an Aha! moment...kind of.

As I unpacked the groceries it hit me..."I forgot to buy hot dog buns! arrgh!" I had used a coupon to buy some "new" natural hot dogs and here I was with no buns! I hate buying hot dog buns anyway, because they always get wasted and I hate how they fall apart while the kids are trying eat them, which usually means a stain or mess for me. So maybe I subconsciously meant to neglect putting the buns in my cart. Who knows?

So that leads to dinner tonight...hot dogs but no buns...hmmm. Then it hit me, aha! I'm sure I didn't actually invent this, but I like to think I did at least for my house....the Grilled Cheese Dog. See picture.....

I've never seen a recipe or suggestion for this kid-friendly treat, so I was feeling pretty proud of myself for coming up with it. The kids actually liked it! They cleaned their plates...no uneaten half-a-bun on the plate to guilt-ily throw away. yay!!

it seems kind of silly to post a "recipe" but here it is:

• 1 slice bread-light buttered on one side (I use Olivio Light Spread)
• 1 hot dog cut lengthwise (the hot dogs I had were kind of long, so used 1 dog for both kids)
• 1 slice cheese
• place bread butter side down on a griddle or skillet set at medium heat
• Layer cheese, dog, cheese and fold in half
• Grill each side until brown--I also grill the folded end

VOILA! LOL.

Nesting

I guess I'm going through what all expectant mother's go through...nesting. It's really all I can do, since we are just waiting. Waiting for our court date to arrive (June 9th, please pray we pass!), waiting for any new information: an update, a new photo....we are, in fact, still waiting for all of the above. It's hard to wait.

But I have had a bit of fun in the mean time....working on the bedroom that Em and Des will share. That's where the majority of the nesting comes in. Em had been sleeping in the child's daybed stage of the convertible crib, so we knew she would have to transition out of that. Des will have to sleep in the crib. We felt like sooner would be better so that she didn't feel that this new baby took her bed. So we found some good deals on a twin bed and mattresses. She transitioned seamlessly into her new bed and is totally "on board"with giving her old one to Des. Thank you, God!

I've also been getting the room more personalized for the sisters. I love this part of it, and it really helps me feel like I am getting ready to have Des here with us. I found some letters to spell her name that are in the exact same font as the ones we've had for Em since she was born.

So, nesting is really all I can do at this point. So I'll just keep nesting...and waiting. It's really so close now, I can hardly believe it. I just noticed that I'm blogging about nesting and the theme of the girls' room is owls...how appropriate!

Blogging Again.

So, the blog has been dormant for a quite a while. But I am ready to get started again, particularly because now that we are in the home stretch of our adoption, I want to have a place where we can keep people updated on what's going on....

Here's a recap of the last 1 1/2 years:

• December 2008--submit an official application with Bethany Christian Services for Ethiopian adoption.


• January 2009-August 2009--PAPERWORK!! That pretty much sums it up! Lots of paperwork and lots of READING!


• August 2009--all paperwork is complete--Dossier sent to Ethiopia.


• August 2009-April 2010--WAITING, WAITING, WAITING. We had originally been told that we would wait 1 year to 18 months for a referral, so we were really surprised when we receive a referral in April 2010.


• March 2010--We receive word that Ethiopia is changing it's procedures (effective April 9th) to require families to be present at court--which means 2 trips to Ethiopia...not in our original plans! There's not a lot of information so it's mostly just questions! Will we have to travel 2x?


• April 7, 2010--We received a call and email from our specialist notifying us that we were matched with a 16 month old baby girl named Desalech.


• Over the next few days we prayed and talked to some friends and decided to accept the referral!


• Receive word that the deadline for 2 trips is moved to May 9th....we may be able to get in under the wire and only have to travel 1x! Praying we don't have to travel 2x. We don't want to meet our baby and leave her there!


• We decided to modify Desalech's name to Desalee Rae Demessie Poe (Demessie is her given last name)


• April 2010-May 7, 2010--more waiting...for a court date. This time it's a much harder wait, now that we know who our daughter is. Also continuing to wonder if we'll beat the deadline and only travel 1x. May 9th is rapidly approaching!


• May 7th--With no court date scheduled, we are pretty much resolved to the fact that we need to prepare to travel 2x to Ethiopia. BUT...we receive a call from our worker that our paperwork is submitted and that all paperwork submitted before the deadline will be grandfathered in under the 1 trip rule! Yay!! We now know for sure that we will only have to travel 1x to get Desi and BRING HER HOME!!!


• May 2010--we moved Emily into her big girl bed to prepare her to give the crib to Desi...she did great! Hopefully she'll do as good at sharing her room with her new little sister!


• May 17, 2010--Received word that we have a court date scheduled for June 9, 2010.

Now we are just praying that we will pass court on the first try....a lot of court cases do not pass on the first try (30-40% are rescheduled!) This is our main prayer request...passing court! Of course that Desi would be healthy and safe too!

I'm going to do my best to keep the blog updated as we receive updates on Desi and our process. I also plan to use the blog as a place to post pictures when we are traveling.