What is a referral?

If you are unfamiliar with the adoption process, then you don't know the steps. What Dave and I are currently waiting for is a referral. A referral is when we are matched with a child. Our agency receives information about a child that is eligible for adoption. They then look at all of the applicants to see who best matches up with the child. So we are waiting for an infant girl (0-12 months). The ticker above shows how long we have been waiting. Our dossier (all of the paperwork we had to collect) was approved on June 26th.
After we receive our referral, our case has to go to court in Ethiopia. We wait for our court date (up to two months after referral). Once we get through court, we then wait about two weeks for our child's birth certificate. After we receive the birth certificate, we then wait for a tentative travel date. So we can expect to travel approximately 12-16 weeks after we receive our referral.
We are so close to getting a referral!

Owen is Two!

Can you believe it? Owen had an "Elmo" party last weekend and really enjoyed himself. He is just so smart. He loves to complete puzzles and finds it funny when he puts a piece in the wrong place. In fact, he will look at you to see if you noticed. He loves to sing "A, B, C, etc." and "Twinkle, Twinkle". His favorite songs to listen to are "ABC" by Dora, "ABC-DEF-GHI" by Elmo, "Sunshine on My Shoulders" by John Denver and "Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani.



Current stats:
Height: 34" - 35%
Weight: 23# 10.5 oz - 7%
Head: 49.5 cm - 70%

Funny things Owen is saying

"I found it!" (in reference to whatever may be missing)
"Bless you (whoever sneezes or coughs)"
"I did it!" (In reference to using a spoon or fork successfully)
"Where (anything that is missing) go?" (while holding up both hands in confusion)
and my sister's favorite:
"Elmo sleeping" (or replace Elmo with anything that he can't play with or watch at the moment.)

Happy New Year!

I can't believe it is already 2008. As you can see by the ticker, we have been waiting just over 6 months for the referral of our daughter. When we first submitted our dossier, the wait time was 5-7 months. It has now increased to 6-9 months. Not only has the wait for referral increased, but the wait between referral and travel has also increased. Luckily we have our darling Owen to get us through the wait. I believe that we will get a referral on February 15th (that was the date of Owen's referral) and Dave thinks it will be March 15th. I guess we'll have to see.
We had a wonderful Christmas. Santa brought Owen a choo choo and he was excited. Diane and Gene visited from New Jersey and were able to enjoy the White Christmas that we had in Denver this year.
Owen will be turning two in a week, although if you ask him how old he will be, he responds "Three".

A Visit with Santa

We visited Santa yesterday. We have found a place that is never busy (there was one person in front of us in line) and the picture with Santa is free. Can't beat that, especially when you don't know how an almost two year old will react to Santa. Dave brought him to Santa and I was in charge of the camera this year. Owen did not cry at all. He just sat there and looked at Santa. By the end he was smiling and liked the fact that Santa gave him a candy cane.

Tree Cutting

It was that time of year again. When we travel up to the mountains to cut down our Christmas tree. Owen is now in the transition period of that he is old enough to walk, but slowly and clumsily in the mountain terrain and he is too heavy to carry, but it goes much faster. So, we went back and forth on walking and carrying. We did end up visiting two sites to look for a tree. The first one was too rocky and didn't have the ideal Christmas trees. So we got in the car and traveled back toward the entrance a bit and tried again. We were able to get a great tree, it is tall and skinny. Perfect for our house.



Owen thought that it was pretty neat that a tree was in our house. He wanted to touch it a lot, so we're going to have to watch him. We decorated the tree Sunday evening and Owen "helped" by trying to take off ornaments.

Owen's new bed

Last night we made the big move of putting Owen in his big boy bed. We've been prepping him for a little bit by purchasing a mattress and having him play in his new room and go on his bed. I think he was a bit confused because even though we did his same routine, it was in a different room and there wasn't a chair or crib. Instead of reading in his rocking chair, I read to him on his bed. When storytime was over, I turned off the light and crawled into bed with him. We laid there for a bit and I talked to him about his new room and then said good night. We heard him playing and talking for about an hour, then he began to cry. Dave went up and laid with him for about five minutes and then we heard nothing more. He was still sleeping when we went in this morning, so I've attached that picture.

We were originally going to have him sleep in his bed at night and his crib for naps, but he did such a good job that we decided to try nap time in his bed today. We heard him for about 45 minutes talking and playing and then he went to sleep. Tonight we heard him for about 30 minutes. We really can't believe how smooth a transition it has been, but when he ran to his bed after brushing his teeth we saw that as a sign that he liked his bed.