I can't believe it's been a year!

On July 1st, 2009 we finally passed court in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to bring home Mirak Olivia and Mistire Hope Murphy! What an incredible year it has been! I remember the day we passed court.....we just jumped and cheered, screamed and then started hyper-ventilating! Oh my, this was it.......they were REALLY ours!!! After all the prayer, all the heartache and tears....it was finally going to happen. Then we went about making preparations to travel. We didn't have near the wait or problems that some adoptions had but considering all of our years of infertility and secondary infertility, we were SO happy to have this part of our journey coming to an end!


We have seen them change SO much. Everything has grown! Their height, hair, several clothing sizes, shoe sizes, and them some things that are unseen but heard like language, dialect and their desire to know more about Jesus. About two months after they were here in America, I heard Misrak speaking to Misti in the backseat of our car. She just kept talking and talking to her in Amharic..... and by her tone, I could tell she was asking Misti questions......and Misti was NOT responding. She had lost her language and I was sad. Misrak kept speaking it for another few months but by six months or so, I didn't hear any more. As a matter of fact, there is a boy (13 years old) that is in her school that is fluent in Amharic and kept trying to talk to her but she admitted one day that she didn't think she even WANTED to speak it anymore! Ugh, I had hoped it wouldn't happen.

Enjoy these shots of the days before we knew them!