Oliver Without His Hands in His Mouth

...and it wasn't easy to take photos without them in his mouth. My mother commented that Oliver has his fingers in his mouth on most of his photos so I decided to take some photos of Oliver sans fingers.

Oh, and that's applesauce and oatmeal on his face.

On a side note...since our journey to Oliver has come to an end and our journey as a family of 4 is beginning, I will be sending this blog to the publisher to be printed in book form and blogging only at A Family United. This change should take place within the next month.

This Boy Likes to Eat!

Church

We attended church today--all 4 of us. We were surprised to find out that our church was honoring the adoption of Oliver. They placed a special rose on the center altar and made a special announcement at the church service. Oliver got a round of applause.  Everyone was so nice and they also made a big deal out of Chloe becoming a big sister. It was great.

We've been asked to give a testimony on our adoptions at church service. I am not sure if we will, we will have to see.

Picture Day

Since my sister is still here to help me out, I decided to take both Chloe and Oliver to have their pictures taken today. Here's what we got for Oliver...

At Home Update

First, Oliver did great on the flights home. He slept most of the time and we landed at JFK around 8 a.m. We stayed up and tried to keep Oliver as awake as possible to get him adjusted to his new time zone. He improves each night but is sleeping from 7 p.m. until around 3 a.m. when he wakes for a feeding. He then goes back to sleep until about 7:30 a.m.

He is a happy and easy-going baby and we are so happy. Chloe is very interested in him and wants to bring him to school for show and tell! We have had a few meltdowns but we try to remind Chloe each day that she is doing a great job sharing mommy & daddy with her brother.

Oliver loves to eat and is currently taking an 8 oz. bottle every two hours! Yikes! It's constant feeding around here.

I mentioned the pollution in Addis Ababa and how it played havoc on mine and Matt's sinuses. Monday I got a full-blown sinus infection and went in to see the doctor yesterday. I am on an antibiotic and it seems the sinus infection moved into my eye (or I picked something up on the airplane) and has caused me to get conjunctivitus (a.k.a. pink eye) . There's lots of sanitizing and hand-washing going on around here.

My sister is still here helping us. She's suffering from a sore throat and ear ache too but has been a big help to me. Matt is back at work and I love my husband so much for being my "rock". He's been getting up very early to get home early and has supported me during some meltdowns from exhaustion and sickness.

Oliver goes to the pediatrician later this week and we are hoping for a clean bill of health.

I am going to share some videos we took while in Ethiopia. First is a short video of the first time we met Oliver. (Sorry for the wobbly video)



The next two videos are of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Christmas service we went to on Wednesday night in Ethiopia. The couple coming down the aisle in the one video is getting married.



This video is of the priests chanting and dancing.


This video is of Matt dancing (and doing a great job) at Yod Absynnia with one of the professional dancers. For those of you who haven't traveled to Ethiopia to pick up your children---start practicing!

Last Day in Ethiopia

Today is our last day in Ethiopia. We fly out this afternoon. We stop in Dubai for a short layover and then fly on to JFK, arriving home early Saturday morning.

We went to Toukoul after we stopped at a grocery store to buy the children some chocolate. Matt was Father Christmas, handing out sweets to the children. Even the nannies and the cook came out for a treat. Wendy went into the office for us and told them that Oliver had what appeared to be an asthma attack in the night and that we wanted some medicine to take with us. They wrote us a prescription for Ventolin.

We signed the paperwork officially releasing Oliver from Toukoul's care and received a cute yellow backpack and a traditional Ethiopian outfit for Oliver. We also got a chest x-ray and some more detailed medical records on him.

We walked around the orphanage and then were taken to see Oliver's room. There were about 20 babies in the room and 3 nannies. We were told there are 8 other baby rooms just like the room Oliver was in.

The families at the gates of Toukoul.

Oliver's crib at Toukoul.

After the final visit to the orphanage we went back to the hotel, packed and had lunch and then set out to see the Mercato and the Entoto Mountains.

The Mercato was stall after stall of everything imaginable. We saw spices being sold, berbere, old light fixtures, shoes, clothing and wiring.

The Entoto Mountains were lovely. Since Christmas was the day before, very few cars were on the road and the pollution was not as bad. We could see Addis Ababa from the top of the mountain. We also saw the women carrying eucalyptus down the mountain for 15 birr a day.

After our tour, we returned to the hotel and grabbed our suitcases. We said goodbye to Jennifer and Brian, who would be staying on for one more night, and then Wendy drove us to the airport.

Saying goodbye to Addis---at the airport.

Christmas in Ethiopia

Wendy, or driver and all-around great guy, with Oliver.

Christmas is a major holiday in Ethiopia where more than half of the population is Orthodox Christian. The celebrations occur January 7, the Feast of the Epiphany, instead of December 25. We were lucky enough to be in Ethiopia on Genet (Christmas). The Orthodox Christians fast from meat for 45 days prior to January 7. All week long we could see goats, sheep and cattle being walked down the road and occassionally we could see a goat or sheep tied to the roof of a van (it was still alive). The custom is to kill and eat the animal on Christmas.

When we arrived back at the guest house on Wednesday evening there was a brahmin cow outside the hotel. I didn't think much of it until breakfast the next morning when Jennifer told me I missed Wendy, our driver, killing the cow. It never occured to me that the cow was for those at the hotel. I thought it was one of the neighbors. After breakfast we went out to see the cow carnage and take a lesson in cow anatomy 101.

Beef, its what's for dinner.

After the morning's events we went to Toukoul and picked up the babies. Since everything was closed for Christmas we decided to have the children spend the day and night with us. We would return to Toukoul on Friday morning to officially sign them out and recieve the rest of their medical information.

We arrived at Toukoul and since school was not in session there was more children than usual out playing in the courtyard. Matt had been handing out Tic Tacs to the older kids all week so they believed he would have something good for them for Christmas. Children ran up to him yelling "chocolate". Unfortunately we were unprepared and the stores were closed. Matt promised the children he would bring them chocolate on Friday.

Our children arrived and we were given one bottle of formula for them. We returned to the guest house where we were treated to a traditional Ethiopian meal in celebration of the holiday. After lunch the women at the hotel made coffee for us all. After lunch we put Oliver down for a nap and in the late afternoon we had more coffee with Aster and attempted to do some traditional Ethiopian dances.

The coffee ceremony

Matt and Brian dancing.

Matt and I dancing. I am mastering what I affectionately called "the chicken dance".

Wendy, our cook, holding Oliver.

We spent all day at the hotel relaxing and enjoying our children and celebrating the holiday. Oliver spent the night with us and he woke up once in the night with a coughing fit. It was pretty scary and we believe he could have asthma. All in all he slept pretty well but I wish I could say the same for myself--I kept waking every few hours to check on him and ended up getting very little sleep.

Brent, Amy & Meaza posing for their Christmas photo.

Oliver, one cool kid.

Dressed in our Christmas colors.