Merry Holidays and Starting Over

I hope that everyone had a great holiday and got to enjoy it with family and friends.  Ours was nice although it was hard knowing we had a little one halfway around the world who would not be with us this year.  We did receive a picture of him with the welcome gifts we sent.  He was even wearing the Little Brother onsie and looked adorable in it!

 I have not posted anything recently as we have had little progress with our case.  Several weeks ago I was contacted by our agency that said they submitted our case to court but it was returned because his birth certificate was not included in the file.  Apparently, they were allowed to submit cases without them and then they would procure them prior to the court date and add them to the file.  Not anymore---they must have them when they submit the file.  On the bright side, the next day an e-mail from our agency stated the bio family had the certificate and they could get it any time.  They thought we should be resubmitted to court the following week (week of Christmas).  Of course, due to the holidays I have no way of finding out if we were as the adoption agency office is closed until January 3rd.  Once we are submitted it will be at least 4 weeks until we learn of our court date which at this rate will most likely be the latter half of February or March :(

Another bit of news we recieved this week was that we will most likely need to redo our ENTIRE dossier!  The Ethiopian courts and MOWA (Ministry of Womens Affairs) will not review any dossiers greater than eighteen months old.  Ours is already over eighteen months.  As you may recall the dossier is a compilation of at least 20+ documents that we must gather and have notarized as well as some that must be authenticated at the state and federal level.  It is not something that you necessarily want to do again!  I, however, have begun work on it as I do not want any more delays let alone get over there for court and have the judge tell us we didn't pass because our paperwork if too old.  I keep asking myself, and God, how many more hoops are we going to have to jump through just to be able to open our hearts to a child that needs a loving home and family?

Our little one did get two gifts this Christmas even though he is half a world away.  My Aunt Darlene crocheted a beautiful blanket for him.  The colors in it are those of the Ethiopian flag.

My sister-in-law Kelly bought him this adorable stuffed Snoopy doll.  She bought one for her infant daughter (only in pink) and thought it would be appropriate as my youngest daughter Jenna was attached to her Snoopy for many years.  Soo cute!

This week I will be officially starting to paint his room, hoping it will bring us good news soon!