Rwanda Day 2

We had a fantastic day today!  We started off at court and our hearing took about 10 minutes.  I was really a non-event.  The judge will have our ruling ready at 11:00 on Thursday.  We were hoping for sooner but given our POA had indicated this could take a week and we should plan accordingly, we are ok with the delay.  After court we went to Home of Hope to see the baby.  While there our POA convinced the sisters to let us take him for the day since we had been to court.  We could leave the orphanage with him so long as he was back by 5:00!  They let us see the room where he hangs out during the day and the room where he sleeps.  We got to love on some of the other kids too.  After that we loaded into the SUV (boy is this kiddo going to be in for a shock when he is strapped into a car seat!) and headed to our hotel so we could move to the new place.  After we moved we headed to lunch at Bourbon Coffee.  The food was awesome and we will definitely be going back there.  While at lunch the baby tried his first rice cereal.  I have a feeling it is much more bland than the porridge he gets because he HATED it. It was so funny watching him take a bite and realize it tasted gross and spit it out.  Hunger won in the end and he ate a little bit.

After lunch it was nap time so we went back to the hotel to hang out and rest.  We took our first nap together as a family and then hung out.  Oh boy, it this little one super cute. We finally got some smiles and even a laugh or two.  After that our time was up for the day and he had to go back to the orphanage for the night.  It was sad to leave him, but I know he is in fantastic hands.

Chris and I had a fantastic meal tonight then back to the hotel to get some sleep before our day tomorrow.

Rwanda Day 1

After almost 24 hours (18 on three different planes), we arrived at Kigali International Airport last night around 7 pm local time. Our POA, Fidele, picked us up and brought us to our hotel. We started bright and early this morning with a visit to the secor to sign the Act of Adoption. We were delayed a bit while we waited for the nuns but we ran some errands during the wait. When Fidle got word the the nuns were at sector, we headed there. The Act of Adopion form is in a huge book. We signed it and waited just a bit longer for it to be signed. Fidle tells us that we were really lucky to get it signed so quickly.

After sector, we headed to the bank so Fidle couldd pay the fees for our court hearing. Once paid we headed to court to get a hearing date. We are set for tomorrow morning at 8 am and hoping and praying for a quick ruling.

After court we grabbed some lunch then went to Home of Hope to see our guy. Oh my, is he cute! I can't wait to share pictures once we pass court. The nuns told us that he likes to eat and you can tell. I am hoping he'll fit in the clothes we brought.

We are probably going to move hotels tomorrow to one offering a suite for $30 less per night. So far things are going really well. Praying that things continue.

Off we go!

I am the worst blogger ever but have HUGE news to share.  We are leaving for Rwanda on Saturday (about 36 hours from now).  We got a referral for the cutest little boy the Friday before last and we made travel arrangements that day from our iPad on a drive to Mississippi.  My in-laws are coming in tomorrow to stay with the boys and we are off to the airport on Saturday morning.  We fly out of DFW to Detroit, from Detroit to Amsterdam and from Amsterdam directly to Kigali.  We will be in Kigali at least two weeks (our attorney is afraid it might be closer to 3 weeks due to a really crowed court docket before the court takes a break).  After we finish in Kigali, we head to Nairobi to process little man's visa and then we fly out of Nairobi.  Our flight currently has us leaving on December 10 but if things go longer in Kigali, we'll have to push it out.

We are frantically washing baby clothes and bottles and getting ready to go.  I am so paranoid about leaving an important piece of paper here and have made so many copies of things that I probably have 50 pounds of paperwork that I am carrying over.

I am really nervous about leaving the boys but they love their Grandma and Granddaddy.  I hope to use this blog as a journal while we are there even though I am pretty sure that no one actually reads it.

If you are a praying person, we ask that you lift us up in prayer - for safety, for efficiency, for our boys (all THREE of them)!  Will post again from Rwanda!

9 Months Waiting (and big news)

Today marks exactly 9 months since our dossier arrived in Kigali and I am super excited to announce that we received our approval to adopt letter from the Ministry this morning.  We are so much closer to bringing our son home with this approval letter.  The remaining steps are for us to get a referral then travel to Rwanda for court and processing.  The wait time for a referral is unknown but it is in God's hands and I know that we will be matched with the little boy who is meant to be our son in His timing (although we are REALLY hoping that we can travel this summer so Davis can go with us).

Wordless Wednesday

Merry Christmas!

Somebody is Two!

Happy Happy Birthday to Samuel, who turned two on the 24th.    I don't know where the time has gone. I couldn't find my camera over the last few days (even though it was sitting right next to my computer - oops) so I didn't post sooner.  We went on vacation to Disney.world the second week of August.  It was hot and Samuel was clingy (he started running a low grade fever towards the end of the trip) and didn't sleep in a pack n play but overall we had a good time.  Chris has all of the pictures on his camera so I'll have to post those at a later time.  His vocabulary exploded while on vacation and now we can have actual conversations with him and its super awesome.  He is so sweet but has pretty strong opinions about almost everything!

Remembering him as a tiny (well, not so tiny) newborn:

We took him for his formal portraits but he would not sit still long enough to get a decent picture.  Here are some recent pictures of my rambunctious toddler off of my camera.

Fun summer times in the pool.

Enjoying his birthday cupcake.

More backyard fun.

Opening his birthday presents from Grandma while on vacation in Florida.

Having fun on the Honey I Shrunk the Kids slide at Hollywood Studios.

Sweet boy.

Happy Birthday to Davis!

Today is Davis' 7th birthday.  I cannot believe what a sweet boy he has turned into.  Granted, he has his moments of attitude, but mostly he is super sweet and we are so lucky to have him as our son.  We've been celebrating the birthday since last Saturday, when he learned to ride his bike without training wheels.  He wanted mommy to teach him instead of daddy and although he was scared, he did great.  We went out the next day and bought him a brand new bike for his birthday.

Last Sunday, he and I went to the circus.  We had seats on the second row and were "Circus Celebrities".  At one point during the show, we got to go sit on the floor to watch for 20 minutes or so.  It was a great show and we had a really good time (although we really missed the motorcycles in the big cages that they had last year).

We are waiting to have his party until after school starts so he can invite his school friends.

Here are a few pictures to enjoy:

Davis as a newborn (3 lbs 9 oz):

Circus Pictures:

    People shooting out of a cannon!