Happy New Year

Is 2010 the year? It's looking as if it will be, though we did say 2009 would be the year just this time last year. :)

Happy New Year to everyone out there. Please be safe and imbibe responsibly.

For your new year viewing pleasure, three pictures from October:

Video

Well, here it is, the long-awaited 1 minute video of Chloe. Notice the adorable dimple. I know I keep mentioning it, but my god man it's so cute.

Watch for the laugh at the end.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Isn't she something?

Don't you just wanna hold her and squeeze her and love her? We can't wait for February to get here!

Thanks to Matt Larsen for taking this video. :)

More pictures soon.

Court Date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Merry, Merry Christmas everyone! We finally have our court date. January 18th. If all goes well in court, we will be heading to Africa to pick up Chloe the last weekend of February. This is better than any Christmas present that we could have possibly wished for and its less than 3 weeks away.

Justin was napping when I found out the amazing news so I ran upstairs and exclaimed, "We have a court date, January 18th"! Athough he was very happy, the adrenaline rush from being jerked awake left him a little perturbed.

We had a wonderful holiday. We opened gifts and had a delicious dinner, that Justin prepared of course. It was a beautiful day aside from the exciting news. We were very fortunate to have a day like today be the last time we celebrated the holiday with just the two of us.

We love you all and coudn't have gotten this far without your support. The end is in sight and hopeully there will be no more speed bumps on the way.

new measurables and pictures

We got another update on Chloe. These are probably more likely the correct numbers on her height and weight. As of December 7:

Height: 24 inches

Weight: 15 pounds

It's encouraging to see that she's still a little girl. The longer this thing gets dragged out, the more it feels like we'll be adopting a teenager. There were two photos attached to this update, but they're embedded in a .pdf this time and I have no idea how to extract them, or if it's even possible to.

No news on the court date, yet. Hopefully, this week.

Until then, more pictures. From September:

Check out that dimple!

Next week, a short video.

Crib Mate Passes Court

We got exciting news today regarding one of Chloe's crib mates and want to pass this news along to all of our blog followers. We have had the good fortune to meet, get to know and rely upon the adoptive families of Chloe's crib mates through the past difficult months. One of those families, Jenny and Mario, has just recieved the wonderful news that their child has passed court. This means that in Ehiopia's eyes, this child is now theirs. They should be traveling to pick up their daughter by mid January. This also gives us hope for Chloe to pass court as well. Each child's background is unique and it is difficult to say with certainty that if one child passes they all will. But, it does make that light at the end of the tunnel just a little brighter.

Things are moving!

And congratulations Jenny and Mario! We're so happy for you.

Another milestone reached

Well, today we finally (finally!) received the CPR (Child Profile Report) that we were waiting for. We signed it, had it notarized, and will send it off tomorrow morning. This will set into motion our receiving a court date for early next year. The sooner they ask for (and obtain) the court date, the sooner we fly out. Look as if best-case scenario is for a late February fly out. We hope so.

We learned of the particulars of Chloe's case, which we'll keep private but were interesting nonetheless, and which we were hoping we'd find out about.

We also got the latest vitals (as of October 14):

She is 67 cm long (~26 inches).

She is 6.3 kg (~14 lbs).

She rolls over, elevates her chest when prone, and babbles. All good signs.

Everything in her blood work was normal.

So, good news. Everything seems to be taking longer than normal for us. Oh well. It'll make the acquisition of her that much sweeter.

More pictures later this week.