More pictures! Enjoy!

That shirt says perfection. We agree!

We are the proud parents of Amari Nigist Mingrone!!!!!

We passed court in Ethiopia yesterday and we are now mom and dad to our beautiful little bundle of sunshine!!!!!!!! Amari, YOU are the best and most perfect Christmas present ever!

I thought I'd spend all day checking my email to find out if we passed court and the first time I looked there was a note from Sharon and the subject line said... NIGIST IS OFFICIALLY YOURS!

Here's her email:

Happy Holidays Mark and Lisa,

Your adoption has been approved !!!! Congratulations!. It’s much too early to confirm a visa appointment at this time but it looks like it's likely to be on Feb 4, 2010. We’ll be in touch once we are back in the office to confirm a date and to get you prepared for travel.

Please do not confirm any flights at this time,

Have a Blessed Christmas,

Sharon M. Turner

Ethiopia Program Director

Children's Hope International

Amari, you turned 4 months old yesterday too! We made lots of calls, celebrated all day, and are still celebrating! This is the most amazing and joyful Christmas of our lives.

Hey baby we're almost there and we wish wish we could be holding you right now but we are coming!!! We can't wait and we are so honored to be the ones to hold you forever. Love Mom and Dad.

COURT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OUR COURT DATE IS DECEMBER 23rd! We are so excited and are keeping all of our fingers and toes crossed that we pass the first time! If that happens then our girl will be a Mingrone for Christmas! What an amazing present that would be! We might get a visa appointment January 21st at the earliest. It could be in February too. We will find out in January I think. That is when we go to Ethiopia. Our Gotcha Day could be as early as Monday January 18th! We're getting ready but WOW.
Until we pass court we can email any pictures but when we do look out! She'll knock your socks off!
We've decided on Amari as her first name. It has so many lovely African/Ethiopian meanings - having great strength (so true of all the babies from Ethiopia), pleasing, agreeable, and beautiful. Mari would be a good nickname. It a diminutive of Marie (my middle name after my Grandma), and has Latin - of the sea, and Celtic - form of Mary, connections too. Mark is Italian and we are both Irish. I actually have heard Amari while subbing and Mark and I have like it all the way along. We wanted to wait to choose a name until we got our referral and we knew what her birth name was. We are going to move her birth name to her middle name. We'll post her full name after court!