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!!