Party and a Few Updates

This week were surprised by Sarah and friends with a party/fundraiser for our adoption! Lucas and I are pretty floored at what caring wonderful friends and family we have. Please come celebrate if you can!

Friday, Feb 17th, 8-11pm
Lost Lake Lounge
3206 E Colfax Ave

Our friends have organized an art auction, bands, and suggested donation at the door. We will also be collecting gently used and new baby blankets to donate to the orphanage. We're so grateful and excited for a fun time!

In other news, still no new pictures. Of either baby! People, you're killing me here.

Lucas and I decided on names, which was hard. But we are utterly in love with them and their now somewhat pronounceable names :). There is something to be said for naming your own child, and I never realized what a special process it is. We wanted to keep Agegnehu's (sounds like "again yahoo") which means "I have found you!" as his first name, but we just decided it would be too difficult to pronounce/spell especially when he starts school. We added in Alan because we thought it was very special to both Lucas and my families, as it is both my dad and Lucas's dad's middle name.

Otis Alan Agegnehu 

+

Jalele Lark

Rougé

Waiting, waiting, waiting for pictures and a court date. Really hoping these babes will be home by July.

Oh yeah, my car died this week. Dead. So amidst the adoption and crazy work transition (maybe more on that later?) Lucas and I will be carpooling everywhere in his 1985 Landcruiser which we are hoping will pass emissions this week. We may need some extra patience right now...

And now we have our boy!!

We were supposed to receive our referral of a boy and a girl at the same time. But- we are adopting, so things are bound to not go as planned. On December 5th, 2011 we found out about our 5-month-old little girl in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. On January 11th, 2012 we finally received word of our 3-month-old kissy-lipped baby boy!!

We know much more about him from his referral paperwork than we do with Lark. While I won't tell his story here, we do know where he was born and how he made his way to the orphanage. His lips are so big and kissable, and for his debut picture, we was adorned in a very pink sweatsuit! I can't help but giggle when I look at this picture, his expressions seems to be so serious- like he is telling us how tough he is even though we are seeing him in all pink. I'm not big on pastel pinks and blues for defining genders, but I have to admit it is pretty funny!

For some reason, naming this boy is much harder. His given name will be pretty hard to pronounce and spell in our culture- so we are working on a name that works for everyone but honors his Ethiopian heritage.... hmm.

This week's stats for baby boy:
11lbs (he weighs more than Lark, who is 3 months older!)
22 inches
head circumference: 15 inches

This week's stats for little Lark:
(we got an adorable smiley pic of her this week)
10lbs, 7 oz (may have lost weight? or maybe measurements are off? Will try not to get concerned yet.)
24 inches
hc: 15 1/2 inches

We couldn't be more excited about our family of 4!! Please pray for a court date soon!