Update 4

These are a couple of things from Hope's nursery. :)



Last week was sort of like an early Christmas as far as pictures go of our baby girl. We received 3
pictures and a video (!) Monday morning from a sweet family who had traveled to Ethiopia to pick up their son. They were able to go to the home B is in and take pictures for us. It was so great to get more than one picture at a time, I felt like I could get a better idea of what she really looks like now, and the video was beyond words. To see her moving and in "real life" was just so wonderful. And then on Tuesday we got another update from our agency. This was the development and height/weight update, and she is doing great. Growing and reaching little milestones. It is always bittersweet when we get new info about her. So, so thankful she is doing so well and in such good hands, but just bummed they aren't our hands yet. We still have not received word about our court date but are definitely still within the estimated time frame. Can I just say though that these two plus months since we received our referral have seemed longer than the previous 7?!

I think her nursery is just about done. We painted the room and dresser and replaced hardware, got a new light, and hung up some pictures. My aunt is also going to make the bedskirt. I love the room, it is soft and sweet, and just waiting patiently for the baby girl it was made for. I found the little doll online and thought it was so sweet, and the picture is one I had in my room growing up.

I also wanted to write down a question Eli asked me a couple of days ago. We have talked a lot about the adoption pretty much right from the beginning, sometimes they ask questions, but usually they just listen. We had told them baby Hope was in a home with a lot of other babies and that she had people there who were taking care of her. He asked why we needed to adopt her if she had people already taking care of her. I thought that was a good question, and just explained that those people were very kind but they weren't like her family.

I just love walking through this journey with my entire family and seeing how we are all processing and learning about it as we go.