They are ours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Praise God! We are now the proud parents of 5 children! On October 29th an Ethiopian judge declared them legally "ours"!!!!!!!!! Tamirat is 5 yrs old and Million is 2 1/2. We are so incredibly blessed!! They have the sweetest personalities!!!

Our week in Ethiopia was amazing!

We flew in Sunday night and waited anxiously for our meeting the next morning! MEETCHA DAY!!!!! We would meet our children for the very first time..something we had been praying for for 17 months! It was amazing....

Monday:   We spent hours holding them and playing with them! I was so nervous about meeting them but it was amazing!! So worth the months of waiting! They have the most adorable personalities!
Tamirat is so smart and cleaver. Also very mischievous! Million is so sweet with the most adorable laugh. They will fit in with our other children so well..They were definitely hand picked by God to match perfectly with our family! We are so blessed!


Our first hugs!


Tuesday: This was meetcha day for all the other families! It was wonderful to experience this with them! So many adorable babies!!! This was also the day the Braun family were reunited with their 4 children forever!!!!! We spent more time with our children this day also...

Wednesday: Today we did some souvenir shopping and we went to a traditional Ethiopian dinner! Yes we also spent time with the kiddos!!! They are so full of energy!!! They had us running all day!!! You forget what it is like to have 2 toddlers running around! We can not wait to get them home! We also got the chance today to take pictures and video for other families who are waiting to bring home their children!

Thursday: today we visited 2 orphanages...this was a rough day for all of us. They do the best they can with the resources they have but  it is just not enough!! We pooled our money and bought 10 crib mattresses for 1 orphanage and other families are bringing other supplies this week. After the visits we went back to spend more time with our children!! By now the kids are really starting to bond with us! I love to hear them say mommy and daddy!

Friday: Oh boy this was a very rough day...First we started out easy with a tour of a local coffee factory..this was to take our minds off the fact that the birth families were now in court giving their consent to us adopting their children.. Then we got to meet the birth father, this was very emotional for us. He is an incredible man who loves his children very much. His sacrifice is so huge but he knows he is saving their lives and giving them a better life. It is so hard to express how blessed we are and how much we love him for trusting us to raise his children. We have pictures and video that we will be able to share with the children some day.

We told him we will make sure he gets updates and photos of his children often. He will always be their Dad. We gave him a book full of pictures of the kids, he was so happy! He is such a sweet man, humble and he has such amazing faith and trust in God. We told him we had been praying for God to place us with the right children and that we knew God had put us all together. It was so wonderful to meet him and hug him and tell him how much we love the children and how we will make sure they always remember him and his incredible sacrifice.

Later was the moment we were waiting for: Court! We all filed into the waiting room to wait for our time with the judge. I was so nervous when we got called in..after a few questions she very quietly said "They Are Yours." The best 3 words I had ever heard!!! They are now irrevocable ours forever! Tamirat and Million Alleca!

Our first picture as an officially legal family!
This was also the last time we would see them until we can go back and bring them home forever..we pray it will be very soon. We are hopeful for Thanksgiving week or early December. In the mean time they will stay in the care of the nannies and God will watch over them for us. We will now start preparing for 2 incredible children to be part of our lives forever!