2010 in a nutshell

I know I'm way late, its already almost halfway through January and I'm just now writing a post.  I'll be honest by the time I get done with the day and G's in bed, I sit down to blog and end up reading everybody else's.  Which I love, the ones that make me laugh could possibly be my favorites, but I also like the ones that make me tear up.

But I know that at least a few of you guys like an update on G's and my life together, so here it goes.

2010 in a nutshell...
It was an amazing year.  I honestly thought that I would just now be returning home with Gizatu (of course I had no idea who he would be) when I started the process of adopting, and now we've been home for 4.5 months, almost 5.  It is crazy.

When I started the adoption journey I thought I would be bringing home a child between the age of 6 months and 12 months.  Then things changed and I opened up to an "older" child (children older than 2 in the adoption world are considered older) and received a referral for a 3.5 year old boy who was tiny on Good Friday.  And it was a good Friday.
Then came court in Ethiopia and we passed on the first try and in those court days before you had to travel that was highly unlikely.
Then the embassy delay, which in the end only cost us about 2 weeks I believe.
Then on August 19, I meet G for the first time.  And it was amazing...

And I also realized that my son was more like 2.5, not 3.5 almost 4. So more changes in my world.

I took custody of him on August 23.  Our family day.  I have really mixed feelings about family day.  Some of you may agree, some of you may not.  And that is fine.  That was the day that I became his and he became mine, but it was also the day that he truly lost his birth family.  Adoption is hard and it is full of loss, it is also full of hope and love and joy, but at the root of adoption is loss.  And it is sad.  (okay sorry for that small tangent... i will move on. )

We spent the next 3 days either in the hotel, at the embassy in Addis, or on an airplane.  They were rough days for me.  He did great.  I was a basket case.

We left Addis at 10pm on Thursday, August 26th and arrived home on Friday, August 27th to a crowd of lovely people at the airport.  It was an exhausting flight and I walked the plane more times than I can count, but I was sooooo glad to be home.  You will see the exhaustion in the following picture (normally I would never post a picture of me after only have about 5 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours but here's the real me... :)

Those first weeks home were hard.  Harder than anything I've ever done in my life.  But slowly life with G became my normal and now I have a hard time remembering life before him (although I do miss my sleep, of course I could be in bed right now, but no its quiet and the TV is off and no one is climbing on top of me...ahhhhh)

I took two months off of work which was amazing.  I'm so thankful for the time we had together. He started daycare in November.  We transitioned the week before he started by just spending time at the daycare, getting to know his teachers and classmates.  It helped that his cousin also attends the same daycare.  He enjoys it there, and that helps put my heart at ease.

In November, my church family and biological family dedicated ourselves to G.  It was the sweetest thing ever (Anne I still need those pictures :)!

In December, he became officially mine again.  In order to apply for citizenship for G, I had to readopt him.  So mom came down and we headed to court.  5 minutes and it was done.

Tried to hide my band aids from when my face meet the concrete.  I did a pretty good job of it if I say so myself.

G also was in his first Christmas program.  Love my sheep!

So then Christmas, which I actually did a post about, so you can read that one if you want more Christmas fun.

It's been a crazy wild year.  But an absolutely amazing one.  Looking forward to 2011.