Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice...

 

That's what little GIRLS are made of!  So, as you know, we went to the doctor and had the ultrasound to tell us whether we are having a girl or boy.  We are excited to say it's a girl! (We would have been excited either way).  She was rather difficult at the beginning of the ultrasound.  She was face down and would not turn over, no matter how much wiggling of my belly was done.  But in the end we were finally able to get a good picture that leaves no doubt in our minds that it's a girl.  I've posted one of the ultrasound pics below.  We haven't picked a name yet though...

There's no doubt!  It's definately a girl!

We had some of our family over on Saturday for lunch.  Funny story, I was talking to my mother-in-law and I said "Next year we'll have to figure out what babysitter to put 'em with" and she thought I said "him".  So she thought I had slipped up and said that it was a boy.  Mike added to the craziness by saying, "Funny it's usually me who messes up surprises!"  So after lunch when we had the cake balls, she was really suprised when the inside was pink!  It was great! 

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law who live in Dallas couldn't be there, so we face-timed with them on Mike's phone and he bit into the cake ball and then showed them the pink inside on the phone.  It really was a neat moment to see everyone's suprised faces.  Then, I got my very first baby presents to open from family.  I'm already loving all the cute girl stuff!!  It was an awesome day! 

Cake Ball Reveal - Mmmm!  Yummy!!

We are having a...

I had my 20 week appointment last week and found out that we are having a...

Sorry, I can't reveal the news just yet because we are having a family gathering this weekend at our house for the big reveal.  My sister is making cake balls and she will color the cake either pink or blue, depending on what we are having.  We are excited to have our family over to share the news! 

At the doctor's appointment everything was good.  The radiologist came in during the ultrasound and his report said that everything looked great.  Baby and Mom are doing well...now if I can just get it to move off of my bladder - LOL!!  I am starting to feel more kicks and that is so cool! 

 

On the adoption front, our Home Study is finished except for our online education classes and our workbook.  We have reviewed the Home Study and it has been sent to the adoption agency for review now.  We have two more online classes to finish (they take about an hour and a half each to complete...ugh!) and the only other thing left to do in the workbook is to write about our experience eating at an Ethiopian restaurant.  We are planning to go to Blue Nile this week.  I've heard great things! 

Another thing we had to do for the workbook was to cook an Ethiopian dish and we chose to make Doro Wat this past Friday.  It is considered by some to be the national dish of Ethiopia.  It is essentially chicken and spices and I found the recipe online (http://www.whats4eats.com/poultry/doro-wat-recipe).  The recipe calls for a special spice called berbere and I was thankfully able to get some from our friends Ben and Lauren Huss.  I could have made berbere but there are about 18 different spices in it and the recipes that I found online to make it look difficult and time consuming.  I'm going to have to find somewhere here in Houston that I can buy it for future use!

The dish tasted amazing!  It was really spicy for me but we served it over rice and that helped to cut some of the spice.  I'm sure all of you non-sensitive-to-spicy-foods people (like Mike) would have considered it medium spicy.  It is a dish that I look forward to cooking in the future for our family-- even before the baby from Ethiopia is here!  I've posted some pictures below that we took while cooking the dish and then there's the final result picture as well. 


Cooking berberé paste with other spices

 

Simmering the chicken with the spicy sauce

YUM!!

I SURVIVED!

Despite all the running, climbing, jumping, swimming, crawling, thick mud, and getting shocked over the course of 4+ hours, I still managed to survive! I was very glad to have run the race with family and friends and was especially grateful that my beautiful pregnant wife was still able to meet me at several places throughout the course to help me check my blood sugar. If you want to see how I got to looking like this...

...take a look at the video. It includes all 22 obstacles that our team went through.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apWh1Ur8m-w

Two random things

Although I should be in bed right now, I figured I would share a couple of upcoming events we have. While they are a little random and completely different, they at least in some way pertain to our pregnancy/adoption.

Firstly, one way Tam and I have been attempting to raise some money to put toward our adoption is through garage sales. We had one last weekend (which didn't go too badly) but due to the rain, our HOA has decided to have another one in two weeks on 10/13. Before I ask the "if you have anything that you have been wanting to get rid of " question, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE first consider donating it to a charity, especially as the Christmas season will be here before we know it. If you are looking for somewhere to make a donation, here is a place that always needs help and does a great job of making the most out of what they receive: http://www.secondmile.org/.

However, if you still would like to help out our cause and have something you would like to get rid of without going to the trouble of a garage sale, Tam and I would love to try to sell it in ours and would definitely appreciate the donation. Just get in touch with us and we will come pick up whatever you would like us to.

As for that other thing......so maybe this is me wanting to do something crazy before I become a dad (which I hear doesn't involve very much sleep), but this Saturday 10/6 I, along with my younger brother and two guys we went to school with, will be running in a Tough Mudder. For those of you who have not heard of this event, take a look at this link (http://toughmudder.com/austin-2012/). In a nutshell, Tough Mudder is a 10 - 12 mile run broken up by 28 obstacles designed by British Special Forces to test your strength, stamina, blah, blah, blah. Obviously, the biggest test here is on your sanity, which I appear to be failing miserably.

In any case, I have been training for almost 4 months so there is no quitting now. I will be recording the run (mainly the obstacles) with a GoPro camera and will be posting a YouTube link to the video here next week. Stay tuned!