We're Home!

Actually we have been home for over a week now! I have been having too much fun with our little man to take time to blog! And I have been way too tired to do it once he is asleep! He is all action, all the time - except when he is snuggling. He is awesome. A dream! I can't decide what my favorite thing about him is. Maybe that he loves to make everybody laugh. I was trying to nap with him the other day and I woke up to him licking my nose and cracking up hard! Such a funny guy!
Here are some pictures of us meeting Dawit in Ethiopia at our guesthouse. He wasn't so happy then. We kind of expected it to be hard on him because of his age. He was very scared and upset for a long time, we felt terrible for him.
This is Rachel an intern with Gladney bringing Dawit into the guest house. We caught a glimpse before they came up.

Thanks Travis!

12 days...

I got some neat pictures today from the awesome Ryan family, who just came home with their little boy!
We know how much it means to waiting families to get these pictures, so I'd be happy to photograph anyone's kiddos for you while we are there! Just e-mail me soon at LBredesen@satx.rr.com

More Dawit!

Benjamin Dawit

We Passed!!!!

Praising God! We passed today!  Benjamin Dawit Bredesen is ours!! I'll post pictures tonight. Need to buy plane tickets now! We leave in 2 weeks!!!! Can't wait to hold him!

6 days until court!

Wow. I cannot believe it! The last 12 weeks have gone by incredibly slow. I think the 6 months we waited for our referral went by faster. It is just having that precious picture and then seeing how much bigger he looks in every update really makes me miss him! Isn't that funny, because I don't even know him? Different times of the day I figure out what time it is in Addis and imagine what he must be doing. We are so ready to bring this kid home. The room, the clothes, the equipment is all ready and waiting. Packing - not so much. I don't want to start that until we have passed. I am afraid of ending up "on hold" and having to look at all the bags would be too hard, I think. But I have a big list, so we can throw it all together quickly if we need to.
For the past week or so I have started to think about the possibility that we may not pass. Before then I wouldn't even think of it. I read somewhere very unofficial that about 60% of the cases pass the 1st try. 40% do not. Ughhhh. Those odds are not that great to me. I know that God is sovereign so I shouldn't be worrying about this, but still I do. He will eventually be here, but we may have to be more patient than we want to be. A character quality in which I have plenty of room to grow. Please Lord, don't make me practice.
I think Gladney has at least 16 court dates next week! That is a huge number all within 3 days. I know many people are praying. We sure are.

I cannot believe it. We got our court date today!! I thought that at the very least it would be 2-3 weeks before we heard anything. So, I was hanging out with my girlfriends today and saw a missed 817 call , and I knew it, but I couldn't believe it. The court date is May 22. It is a Friday. Yea! So the 1st thing one of the girls said is, "can we paint his room now?" We have not done much at all in the way of shopping or preparing his room. I think it is just the whole guarding your heart thing. I guess we better get with it!!
I had been meaning to blog about a little something.. I thought this was really cool. Just about a week before we got our referral my mom told me that her biggest prayer she has been praying for us is that we would get a "happy" baby. I thought that is funny because that is mine too. Well the 1st lines of our referral read, "D has a seemingly unsinkable happiness. He is one of the most joyful babies in foster care. He is very active, loves to play, and is almost always smiling". I love that! I have read those words over and over again. God is so good!
Another thing we are excited about is that Sarah and Davis are traveling in a few days to pick up their precious children and they are delivering a package for us. They are going to try to visit him and deliver the gift for us! It will be so cool to hear about him from someone who is visiting there. We are truly grateful and look forward to doing the same for others when we travel. The little toy is cool. It is a photo book made just for babies. So we put our faces in it. I wonder what he'll think about us.

Think we're a little excited???

Natalie called today! Our hearts are overflowing.
This little boy is 12 months old and absolutely precious. Just beautiful.
We told the girls tonight (see above). Think we are a little bit excited???

From Ashes to Africa

From Ashes to Africa is the name of the book that Josh and Amy Bottomly wrote about their adoption journey. I ordered it after hearing about it on another blog. I was really curious because their blog was one of the first I had followed when we started all this! Well, I picked it up from the mail last night and couldn't wait to get up this morning first thing to finish it. You should definitely read it too.
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I was just thinking....

I was just thinking that today would be a great day to get our referral. And I actually have several reasons for thinking so. First of all, tonight we will be seeing Brad's parents (whom we don't see that often). After that he and I and some good friends are heading out to Dripping Springs to a winery and restaurant for dinner, and so it could be like a celebration. Also, tomorrow we are going up to Austin with the family for a prolife rally and are planning to go to the Ethiopian restaurant for the 1st time when it is over. So, I was just thinking that today would be a good day....
I think I'll just sit here with my phone and stare at my computer. Just kidding. But seriously, I am sooo distracted!

Guessing and Obsessing

Awesome! If you are an FBI list obsessed checker like myself, you already know that there were 3 referrals today! We are so happy to see some movement here! My kids get so excited every time there is another referral. They just can't wait for ours. I hope they are with us when we get "the call"-they'll love it. This morning I was thinking it may be 2 more months,(and I was very down about this), but now, hmmm, I don't want to be too optimistic, but I think there are 8 people ahead of us with only 2 of them being requests for boys, so... Maybe sooner!
There have been so many to pass court in the last couple months -which is wonderful, but so few referrals. I keep wondering why things have seemed to slow down so much on this end in the past few months. Anybody out there have any idea why?