Life is a whirlwind
Well we have made our photo albums and have sent them to the agency to send to the kids.
This took me a little while because how I understand it is that the kids each get their albums and then it is like a brag fest while they show off their pictures of their new family. Of course we had to have the best albums ever. We did put in the picture of our family pyramid with Sierra in her cheerleading pose proudly on top. We chose not to put in the one with her on the bottom crying, they will get that soon enough.
In discussion about the letter we wanted to put in with the album, we thought we would discuss with Roman what he thought his new brothers and sister should know since he was around those ages when I married Mitch. Without hesitation he said make sure that they know "we are coming to get them, and they are 100% sure that nothing can go wrong...we will be there." Throughout this process Roman has definately been the one who has been cautiously optimistic for a lack of a better word. For that reason we kept him out of all of the decisions so he would never blame himself for children we did or did not take, he actually requested to not see any pictures. He never ceases to amaze me.
We also spoke to the agency about talking to the kids before we get there, they have agreed to bend some rules and let us call after the kids get their albums....yeah. They need someone there that can translate when we call, so it does get complicated. We will let you all know how that goes. I also sent a disposable camera with the albums so hopefully someone will take pictures of the kids when they first see the albums. That is when they know they have a family.

Wow life is different planning for seven......
So I am trying to make reservations for a good friend of mines wedding in September in Estes Park, Colorado. We are hoping to actually stay up there and make our first family of seven vacation out of it. We have to rent a cabin rather than staying in the lodge because there are just to many of us....who would have thought seven people can't just fit in one room.

We are sending off our acceptance of referal today along with a large check, we would have sent it back right away ( on Monday) however with the addition of one more and the lack of wait time for referal left us a little behind in what we budgeted for. We withdrew some funds from our retirement to cover the difference, Mitch says who needs that money when we have all these kids to take care of us.
For your viewing enjoyment.....



I have to say we were most concerned about Taye, with being the oldest and the burden it was on him to be so responsible for his two younger siblings (and every picture we had of him until recently he seemed angry), however people that know him and friends of his from the orphanage have being coming out of the woodwork eveyone he has come in contact with remembers him and he has made an impact on, I talked to a 6 year old boy yesterday that says Taye is his best friend "he is AWESOME and funny", he also can't wait until we go out to Florida again where he is so they can reunite. A picture may not be worth a thousand words.......

Taye Saba Yegzaw

Well here they are............the labor was difficult but as always worth it.

Who is on first......
We have actually requested those three waiting children. So no referal of two kids. Our matching meeting is tomorrow afternoon, we will know for sure then if they are ours. How it works with our agency is when you request waiting children, they send out somewhat of a last call to anyone that has asked about them and if anyone else asks to be matched then they discuss which family is best for the specific children. As of 2 minutes ago no one has requested to be matched so it may go pretty easy tomorrow (crossing fingers). We did have to resubmit to immigration to change to three kids, when they say put on that form more than you expect, it really is a good idea. When we started this process we wanted one-count it one infant. Now we are hoping for a 4, 5 and 6-year old. How did we get to this point? It definately has been an eventful ride.
It has been a pain to change the homestudy and 171H. We just resubmitted about 10 days ago, the hold up again was the homestudy which had to be amended. Once we know they are ours I will post pictures.

PS anyone know where we can get a cheap van??????