5 Months Ago....

Five months ago, on April 20th, we received a phone call that blessed our hearts in the most amazing way! The call was from Julie, our AGCI case manager, saying that she had a little guy that she wanted to talk with us about. Within a few minutes she emailed pictures to our home. Without opening them, I sent them to Sean at work and then I called him. We opened each picture, one by one at the same time so that we could see our little boy "together"! It was the most surreal and amazing day! We were so happy to finally learn about our son, to know his story and to see his face. I could have never anticipated the way my heart would immediately be drawn to this sweet child and to love him so completely..... even though I had never even held him in my arms. Less than two months after our referral day, we flew to Ethiopia to meet our new son. What a joy the last 3 and a half months at home have been! We fell in love with Will's smiling face five months ago, and we are so blessed to wake up to his smiling face every morning!

I was never able to share his referral pictures before we got him, and it occured to me that I never had posted any on my blog, so here is one of the pictures that we received. Will can be quite a "ham" when it comes to picture taking, so I think that whoever was taking his referral pics had quite a lot of fun because we received 30 pictures that day!! I've just chosen one to share today. He did come into Hannah's Hope mal-nourished. I remember Julie telling me to not be shocked at how small his little legs looked because his socks just swallowed up his feet....and they did!
And here he is, 5 months later! It is amazing how far he has come....literally and figuratively! He was SO well taken care of at HH in Ethiopia! He was fed well and loved well and had gained several pounds before we got him. You better believe he has been fed well and loved well since being home and he has continued to pack on the pounds! I took this picture tonight just before I got him ready for bed. You can't see all of his pretty dark curls in this picture, but you can see two of his four new teeth! They are coming in so quickly! He is changing and growing with each new day! We fell in love 5 months ago and we are just so glad that Will is home with us forever!

We love you Will Tekalgn Harper!