4 Months Down/Rockabye Baby CD's

Well, we've officially been on the waiting list for 4 months now! It's gone relatively fast to this point considering we got on the list during the summer when things were fairly hectic, and the Thanksgiving and & Christmas Holidays have helped keep our minds off the wait. Here's to hoping that the next few months go just as quickly.

The CHI offices are still closed and will remain so until January 5. We are hoping for a flood of referrals once the offices re-open. Hopefully there is a huuuuuuge backlog of referrals accumulating on their desks as we speak!

We had a great time over the Holidays. We spent Christmas Eve at Staci's parents and had a blast watching our niece, Jenna, fuss with another youngster over her new big wheel (or "bike" as Jenna calls it). It was so funny! While they were fussing over it, it was time for Pa'pa Neil to open the gift Jenna had picked out for him [a pack of gum :) ] and instead of taking the risk of losing control of the big wheel, Jenna pulled it into a spare bedroom and shut the door. As soon as Pa'pa" opened the gift she ran back to the bedroom and got her big wheel. Needles to say, she has a little more work to do in the "sharing" dept, hehe.

Staci and I got the coolest baby gift from my brother and his fiance. We got the Metallica & U2 lullabye CD's. These things are cool. The album art is modeled after the original album art but with teddy bears instead (pretty funny). They're really cool! Here's some pics:

Here's the Metallica CD:

And here's the U2 version

You can get the lullaby renditions of several bands including the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Nirvana, the Eagles, etc, etc... Check them out HERE

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

We just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope your holiday is filled with love, laughter and lots of cheer!

HOLY COW!!! MORE REFERRALS!!!

Wow, just received word that our agency has had 8 referrals this week alone! Hate to be greedy but maybe there will be a few more by the end of the week. Last week CHI had 2 sets of sibling referrals. The sibling referrals are much more rare and to have two in one week is amazing! Unfortunately, our agency will be closing for Christmas break at the end of this week and will be closed until January 5th. Hopefully once they reopen they will continue raining referrals. We're getting closer!!!
Other than the referrals not much to report in our personal lives. We had a great time this past weekend catching up with the Payne side of the family. Really wish we got together more than once or twice a year. I have actually had thoughts of pulling the crib box out of the garage and getting started on putting it together. God knows if I don't start now I'll probably still be trying to figure out the instructions while we're on our way home from the airport. We've got the changing table/dresser in the nursery but haven't really done much else. I told Staci we'll start getting serious about the nursery after the Super Bowl. That seems like a good target date to start our nursery plans. We've got some ideas, it's just a matter of agreeing on some things. The nursery is the one room in our house that we have yet to touch since we bought our house 5 years ago. It's got this "lovely" pale greenish/blue colored walls and one wall is covered in wallpaper with tiny yellow flowers all over it. IT'S HIDIOUS!!!
Until next time, Merry Christmas to everyone and congrats to the families that received their referrals this week. What a great Christmas gift!

Light at the End of the Tunnel...

It's been a rather slow 3 weeks for the Ethiopia program. After an awesome 2 month period of referrals, they seem to have come to a screeching halt. But don't fret fellow adoptive parents! We have been told that although they haven't given any referrals yet, there are children currently receiving their medicals in Ethiopia and that it just takes time for the translations of the reports. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!!! We made a mad dash to K.C. last Monday to renew our fingerprints before they expired. My days off are Wednesdays and Sundays and of course, as luck would have it, they do not renew fingerprints on Wednesdays. I was off at 1 and the last available appointment time was 3. We hurried and made it with 10 minutes to spare!

Had a great Thanksgiving! The night before Thanksgiving, Matt & Maisie stopped by and we had a nice visit. They were on their way to the Fax (local bar) so we decided to join them. The Fax is our local bar and the night before Thanksgiving is annually, it's busiest night of the year. It was nice to catch up with lots of old friends that we don't get to see very often. We spent Thanksgiving day with my side of the family and had lots of fun playing with Abby and watching the Dallas Cowboys DESTROY the Seahawks! There's nothing better than watching America's Team whoop up some other team on Thanksgiving while having a belly full of turkey.

We've got our first Christmas coming up this weekend at my cousins house in Lawson, MO. Last year we had to cancel due to snow and ice so it will be nice getting to catch up with some of the family and see how everyone is doing. Welp, gotta go. Staci beckons! She's telling me it's time to make holiday cookies/candy. Until next time, here's some pics from the last couple of months that we haven't gotten around to posting:

Abby and I (Thanksgiving):

Dad getting his turn with Abby:

My artsy photo attempt in St. Louis (October)

Staci and I after the Obama rally:

America's Team!!!

I should have known it was going to be a long day after I dropped the first bite of chili-cheese nachos on myself (note the nice stain on my jersey)

Three months down!!

so we have officially been waiting for our baby girl three months!!! I can't believe how close we are and at times it feels so far away. We are slowly getting ready and we have ideas for the nursery but have not done much yet, we don't want to jinx ourselves. At my count we are 73 on the waiting list, so in three months we moved 30 spots, I think that is pretty good.

We had a nice Thanksgiving weekend, we were able to spend time with both sides of the family and see friends. We spent some time with my sister and her family last night and today for lunch which means we got to play or "pay" as our niece calls it, she will be three in March and has so much personality and we just love her to death!! She lOVES her uncle Kris!

We are heading to KC tomorrow to renew our fingerprints and hopefully get some Christmas shopping done, I now know what to purchase everyone just getting it done is another story, thank goodness for the Internet.

Christmas Cards Ordered!

Found a really cool website through one of the blogs we follow. To go along with our Ethiopian adoption, we decided to send out Ethiopian Christmas cards this year and here's the best part: the money used goes towards a very good cause. The project is called Jimma Banana Art. The cards are hand made in Jimma, Ethiopia from various parts of the banana plant and the proceeds help to employee the 30 women who make them in a city where unemployment runs rampant. To read more about Jimma Banana Art and it's cause click HERE. Below are just a couple of their card designs.

Girl Referrals!!!

Quick referral update. Just found out that our agency has sent out 5 referrals today, 1 boy and 4--count 'em--4 infant girls ranging in age from 2 to 3 1/2 months!!! The House of Hope has GOT to be bursting at the seems with all the referrals they've been passing out lately. For those who don't know, the House of Hope is where the children stay and receive phenomenal care from CHI's wonderful care-takers. The House of Hope serves as a transition home for the children while they wait on their forever families to bring them home. This is where we will meet Baby Marley for the first time and hopefully where we will be staying.

The CHI House of Hope in Ethiopia

Free giveaway and something NO baby should be without

A really cool company called sloppybaby.com is having a giveaway for some baby sets. Click HERE to enter.

I've found the one thing that no baby should go without. Check it out:

This is the coolest thing ever!!! Now If I can just get Staci to go for it! Found it HERE