Party of Five

And I DO mean PARTY!
We are celebrating at our house today. We passed court! "M" is officially our son!!! And since he is now officially, legally our son, I can tell you about him and show you pictures!

SO, without further ado... let me introduce you to our precious Ethiopian son, Mintesinot (Min-TESS-i-note):

His name means, "What can he not do?" Isn't he just beautiful? He is 9 years old, and will be turning 10 at the end of September. This is one of my favorite photos that we've received so far.

This is another favorite! We don't know where he got that outrageous hat, but from the looks of this picture he'll fit right in around here... he totally reminds me of Kyle in this photo! (In fact, when Bethany returned home from China, she had brought each of her brothers a funny hat!) The shirt he's wearing is one that we sent him, and the stickers all over the side of his bunk were from us as well. It looks like he used some of the stickers to write his name (in Amharic). Fun!

We are beyond excited. Unspeakably overjoyed. Ecstatic!! I'm sure some coherent words will come to me later, but for now I'm just stunned and overwhelmed with excitement. We are SO glad he's officially in our family. We will find out in the days ahead what our travel schedule will be. We hope to travel as SOON as possible, but it could be anywhere from 3-5 weeks or so. Our case worker is on her way to Addis Ababa even as I type, so she'll be getting back to us with specifics (and MORE pictures and video!!!) very soon.

OH, I'm just so happy. So very, very happy. He's so precious. And he's my son.


We are SO happy to be a "party of five." Yes, I did say "party." Here we are with our Ethiopian Cokes... the perfect beverage for today's celebration!

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of our whole family, for your prayers during this adoption and for this court date. Thank you for checking in on us via this blog and for your comments and emails of support. Knowing you have been praying and are continuing to support us in prayer on this journey blesses each one of us so much.