What I've been working on...

The McCollum family photo for Kepler's photo book:)

The Kallen family photo for the photo book!

Frosty made it into the 10 page photo book as well!

This is Auntie Mel and Mama...not sure if I'll use this one or not...Mel- do you have one of just you?

Grandma Audrey sent us this great photo for us to use in Kepler's book!

This is Eric and Anesia's photo for Kepler's photo book!

This is the photo Amos chose of us for Kepler's photo book.

This is Kepler's lovie, Frankie Frog. We had his name and orphanage number embroidered on the bottom but we can't show that yet:)

His room will be in the photo book as well.

My parents have yet to send their photo and we need one of the car and an airplane.

I need to get these all printed out, labeled in English and Amharic and laminated for my trip!

Court Date

We have a court date!!! I will be IN ETHIOPIA on Feb 21st (six days after my friend Christina!) giving testimony at the Ethiopian Federal Court:) We got an email on Christmas Eve. It was the best present EVER! We are just waiting to hear our travel dates and then we book some plane tickets!!!

Good news in good friends

We heard last Friday, Dec 10th that our paperwork has been logged into the Ethiopian courts. This is great news! Things are moving along now. I feel like we are on a conveyor belt...slow but steady:) Usually it takes about 2 weeks to hear about our court date. This means that we are due to hear when our court date is any day now. It's almost time to buy some plane tickets!
I will travel to Addis Ababa for our court date and to meet Kepler. This will be a short trip of about 4-5 days. I will leave him with the orphanage and return the States for 8-1o weeks before returning to Addis to spend 10 days in Addis Ababa, at the orphanage, in Awassa and at the US embassy awaiting his visa.
If you all could pray that his birth mother will attend the court hearing, we would appreciate it. This whole process could be prolonged if she can't/doesn't go to court. We already have to navigate some extra steps because Amos isn't able to go...we certainly don't need any other complications!
While we wait I have the fun job of finding a lovie for him and putting together a little photo album of his adoptive family to take with me on the first trip!
Also, I have met some really great ladies who are all adopting or have adopted from Ethiopia! We are planning to meet once a month as well as get together for a Timkat celebration in January! This is fantastic because it is so important that Kepler have other Ethiopian people around him and people that support and celebrate his home country and adoption. This is such a blessing to us as parents too! It is so nice to talk to people who know what you are talking about and know how you are feeling. We can talk together without having to explain what a dossier is, or log in dates or referrals or where Addis Ababa is. It's wonderful!
Yesterday, my good friend Alison handed me an invite to our Baby Shower!!! I opened the envelope and cried when I saw the picture of Africa and read the words,

"From Ethiopia with Love" and "Children are a gift form God and the heart. It doesn't really matter where they got their start" and "A long and challenging journey has come to an end, Come celebrate the joyous new one that is just to begin!".

Kepler's name is on it and the Amharic symbols for Love and Family. It is beautiful and perfect. Even Amos said that it couldn't be more perfect for our situation. Thanks Alison! I can't wait!

Kepler Update

We got an update on our little Kepler today! He is getting bigger and has grown lots of hair! ...so much bigger that Amos and I looked and scrutinized whether or not he was the same kid we saw a month ago:) He is one pound heavier (9.4kg) and his head is 45cm. He is 64 cm tall! I am so happy to know that he is growing and getting stronger but it's sad that we are missing out on his milestones. His birthday was last Friday and Amos and I wrote letters to him for him to read later on.
I am meeting with a facebook friend named Christina and some of her Ethiopia adoption friends next Tuesday. I am so happy to meet and hopefully connect with other Christian adoption friends that are either traveling to Ethiopia soon or have already brought home their little one. This could be a really good community to belong to for me and for Kepler. Christina and her husband got their referral (a little girl) one month before us from the same agency, Dove! Maybe we will travel together....I don't know! That would be so neat.

The dresser! ...and the room:)

Alright... here is the dresser as we received it from my parents! It was mine and then my sisters and I'm sure it was an older persons before that because there was some 1970's olive green paint about 4 coats down! My brother and I stripped the paint and began HAND SANDING after I broke my dad's sander 2 minutes into the job...shhhh.

I put on about 5 coats of this dark stain and really worried that it wouldn't look good. However after 2 clear sealer coats, it looked really nice!

So after 3 trips out to Granite Falls, $60 in supplies and about 15 hours of stripping, sanding, staining, sealing and papering and hardwaring knobs, Kepler has a very nice dresser with A LOT of sentimental value:) I also included a shot of his room so far!

We are getting closer folks! This part of the wait is so much more fun because I have tasks to do to prepare for him!

I have also been reading two amazing adoption books: Attaching in Adoption and Toddler Adoption, the Weavers Craft. I highly recommend them for anyone who is adopting!

THE call!

We got the call at 3:55 this afternoon! We have been matched! I was driving into our parking lot at home when I recognized the number on my ringing phone. I answered trying to be calm thinking that they could just be needing something from us. I asked, "Do you have a referral for us?" and the sweet lady at the agency, Tami replied, "Yes I do!". I turned off the car and my mind went a million different directions as I tried to figure out the best way to hear this information. I wanted to be with Amos but he was still at work. I told Tami, "I'll drive to his work! I'll be there in a half hour!" But she said she had to leave at 5:00. Traffic could be bad and I decided I was in no condition to drive! I was shaking and out of words when Tami told me she could put Amos on a conference call with us and then email us the pictures and records. I ran upstairs and opened the email while Amos did the same at work. We saw the face of the sweetest little 11 month old boy I've ever laid eyes on! He is sitting in a little plastic chair and he is not sure if he likes the camera or not!
He is healthy and we are full of joy at the thought of bringing him home into the Kallen family! I can't post names or pictures yet but I assure you, Baby Kallen is on his way!
We will officially say yes tomorrow in a conference call and then send off some paperwork and $5000. We will wait for our court date and then I will make travel plans to be in Ethiopia for the court hearing. This is usually about 2-3 months from now. I will get to meet him and see him for a little bit before I have to return home. We have to wait about 3 weeks and then I travel with my sister to pick him up and bring him home!
I have never felt this much joy before. The only thing that will top this is holding him for the first time and then stepping off that plane with him and having Amos see him for the first time.
Thanks for your prayers everyone! Continue to pray because we have TONS to accomplish in the next few months!

A little change

Okay, a little change is happening. I have been thinking about this the last couple of days and finally got a chance to run it past Amos and he was okay with it. We are officially changing our request to be matched with a child 9-16 months old to a child that is 0-16 months old. I think our age bracket before was too narrow, possibly making children that may be available not eligible to be matched with us. As it stood before if a child became available that was 6 months old, they would not call us because we asked for a child at least 3 months older than that.
I was thinking about our old age bracket and thought about the 2 trip rule. Due to the 2 trip rule, our child will be about 4-5 months older when we bring them home than we originally thought with the 1 trip rule. I think this wider, age window MAY help us get matched more quickly and help our child be closer to our target age spectrum when they arrive home in the US.