You're My Best Friend

Steve,

Ooo. you make me live
whatever this world can give to me
It's you, you're all I see
Ooo, you make me live now honey
Ooo, you make me live
You're the best friend
that I ever had
I've been with you such a long time
You're my sunshine
And I want you to know
That my feelings are true
I really love you
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live
I've been wandering round
But I still come back to you
In rain or shine
You've stood by me boy
I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend.
You're the first one
When things turn out bad
You know I'll never be lonely
You're my only one
And I love The things that you do
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live.
I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend
You're my best friend
Ooo, you make me live You,
you're my best friend.

(We agreed that this song by Queen was our new song. Our old song is My Love by Paul McCartney.)

Our new method of transportation

Anna loves to be carried on my back. Adah likes to just be held in my arms. I'm used to a sling, but this Ergo carrier will get a work out. I carried her on my back in Cubbies last night and I wear her when we're doing school. It keeps her out of mischief!

School, boys, concrete and men

I was trying to finish up school with the two youngest boys who are six and eight. John still had phonics to do and Joel was finishing up his math. The attraction that was outside our front door just was too much for these boys. We are having a patio poured and the concrete men were here!! Numbers and letters don't hold a match to trucks, dirt, men, iron, and concrete! I gave up and let them out to enjoy the moment.

Anna Mihret and whipped cream

Yesterday morning we had waffles topped with strawberries and whipped cream. I fed the girls some waffle, put some strawberries and whipped cream on their high chair trays. Anna loved it. She just scooped it up with hand and wanted more, more, more!

Our son, the cop

Our oldest son is a highway patrolman. He stopped by the house recently to show his brothers and sisters his uniform and his car.

Things are settling down

We've been home about a month now and things are finally starting to settle down a bit. Part of it is because Jesse is helping with soccer practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That leaves me able to stay home with the girls and work on dinner. We've actually had some home-cooked meals! I might hit three days in a row of cooking. :)

I'm getting caught up with Cubbies. I had a chance to sit down last night while Steve, Sarah, Joe, and Jesse were at Jesse's soccer game until 10:30 p.m. The boys and babies were sleeping so I took advantage of the time. I planned and took notes for the month of October. I'm used to being on top of things and do not like the feeling that I'm not giving my very best to the kids. The Lord knows I'm doing what I can when I can, but if I do a job I like it to be top notch. The cubbie program has changed since I was director many years ago so I feel like I'm just winging it. Don't like that. Hopefully this is a start to a better Cubbies club.

Adah has her first therapy with the Early Start program. She's about 4 1/2 months in development and size. She's where a normal 4 month old baby would be, but she's twelve months old so she has some catching up to do. The therapist and doctor think with proper nutrition her muscles will grow, strengthen and she'll be just fine. Her goal for the next year is to eventually run. Seems like a ways off since she's not even turning over!

Tonight I get to go to a Rag Quilt class taught by my friend Shenna. I went and picked out the fabric last week. I built my theme around a cardinal. Why? Two years ago when we were in Washington, D.C., the coordinator prayed that the Lord would allow her to see a cardinal. We don't have cardinals here in Southern California so this would be something special for her to enjoy. All week we didn't see one, and finally on a field trip one day, I saw her looking up. I looked to see what she was looking at and in the tree was one cardinal. It was the only one we saw the whole trip, but God answered her prayer. Even though it was something so small and uneventful, He answered her prayer. Now when I see a cardinal on anything I think of answered prayer. I'm making the quilt for me instead of someone else. Novel idea!

Well I need to go teach my children. My youngest wants to be taught individually instead of with his brother who is a year and a half older than he is. They're too competitive and he often loses simply because he's two years younger. So now my time is split even more. I can do this though. We just need to make sure that Bible, math and reading/phonics/language are covered. Everything else will fit in when it can.

Have a great day! Make a difference!

The medicine battle

I have been in a medicine battle with Anna Mihret since Saturday. The first dose of meds she took quite nicely. Boy did she deceive me! She has to have a teaspoon of Giardia medicine three times a day until next Monday and a little over two teaspoons of TB meds every day for the next nine months.

This girl DOES NOT like her medicine now in any way, shape or form. Steve tricked her for a while last night by dousing a Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookie with the Giardia med. I've tried the Gatorade trick too. She's not buying it.

So three times a day I have to put her in a wrestler's headlock (or what I imagine it would be) with her between my legs, syringe ready and loaded, a towel, syringe stragically placed on top of her tongue and towards the back of her throat, her lips squished together so she doesn't spit it out and onto my glasses, hair up and glasses on, and possibly even plugging her nose if necessary. We're both so tired after our ordeal all we can do is lay back and collapse into the chair.

I would never do this if it weren't so necessary. I can't wait for next Monday to come.

Melissa Faye Greene, Jane Kurtz, Shola Children's Library & Ethiopia Reads

I was so, so, so delighted when I sat down to read my new copy of Good Housekeeping. The idea that I even picked up Good Housekeeping is a novel idea since I've just added a baby and a toddler to my life. The toddler rips every magazine she can fine and who has the time to read now?

Anyways since yesterday was my birthday, yes I'm 47 now, I figured a few leisure moments to read could be mine if I went and hid up in my room. I succeeded! I was extemely happy when my eyes fell on the Table of Contents and lo and behold on page 200 is a story about Ethiopia by Melissa Faye Greene. http://www.thereisnomewithoutyou.com/ Her articled is titled Hope: Volume 1 How a children's librarian and his donkey-drawn bookmobile are saving the world, one kid at a time. It features the Shola Children's Library in Addis, Ethiopia Reads and its founder Yohannes Gebregeorgis. http://www.ethiopiareads.com/ Many of the books mentioned in the article I purchased before the girls came home.

Jane Kurtz is a children's author and grew up in Ethiopia. She has written Fire on the Mountain about an Ethiopian shepherd boy and other books. http://www.janekurtz.com

If you would like to know more about Ethiopia and its children & books I suggest you buy the October 2007 Good Housekeeping.

Speaking of cribs........

If you know me very well you would know that my husband will call me Murphy at times because things happen to me that don't happen to other people. Ex: I'm in the dentist chair having my wisdom teeth out and the dentist remarks that "he's never seen this before." Or the satellite man is simply installing a statellite dish and says, "I've never come across this before."

Well, yesterday after buying our Target cribs we were driving home and listening to the radio to see if we could get an update about "the big storm" that didn't seem to be happening. Instead of a weather report we hear that Graco and Simplicity brand cribs are being recalled because three children have died. I look at Steve and said, "Of course they're being recalled, I JUST BOUGHT TWO!!!!" Do you think I would have heard the recall earlier on the news or on the way to the store. Oh no! That would be too, too easy. Instead I sit with two recalled crib boxes. My poor husband. It's not always easy being married to Murphy.

God's Protection

Yesterday Steve and I were heading to Target to buy cribs for the girls. As were driving on the freeway the head of a shovel (the metal part without the stick) came flying at our car from under the truck in front of us. I took both arms and protected my face because it was headed right for our windshield on my side. I figured I'd rather get as much glass in my arms as I could instead of my face. Well evidently it skimmed the front part of the hood, hit the hood just by the windshield and dented the hood and then just left a rusted color scratch on the windshield. WOW!!! By it hitting the hood it hit the windshield just between us instead of just on my side. Not a crack or anything. We thought for sure it at least should have shattered. Thank you, Lord for protecting us.

Years ago we were driving in the same spot. A bird flew out of nowhere and hit our windshield, cracking the windshield bad enough that we had to have it replaced. Sounds like we need to avoid this particular part of the freeway, huh? Unfortunately, we can't but we do know God is watching over us.

John FINALLY lost one of his front teeth

They have been loose FOREVER!! It has been so long that the other teeth grew in behind them. His loose teeth tightened up and we couldn't get them/it out. He hit one the other day on something and it finally budged. Here are the results. :) I actually had to "stage" these pics. I was just getting ready to take a picture and his tooth came out. I made him stick it back in. :)

He's so eight!

Our Adoption Baby Shower

Monday night our church gave us a baby shower for the girls. My friend Debbie worked hard to get just the right "feel." Boy, did she go out of her way! She made "American" injera. She researched and found a recipe using buckwheat pancake mix and biscuit mix that worked well enough to get the consistency of injera. She then had some of the meats, cheeses and other items that would normally go on it. The taste was blander than traditional injera, but actually I think I could eat more of it because of that. Injera normally has a sourdoughy taste which gets to me after a few bites.

Here is what she made Sarah and Debbie
This is how you would normally serve injera.

I dressed the girls in their traditional dresses.


Adah had newspaper on her head. Silly girl! Sarah
Hanna (Sarah's best friend) and Anna Mihret

Friends and family: I was overwhelmed by the love and support shown by everyone. I think we had about sixty people there. I was taking the pics so I didn't get as many as I would have liked.

Grandma
Sarah and Lilly: Lilly helped me open gifts :)
Sharon and Allison
Present time! This is what their closet looks like now. It was empty! All of those are matching outfits for the girls.
My niece Kathy made this. All the pages are done. All we have to do is put pictures on. Can you imagine the work she went to?

Another niece Marisa had these made. Aren't they adorable? I set out books on adoption and Ethiopia, souvenirs and toys from Ethiopia or dealing with the Amharic language. The beanbags can be found at http://www.amharickids.com/ The books I bought from Ethiopia Reads, I think.
Thank you everyone for all your love and support. Rachel, thank you for steering us to think about international adoption in the beginning. Ken, thank you for challenging me with eternal things instead of material things. Shad, thanks for having us ponder if Sarah should go. (she did) We couldn't have done it without all or any of you!

Can they get any cuter?

Sarah and I were trying on the girls Ethiopian dresses for their shower on Monday night. We dressed them Monday morning to see if the dresses would fit. Anna's length fit perfectly, but was a little big in the chest/shoulder area. Adah's was too long which is okay because she isn't walking and the length didn't really matter. We took them out to our new patio to try and take some pictures. They turned out so cute!

Adah Derartu
Sisters
I love you!

Anna Mihret
I was spinning off to the side to try and get her to move around. She did it! This is mid-twirl.
Uh Oh!

Adah's First Birthday

Last Wednesday, September 12th was our youngest daughter's first birthday! We celebrated by having our Mommy & Me group over for cupcakes & fellowship. Joe made the cupcakes from a mix and the frosting from scratch.

Happy Birthday sweet Adah!

She grabs/rugbs her ear/s when she's uncomfortable. She doesn't like the flame.


Sister Anna enjoying her cupcake.

Pictures, Pictures, and more Pictures!

Arianne (Jake's fiance) and Anna
Jake & his friend Chris
Miranda & Arianne
Adah
Jared
Ethiopian Coca-Cola at the Hilton

My sister-in-law Debbie.
My sister-in-law Betty and my niece Marisa
John and his cousin, my niece Kailie
Marisa & her daughter Kailie
Papa, Adah & Anna watching Monday night football. Mom, Anna & Adah
Mom & Adah
Grandma, Adah and Anna
Miranda and Adah at the KMP picnic
James and Adah this afternoon Every homeschooling mom's dream-Four of her students working on a state of California puzzle just because they want to.
My puzzle that I bought at a homeschooling swap meet. What better way to learn the counties of California?
Papa and Adah-she has finally warmed up to him.
Anna and Miranda