Our family

Ok, so Julia asked me to post a little more info here about our family. I thought I could answer a few other questions people have asked as well.
A brief history lesson:
Matt and I have been married for almost 5 years. We got engaged 5 weeks after our first date and married 6 months to the day after our first date. We are so happy together that it may be a little nauseating to others. Really, there is no one I would rather spend time with, nothing I would rather do without him... we just fit so well together that things don't feel right when we're not together. (vomit, I know)
Our daughter Eliana was born in Guatemala and has been home almost a year now. She is THE light of our life! She was 8 months old when she came to us and is now 19 months old. She has adjusted amazingly well and is a beautiful, sweet, snuggle-bug of a girl.

Back in 2006 when we were waiting for a referral (before we knew about Eliana) we were already interested in possibly adopting from Ethiopia. I am very happy that we chose to pursue an adoption in Guatemala first because I can't imagine life without Eliana. But there has always been something about Ethiopia that attracted us. Before Eliana came home we started talking about when we'd be ready to adopt again and after just a few months as a family of three we started looking at our options again.
We said we wanted to be smart and look at all possible options - the different countries to choose from, the many agencies, etc. We did all of that - a ton of research. But we kept coming back to Ethiopia. Something about it kept bringing us back. I think in the back of my mind I knew that's what we would decide, we just had to do all of our homework to know we'd made a smart decision, not just a heart decision.
We have felt totally comfortable and excited since we made the decision to go to Ethiopia. There is so much interesting history to learn about and we love the idea of incorporating as much of their culture as we can into our lives.
We knew that we wanted to adopt 2 siblings this time. I love the idea of being able to help keep some original family intact. We also knew that we were open to the idea of a little bit older child. Again, we did a lot of homework, trying to decide up to what age did we feel capable of parenting. Initially we said we'd like to adopt 2 kids, either gender up to age 4. Then we read a little bit more about waiting older children. Melissa Faye Green's book 'There is No Me Without You' really made us think deeply about what it would be like to see all of the cute little babies get whisked away to their new families while so many older children are left behind..... just as deserving of a family, but not wanted. We decided to stretch our age range then up to the age of 6 (knowing that could really mean we'd be matched with a 7, 8 or even 9 year old). Six is still not really all that old. There are lots of children older than this that are in need of homes that may never get matched. We chose to stop at that age because we felt capable of parenting up to about age 9.... beyond that we're getting close to puberty years and we're just not ready for that yet. There's a good possibility that after we have a little more experience under our belts we may be looking at another older child adoption... we'll see what happens!
Anyway, we set our limit at 6 years old and waited to see what would happen. We had no other restrictions on what type of referral we expected, trusting that God would match us with the right kids.
Less than a month after our paperwork was turned in we were matched with 2 girls, ages 2 1/2 and 6/7. We actually weren't referred these girls right away as the agency thought the older girl might be too old to fit our requirements. But we knew immediately that we were interested and waited (cautiously hopeful) that the agency would agree that we'd be a good match. We waited a whole week without telling anyone, waiting for the official word. What a tough week! When we finally got the call that we could let our guard down, that they thought we were a perfect match for the girls... well that secured them in our hearts forever. Thank goodness we got the OK because they were already settling into hearts pretty tightly.
So here we are!
We didn't expect to be matched with a referral so quickly, so now we are rushing around to prepare the house for 2 more girls! Since we didn't know the ages or gender to expect we really hadn't been able to prepare at all so now we're cleaning and painting and shopping.......
Some of our kind, generous friends are throwing us a "blog shower" which is just unbelievable. To receive so much support from our community of friends is overwhelming, amazing and such a blessing. We truly want to thank every one who has prayed for us, left us a kind word of encouragement or supported us in any way. What a wonderful surprise blessing this blog-world has been!
I can't wait until we can post a picture of all 5 of us!!