Vivi's visit with Santa

We went to Bronners in Frankenmuth on Friday to see Santa, just like I did every year since I was born. Vivi was excited to go up and see him, she even tried climbing up onto his platform while another family was there, but once she was on his lap and I walked away, she got a little nervous, and I ended up back up with her. She showed Santa her pretty painted nails, and he gave her a star ornament :)

Our adoption group holiday party

We are in a local group for adoptive families that meets once a month at various kid-friendly places like Chuck E Cheese or a park. For our holiday party, we had a 'Festival of Cultures' where everyone was instructed to bring a dish relating to either their culture, or their child's culture. We hosted it at our church, and it was SO fun! We had Italian, Haitian, Mexican, and 'Soul food' represented in various dishes and it was all soo good! I made my grandma's fudge, and Vivi's birthfamily's sweet potato pie. (Did I share that story? Vivi's birth-aunt shared with us a family recipe for sweet potato pie that she makes every year for Thanksgiving. I made it for thanksgiving this year, and that is going to be one of our family traditions too. It is so special to me to have that for Vivi, and she LOVES sweet potatoes. I hope it will be special to her too as she grows up :)

Anyway, the party was very very fun, the kids were able to run around and the parents were able to talk. It is always nice to talk to other adoptive parents who have jumped through the same hoops we have to become parents, and they are all great people, we're so happy to know them!

Here is the best picture we got with all the kids in attendance. Jenavieve is on the left with the back of her head to the camera-in every picture at least one kid was up and moving, but at least there were no tears!

How Vivi rolls

The picture every toddler needs-riding in the diaper box car!

A bit of an update on the adoption front

We sent all of our paperwork out last week to all of the places it had to go, so everything is out of our hands and we have to wait for everyone else to do their jobs. We just got this email from the agency:

"I just wanted to let you know that we received the two documents from the State of Michigan and the State of Washington with the notary seal pages. My next step is to forward them to the State Dept and the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington DC to be authenticated."

Our compilation of papers that have been filled out, signed, notarized, etc, which is called the dossier, has also been sent out. The agency will check that over to make sure we did it all right, then send it on to Ethiopia to be translated and processed.

So, slow going, but moving along!