Not too much new in our world. Mikias is still crawling all over the place and occasionally takes a stroll using his "walker". I've been negligent in getting gates put up, so he is really requiring a lot of attention when he explores things on his own. He's had a runny nose all week. We thought it was because he was teething, but then I got a runny nose too...and I'm pretty sure I'm not teething. So, we've both got mild colds. Joanna has been able to avoid it so far.

Other than that, we're doing some prepping for Mikias' baptism on Sunday. We're planning on having all of our family for lunch after church. Luckily, it's going to be a nice day. We don't have a good cold-weather party house. Not enough room inside. One of these days I'll get to finishing the basement and the problem will be solved.

A few weeks ago, a reporter from our local paper came out to interview us about the adoption process. Our adoption agency was in touch with them. With November being National Adoption Month, the agency wanted to see if the paper would be interested in doing a story on us. The article was just published last week. It's ok...although I'm not thrilled about being quoted in reference to Angelina Jolie and Madonna. Of all the things they asked about, they choose to put this in the story! Oh well...here's the article.

Parents Choose Adoption Option - Oxford Leader

On the move in a whole new way

Just wanted to share a quick video of Mikias from today. He's really progressing fast! He just crawled for the first time a few weeks ago. He went back and forth across the room like this quite a few times.

Mikias' teeth have really been bothering him for the past week too. He's getting close to breaking through a few more. He has been waking up a lot in the middle of the night so I think he's in a bit of pain...nothing some Tylenol can't help. Hopefully, that will be over in a few days.

A Night Out

This past weekend we finally took our parents to The Blue Nile, an Ethiopian restaurant in Ferndale, to thank them for all of their help since we've been home from Ethiopia. Actually, our intention was to do this before we traveled in June, but things got too crazy and we never made it. On Saturday we went and everyone really enjoyed the food and atmosphere. Joanna and I had gone to this same place on New Years Eve this past year, but this time we noticed so many little things around the restaurant that reminded us of our trip. Unfortunately, the owners were in Ethiopia for the millennium celebration so we weren't able to talk to them. My aunt and uncle babysat Mikias so it was good to have an adult outing. Overall, it was a very fun time.

Here is Mikias' latest trick. He's certainly keeping us busy now!

Happy New Year - Y2K all over again

Today the McKinney Family welcomed Ethiopia to the year 2000! Who knew we would celebrate the millennium with our son.

Yahoo.com Story

Wikipedia - Ethiopian New Year

On the move

This past weekend we took the long trip down to West Virginia to see my grandma and introduce her to Mikias. Actually, we were long overdue for a visit down there anyways and luckily we didn't have any plans for the weekend. I don't think I've ever seen my grandma so excited about something before. I think she was anticipating our arrival all last week and went out of her way to make sure we had everything for Mikias once we arrived. Joanna and I were a bit concerned about the long drive (6 hours), but we tried to time our drives with Mikias' naps and that seemed to work well. Joanna did spend some time in the back seat entertaining him for a while.

It was a very relaxing weekend. We took a few walks and did a bit of swimming (especially Mikias!). Other than that, we just hung out, played, and napped all day long. It was kind of nice not having all the "responsibilities" of home hanging over our heads.

While we were there, Mikias decided he would crawl for the first time! He has been on the verge of crawling for about a week now, but he finally figure everything out and crawled across my grandma's kitchen. Needless to say, we really need to a little baby-proofing around our house now that he is out exploring everything.