So much has happened in the last 8 months!  I cannot believe that I haven't posted since we got home!
Well Solo is doing GREAT:)   He such a tender hearted, fun, sweet boy.  It is crazy how soft his heart is.  He loves to dance and chance he can:)
I remember wondering how long it would be before he would really love us as his family and not just because he needed security.   And I have to say that I am amazed at his sweet heart, we taught him sign language right away so that he could communicate with us.  The first time that he gave me the "I love  you" sign with out me doing it first, took my breath away.
He has more energy than our whole family combined, but I keep hearing that is just "a boy thing";)

Back in April, we moved all the way across the country to Indiana... Yea I never thought I would say that!  I envisioned  a lot of places that I may live one day, and I can say that Indiana was not one of them....
But I must say that I really do like it here:)  I love the culture over here, and how friendly everyone is.  We are meeting so many great people.  People that I am excited to live life with, and I am very thankful for that:)

Emree has started pre-school, and loves it:)  I can't believe she is getting so big!  She is an amazing big sister:)

We are completely settled in and living life now, I wonder what God has next for us on this great journey he has for us:))

Adjusting at home

We are home, and we are all doing good:)..........

We have some good news and some bad news..

The Good news is that we went to the doctors on Friday and the doctor was very impressed with Solo's development. He is a little under weight, but he actually is in the same percentiles as our daughter was at his age:) (little peanuts)

The best news though is that as the doctor was examining him and testing his muscles, very quickly he said (I can tell you right now he definitely does not have CP):):):)

To back up a little, when we accepted the referral for our son, we accepted him as special needs, with a mild form of CP. We did not know what this would in tale or how severe it could be, we just knew that this was our son, and that God would equip us anyway he needed to.

So, to come home and find out that, other than fattening him up a bit my son is healthy, feels like a complete miracle!! God is so good! If you just follow him, even when it is scary, he will ALWAYS be there with you.

Aside from trying to get back on a normal sleep schedule (i.e I am writing this at 2am) we are all adjusting very well. He is a ball of energy, he is so fun. He loves to wrestle, and he loves to look at pictures of all of us and he kisses them. It is the sweetest thing. I just cannot get over how incredibly blessed I feel that he is in our family, and in time for Christmas no doubt:)

Emree is an amazing big sister, she is so patient and helpful with him, I am so thankful for her:)

Now on to the bad news...

We came home on Thursday night to find that our home was broken into. As any of you may know, it is an incredibly violating feeling. It looks like they only took our computer, but they did rummage through every room in the house. Frankly it pisses me off that somebody would come into my children's room and touch their things!

It was the last thing that I was expecting to come home to. We stayed that night at Casey's parents house. It was a very hard night! Solo decided he did not want to sleep and on top of that puked all over the bed as well as me:( And poor Em, she is such a trooper, she was up with us, playing with him and being the awesome big sister that she is!

We are back home now, just trying to recoup, and settle into our new life:)

I just want to say a big thank you to all of you for all your support. Also thank you to everyone who met us at the airport, we felt much much love!

he is officially ours!!

Yes we had our Embassy appointment today and all went well, he is ours!

In the middle of the night last night, as I was rocking my sone back to sleep, I had some time to reflect.....


Starting back when I was 16 years old, God plassed a passion in my hear to adopt. A few years agter that he put a burden on my heart for Africa. And so began my dream to adopt a little boy from, Africa.

Then early on in Casey and I's dating relationship, I told him that if he could not seriously commit to praying about one day adopting that I could not marry him.

When my daughter was 1, we began the converstion to adopt our second child. But it wasn't until we figured out that we could fund raise for our adoption, that I realized that my dream may really come true.

We chose an agency and after 10 long months we finally got on the "wait list", then 10 months after that we felt God lead us to switch agencies so that we could adopt Solomon.

We got our Court date 4 months later, then our Embassy appointment 6 months after that.

Today God has fulfilled a promise! Today my dream has come true!!

So as I sat rocking my son, I was over come with emotion. Knowing that I never have to leave him again, that I get to bring him him to complete our family:) Every time that I look at him, it literally takes my breath away, when he looks up at me with those big beautiful brown eyes, my stomach does a little somersault:)

In that moment it hit me how honored.... humbled.... privaledged.... well there really isn't a word to describe the emotion that I feel. But all of those words wrapped around a big thankful, that God chose me to be this miracle boys mamma. I knew that I would love him, I knew when I met him at court that I would love him, as my own. But the love that I have for him, is truly indescribable!

All I can really say now is.....


THANK YOU LORD! JESUS,GIVER OF LOVE, MY HOLY SAVIOR, I LOVE YOU!!!

Headed Out!!

Ok, so we are leaving for Ethiopia in a few hours. We will be arriving home Next Thursday, and want to invite any of you who would like to come to the airport to welcome us home.

Our flight is set to arrive at 5:00pm, but it could be early or late, so we will be posting on face book when we arrive back in the states to give a more accurate time.

One thing that we would like to make you all aware of, is that we are thinking of changing our son's name. We are trying to decide between two different names, but at this point we are just not sure. So we have decided to wait until we see him again, to make our final decision. I will make another blog post and post it to face book as soon as we know, so that you all will know by the time we come home:)

I just cannot wait for all of you to meet him:)

Please lift our family up in prayer, for a smooth transition for our son and for safe travels.

Thank you! See ya in a week:)!

The Day Has Finally Come!!!

We are cleared for Embassy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God is sooo Good! We get to bring our precious son home before Christmas:)

I got an email last night at midnight saying that we are cleared, and then got an email this morning letting us know that our appointment date is on Monday!

We leave here this Friday night and we Return next Thursday at 5:00pm.

I cannot thank you all enough for all of your prayers and support during this journey.

I cannot wait for all of you to meet my amazing son!!!!

Never been closer!

Ok, so I know there have been a lot of reasons to get excited along this adoption journey and then recently there has been quite a few let downs.

Well this time I think we are seriously close! I got an email this morning from the Embassy saying that they were able to talk with the nurse that they have been trying to get a hold of over the last couple weeks:) They said that they now have to have an adoption officer review our file which would most likely be tomorrow morning.

I then got an email from my agency saying that the Embassy had just cleared another case, with a story very similar to ours. The embassy was able to get a hold of the doctor that was involved with this other case on Friday, and cleared them today.

The reason this is encouraging to me is that the nurse in our case and the doctor in theirs is from the same hospital.

I am really really hoping to hear that we are cleared tomorrow morning! Also the fact that the Embassy gave me a timeline (of tomorrow morning) is very encouraging, because they have not done that before.

So one more little prayer request..... please pray that as the Adoption Officer reviews our case tomorrow morning, he would find everything he needs to clear us:)

Update...

Ok, so last night they said that they tried to call the nurse, but she was in a meeting, so they are going to try to call her tomorrow. Which will be our night time.

There is a possibility that they could talk to her and clear us tomorrow. So I am going to set my phone to ring when I get an email so that if that happens I can reply and tell them that we would like to have an appointment next week. The director of my agency said that we have a 50/50 chance of this happening. But we know that God can make anything happen:)

I contacted my Congresswoman today and her office is going to try to get a hold of the Embassy in Ethiopia today on our behalf. I do not know what this will do, but I ask that you would pray that it helps to speed things along and does not hinder anything in any way.

I will write an update tomorrow morning, and let you know what happens:)

Almost there...

Ok my faithful prayer warriors, I have another request....

Last week the Embassy asked for the number of the Hospital that our son was born at. I got an email late last night stating that they never received that number from our agency. So I forwarded the number to them immediately, and they responded almost instantly saying that they will contact the hospital as soon as possible.

Their Wednesday is now over and Their Thursday work day will start at 11:00pm our time. My prayer request is that if they have not yet gotten a hold of the hospital that they would be able to early tomorrow, and get all the information they need. It is likely to think that we could get clearance this week, hopefully tomorrow, if the Embassy gets what they need.

As many of you know, we are beyond ready to bring him home! We are weary and tired of waiting. That being said we do believe that God does have a plan and we are trying to trust him and his timing.

If you could keep us in your prayers for the next 48 hours, specifically the Embassy employees who are working on our case.

Thanks Friends, hopefully I will have some good news in the next couple of days:)

Good news:)

So unfortunately I was sick yesterday and did not get to go to church. The reason that I am bummed is because a really cool thing happened...... I guess during the message a man stood up and suggested that they stop and pray right then, and then they asked if anyone else needed prayer, so Casey stood up and explained our situation. People gathered around him and prayed right then and there:) (There's nothing like the body coming together!)

That night Casey was telling me how during the talk there were a couple verses that stood out to him.... He told a story about how Daniel was fasting and praying for 3 weeks and one night an Angel came to him and said. "Your prayers were heard on the first day. I have been trying to get this message to you but Satan was stopping me. Then Arch Angel Micheal came and helped me, so that I could come to you."

He then read me a verse about Paul saying that Satan was getting in the way of his prayers as well. It opened both of our eyes, because there is no real reason why we are being delayed. There are other families with the same situation, that have been waiting months less than us, who have been cleared.

Rebuking, and fighting the Evil one is very IMPORTANT.

Because..... we got an email this morning from our agency, saying that they got word that the Embassy spoke with the officer and got all the information they were looking for. He asked us the soonest that we would like to travel, (which is this Sunday!, if the Embassy has an available appointment on Monday)

With all that said, we still have not heard for sure from the Embassy, and that is what really matters. I am hoping that we have an email waiting for us when we wake up:) I will make sure and have one HUGE post if it does come:)

Seriously thank you all for your prayers!! Keep em' up:)

New Picture

I know this isn't the clearest picture, but it is the most recent one we have.

I sure do miss him today.

Prayer Request...

Tonight at 11:00pm it will be 9:00am in Ethiopia and the Embassy will be starting their day. I have confirmation that the officer that the Embassy wants to talk to regarding our case will be in his office on Thursday. I have let the Embassy know this and have asked that they let me know once they have talked with him.

I ask that you would pray...

- that they would get a hold of the officer

- that the Embassy would gain the information that they need

- and that if it is the Lord's will, they would give us clearance by the end of this week.

Thank you, I will update as soon as I hear anything,

-Aimee

I am filled with JOY!

Yes today is a great day!

I found out this morning that we are accepted to Embassy, which is one more step towards getting approval to bring our sweet boy home.

But even better..... I got an email from another family that is there at the same care center that Kovi is at. The update is that... HE IS WALKING!!!!! Yes that's right my son is walking!

We were not sure if he would be able to walk at all, with his possible medical diagnosis.

She said that he is a very happy little boy that he loves music and claps along to the beat:)

I am overwhelmed with joy! I feel God working right now, and I am humbled by his Grace.

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support! I think we might just get to bring our son home soon:)

Submitted!

Yes, we got submitted today.. the only scary part is that they are sending all abandonment cases to Nairobi to have the team there look at them, which can result in months in delays....

But God is good, and they are sending a team from the Nairobi office, and they are supposed to arrive in Addis Monday Nov 7th. They are coming just to review and hopefully pass the abandonment cases. That means us:) I feel a real glimmer of hope today. This is probably the best week for our situation that we could have gotten our case submitted so that they did not send it to nairobi (which it takes about a month just to get there!)

I can see God with a little smile on his face, saying " You know, you can trust me"

It is just so so hard when we can't see the outcome.

But Lord I do trust you, as hard as it is sometimes, I do trust you!

If I could ask you to pray for anything, it would be that this team from Nairobi would be able to review our case while they are in Addis.

Hopefully we can get approval in a few weeks:)

He's getting sooo big!

We got word today that they got what they needed for our file to be submitted to Embassy again. They are hoping to submit us next week. Please pray that the Embassy accepts our file this time.

Check these out!

This is my new hobby! Making these fun wreaths and bouquets are helping to keep my mind off of waiting to bring home my boy.

They make great Christmas presents! If anybody wants me to custom make one for you, or as a gift, email me aimeelgraves@gmail.com

More varieties to come:)