I am now 36 weeks.  It’s very exciting to be getting so close to my due date and my nesting instincts have set in.  I’ve been very busy washing newborn clothes, rearranging furniture in our bedroom to make room for the cradle and a changing area and buying lots of necessities for Grace and me.  I bought a pack of those itty-bitty newborn diapers and was shocked that they are about the size of my hand.  I really think things have shrunk since Andy was born.  There’s no way he was ever that small! 

I still feel great, although by dinnertime most days my back hurts from carrying Andy around and most days I find I need to catch a nap while Andy sleeps in order to stay awake until bedtime.  We had an ultrasound at my appointment on Monday and it was so much fun to see Grace!  They estimated she weighed 5 lbs 4 oz and all of her organs looked good.  We saw her spiky hair and she was sucking her thumb.  We could see her face pretty clearly and we watched her yawn, which was really cute!

Eden and I flew to Nairobi today to pick up her Humanitarian Visa at the embassy. We were in and out within 15 minutes! They don’t normally do appointments on Fridays, and so I was the only one they were expecting. At each security checkpoint along the way I was asked: “Are you Mr. Wolfe?” It feels nice being a VIP…

Eden on the Fly540 flight. She LOVED flying “up up up in the air” “like a birdy” and going “up and down up and down” (turbulence). She had a lot of trouble with the concept of the us being above the clouds:
What are those white things Daddy?
Those are clouds Eden.
But they’re down low.
Because we’re flying above the clouds, we’re way up high.
But I’m lookin down, they’re down low.

Eden was a great traveler and I lucked out with her being hyper during the should-be-nap-time instead of a terror. She fell asleep 5 minutes into our car ride home at 4:45.

She started being a three year old while we were laying over in Kisumu. She was trying to figure out why we couldn’t fly straight to Eldoret and every response from me was rebutted with the same statement except “Why…” affixed to it!

Our flights back to the U.S. are scheduled for the 18th of January. That was the only day Delta had available for both my ticket (paid) and Eden’s ticket (mileage award seat) on the same flight in the same class. She did give me the option of the 9th…with Eden riding up in Business Class but me in Coach!

January 18th is a lot later than we wanted to be reunited, but it does allow me time to get things sorted out with the house, van, packing, work, and all of our stuff. Its amazing how many things a woman can collect in a short 8 months in Kenya. You heard me right, none of this is mine.

Andy is now 22 months old and becoming more like a 2 year old every day.  He is talking more and asserting himself more.  He is coming up with his own ideas and makes us laugh with the things he remembers.  The other day I was driving to Indy and he started talking about Javan’s car being hot and smokey which was from our trip to Nairobi in October when the van broke down.

Today Andy counted to 10 which shocked me and he has even started singing a couple of songs.  He loves to finish our sentences, such as “Home again, home again….”  Andy has been very happy this week while Uncle Colin is home and the Smiley clan was around.  He’s had lots of attention and lots of boys to rough house with.

Andy LOVED opening presents at Christmas and I have to keep an eye on him because he would really like to open Eden and Ben’s presents which are under the tree.  He was fun to watch because he gets so excited when he starts to open the gift and then gasps when he finally can see what’s inside.  Then he just wants to sit and play with that gift for a while and he needs encouraged to open the next one.  Andy also had fun playing in the snow, as you can see below!

We received word tonight that Eden’s humanitarian parole was granted!  We haven’t made any plans yet (or even talked about it because Ben and Eden are still sleeping!) but we’re excited here and will post updates as we have them.  Praise God for the AWESOME things He is doing!

I just got some good news from Susan at Little Angels! Well, first she toyed with me and gave me the bad news: the national committee STILL didn’t hear our case in their meeting on Wednesday. Their backlog apparently goes back to last April. Susan heard of this at 9am on Wednesday, though, so she quickly wrote up another letter for the Little Angels committee that was also meeting on Wednesday afternoon. She listed out all the extra steps we did, the headache from the national committee, etc. And they did it! They approved Eden “clear for adoption” and approved us as able to adopt! It would have been nice if they had given us this approval 6 weeks ago…or even 4 weeks ago after we got the paperwork they asked for! I’m super happy they did approve us though, the backlog from the national committee is not looking so good.

Next Steps:
Our lawyer takes this letter to court next week and hopefully is seen on a Certificate of Urgency (2 days wait instead of 3 weeks). This first hearing is the appointment of a Guardian Ad Litem. This person is supposed to come visit and observe how amazingly wonderful we are with Eden, how she is thriving in our home, etc. We then have another court hearing 1-2 weeks after that where the guardian and a little angels’ social worker present their reports and (hopefully) the court grants the adoption. Its unclear if we have to go back to the national committee at that time or not. If we do, well, hopefully they’ve worked through their backlog! Worst case scenario is that we have to wait 3-4 weeks for the first visit, then 3-4 weeks for the second visit, then 4-8 weeks for the national committee…but thats where the humanitarian visa would come in: we could at least come back for a little bit to see Meghan/Andy/Gracie/family in the middle of all the waiting.