We are home!

We got back from Ethiopia yesterday afternoon but have been on a crazy sleep schedule trying to adjust back to our time zone.

We had an amazing time in Ethiopia and I'll be posting about that this week but I just wanted to post an update about court. We passed court for our daughter, but our son's file was missing some documentation, so he has a new hearing date of May 13th. We don't have to go back for the next court date, we will have a representative go for us.

Because the kids are currently in different orphanages and have never met, we may be able to go back and get Baby Girl first, then Little Boy when his paperwork is ready. For Baby Girl, it could be as soon as 5 weeks from now.

Because Little Boy didn't pass court yet, we can't share his picture yet, but I can introduce you to our newest daughter...

Journey Matilda Selam

Journey was born March 12th, 2010 in Ethiopia. We chose Journey for obvious reasons, her life has already been an incredible journey and she is so resilient. We chose Matilda for 2 reasons. It means 'battle strength' which we thought was a nice meaning, and also for Roald Dahl's character Matilda, who was an amazing girl born into less than ideal circumstances who beat all the odds.

We felt that both of those names suited her well because she may have some special needs and challenges to face. We don't know the severity of these special needs and won't until we get her home and evaluated. After meeting her and seeing how she is developing, we believe that her earlier reports make the problems seem much worse than they are. We will see. She will need surgery to repair some finger issues and possibly some sort of treatment for a lazy/underdeveloped eye, and who knows what else, if anything, but she is not slowed down by any of her issues. She definitely has a strong personality, she smiles, laughs, crawls, and likes to explore. She loves Jenavieve, and even though she was a little shy to Eric and I when we first met, she was excited to see us every time we visited after that.