Beginning to settle

While in Ethiopia we had suspicions that Little J had an ear infection. The 16 hour flight that he only slept about 4 hours of kinda confirmed our fears. He was miserable and we were not far behind him. So to come home to such a warm, loving welcome crew was just what we needed. I was missing my bigs so bad and I was just ready to be home. Or fairly close at least. We flew into our home town since there were more people there that wanted to greet him than in our new town. And it gave our immediate family a chance to spend a few extra hours with him before we drove home the next day. 

So blessed to finally be all together!

He met his grandpas...

Some of his great grandparents...

and one very special great-great-grandmother.

He was introduced to Texas in the best way possible...his first cowboy hat :)

And then we headed home home. :) When we got there, we found this on our front door. 

We immediately took him to the doctor and found that he actually had a double ear infection and we were able to get him started on antibiotics right away.

Once he started feeling better, his little personality just lit up

We spent the next three weeks playing, holding, bonding, basketball watching, laughing, eating, football watching, changing, growing, loving....

living. 

 He loves him some Bubba.

Starting him out right...Go COLTS!!

My little buddy during pretty much anything I do

He also loves him some Sissy

Not long after we got home, my niece had an eye appointment here so those cousins came to visit. It was fun watching them react to Little J. The littlest one couldn't figure out how this kid in a picture he's been seeing was now actually here moving and talking. Cracking me up.

So here we are. Almost three weeks home and I'm just now catching you up. I promise to do better. I'll leave you with some shots from our trip to the pumpkin patch. He just couldn't figure out why all these orange balls wouldn't roll right!! :)

HE'S HOME!!

Yes we are home! We have not fallen off the face of the earth, it's just been a little busier around here than it's been in awhile and any time I find myself being still, sleeping seems to be the preferred activity. :)

As I said in my previous post, me, hubby, my mom and my mother-in-law left September 24 to pick up Little J. We stayed overnight in Dubai again and arrived in Ethiopia on September 26. That's Little Man's birthday. :) He says it's okay we missed it because we were going to bring his brother home. I'm so glad he's forgiving. 

We got to our guest house and quickly settled so we could make our way to the transition home to pick up Little J. 

Getting ready to go reintroduce ourselves to our handsome boy

He, of course, didn't remember us and was very shy. He had a hard time saying good-bye to his nanny and she felt the same. We are so blessed that he was so loved and taken care of while we had to be apart. 

15 weeks was just too long to hold him again! 

We learned quickly that we could make our way into his heart with food

After he felt more secure with us, we took the clothes he had on his back and went to our guest house. For such a big move, he sure didn't have much luggage. 

The whole thing was overwhelming and he was ready for bed.

But the Christian Ethiopians were celebrating a Holy Day and were holding a big celebration and wanted us to join them. So we woke up our little guy and went down to join in the fun. It was well worth it. They had music, dancing, food, and of course, coffee. I'm so glad we were there for this special day!

After the celebration, we headed back to our room and the grandmas got their first snuggles from this long awaited grandson. 

The next few days were spent getting to know each other and enjoying his birth country. We wanted to learn as much as possible so we can teach him later about this amazing place. Our visa appointment wasn't until 4 days after our arrival so we had plenty of time to explore.

Enjoying dinner at the traditional Ethiopian restaurant

Visiting museums soaking up information

Taking in the beauty of it all

Then on Monday we took care of our visa appointment, Tuesday we had lunch with a dear friend and enjoyed the rain and then Wednesday we picked up his visa. It was at that point he could say, 

"I'm coming HOME!!"