Still here.

Just wanted to say we are still here and doing ok. Trying to get some kind of schedule worked out. Hope to be back and blogging next week. I know everyone is waiting on pictures and details.

Noah Tamirat Albright is Home

Our flight landed at Dulles yesterday(friday) morning at around 8:20. My parents met us at the airport and we are happy to be home with Noah but still very exhausted. We have alot of pictures and stories to share about Ethiopia and I promise I will do that all very soon when i get my head togeather. Noah Tamirat is doing great. He is a very active almost 10 month old and with the exception of some coughing/congestion and cutting a couple new teeth he tends to be a happy ,smiley baby. I'll leave you for now with our first family picture.

Yes our boy slept for the first 15-20 minutes or so that we were at Hannah's Hope. Or maybe it was less then that but when you are anxious to finally hold him it felt like so much longer.

Off to Ethiopia.

Well the day is finally here we are leaving today for Ethiopia. The time has come to bring our boy home. Before I go I want to thanks everyone for all the love, support and prayers through this journey. Our next post will be from home as a family of 3. I would love to tell you that i'm calm cool and collected right now but umm well i'm not gonna lie so we'll leave it at that.
So last night I had a dream about Noah Tamirat. He was speaking words Ok maybe it was amarhic baby babble that I translated into words the only thing I remember that he said was "I not Noah , I Tamirat" What does that mean?? No idea we know that he recognizes his name maybe at this age it will be hard for him to learn a new one we'll work on it slowly.
Another cool story. I have a watch that has duel time settings so I wanted to leave one on american time and put the other on Ethiopian time. This morning when I went to put the second time setting on ethiopian time it was already set correctly with the exception of the date...a god-incidence perhaps..I think he's telling us its time to go and get our son.
A few things you can pray for while we are gone
1. safe flights for us and the other traveling families this week there are 7 familes all togeather and i think 8 kids coming home. Two of them older boys.
2. That God has prepared Noah's heart to accept us as his parents
3. For me specifically to control my emotions when I meet Noah Tamirat for the first time. I think it might be a little scary to him if i'm crying hysterically.
And now i'm off on and Ethiopian adventure.

Introducing Noah Tamirat Albright.

The moment you have all been waiting for. I got permission to introduce our son to the world so here is Noah Tamirat Albright.The very first picture we saw.
The one that changed our lives for ever.

A couple weeks later we received about 39 more pics here are a couple favorites.Gorgous Brown eyes. Daddy's favorite.

His beautiful smile.

Like a little angel.

These were taken in early Feb by another sweet agci mommy Autumn . He looks very inquisitive.

These were taken about two weeks ago while our Case manager Christy was in Ethiopia. Apperently he was in a serious mood and not giveing up the smiles.

We are so head over heels in love with this little boy and blessed to have him as our son. I can't wait to post pictures of us as a family.

Last update from others.

Yesterday we got the last updates on our son that we will ever need to receive from someone else. From here on out all the great stuff about Noah T will come from us.
First update came with 5 new pictures that I haven't received permission to share online yet so those will come soon but our case manager Christy was in Ethiopia a couple weeks ago and this is what she had to say.
"T is such a beautiful boy! He was a little unsure of me, and I am thinking it is because either I was so pale or just a stranger, and that is why I was not able to get a picture of his adorable smile. I tried getting others to help me get him to smile for a picture, but as soon as he would see me lift the camera he would get all stoic again At least I was able to see him having fun and smiling. The special mothers would begin to sing little songs and T would smile, sway from side to side and clap his hands. So cute! He is not walking yet, but he can crawl all over the place and he likes colorful toys—I noticed he would reach for those more than other ones with more neutral colors. I am so excited for you to finally meet him soon!"

And then we got this update from Maria who just saw T last week.
"i have a few pics for you. not real close ups but he is in them. i love him! each day he would just squeal when i walked up to him and loved being talked to and played with. he hangs in one of the walkers alot, he loves it so a jumpy thing or exersaucer is a must for him. when he smiles his eyes just squish up and his whole face lights up. no worries about him being frightened of you or pale faces, it was never an issue for me. he is truly beautiful boy. small but skinny :)"

We are so greatful to everyone who has sent us updates on T and spent time with him while they were in Ethiopia. It would be impossible to thank them enough for taking time out of their day with their children to spend some time and get some information about ours. In less then a week we will hold Noah T in our arms forever. I can't even begin to describe the emotions i'm feeling right now. He is a gorgous boy and we are so blessed that he is ours. Soon we will hold him and show him how much he is loved.

An Update on Noah T.

Here is an email from a family that just returned from Ethiopia on friday.

"We were able to see T while we were in Ethiopia. Jason actually spent about 15 minutes with him one morning while we were at Hannah's Hope. T was sitting in a walker that could be pushed and Jason pushed him around in it for a while. T had a huge smile on his face and loved going for a ride. He had great eye contact and was definitely a social child. He also seemed to be very well-loved by the special mothers (kind of doted on) He is a very cute little boy. We weren't able to get any pictures but I'm sure Christy has a couple coming your way. "

Thank you so much Brock family for spending time with Noah T. and bringing us news.

Going to Ethiopia.

Ok so its been a crazy few days. We got the call on Friday late afternoon letting us know our travel dates. We need to be in EThiopia on the 19th of april and leave on the 23rd. Travel plans need to be approved by our case manager before we actually purchase the tickets so this meant a flurry of activity on Friday to contact a travel agent, find flights and email the plan to AGCI for approval.
Now for the exciting part. We leave on Saturday afternoon the 18th and will arrive in Addis on the evening of sunday the 19th. Monday the 20th will be the day we get Noah T. We leave Addis on Thursday night the 23rd and arrive home on friday morning the 24th. We will be flying in/out of Dulles.
I'm happy to say that we got alot of the stuff done on our to do list and are well on our way to being ready for travel. We should be receiving new pictures of Noah T. this week. I talked to our case manager today and she said that she is sorting thru all the pictures that she took in Ethiopia last week. In the update email we got we found out he is now 28.7 inches long and weighs 20.06lbs. Our international adoption ped says he has grown nicely since his last measurements in Dec. We were told he is a content baby, sweet spirited and adorable. Christy(case manager) pretty much confirmed this today on the phone. She also said he is crawling so its a good thing i have done some child proofing. We are so excited and can't wait to bring our son home.
I know everyone wants to see pictures and I forgot to ask if we can post them now or if we need to wait until we get home so i'll email AGCI and post some if i'm allowed.

Baby boy is coming home..

Oh how good it feels to post those words. Its true T is an Albright. As you all know our court date was the 31st and I never imagined how hard it would be to wait for the news. I thought I would have a day or two where I would be ok before it set in. Nope I woke up yesterday anxious...i cried alot and at everything...i hurt i just wanted to know something. Today I curled up on the couch with the stuffed moose that we have (identical to the one that we sent to ethiopia for T). Two minutes later the phone rang. I took a deep breath and picked it up. The conversation went like this..OH by the way our case manager is still in Ethiopia so our call came from Julie.
J. HI is this Renee ?
R. yes
J. Hi this is julie from AGCI I know we havent talked but i know your name and case well how are you doing?
R. Umm I"m ok (trying to breath and really nervous)
J. Well thats great because i have some good news for you
R. (bursts into tears) did we pass?
J. You sure did


ok there was some more stuff after this but basically we wait now for birth certificate and passport so they can make his embassy appointment and then we get travel dates. Most likely around the 17th. Also sometime with in the next week we will get an update on T with personality info, size, what he is eating all that good stuff. I"m not sure if we are allowed to post photos online yet so you might have to wait until he gets home but its only a few more weeks. Time to get crack a lackin on da packin.
I"m so excited that my girls, Dawny P.,Jody, Sarah, Jenn and others will be traveling with us. What an awesome time we are going to have bringing home our little ones.
Hold on baby boy momma and daddy are coming soon.