Monthly Update From Gladney on the Kids - REVISED

Still no court date, but we should get one this week....Whoeoee!!! That will be a nice relief to get that behind us!

About two hours ago, I wrote this post with lots of hope that we'd hear something this week on a court date. I sit here, on the verge of crying, after my phone call with Mary. It seems that it is our lot in life to have paperwork issues for our adoptions. And this one is no different.........there is a document that is incorrect and it'll take three weeks to get it redone. Local courts are closed for a few weeks, and our case has to go through local courts again to correct the document, then we can submit it to federal court. So, what does that mean???? It means that it will be another 3 weeks before our completed file can be submitted to federal court for the final court date. I was not aware there was more than one court date, but there is. A successful local court date must occur in order for your file to be considered complete for submission for a federal court date. What complicates the situation is the local court is where the orphanage is located, and the orphanage that our children came through is a few hours away from Addis, the capital of Ethiopia. And a few hours away is not like a ride down the interstate like it is here in the US......So we wait........................

Anyway, we got our monthly update and picture of the kids.

“Big S had a huge smile when I told him I was writing to you. He is doing well. Along with the other older children he works hard on his schoolwork during the day. He was very excited to have his picture taken but was very serious about getting it taken. He got Little S and put his arm around her. Then he waited patiently, standing very still, for the flash. Little S and I have become good friends. She is very cute. When the kids go outside to play she loves to get a soccer ball to herself and let it roll a few feet away and then chase it. She also likes to roll the ball back and forth with someone. She talks a lot, I don't understand any of it but it's really sweet to listen to.”

What suprised me most about the newest picture is how tiny Little S is...I mean she is REALLY TINY. Smaller than Pickles and we know how BIG Pickles is. She's not quite 2 and wearing 3T clothes already!!!

Drew & Carey are leaving Saturday for Addis to pick up Tigist. They are taking a package for us for the kids. Little S has her third birthday coming up in late March. We were hoping we'd be picking her up in late March, but we know now that's just not going to happen! We send both Little S and Big S a gift bag with coloring books, crayons, some ABC books to help both of them learn their letters. And Little S also got a Dora the Explorer Matching Game!!!

The construction on the house is going well. The mason started today to build the foundation for the front porch. The contractor is working on framing out all the windows with pvc = no maintenance EVER!!!! The house basically looks the same as it did last week, so I'll post more pictures when we can see a noticable change!

Did you notice that I was practicing with the new fonts .... not sure which one I like yet!