Our First Night Home

I can't tell you all how wonderful it is to be in our own home with our children! It's 5:30 am, and we've all been up since 4am. We were able to sleep from 5pm to 4am last night. Mihiretu woke up crying twice but I was able to rock him to sleep both times so we are all feeling fairly rested. The kids are in the family room right now playing with a Noah's Ark their Auntie Jean got them. Tigist is singing something in Hadiya (the language they speak in her village) and I of course can't understand what she is singing, but I can pick out one word, Hallelujah! I asked the guard at the guest house who speaks Hadiya what she was singing about one day and he said it was a praise song. I'm not sure if she is singing the same song, but it's such an amazing feeling to know that she has already been told about the Lord.

Our trip home was extremely long, and the kids each had their moments, but we made it and had the most wonderful welcome home celebration at the airport. Thank you so much to everyone who was able to come greet us. I was in a jet-lag haze, so I'm sure I didn't express my gratitude very well, but I was truly touched and overwhelmed with the love and excitement that greeted us. Hannah, you are amazing! The video you took and posted on our blog is priceless. I watched it this morning while holding Mihiretu in my lap. He was eating a nectarine and "feeding" me with his sticky little fingers. Thank you so much for helping us share our journey with everyone!!

We can't thank you all enough for all your prayers while we were in Ethiopia. They were answered everyday. Jeff and I never got sick, the adoption process and paperwork went extremely smoothly, our children are absolutely beautiful and healthy and we feel like real bonding is already happening. It makes a world of difference that the children were loved so much by their Ethiopian family, I believe that they have and will be able to transfer that attachment to us so much easier. We are so blessed!

As soon as we are unpacked and can find our cameras we'll post pictures from our trip. We had some memory card issues, so we didn't take as many pictures as we wanted, but we'll post a few soon. Thank you all for sharing in our journey!