Ethiopia continued...and sweet smiles

Baby Girl is settling in so well I am just amazed at how blessed we are. She naps like a champ 2-3 times a day and is sleeping pretty well at night. She sleeps in her moses basket next to our bed, until she wakes then I bring her to bed with us. She usually only wakes up about 3 times a night. 2 times for a bottle and one time for a pat. I am so thrilled with this. If I could just get her to sleep past 7am I would be spoiled :) I know GOD picked us to be the parents of this amazing beautiful child, and for that I am just in awe...what an amazing blessing. The kids love her and she lights up for them. Right now Boo is acting out a bit and testing which is draining, but she does so well with her baby sister.

Minutes after first meeting baby girl she

is all smiles with papi :)

Mama giving baby girl her 1st bottle

She was so content she fell right to sleep
for her nap before we head to the embassy.

The walk back to the Union hotel...
leaving baby girl with her special mothers wasnt hard. I knew how much they loved her, and my heart broke for them knowing time with her was slipping away. After a quick snack we were back , to head off to the embassy.


Mom and son who live inside their small tin house

Do you see the small window right ahead of

my husband? It is a make shift produce stand, where a small little boy would beckon to us to buy his small tomatoes which had seen better days....it was so tiny. I couldnt believe he LIVED in this little tin house with his mom and another child. When we walked up to the house one day, he was lying on a teeny dirty mattress and right next to him was his mom cooking on a fire. The whole small room was filled with smoke. I asked his mom if I could give him some cookies, she was so thrilled! She said it was a "wonderful treat for baby" :) we found out from Almaz that the little boy is ill and has a medical condition. Almaz sponsors the older child for school. It broke my heart. The day we left we brought a bag of food for them and my sweet husband put a baggie in with money for the mom... :) if you pass this little house, give them a smile or goodies or birr. They can really use it.

This is a little store where you can buy bottled

water on the way back to the Union

First picture of Baby girl back at the hotel. She was pretty happy to be away from the crowds of people.

She didnt make a fuss at all on the way to our embassy appt. She was all smiles. UNTIL......... all the local folks IN the embassy started making a fuss over her. It was too much for her and she started to scream. AND SCREAM. Sweet baby screamed all thru security, up the stairs, while sitting, nothing could stop her from screaming and crying. Finally Hiyam took pity on us, AND all the other people in the waiting room, (who btw where beginning to stare just a bit)
and took baby girl outside. We were actually done and on our way back to the car in about 15 minutes flat ....even though it felt like an eternity with a sweating, screaming baby in your arms :) Outside she was back to being her happy self. Until we walked back to the car, to find it gone. We had to wait on the busy street full of people for about 10 mins, with folks coming up and chatting and touching baby girls little hands. Well that did ....the screaming started again :( we were quite a show for the local folks playing cards. They were kind and just smiled at us.

After our embassy appt we headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap :)





Look how tiny baby girls little head is

compared to my husbands hands :)

Happy baby with her first binky !! she took right to it :)

Daddy and his baby girl :)

Baby girl loved looking at picture slideshows

on our laptop. I hoped it would help her to learn her brother and sisters faces.

Oh, the goodie bag we sent to Baby girl, after our referral, Almaz brought back to us. Complete with the tags still on the blanket, I so lovingly picked out because it was super soft. Our photo album was still in the bag too...and it didnt look like a baby had handled it honestly. The only things not in the bag were the outfits and socks I had sent. I had mixed feelings about this honestly. I was a bit sad to know the items I thought were a part of us, and hoped would be a link between baby girl in Ethiopia and us so far away, were never removed from the bag. But on the other hand....who cares I guess. Would they have mattered to a tiny baby? no. Lets be honest. Sending gifts over for babies is for US not them. So I took the tags off the blanket, and gave Baby girl her first gifts. A super soft blankie and a photo album of her family :)