Due Date...

Here is our little peanut at 8 wks. 6 days. The top of the picture is it's head ( Actually it's the right side of the picture but my computer won't let me rotate this picture.)

It looks like we are going to have a Thanksgiving baby. My due date is actually the day after Thanksgiving but I am being optimistic that I might have this one atleast a day early. Levi was born on his due date without any help. Cole was induced on a Friday, a couple days after his due date, so we wouldn't risk having him on the weekend when my Dr. wasn't on call. I really don't want to induce again...that was not a pleasant experience!

Anybody know if the Thanksgiving dinner at St. John's Hospital is edible? Let's hope my family will take pity on me and bring me left overs from home.

Just when I thought I was done with these...

I was so excited to find out that we are getting a 3 year old...no more diapers! Then a few days later I found out that we are pregnant! Time to rethink things:

1. Forget the garage sale where we perge our home of all things baby.

2. Perhaps our Honda Pilot isn't going to cut it anymore. Boo Hoo - I am going to have to grow-up and get a mini-van. (Brian tried to comfort me by saying, "Maybe they will throw in a couple of pairs of mom-jeans to sweeten the deal!" -- NOT FUNNY!)

3. I'm trying to enjoy cable television as much as possible. We've already decided it's the first thing to go and make more wiggle room in our budget. It's not like I'll have time for T.V. with 4 kids anyway!

We really are thrilled - especially the boys- the idea's just taking a little getting used to.

Ethiopia...here we come!

There has been lots of excitement at our house this week. I had prepared myself for a long and painful wait with this whole adoption process but it has proved to be much faster than I anticipated. We received our court date yesterday - May 25th. That is the day that Duni (one of the Ethiopia staff) will go to court in Ethiopia on our behalf and if the judge passes our case, we will officially become "Eden's" parents. (By the way, if you didn't already know, we are going to probably name her Eden.) Right now, we have a tentative travel date (TTD) of June 20-27th.

30% of families do not pass court the first time so we would really appreciate your prayers that we DO pass court on the 25th of May.

Yes, there is life aside from adoption at the Jennings Home. Cole has turn into quite the bike rider this Spring. It doesn't matter how cold and rainy it is, he wants to be outside riding his bike! Brian took him on a little "camping trip" out to the church camp last a couple of weekends ago and he had a blast riding his bike up and down the sidewalks.

This is a snap shot of a typical day in the life of Levi. He's such a little character that we spend much of our time watching and laughing. However, it's a rare occurance that we get a picture of him without a silly look on his face or where he's hiding his face or scowling (he's not a big fan of having his picture taken).

Lately, he's been fascinated with numbers. The boy amazes me. He already does simple addition and subtraction - he just doesn't know he's doing it! And be careful to not tell him your age unless you want him telling it to everybody he sees in the next couple of days!

It's starting to feel real.

A week and a half has passed now since we received our referral.  Levi and I went to Target on Wednesday and picked two outfits, an assortment or headbands and a mini photo book to send in a care package to our Eden.   There is a family from Broken Arrow who is also adopting a little girl from Ethiopia that is the same age as Eden and they will travel to get her in a week.  They are going to take some pictures for us, deliver the care package and get hand and foot prints of her if possible.  I am hoping for some pictures of her smiling.  The only picture we got with her referral is really sad.  It makes me want to hop on an airplane right now and go give her a hug.

Lots of people have been asking me when we will get to bring her home.  My best guess is in July sometime.  We should be getting a court date in the next week or two and that will give us a tentative travel date (about 3 weeks after we pass court).  

As I write this, Levi is coughing up a lung.  He started coughing yesterday evening and hasn't stopped (except for a couple of hours in the middle of the night when I gave him the last few drops of our beloved prescription cough syrup).  I am so sick of the boys being sick!  I just want my babies to be able to feel good and go to school and church and have fun.  Allergy season brings such mixed feeling for me.  I love Spring with all of it's flowers and budding trees and mild temperatures.  If only we didn't have all of the wind blowing the pollen in our faces!

Hopefully Eden won't have allergies too!  

Well, I'm going to go get some exercise and mow all of our weeds so Brian can spray them with pesticide in a couple of days.  Unless... maybe I could have the boys sell dandelion salad at little curbside stand to raise money for the adoption!