More Preparation

We are down to the wire and still have a lot to get done.  Tony and I are getting very little sleep and I hate to admit it, but I am getting a little ornery at times.  There is just so much to get done before we leave!

Once we got our travel update with Abbe's current height and weight, I realized that I needed to exchange most of the clothes and all of the shoes that I had gotten for her.  They feed those kids well at Hannah's Hope and she was really growing - YAY!  It was interesting explaining to Samir why we had to go clothes shopping for his sister all over again - he didn't care that we were EXCHANGING not SHOPPING.  He's ready to be done with all the preparation and just wants to meet his little sister.  I agree.

I have to say that I love all of the clothes that I found for Abbe.  The bright colors and bold designs will look so good against her dark skin.  I just needed to wash all of the clothes, so they could be put away in anticipation of her arrival.  I was actually looking forward to doing her laundry (I'm sure that feeling will go away after a while); however, I was mortified when I realized that 95% of the cute little frilly clothes I had purchased would need to be ironed.  Honestly, that had never even crossed my mind!  OH HOW I HATE IRONING!!!!  I am possibly the worst ironer in the world!  Here's a look at the pile that I had to start with:

And here's what the first round looked like when they were done:

Now that I had all of her clothes washed and ironed, I could start packing them  ... so they could get all wrinkled up again.  Just kidding - we actually had to pack cold-weather clothes for Abbe since it is winter in Ethiopia right now, so all of her little summer dresses will have to wait until we get back home. 

In addition to packing for the three of us, we also needed to pack up bins of donations that we would be leaving at Hannah's Hope in Ethiopia.  International rules allow you to check more bags than when you are traveling domestically, so we wanted to take advantage of that since shipping items to Ethiopia is extremely expensive.  We ended up with two bins full of clothes, toys, medicine, bottles, diapers, etc.