"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Please pray

please be praying for this family... we don't know them, but know "of" them through our Chinese adoption group. They just brought their very sick little girl home from China after only a 5 day adoption process- which is a miracle in and of itself... they will be finding out in the next day or two if their daughter's life can even be saved through open heart surgery or if it is too late. We know God is a big God ... please join us in praying for this little one... you can see their story on their blog:
http://www.roomforatleastonemore.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Conversations in English

Bedtime conversations between the boys used to be in Amharic. Now they are in English, which saddens me. They are losing their language. On the other hand, I now know what they are saying. This is a conversation from last night... I put them to bed and then after hearing loud squealing laughter, snuck up to the top of the stairs to see WHAT was going on... part of what makes it so funny is that while they "think" they understand English most of the time Yordi at least, has no clue what he is saying, or what anyone else is saying...

Yordi: (shreaking with laughter)... you eat poo poo, you eat dog food
Bis: WHAT??
Yordi: you eat poop... HAHHAAAAAA!!!
Bis: I no like poop, I no eat zhat. I no like dog food, I don't eat...
Yordi: WHAT??? You, you say you no like God!! I tellwing Mom, you say no like God. Mommy be sad...
Bis: Yordi! I no say I no like God, I say...
Yordi: I tellwing...
Bis: Go to sleep Yordi, I no tawking you.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Happy Birthday!!

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The boys had a birthday... well, we celebrated their birthdays. They have a given date on their birth certificates from Ethiopia, assuming that they are twins, which as Bis tells us - they are not. Plus, the given date has them at age 4 1/2 . Bis is obviously older and Yordi much younger. So, when we finalize their adoptions we will give them the birthdates of Bisrat Sept 15, 2003 and Yordi July 10, 2004. We had a joint party for them last night. They were so excited. It helped that they saw Molly have a birthday last month, so they kinda knew, but from what we know I don't think they have ever celebrated a birthday.
When everyone got home we had a quick bite of dinner and then they opened up presents from us. The looks on their faces was priceless. Then everyone came- cousins Max, Makenna, and Kyle with Aunt Lynde and Grammy and Papa, Grandpa Joe and Grandma Cenobia, Grandpa, Aunt Tammy and cousin Danny. They were so excited. We had little cakes with their candles for them to blow out and then presents... they had so much fun. Yordi wanted picked up later in the evening and while snuggling on my shoulder said "happy birthdays so good". Some of the pictures arent so clear, but you can tell from their faces how thrilled they are...

Friday, September 19, 2008

First day of school round 4 and 5





Bis and Yordi started preschool today. We weren't sure where they would be at age wise when they came home, so didn't pre- enroll them in our little preschool co-op. After the big kids started school I realized that these guys would be bored stiff, and boredom leads to trouble ... so they started HeadStart preschool today. They will learn the basics of the basics- from table manners to colors!! A big emphasis is put on learning English as a second language. We will meet with their teachers every 5 weeks to incorporate our home goals into their school goals. I am hoping that this will help with some of our issues that we are working so hard on... tag team affect and surround them at home and away from home with some of the same guidelines whether or not mom is standing right there. They have school 4 days a week, so today after I dropped them off, I did what any newly alone mom of 5 does... I showed up at the elementary school to volunteer in the classroom for my 3 free hours... :)

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

another round of Buzz trouble




Molly was up early and I should have known... she was quiet. As I rounded the corner to the mud room this is what I found... Molly felt that Buzz needed breakfast and that he might enjoy it even more in the house. Luckily I interceded in time, cause she had not only prepared him a wonderful breakfast of dogfood, but had then made him a bed in the livingroom with all of our throw blankets... After I kicked the pig out, I convinced her to put the dog into the bed she had made. Good thing school starts for Molly soon.

Molly's first day of school






Molly started kindergarten yesterday... she loved it. Her teacher is fabulous and she is in a tiny class of 14, with only 3 girls though. Addie says that will be good later on down the road... She looked so grown up yesterday, yet it was so hard to believe that my baby girl can be in school. Kindergarten here is full day so she was exhausted last night, yet she was up when Addie's alarm went off and was downstairs and fully dressed before I even got into the shower. Noah was excited to get to help her from the drop off point to her class line. When we went to pick the kids up from school it was so cute to watch Bis and Yordi. They looked like two kids waiting for Christmas with their noses pressed up against the door waiting for Molly. As soon as we got home the three of them disappeared upstairs arm in arm to "catch up". And we wondered how the 3 of them would adjust to each other...

dress up





The kids had fun introducing the boys to the art of dress up. Addie got this huge box of dress up clothes for her 4th birthday and we have have had fun adding to it over the years. So funny though, because Bis is usually pretty careful about preserving his "cool" factor. He doesn't like to wear a pair of pjs he has that are red plaid, little old man jammies... you know the kind that button up and the tops and bottoms are the same material? Yeah, well he'll take pajamas from Yordi's drawer before he will wear those. Clothes matter to Bis and he has his idea of what is cool and what isn't... So, who is the first kid to pick out the pink tutus and ballet slippers??? If you are looking for the girliest girl dress up clothes... look for Bis. The pictures dont quite do justice to Yordi... he looked so much like ET we laughed hysterically.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Going green

So, at dinner we were talking about a commercial that we saw on tv about everyone doing their part and going green. We don't go too green around here since we are Beaver fans and the Ducks are green... ANYHOW, we started talking about how we could better conserve our resources and what we already do. Like, we feed all of our food waste to the animals or compost it to the garden. We switched to cloth napkins- the kids had read that the average person consumes 11,000 napkins, well with our little family of 7 that is a heck of a lot of napkins. Noah being the preteen boy that he is has volunteered to take 1 for the family and has announced that he is willing to do his part by not taking any more showers and giving up homework. What a guy...

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Some pics of our zoo








Here are some of the cute animal/kid pictures from this summer at our zoo...

Burning the place down



A couple of last honey do's before the summer ends and the weather turns icky- top of my list was to burn the burn pile, all the feed sacks and branches and sticks that are up in the goat pasture. I never worry about burning... Tom worries for us. He was a long time volunteer fireman, so if he is ok with burning then that is all I need. Imagine my surprise when Yordi comes screaming down to the house "Daddy burn... daddy burn... daddy burn, um, um, um, TREES. Come" (we have since talked about sending someone with a little better English next time). I reach the goat pasture so see Addie standing in charred grass with melted crocs beating the fire with a shovel, Noah guarding all the littles and Tom wrestling with a garden hose to get it connected. Both Tom and Addie are talking a mile a minute and they point out very disappointed that I missed all the fun... I asked if they would redo it so that I could get it on camera, but no one was interested...

summer fun







We have had so much fun this summer. After Molly's birthday she has hounded us daily about taking off her training wheels- we had told her she wouldn't know how to ride a bike without training wheels until she was 5. Unfortunately, this translated that when she turned 5 she would just automatically know. We figured we would just take them off, she would fall and they would go back on. Nope, she shot straight out of the garage and down the driveway... when she finally stopped she jumped up beaming "I told you when I was 5 I would know how". We decided to take Bis's off to see what would happen . A couple of tries and he is now riding without training wheels. Yordi, not wanting to be left out tried too, but he is nowhere near ready.

We have had lots of long walks with the dogs, riding bikes and rollerblading down cemetary hill. And NO BROKEN BONES!!!!! Praise God for miracles (my 2 oldest have been in arm cast 6 times in their short lifetimes and with our 3 wild little ones I don't doubt that they will live up to their siblings example!)

Making Applesauce





We decided to pick up some of the dropped apples at my folks house to make homemade applesauce for the winter. We put all of the kids to work and in no time had 7, 5 gallon buckets. We set up shop in the garage- Addie and Tom peeled, I cooked, and all the other kids ran the peels up to the goats and pig. Took us 2 days, but to show for our work we were able to put up about 45 quarts. Plus we picked up 7 more buckets to store for later in the winter when we can feed them to the animals or make more applesauce if there are any leftovers. We have already enjoyed eating our applesauce. We ate a batch right out of the cooker, warm with whipped cream. Yum!!!

First Day of School- round 1




We had our first day of school this week for the big kids. Wow, where does time go??? This is Addie's 8th grade year and Noah's 5th grade year. That means next year I will have 1 in high school, 1 in middle school and 2 in elementary and 1 in preschool. Love how I spread that out... I am trying to really enjoy each moment of this year... next year will be so different. For starters I cant imagine Noah being ready for middle school, even though I know by the end of the year he will be. And Addie in high school???? I am so not ready for high school and all that it brings (boys for example). Here I pulled out all of the little jumpers I made for her in elementary school for Molly to wear. My mother's heart breaks at the thought of my little ones growing up.

When did the 80's come back??? I mean really- the oversized shirts and skinny jeans that are so tight around the legs that you have to get up extra early in order to spend the 20 minutes of getting them on over your feet. The colorful bangles and beads and blue mascara and eyeshadow???? If only I had saved all of my stuff... who woulda guessed.