Feelin’ A Little Loca

We’ve had a lot going on.

This Spring, I am in Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) studying the book of Isaiah.  I love it and God is teaching me so much! 

Jon and I are also taking Perspectives together. It’s a class on world missions from a Biblical, cultural, historical and strategical perspective. Talk about life-changing!  I took it in college, but it is so wonderful that we can take it together. 

On top of this, we have a trip planned, Jon, The Littles and I. We are soon heading

South of the Border!

I know, I know, it seems crazy, more international travel with babies, but you see, there is a whole side of our family that The Littles haven’t met. 

For more details on our Mexican family, click here or here.

We are so excited to be going back to Magdalena for a visit and hope the time change doesn’t result in disaster for The Littles or for mama…

But until then, we have some exciting stuff happening!

Come back Tuesday for a

CONTEST GIVEAWAY!!!

A Bit Late, But Happy Birthday Bud!

My brother, Jay, is living in Mexico for the semester.  He is having a great time and keeps us updated on his blog, Los Arcos De Vida.

We have been skyping with Jay and the girls love it! They go to the computer and Little J even says “day-day”.

We celebrated here and skyped Uncle Jay…

The party would have been much more fun if you would have been here “Day-Day”! (And if we would have eaten cake…it was too close to bedtime though).

This picture cracks me up. After Uncle Chad got back from Bulgaria we all got together to hear of the work that God had done and is continuing to do and we skyped Jay.  He took a screen shot of us.

Yes, that is the whole family talking to Jay, (plus Jordan). 

“Up”

It’s adorable. The Littles carry books around and wait for someone to read to them.  At the opportune moment, they say “up” and it is really hard to resist!

Ethiopian Fellowship…

We have been invited to be a part of a group of Ethiopian adoptive families and it only recently worked out for us to go and meet everyone!  It was so fun and I had “met” many of the families online, but in person is much better than blogs!  :)

Here are some of the kiddos.  The Littles were not so excited about holding still for this. :)

We look forward to grow with this group as we celebrate what God has done and our children continue to grow.

Winter Is Going to Kill Us

If only I would have known what this winter would bring, I would have bought stock in Baby Tylenol.

(A sweet Winter moment)

THINK SPRING!!!

Ninja Baby

Watch out world.  Daddy taught them to say “Hi-ya”.

Dream Big

An Excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech…

“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

The Problem With A Tucked In Shirt

We were getting ready to go up to bathtime and The Littles escaped without their shirts.  They love to be naked. The more clothes off, the more giddy they are.

They got distracted with trying to find daddy’s belly button.  His shirt was tucked in and they couldn’t get to it. 

This picture captures the moment when they realized that they couldn’t find Daddy’s belly button…

Queridas Amigas

Last week, The Littles and I had a great group of visitors, some dear friends and their children came by for the afternoon.

And I am not sure what got into the littles, but they LOVED all the visitors!

These two little boys cracked me up.  They don’t see each other often, but when they do, it is a joyous reunion!

The poor Dora scooter…it has gotten quite a workout the past few weeks.  First daddy and now barrel rolls. :)

The Littles spent the first half of the visit chasing the big boys and the next part running away. :)

Gracias, mis hermanas, por visitarnos!

She’s Got Some Style

From early on, we noticed that Little J loved to carry shoes around the house and would giggle when we put on her shoes.

Little J’s latest interest is hats or “hot” as she says. She brings us things to put on her head and then leaves it on!

Her is a sampling of a few days last week.

Good thing we have been growing our dress up box!

Along Comes Mr Crocodile

The Littles surprise me with their imitations. One day I saw Little J reading this book by herself doing all the motions. She wasn't totally on her for the this reading, but cute nonetheless!

Merry Ganna

Today is Ethiopia’s Christmas-Ganna. It looks a lot different then our Christmas (no emphasis on the giving of gifts) but it celebrates the same thing-the birth of Christ.

We desire to be intentional about celebrating the girls’ heritage and something that was very noticeable while in Ethiopia is a richness of the culture and a continual acknowledgement of their history.

Because I think the girls are too young to appreciate my feeble efforts at injera and doro wat (and because I  lack energy) we are simply going to put berbere on our dinner tonight and talk about Christmas and Ethiopia today.

They have some great customs that we will probably try to recreate in the future, but for now, if you are interested in learning more, check out this link: http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/christmas-traditions-around-the-world-ga4.htm

While in ET, we bought the smallest traditional garb we could find and I decided to celebrate with it today.  Still a little big, but cute nonetheless. :)

The Littles actually loved wearing the dresses (probably because I was exclaiming how cute they were the whole time) but getting them to hold still for pictures is a whole ‘nother ball of wax.

I resorted to giving them Honeycomb.  I thought it was a good idea…but then…

“Does she seriously think we are going to hold still while she has the box of Honeycomb?”

“Let’s get her!”

 

Merry Ganna my sweet little babies.

It’s Our Referralversary

A Year Ago Today

January 6th is a big milestone.

Remember that two days before we had prayed for two children in response to God’s prompting.  January 4th also marked the day that our dossier arrived in Ethiopia and we were officially on the waiting list.

(Don’t remember? Click Here)

I slept in on January 6th, recovering from the roadtrip back home.  I got a phone call from our social worker soon after I had woken up.  I wasn’t surprised to hear from her as I thought she was going to tell me more about our dossier. 

We chitchatted a tiny bit and then Leigh Anne launched into the reason that she called.

“Amy, we have twin baby girls in Ethiopia, about a month old and they need a mommy and daddy…would you be interested?”

I literally fell to the ground, on my knees.

“Umm.  Amy, are you crying"?”

And I was.  I was crying as I was in shock and as I knew that God had just brought a miracle.  That is my God.  I told our SW how my God delights in the impossible.  I told her the whole story: God’s prompting, our lack of faith but desperation for it, our preparation for the long wait...

I told her to send the referral and called Jon, he didn’t answer.  So, I called him again. :)  The start of our conversation went something like this…

Me: Babe…sob…ummm…

Jon: Baby, are you crying? 

I finally could tell him about the phone call with our SW and we rejoiced to God together.  He was in the middle of a meeting and told me not to open that e-mail until he was there “It’s like we are in labor and I have to take you to the hospital, wait for me!”

He went back into the meeting and his coworkers told him to go home immediately.

We danced around the living room when he got home.  I mean, praising God LOUDLY with abandon, jumping around, hugging, crying, shouting.  We finally made it up to our computer and this is what was waiting for us…

 

and then, I was scared…

I Married A Good Sport

Once again confirmed.  I was in the kitchen and heard lots of giggling. I went out to see what all the commotion was about…

The Littles were chasing after Daddy who was on the Dora scooter wearing a flower headband. 

I love my life.

Something to Celebrate

I have always joked that God knew I need something to look forward to, so I could make it through winter and that is why my birthday is in early March and now our anniversary in February. We know have a few other big days that we celebrate in January. ;)

A Year Ago Today Part II…

(Missed Part I? Click Here)

January 4th.  The last day of our vacation.  We knew that our dossier would be going to Ethiopia soon and Jon and I talked of trying to change our immigration age limits so we could bring home two children.  (Unbeknownst to us until a few days later was that on January 4th, our dossier arrived in country).

When your dossier arrives in ET, it begins the next segment of waiting on a referral.  We expected this to take months for a toddler boy referral.

After much conversation, that night we poured our hearts out to God, telling Him how our hearts felt so heavy to bring home two children and asking Him for two kids.  We also prayed forgiveness for our weak faith in this area, we just knew it was nearly impossible.

To Be Continued…

A year ago today, I had no idea that Jon would be better at working with The Littles’ hair…

Seriously, he has so much patience for it!

The Littles with their beautiful curls.

In Other News:

My little brothers aren’t so little anymore.  They are actually out traveling the world. God has grown these boys into incredible men.  It has been amazing to watch the transformation.

(I will use pictures from the summer to give us all a few reminders of warmer temperatures). :)

Jay is studying abroad in Mexico.  I think he will come back with better Spanish then me!  He met his host family yesterday and said they are a riot.

And these pictures gave me a great laugh…A picture of Chad and Tadd during the “Patriotic Pull”.  Chad can’t do anything about this picture because he is in Bulgaria for the majority of January working on developing agriculture there for the sake of missions.

Chad is in the stylin’ aqua and purple life jacket.

Safe travels guys, we will miss you!

Nutritious and Delicious…

Hi Everyone!  Happy New Year! 

I am in need of your experience and wisdom (once again).  The Littles have become very picky eaters.  Our favorite food one day is untouched the next. We are also seeing a lot of what I’ll call “twinfluence”. If one Little decides she doesn’t want something, the other Little takes her cues and also refuses it. We haven’t had teeth to help us, but…

The Littles are getting teeth! 

This is what Little A did when I asked to see her teeth. :)  If you can look carefully, they both have one bottom tooth that has popped through and their canine teeth have popped! 

Don’t believe me, here, let me get closer.

Needless to say, these teeth aren’t very helpful for their eating.  :)

Meals used to be a lot more fun and now The Littles refuse most of their food. I feel like they aren’t eating enough at their meals and they definitely want to snack all day.

Please, give me some ideas on what to feed children that is nutritious, delicious and doesn’t require teeth!

On top of this, we have taught the girls some sign language.  This is the sign for “all done” and we see this with lots of food after one bite. 

If we try to keep giving them the food, they look at me so frustrated. “Don’t you know what all done means?” 

How do I explain to babies that they can’t be all done with everything besides cookies and ice cream???