family yesterday. Oh, he is so precious!!! He has changed so much since the photos that were taken a month ago. It’s so nice to know that other families can meet and love on our children while we are waiting for a court date. But it also makes us more anxious to get over there. We can’t wait to meet him ourselves!! Come on court date…

Such Sweet Words

The Garrisons were able to meet our little guy and take some pictures of him on Monday, which was Brad's birthday and Valentine's Day. I am so happy that Jacob got some love from us through Kathy Garrison on that special day!! This is what Kathy had to say about seeing Jacob:

"Tara - we saw your little cutie yesterday....he is PRECIOUS! He smiled easily
when I talked to him and seemed like such a happy little guy. Just darling.
I'll email pics when we get home!"

Ohhhhhh, that made me smile and warmed my heart. This was the first time that we have talked to anyone that has met him. We didn't know if he smiles much or if he was a happy baby or not. It was such a blessing to hear these words from this sweet family!!!

Thank you Kathy!!!

Happy Birthday Brad!!

Yes Brad's birthday is on Valentine's Day. He kinda gets jipped because we celebrate Valentine's Day and his birthday together, which pretty much only involves us going out to eat. We celebrated with his family a couple weeks ago too. Brad and I don't do a lot for gifts to each other, we usually try to just do something together or go somewhere. But this year I got him the game Quelf. Its sooooo funny, if you haven't played it- you should!! This morning Brad got a few books from Jacob too! :)
I am sure Brad will say that this next year will be the best of his life, since he is a Daddy and going to meet Jacob soon!! We can't wait to have him in our arms and start life as a family of 3!!!

First Care Package and Welcome to Travel Email

The day after we got out referral, we made contact with two families that will be traveling soon to Ethiopia. Both families offered to take a care package to our little guy and even more exciting they offered to take some more pictures of him!!!!! Since we received 3 referral pictures on Jan 27th, we only have a glimpse of what he looks like. And those pictures were taken almost a month ago. We are sure he has changed and we can't to see what he looks like this month!! This is such a precious gift that we are so thankful for.
The first family that will be taking this package to Jacob is the Garrison Family. They just found out earlier this week that they have been cleared by the embassy to come and pick up their 3 kiddos. So they will be leaving on Saturday to start their journey to Ethiopia and to come home as a family of 9!! The other really cool thing about this family is that they live in the same town as my mom. I'm really hoping we get to meet soon!!
Thank you Garrison's!!!!


Brad was excited that Jacob got his 1st Cubs outfit!! I also sent a pair of red pants, but I didn't have those when I took the picture.

On Monday we also received the Welcome to Travel email. We had many more papers to fill out and copies to be made, but I think we got it all done. Now we just have to apply for a tourist visa since we will be there for more than 2 weeks. We are really hoping this means that we will be traveling soon. We are waiting for a court date, then we can travel. Come on court dates!!!!!

Snow Day

This past week we spent 3 days snowed in and off school! Here is Brad getting started with our driveway on Day 2. It took him over 3 hours with a snow blower to finish our driveway and then he was brave enough to go help dig other people out too. What a guy!!

We enjoyed our lazy snow days, but did manage to get a few things done at home too. One thing we did was decorate 2 walls in our little guys room.

It's a Boy!

The day after we found out that IT'S A BOY!!!! Our co-workers suprised us with balloons, flowers, and decorations.

We are so blessed to work with wonderful people who are so supportive and so excited about each step. Thank you for celebrating with us!!