Laughner's Journey to Ethiopia

We are happy to announce that the Laughner Family is once again growing! We are going back to Ethiopia! We were accepted back into the program and will soon be starting our dossier. We are requesting a 4-6 year old little girl! To answer some of the questions.... Yes we will have enough kids to be the Brady Bunch! No we are not trying for our own baseball team. Yes this is the last one! Yes we have said this before. Michael and Lori will be traveling to Ethiopia to meet our princess! Yes, Tom is OK with adopting one more. Yes Michael has agreed to play with Barbies and Littlest Pet Shop on the plane. Yes we have to go through the whole process again, with a shorter home study, and a few discounts. Yes the referral should come quicker because of requesting an older child. Whether or not we are crazy is debatable.... it depends on who you ask. Some say yes, some say we just still have love to share. Please pray for our family during this process and the daughter that God has chosen for o...

Today we went in front of the judge.... Daniel is officially Daniel Fitsum Laughnerand a US citizen! It was a fun morning and a positive court experience! The judge was so nice and made the kids a part of the ceremony. She let the kids each pick their favorite color of pen. She then used each of their pens to sign the documents and let the kids keep the pens as a memory. She posed for pictures and finished with a hug and a high five for Daniel. Our good friend Kelly went with us to offer support and play photographer. Thank you Kelly!

One year ago on July 18th we received our referral for Daniel! Enjoy the video, and see what a difference a year can make!

On June26th we packed up the mini van and the 7 of us headed off for Virginia. We drove to Fredrickburg VA. It took a lot longer than it should have. We got stuck in DC traffic and at one point made it 5 miles in one hour. We just kept watching the GPS say you have an hour to go... we would drive an hour and it would still say you have a hour to go. We got in late that evening just in time for a nasty thunder storm. We were lucky enough to stay at a friends parents home while they were away. On Sat. morning we got up and drove towards DC and then took the subway the rest of the way. We spent the first half of the day sight seeing DC. We saw the Washington Monument, Lincoln's Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, WWII Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, the White House.... then we decided to stop by the BBQ Festival for lunch. Well we were having so much fun we spent the rest of our afternoon there. We had lunch (lots of free samples), the girls played many rounds of Knock Out (basketball) Sara cam...

Today is finally our last day of school. Today is Allison's last day as a 6th grader. She will be leaving Chestnut Hill and will be moving on to Jabbish Brooks. Allison has had a great year. She was in a play, played piano for the pit band of another play, played clarinet in the 6th grade band, was in the 6th grade chorus, accomplished another year of piano lessons, played basketball, passed the safe sitter course, had great grades all year, among other things. Today is Michael's last day as a 3rd grader at Swift River. He will be moving up to Chestnut Hill school. Michael has had a great year. He played, soccer(3 sessions), basketball, flag football, is taking guitar lessons, has had great grades, and been a part of many other things this year. Today is Benjamin's last day as a kindergartner. He is leaving Cold Spring School, and moving up to Swift River. He has had a great year. He played two sessions of soccer, t-ball, flag football, and made many new friends. He had a g...

Our Daniel that we all know and love, even when he stuffs things down the toilet and Dad is out of town. Yes that is duct tape holding the lid down, no you can not use the toilet, yes you need to go all the way upstairs to use the toilet. Happy Fathers Day Dad, you get to take the toilet apart when you get back from CA. Michael turned 9 this week. We went to Red Robins for his birthday lunch. He got a new guitar, strap, and carrying case. He had 10 boys over Sat. from 4:30-9:00 to celebrate. We had challenges, a digital scavenger hunt, bingo, pizza, and ice cream sundaes. It is hard to believe that he could be 9 and going into 4th grade. We had a fireplace and bookshelves built in. This took a while but was worth the wait.