Finally All Together

We've waited a long time to have all our family together and we're finally all together now. It's the most wonderful thing!

Our day started early with Noah's Embassy appointment at 7:15am (we had to leave the hotel at 6:45am and we actually made it down for breakfast before that!). All went well with the appointment. We will be picking up Noah's Visa on Monday afternoon. After our appointment, we went shopping for a while and ate at McDonalds (aren't we adventurous - Joel's choice :P) in a mall a few blocks from our hotel.

We picked up precious Hannah Faith this afternoon and she is absolutely adorable! She is such a beautiful little girl! She is so content and smiles all the time. We are having so much fun with all our kids together. Joel is being the perfect big brother. He's so interested in both Hannah and Noah. He loves seeing what their doing and giving them hugs and kisses. After Shannon put Hannah's hair up in pigtails, Joel said "That's silly!" and then decided she looked like Boo from the cartoon Monsters Inc. so he called her Boo the rest of the night. Noah has had a long day and we've had a hard time getting him to eat. He finally ate better this evening so we're hoping his eating will go smoother tomorrow.

Hope you enjoy pics from our day. It doesn't get any better for us than having all our kids together with us!

Noah is ours forever!

We made it to Guatemala this afternoon with little delay. We got in a little after 1:00pm local time. We got to our hotel about 2:00pm but our room was not ready so we had to wait in the lobby until about 2:45. We were supposed to be called in our room at 3:00 to come pick up Noah, so we were quite anxious to get to our room. Shortly after 3:00 we were called down and Noah was placed in our arms forever. The afternoon and evening have been very good. Noah seems like he is a very happy baby overall. When we first got him and we were still with his foster mother he was all smiles. He laughs often. He has been some fussy this evening, we think because he is with unfamiliar people in an unfamiliar place, but he seems quite content now. We will be getting Hannah tomorrow afternoon, after our Embassy appointment. Joel is doing so well with Noah. He could not wait to get to Guatemala to "take care of Noah and Hannah." He checks on Noah often and says "Noah is great," "he sounds beautiful," and "I love him." On to the pictures:

Noah is Coming Home!!

We got our pink slip this afternoon with our Embassy appointment. Our appointment is next Friday, May 16th at 7:15am. We are sooo excited! We should be able to pick up Noah's visa from the Embassy on the following Monday afternoon. We need the visa to get Noah into the USA. Our tentative travel plans are to fly down to Guatemala next Thursday (5/15) and to fly home the following Tuesday (5/20). We will keep you updated. May 16th is Noah's 6 month birthday. We are also very excited to get to have Hannah stay with us while we are in Guatemala. Now if we could just get her out of PGN!

Hannah's 7 Month Check-up

Hannah has her 7 month doctor's checkup on May 2nd. The doctor said she's a "bright little girl". :) Sounds like she's doing great. She weighed 15lbls 6oz. We learned today that cases are still being processed in PGN (but none are exiting) and that some cases may require an additional interview with the birth mother, foster mother, baby, and attorney. We don't know for sure if our case will require this additional interview but if it does, it could happen as soon as tomorrow. We're hoping she'll get out of PGN soon, but we really have no idea how long this delay will last. Please pray that she does get out soon! Here's some pics to enjoy of our beautiful little Hannah Faith!

Noah's DNA Results at Embassy

The results from Noah's DNA test arrived at the US Embassy in Guatemala this afternoon. The Embassy now will issue us a pink slip (an email) with our appointment day and time. It could come at any day now, but as always we never know for sure. Most pink slips come between 1 day and 2 weeks from when the Embassy receive the results.

Garage Sale Finds

We went to a neighborhood garage sale Saturday and had some great finds. Here are pictures of all the baby/kid stuff we bought. We have been looking at buying this same jumperoo (1st picture). It is $80 new. We spent $31 total on everything.

Making Baby Food

A few days ago I (Shannon) started making some baby food for the babies when they come home. I think that they waited until Hannah was 6 months old to start her on food and I do not think that Noah has started yet. (He will be 6 months on May 16th.) Making the baby food will be much cheaper, allow me to know for sure what they are eating, and give them a bigger variety of foods. I started with bananas and avocados. These are supposed to be good first foods. I just peeled them and mashed them with a fork and then added some water to make them thinner and smoother. I then spooned them into ice cube trays, froze them, and then popped them out into freezer bags. They are now frozen in serving sizes and should be good for 3 months. I used 4 bananas and 4 avocados. I got 54 cubes. This is probably the same amount of food as about 22 jars of 1st baby food. I paid about $2.65 for the bananas and avocados. Baby food costs about .40-.50 cents a jar for 1st foods. I think it was well worth the savings. I might do sweet potatoes and squash next. A great web site I found about making your own baby food is http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ .

Pictures of Hannah and Noah

We just received some new pictures of both Hannah and Noah taken yesterday. Here they are: