Update

Hello everyone! We are still alive over here, just adjusting to being new parents. I think we're getting pretty close to some sort of schedule. We are LOVING parenthood. It's AMAZING!! Jaxson is doing really well. He is attaching & bonding and we couldn't ask for anything more. Tonight he laid on me and just looked in my eyes and smiled at me for about 45 minutes. Nothing feels better than that.

I'm still playing catch up on emails and haven't had time for the blogs, but I'm trying. My days consist of feeding Jaxson, burping Jaxson, wiping Jaxson's butt, playing with Jaxson, staring at Jaxson, rocking Jaxson, bathing Jaxson, etc...etc. He consumes my day, but I love every minute of it.

I want to post about our trip soon, so stay tuned for that because it's coming. But, I'll leave you with a few pictures of my beautiful boy.

Introducing... Jaxson Kyin

Day 3 of Being a MOMMY

We are doing GREAT!! Jaxson is bonding with us really well and he is just a very happy baby. He seems to think that 4am is the time to wake up for the day, so we need to work on that but otherwise things are so good. I can't wait for you all to meet him - he is just the sweetest little baby. He loves to cuddle and stare into my eyes... oh man being a mom is the BEST!!

Kim - we are praying for you today & that court is successful!! We've seen "F" and he's SO cute!! :) I can't wait to tell you about him.

I've seen lots of your children and they are all doing great!! They are so adorable! The special mothers are awesome - they love these babies so much, just thinking of it makes me tear up. Please know that your babies are being loved SO much! We love spending time at HH. The boys LOVE Tim - I think we might be taking a few extra home! ;) ha.. just kidding... kinda.

Alright... we're off to HH for the day to love on all your children!!

He's PERFECT!!!

Today was the most amazing day of our lives. We met Jaxson today and
he is absolutely perfect. I don’t know any other words in any
dictionary that could describe the way we feel right now. Going to HH
and seeing, touching, holding, and kissing Jaxson all for the first
time was truly a dream come true. He is everything we imagined him to
be and more. When he saw us for the first time he smiled and truly
just melted our hearts. He is one of the happiest babies and always
smiling and so very content. We are overwhelmed with ALL sorts of
emotions and feel truly, truly BLESSED. What more could a NEW PROUD
Dad (and Mom) say. Dawn is loving every minute of being a mommy and
Jaxson adores her already! We can’t wait for you all to meet him –
you will fall in love just as we have. We are going to wait until we
get back to share his ADORABLE face, but we’ll leave you with this one
picture…haha their picture didn't work so you get nothing!!! :-)

From Dawn...

Hey everyone...Its Jenna blogging for Tim and Dawn...I've been out of town so I haven't blogged for them yet but here they are...Enjoy!!

We made it! It feels SO good to be here. Ethiopia is BEAUTIFUL!! We are
about 2 blocks from Jaxson right now – crazy huh?? We know that we can’t
see him until tomorrow morning and we are ok with that, but just a little
part of us wants to go and beat down that gate and scoop him up. But, we’ll
wait. J Today is Easter here and this is their biggest holiday of the year,
so lots going on here. We are going to get up and get ready and head out
for the day and come back when the other families arrive tonight. Autumn –
we had dinner with Emily last night! She’s great!! Ok… I’m off to figure
out the shower and attempt to not get ANY water in my mouth… wish me luck!!

They made it!!!

Hey everyone!!! Dawny and Timmy made it to Ethiopia safely with all their luggage! I'm still waiting to hear more about how things are...but just wanted to let everyone know that they are there and will soon be holding baby Jaxson.

Dubai... here we come!

We made it to New York!!! We are about to board the plane in just a few minutes!! We met up with Pat & Jody and had dinner and onto the 3rd plane we go. From here on out - my friend Jenna will be posting updates through us - so check back! We will get all of your comments though - so feel free to leave us some love!!

Thanks Tisha for the coffee!! :)

Dear Jaxson,

We are coming! I wanted to write you this letter so that one day you can look back and see just exactly how much you were loved before we even met you. I have so many different emotions swarming around inside of me that I have never experienced before. I don’t know how to put it all into words, but I will try. Your daddy and I have started dreaming about you many years ago… and next week we will finally be together as a family. Our journey to you was not an easy one, but worth every tear and every heartache and every bump in the road. It’s such a strange feeling to have never held you, but my arms feel empty without you in them. You definitely were the missing piece for our family. You have made my heart whole again. We know that God hand picked you to be our son and we would go to the ends of the earth for you. I lay awake at night and think of what it is going to feel like to hold you for the first time and it gives me butterflies, much like the ones I would get with your daddy when we first started dating. I can’t wait to look into your beautiful eyes, see you smile, hear your giggle, count your toes, and just hold you and know that you are my son and we are a family forever. We got a few new pictures of you today and you have grown so much, we can’t believe it. You are the most beautiful baby we have ever laid eyes on and every time I look at a picture of you, my heart melts and I can’t help but smile. People say that you are a lucky little boy to have us as parents, but your Dad and I are the ones that are blessed. There are so many things that your dad and I want to experience with you and teach you. I know I won’t be a perfect mother, I know I’m going to make mistakes – lots of them. But, one thing I know for sure is that I promise to love you and protect you always. My son, I want you to know that you are loved more than you can possibly imagine. And tonight as you sleep, feel the breeze on your skin as I’m blowing you kisses in the wind.

Love, Mommy

Help!

Did you think I was kidding when I said that my living room looked like a tornado came through? This is what it looks like when you are trying to pack. And apparently a certain someone that just so happens to live in the same house as me thinks that I'm a bad packer. So, I am now on supervisor duty.

Update Update!

Ok people, I have LOTS to update you on! I have been SO busy that I haven't had much time for blogs. We got the call on Friday with our travel dates and we just booked our flights yesterday. We leave next week Thursday... travel through 5 different airports (no that is NOT a typo) and arrive in Addis on Saturday at 11:30am. We are going to take a little extra time to see a little more of the city and experience the culture. We will then leave on Thursday night and travel back through 5 airports again and arrive in Milwaukee at 4:50pm. We can't believe we have tickets booked to pick up Jaxson! Wow. And we are so excited to see everyone when we get back, it sounds like we will have quite a bit of family and friends at the airport to welcome our new family home. :) We even have a very good friend flying in from Australia to see us walk off the plane... now that's LOVE!!

So..... we also got a little update on Jaxson on Friday too. No pictures, but we learned a little bit more about his routine. He wakes up around 6am, eats every 2-3 hrs, has 2 baths a day, lays out in the sun for about 2 1/2 hrs, likes classical music lullabies as he's being rocked to sleep, oh and he gets up 3-4 times in the night. Yikes! We will be trying to fix that part for sure. They say that he is a very content baby and sweet (well that part I already knew).

We had a busy weekend with our nieces sleeping over, good times with friends, and trying to start packing. Remember how I told you all that my house was super duper clean and everything was just perfect. Ha! Well, my livingroom looks like a tornado came through. We have donations GALORE! We have received an amazing amount of support from everyone - so thank you thank you thank you!! We started to pack up the donations tonight and weigh them and well we are going to have some problems I think. We have TOO much. We are trying to get creative and see what we can do. Otherwise we may be spending big bucks to get this over. We may have to leave some donations back and send them with other traveling families. Cass & Jess, I may be calling you.

I also had a little surprise baby shower at work today and they made a donation to HH in our name. I thought that was SO very thoughtful!! So, thank you to all of my co-workers!!

Well, the dryer just dinged. I just did my first load of baby laundry!! Woohoo!! I get to go fold his little jammies and roll his ridiculously cute little socks.

Oh Happy Day!

Ok, so let me fill you in on how yesterday went. Actually I’ll start with Monday. Monday morning was great, we were getting excited for our court date that night. Monday afternoon… not so great. I really do not know what happened, but something did and suddenly the wait was not so easy. Tuesday got even worse. Everyone and their mother was asking “have you heard anything… have you heard anything?” I know that everyone meant well, but it all got to be too much. I hit the wall and the “unknown” was enough to drive me crazy. Tuesday night was complete MELTDOWN. It was not pretty. I was doing the ugly cry – you know the cry where you can’t stop? Yeah… that one. When I get real stressed I get anxiety. So, I had a pounding headache, chest pain and no sleep. Yesterday I woke up and went to work and by 9:30am the headache hadn’t gone away and I already cried twice, so I just went home. I wanted to go to sleep and not wake up until Friday because that’s when I thought we would get the call. I got home and got right into bed. My phone was buzzing and I looked and it was Jody. I knew that she was calling to tell me some good news and it WAS! So, I hung up with her and thought ok probably Friday we’ll hear something. Little while later the phone started buzzing again, I looked and it said “Julie – AGCI”. My heart stopped and I started crying. Surely this is way too early and she is calling to tell us we didn’t pass. I let it ring a couple of times because I contemplated not answering and just having Tim call Julie back because I didn’t want to hear the bad news. I decided to just answer. Julie said “Hi Dawn…. do you have a couple of minutes….for some GREAT news!?” I said “Julie – I have ALL the time in the world!!” So, then she told me all the scoop. Wow – TOTALLY was not expecting that. Want to talk about a roller coaster of a day? I went from the lowest of low to the highest of high. I called Tim and he came home right away. There was a smile plastered on my face the rest of the day. Later that day we were invited over to a tea party hosted by my lovely nieces Bayli & Ava. We went over and there were decorations, signs, balloons, cupcakes, cookies, Tim’s favorite pie, gifts and they were wearing some cute little dresses for the occasion. They poured us some milk… oops I mean “tea”. They were so cute and loved celebrating with us. I'll post some pics later. Then we went to dinner afterwards to do some more celebrating. So, that was the happy day yesterday!

So… onto travel plans. The agency is working on getting our embassy appointments scheduled, but it looks like we will travel in 2 weeks! Of course I have a million things running through my head and adding stuff to my list hourly. I still can't believe that we've made it this far. We are ACTUALLY going now. Ahh!! Off to pack!

WE PASSED COURT!!!

And our hearts are happy!!

yeah... this pretty much just sucks...

So, that post yesterday about being at peace and all that hooey phooey??? Yeah.. you can just disregard that. This sucks. I don’t know how else to say it. I have done really well with this wait from referral to court (or at least I think I have). I woke up yesterday feeling good and even wrote that little post. Well, I don’t know what happened, but something did and that’s all out the window. I am tired of waiting. I’m tired of missing out on another day of Jaxson’s life. I'm tired of people asking when we are going to get him and my answer being "I don't know". I want to know. I want the wait to be OVER. I think it’s that we are SO close now. So close. The decision is now made and I just pray that we hear something soon. It was a rough afternoon & night, but I feel better knowing that the decision has been made. I just want my boy.

Court Tonight!!!

The closets are organized, the exersaucer is put together, everything has been dusted, the carpets have been shampooed, the cabinets have been cleaned & organized, the highchair is put together, the pack n play is put together, etc, etc, etc, and it’s done. The cleaning is done and I have wore myself out. I’m exhausted. The house is completely clean. You could come and lick my floors if you want, or my bathtub or my kitchen cabinets. They are THAT clean. So, just throwing it out there.

At midnight tonight the courts will open and while we sleep (well, I’m sure I won’t be sleeping) a judge will decide if Jaxson Kyin will be OUR SON. OUR son. AH! How does one sleep when they know that type of decision is being made??? I did not sleep last night – Tim and I both tossed & turned all night long. So, I can only imagine what it’s going to be like tonight. I am not nervous… not at all. I’ve never once been nervous about not passing court. I’m just anxious. VERY anxious & excited. I don’t know why, but I’m very much at peace about the court appt and that we won’t have any problems passing. IF for some reason we do not pass… well, I will be heart broken, but I’m choosing to remain completely hopeful that all goes well and we will be traveling in a couple of weeks with all my friends to pick up our children! We won’t know right away if we pass or not. They wait until they have a court decree in hand before making the phone call, so we are hoping to hear on Thursday or Friday. There are 4 other families that have court tonight as well, so if you could PLEASE say a prayer for all of us before you go to sleep tonight we would all REALLY appreciate it!!

Now I’m off to find some caffeine… and maybe some chocolate…

Nursery Pictures

Ok...I know I've been promising these pictures for quite sometime now, but alas HERE IT IS PEOPLE!! Here's Jaxson's room...








This is artwork that Tim & I painted when we were little. I thought it would be cute to hang & put in Jaxson's room. You can't see it, but the picture on the left... Tim painted that in 3rd grade and it's a tree house that says "The Cool Club - No Girls". hahaha...so cute.


The closet that Tim built... he did a great job!

We got a nester over here!

Our court appointment is right around the corner! NEXT week – WAHOO!!! (please keep us & the other families in your prayers!) Back in January when we were told our court appt was 3/31, I was like WHAT?! That is forever away! I can’t do that. Well, certainly I could… I’ve waited several years for our baby – I can wait a few more months. And the time passed quickly – it really did. I got an email from another family with the same court date as us with some fun info. Our caseworker told her that if we pass court that we should plan to travel the week of 4/12 or the week of 4/19 depending on the embassy appointments. Ummm hello – that is just a FEW weeks away!!! So, I am beyond excited but a little freaked out at the same time. I always imagined us being at this point, but it’s different when you are actually there. We COULD be booking our plane tickets next week. What? Did I really just type that? Yes… crazy.

So, wanna know what I’ve been up to? NESTING. Yes, that’s right. I’m totally nesting. When people would say that they were nesting I always wondered what nesting really was. Well… I get it. I’m a crazy nester right now. I’m on a mission. I am cleaning everything in my house. You’d think I was cleaning for the President to come over… nope… someone even more important than that – JAXSON! Sunday Tim and I took everything out of all the kitchen cabinets, washed everything, scrubbed down the cabinets, cleaned behind the fridge & stove, re-organized, etc… I’m doing this to every room in my house. I’m obsessed. So, watch out people – CRAZY nester is comin’ through!!

American Idol - The Top 11

Ok, so I love to watch American Idol. I have watched every single season and I’m still hooked. I’m sure many of you are fans too – so let’s talk about how last night went.

Michael – ok, so Michael did good I think. I didn’t understand him all of the time, but it was good. Great? Nah.. just good. But, kinda forgettable I think.

Allison – Allison did really well. Good song choice. She’s the best female – I think. I love her voice – very mature for 16. But, the red hair? Gotta go.

Kris – LOVED him. I think he is really good and people are probably underestimating him… watch out! He’s one of my favs.

Lil – ok, I’m sorry but last night she did BAD. Just BAD. That was not good at ALL. There were a million other songs she should have picked. That one has been done way too much. And she was just off with the whole thing. I normally like her, but not last night.

Adam – Umm..where do I start. WEIRD. I did not like the arrangement of the song at all. I think he wears too much make-up and I agree with Simon that it was a tad indulgent. He was kinda creeping me out. But, I will admit his vocals were good – he has some of the best vocals on the show – whether you like him or not. But the whole thing was just gross. He won’t go home though – the judges would save him anyway.

Scott – ok, I know people think that he’s not that good. I agree he doesn’t have the best vocals, but I still like him. And I thought he did a good job last night. Will he be in the bottom? No, I don’t think so. I think he has a fan base – pity votes? Maybe… but he won’t be going home.

Alexis – I was disappointed in Alexis this week. I thought that she would be a stand-out tonight, but not so much. She didn’t do bad, but it was just “eh” for me. Good, but forgettable. And did anyone else notice that she resembled Dolly just a little??? Weird. She could be in the bottom tonight.

Danny – oh I LOVE Danny! And not just because he’s our hometown guy here in WI!! In the beginning of the song I was like “hmmm.. then about 30 seconds in I was like ok yes I like it”. He really has some pipes. Love him. No wait… LOVE him. Another fav.

Anoop – wow – he did AWESOME!! And I’m so thankful he has a stylist helping him now – hehe. He was AMAZING. And I was worried about him and country week – but he did awesome awesome!

Megan – do not like her… at all. I don’t know what it is about her, but I just don’t like her. She is TOO quirky for me. The weird shake/hip/twist thing she does annoys the boogers out of me. She stands in front of the mic with her arms straight and does the shakey… twisty… weirdness. I want to tell her to STOP. And was it me or did her boobs look really weird??? Please go home Megan.

Matt – LOVED it!! He did really good. He is another one of my favs. I know what you are thinking… man she has a lot of favs… no not really – just 3. So anyway, he did awesome on the piano and you could tell he was really into it and well that’s one of my favorite songs so I was happy with his song choice. Yay Matt!

Ok, so… who is going home tonight??? Well, I’m going with Megan. What do YOU think??

my weekend with Jody

I'm baaaaack!!! I had a GREAT time with Jody & her family this past weekend! It was so nice to just relax and have fun with her family. They have 3 adorable, smart, sweet and funny girls - they are a lot of fun to be around & I miss their cute faces already. I was so nice and brought some WI weather with me - I don't think they appreciated that so much though. :) And look what Jody bought for Jaxson... LOTS of clothes!! Isn't she awesome?!

So, are you wondering why there is a picture of a toilet? Well, that is Jody's toilet. I spent many hours with that toilet yesterday. Yes... bad bad memories with that toilet. I woke up Sunday morning at 4am with a fever and the chills and ... well I'll spare you the other details. Thankfully at about 2pm I was feeling better and able to get on the plane. But, for awhile I thought I might be spending another night at their house. So, our last day wasn't so fun... but the rest of the weekend was! Funny thing is that Jody and I were emailing last week and somehow got onto the subject of throwing up (I have no idea why) and I told her that I NEVER throw up and get sick... blah blah blah... HA... guess I'm a big fat liar. Oh and are you wondering why I took a picture of her toilet? I didn't. My oh so nice friend Jody emailed me this morning and the subject line said "Dear Dawn - I miss you". I was thinking... awww Jody misses me and sent me a picture of the two of us, nope not the case at all. She sent me a picture of her toilet. She's so mean!

Heading to Virginia...

I've been slacking in the blog department... so sowwey! We have been really busy, but I have a good post coming soon... so stay tuned. We are ALMOST done with the nursery, just need to get some frames for the pictures and get them hung. Sooooo.... next week I'll have the big nursery reveal!! Aren't you excited?! You should be. Seriously...get hype.

I'm SO excited because I'm hoppin' on a plane tomorrow to go visit Jody & her family!! Jody and I met last summer from the blogs/list serv when we realized we were right next to eachother on the list. Well, a WONDERFUL friendship was formed and now I'm packing my bags to go hang out with her. Isn't that cool?! I'm sure I'll have some pics from the weekend to share next week too. See...I'm giving you reason to come back and check up on me!

Donations for HH

I've had several people ask me about donations recently and I figured it's about time that I start collecting. We are really hoping to be able to take LOTS over! If you're interested in helping out here is a list of items that are needed at HH.

Items needed the most are:
- diapers (all sizes)
- wipes
- 4 oz avent bottles
- lids and nipples
- bouncy seats

Other items needed:
- bibs
- hand sanitizer
- kleenex boxes
- infant & children's vitamins
- formula
- diaper rash cream
- baby shampoos & baby oil
- blow up balls/outside toys
- sidewalk chalk
- bubbles
- children's dvds & cds
- men & women's deodorant
- good quality electric shaver
- clothing:
baby clothing infant - 8 mos
light jackets or sweaters for all ages
boys clothing for ages 6-10 yrs old
girls clothing for ages 6-13 yrs old
underwear for all ages
shoes for all ages - crocs are great

Used items are fine as long as they are in good condition. If you have anything please let me know. Thanks in advance for your help!