Picking up steam...

I promise that at some point this blog will be about something other than our family moving up the waitlist but we are excited and a bit surprised that we moved up three spots in the past two days.



I need to get back to writing about the boys and daily life...if only daily life weren't so time-consuming!

Movin' on up...

The process of adopting from Ethiopia is very different than China's process. For Ethiopia, adoptive families go on a wait list with their agency, which is working with one or more orphanages. After children are brought into the orphanage and relinquished by their birth relatives, the agencies notify the waiting family on the top of the list that they have a new son or daughter. Everyone else on the wait list then moves up a spot.

On December 16, 2009, we were placed on our agencies wait list at #24. We have since moved up a spot.

And today another child was matched with their forever family. For me, it is always a bittersweet celebration. I'm thrilled that a family has just been matched with the child that they've been hoping for and dreaming of for so long. I'm thrilled that a child will not grow up in an orphanage but instead with a family that loves them. But for every child that gets referred to an adoptive family, there may be a birth family mourning their loss.

We are now #22 on our agencies waitlist...

Adventures in Ethiopian Cooking...

Scott and I were required to bring an Ethiopian dish to our international adoption class' potluck. Though I am a lousy cook and have never made Ethiopian food before what concerned me most about this request was the fact that there were not one, but two, Ethiopian women in my class. So, I have to make Ethiopian food for Ethiopians?!?!?!?!

After looking over some recipes, I decided to try and make dabo kolo, a small bread type snack. It appealed to me as it only required one exotic ingredient and looked like something the whole family, Jack and Logan included, could make together.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients
2 cups wheat flour
2 tablespoons berbere*
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water
4 tablespoons butter, softened (room temperature)

• In a clean mixing bowl, combine and mix dry ingredients (flour, berberé, sugar, and salt).

• Slowly add the water and mix so as to form a thick paste. Remove the mixture from the bowl and knead it on a lightly-floured surface for a few minutes to form a thick dough. Add the softened butter and knead for an additional five minutes. Let the dough rest in a cool place for ten minutes.

• Divide the dough into handful-size pieces and roll these into long "pencils" not quite as thick as your small finger. Cut these rolls into pieces (scissors can be used), each piece no longer than the width of your finger. (Jack and Logan loved helping for this part.)



• Heat an ungreased skillet over a medium heat. Place enough of the uncooked dabo kolo in the skillet to loosely cover the bottom. (They may have to be cooked in batches.) Cook over medium heat, stirring periodically, until they are lightly browned on all sides, -- OR -- Arrange on a baking sheet. Bake in a hot oven (350 degrees) for twenty to thirty minutes, stirring or shaking the pan a few times to prevent sticking.
• When done, remove from oven and allow to cool completely. Store in dry air-tight containers.

* Berbere is a collection of finely ground spices including hot cayenne pepper, garlic, sweet paprika, ginger and cloves. I bought mine at a local Ethiopian merkato (market) but you can substitute cayenne pepper if you don't happen to have berbere in the spice pantry.

(This recipe is from Recipe Zaar.)

Luckily, when I was at the merkato buying berbere I bought some pre-made dabo kolo. We had never had it before so it was our control subject. The store bought varieties were very crunchy. Unfortunately, the ones we made were hard on the outside but a bit doughy in the middle. Next time we will try making them a lot skinnier.

We were told by one of the Ethiopian women in our class that she makes them without berbere and much much smaller. Knowing how Scott likes to experiment in the kitchen, I'm guessing there are some cinnamon dabo kolo in my future.

A New Christmas Tradition

For the first time, I let Jack and Logan go to the store and pick one new Christmas ornament each. I showed Logan a retro wooden space ship. He said, "That's mine!" and that was the end of his search for the perfect ornament (which lasted a whole 3 seconds). Jack, on the other hand, looked and looked and deliberated. (He has some trouble making decisions.) He easily spent 20 minutes trying to choose (all the while Logan looked on with amusement while he clutched his ornament). In the end, Jack choose a little glass pig.

I think that the boys picking out a Christmas ornament each year could become a new tradition.

And though I wasn't planning on getting anything myself, these are the two ornaments were calling my name.

You can clearly see where my head is at...in China and Ethiopia.

The Slow Boat to China Takes a Detour

Imagine my family on a boat. A boat moving very, very slowly. A boat headed to China very, very slowly. In fact, this boat could easily take 8 years to reach China where we are adopting our daughter. So we've decided to take a bit of a detour...to Ethiopia.

It has always been our plan to grow our family through biological and adopted children, specifically two each. After Jack was born, we got pregnant very quickly with Logan and realized that we would be putting off our adoption plans for a bit. About a year after Logan was born we started researching our adoption options. At the time, adopting our daughter from China seemed like the best fit for our family. We became "paper pregnant" on 8/13/08 and estimated an 8 year wait before we'd met our daughter.

Though we knew, intellectually, that the wait was long, we could not guess what the wait would actually feel like. After a year, it was wearing on us and we felt, since we have always planned on adopting two daughters, that maybe we should focus on starting a second adoption.

Two months ago, Scott and I began researching other countries from which we could do an adoption while still “staying in line” for China. We quickly realized that we also had a daughter in Ethiopia. After picking an agency we started compiling our dossier. This time around it only took us 5 weeks (as opposed to the China dossier that took more than 9 months).

Yesterday, 12/16/09, we officially became a waiting family...again! If all goes as planned, we should be matched with our daughter from Ethiopia in 6-9 months. Approximately, 8 weeks after that our paperwork will go to court and approximately 8 weeks after that we should travel to pick up our daughter. So, hopefully, in a year we will have our family of five home! We are thrilled to be starting on another journey to grow our family.

This slow boat is picking up steam to Ethiopia...

My Darlin' Clementine

"Oh, my darlin'! Oh, my darlin'! Oh, my darlin' Clementine!"

Last year I inadvertently started a holiday tradition...a really yummy holiday tradition! And it was just too yummy to not repeat this year.

Here is a simple and easy recipe for chocolate and coconut dipped clementines. Make sure to get the kids involved...peeling and dipping and whatnot.

Ingredients:

clementines (sometimes referred to as an Algerian or seedless tangerine)

semi-sweet chocolate chips

sweetened shredded coconut

• Peel and section the clementines
• Fill a glass dish with chocolate chips and microwave in 30 second intervals (to ensure it doesn't burn) and stir
• Dip each clementine section in the melted chocolate and then in a bowl of shaved coconut
• Put the pieces on wax paper in the fridge to set

See, simple and yummy and fun for the whole family.

I am a Slummy Mummy...

"Don't you sometimes feel like calling up one of those missing-persons hotlines and reporting your disappearance? 'Help, I don't know where I've gone, I got married, had children, gave up my job, made everyone around me happy, and then disappeared. Please send out a search party.' "

-Slummy Mummy by Fiona Neill