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Pool party!

Cooper’s life often involves hanging out with teenagers.  Josh and I are pretty sure he thinks he’s 15!

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Took an afternoon trip to the pool with Megan!  These three were hungry when we got home, so I set out some snacks while I was making dinner.

I didn’t take my camera to the pool, but I so wish I had pictures of Cooper on the (small) water slides.  He surprised all of us with his bravery and was loving the slides as long as Daddy was at the bottom to catch him!

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Josh took the morning off because we had to head downtown early to get our fingerprints done for the adoption.  We were done much quicker than we thought we would be, so we went to the Science Center for a couple hours.  Gotta love all the free stuff for kids in this town!

Josh snapped a pic on his iphone of Cooper and I looking down at the cars under our feet.  Cooper loved being able to stand right over the interstate and watch the cars zoom by!

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We did manage to get a little bit of shopping done on the last day of our trip. Oh my, did we have fun shopping in the baby girls section!  Everyone got a little something for Layla!

I am very, very excited to be blessed with the experience of having a daughter.  We had told our agency that we were open to either a boy or a girl.  I know I would have been thrilled to have any child that the Lord would have blessed us with.  But, I have to say that my heart is so full of joy to have a sweet baby girl waiting to join our family.

I am so excited to experience a mother daughter relationship as a mother.  I am excited to see a tender side of my husband as he becomes a daddy to a little girl.  I can’t wait to see my sweet boy as a big brother.  The sound of him pointing to Layla’s picture and saying “That’s my baby sisser!” is one of the most wonderful sounds I have ever heard.  We just can’t wait to love on her!

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Megan, MiMi and Cooper fishing together. Some very sweet memories were made this weekend.

I didn’t take as many pictures of the weekend as I would have liked to.  Cooper was challenging me in pretty much every way imaginable.  He was off his schedule and he knew Daddy was nowhere near to intervene and he pretty much just went nuts!  It took all my energy just to remain consistent with disciplining him. He can be very strong willed and very, very defiant.  Anyway, I slacked as a photographer this weekend because I had to really step it up as a mommy!

The good news is, we got him and got him back on his schedule. He’s been much more himself!

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Cooper went camping with us on our girls family camping trip.  On our first trip to the pool, he took Grandma’s hat!  I guess he wanted to fit in with the ladies!

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Uncle Storm stopped by to stay overnight on his way to a wedding.  We always have so much fun with him!  He’s just the best uncle any kid could ask for.  I feel so blessed to have him for a brother and a friend.  We can talk for hours when we get together.  He will probably be going with me to Ethiopia in the fall to bring Layla home!  I wish we didn’t have to make two trips, but if I have to go back without Josh I’m glad Storm offered to come with me.

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We had senior night at church where the seniors planned and ran the whole service. Afterwards, we celebrated a couple of birthdays and our new arrival!

Thank you, Sarah for making a cake for us!  Hope you don’t mind me stealing this picture :)

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Crazy busy with paperwork the day after we received our referral!  We were able to get our dossier done, except for our I-171H form from USCIS.  We’re hopeful that will come in the mail soon and we’ll be ready to send off our dossier to Ethiopia.

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This is Cooper and I full of excitement and surprise because WE GOT THE CALL!!!!  We have a beautiful four and a half month old baby girl in Ethiopia waiting to be part of our family. We were very much not expecting to get our referral right now because we aren't quite done with our dossier yet.  We know God's timing is perfect, so maybe He was telling us that we are the ones who needed to speed things up :)

I have frantically been trying to finish our dossier today.  I'm pretty much done now, but I will have to have our case worker look over everything tomorrow and then send it off to be state certified. We are trying to really hurry to get our dossier to Ethiopia as soon as possible.  The courts in Ethiopia are closed during the months of August and September, so we are hoping to get our paperwork turned in to the courts there before they close. If we are able to make that, then hopefully we could travel in October for our first trip.

I wish I could show you how gorgeous she is!  She has very light brown skin and big, beautiful brown eyes.  We have decided to name her Layla and we will keep her Ethiopian name (which I also won't share as she is not legally ours!) as her middle name.  I've been so distracted all day as I've been working on our paperwork, because I can't stop staring at her picture. What a precious gift from God!