Meeting the family

On advice from adoption experts we asked family to give us some time alone to get the boys settled with us before coming to visit. We are so thankful for the 10 weeks we had alone and we see the wisdom in not overloading the boys. Now we have a summer full of family coming to meet the boys. We just had our first wave and things went really well.

Our niece Mariah came for 10 days. She was a great first visitor as she is a laid back teenager. We needed this as Yared did exhibit a lot of negative adoption behaviors for the first three days she was here. He was super clingy to her, hugging and kissing her non-stop. He was also incredibly hyper. Now I have told this to some people and they are like, "Oh all kids get like that." No! When I say hyper I mean our gentle calm son went berserk. He literally jumped all day long. We finally talked to him about saving most of his hugs and kisses for Mommy, Daddy and Nati. We explained that he could give others a hug and blow a kiss but that we didn't need to be hugging non-stop. He got the idea and gradually as the hugging stopped so did the jumping.

I must confess it is a bit exhausting trying to figure out what is adoption stuff and what is normal. It gets more tiring when everyone who has never adopted keeps telling you not to worry and those who have adopted tell you to be on your guard. Those of you who read this blog and are/have adopted know the fear of attachment issues that lurk all the time. Those of you who haven't adopted might not truly understand that this is a underlying fear in all our parenting choices and actions. If you see us with our boys, everything looks great. They look happy and content. We look like we know what we are doing, for the most part:). However, there are numerous stories of children appearing to be fine and then regressing later on. But I digress from my purpose of this post. Just a side thought.

The boys loved having Mariah here. Once Yared got his affection under control he just enjoyed having another playmate. He handled her leaving fine too. He was sad but there were no tears or signs of trauma in his actions. Here is a picture of us on the front steps.

Two days later, Grandma and Grandpa Leppard arrived. The boys did great. They didn't show any weird behaviors. They did fall in love with the Grandparents. They had a blast playing with Grandma and Grandpa. Here are some shots of that visit.

Here we rode a paddle boat to meet Daddy for lunch. I just love this picture.

Our picnic lunch site.

Grandma entertaining the boys. We buried them in the sand.
Yared LOVED this game. Oh yeah and so did Grandpa and Daddy.

I was trying to get Yared and Nati to laugh but it looks like I got Grandpa and Grandma:).

Nap time.
Grandma bought the boys some American Flag T-shirts. She got a matching one.
It is so neat to see the boys learning what it is to really have a family. We can't wait for them to meet all their other cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. We are so proud of them and love letting others get to see the beautiful treasures that they are.

Father's Day

Another first for the Leppard family is celebrating Father's Day for Ben. Ben has done an amazing job at transitioning to parenthood. He is more patient with these little ones than I have ever seen him be with anyone or anyone. He is fun, loving, consistent and fair. I thought he would be a good Dad but he has turned out to be an AMAZING Dad. Happy Father's Day Ben!! We have Ben's parents here for a visit so we celebrated Father's Day for Ben and Grandpa with a huge breakfast and some presents. We had coffee cake and the boys were rather excited to have cake for breakfast. Here is Ben with his boys.

I also want to celebrate my Dad today. In the rush of the summer visitors I forgot to mail him a card so he got an email one. I am so proud to call him Dad. He is one of a kind and I love his wild adventures, dreaming spirit, and ability to think outside the box. I love that he now has sparkly white hair to match his sparkly blue eyes. Daddy for all you have been to me and continue to be... Thanks!! I love you.

Learning English

Yared's English is amazing. Sometimes I forget he doesn't speak it fluently and I talk too fast.

Here are some of his words that have made me chuckle. We were driving home and listening to the Christian radio station. There was some praise song on with a really high squeaky voice praising "O Most High". We were less than a mile home and I realized that Yared was singing along to the music. He had never heard this song so I really listened to what he was saying. Every time the high squeaky voice said "OOO Moooost High" He was singing in a high squeaky voice, "Allllll moooooost home". He thought it was a song about being almost home.

At lunch I made him pizza, which he loves. He looks down at his plate and says, "Mommy, this one is not so bad." I have no idea where he learned that expression.

I walked the boys to our local library where the whole top floor is dedicated to kids. I had the double stroller so we used the elevator. When it came time to leave Yared kept saying, "Lets go alligator." I was confused until he pointed to the elevator, which if you think about it does sound like alligator.:).

Today he really got me. Our weather changes daily, it can be hot one day and cool the next. Today was a huge drop in temperature and it was cooler outside than inside. When we walked outside into the cooler air, Yared says, "Mommy the AC is on." and he points up to the sky:).

Nati is also learning words but it is totally random what he has learned. He knows Nana for banana but it really means any fruit. He knows the sign for more but in his world it means water and it is him shoving his two pointer fingers together as fast as he can. He says, "Da ta" which means don't touch. He says Ma all day long which means me, the cat, help, up, look, go and anything else he doesn't know the word for. He clearly says "Mam ma" for the cat whose name is Mamba. That is annoying as he won't say Mama for me:). He says Da for down. He says "lou" for loud. He is a complete mimic and repeats sounds we make and do all day long. If I grunt while lifting something heavy, I will hear the sound coming out of him. He heard a lady laughing with a rather manic giggle the other day and he started copying her laugh and had it down perfectly. I think he does it without even thinking as often he is playing with cars and making weird sounds that if you think back are really an imitation of something we have said or sound we made.

They are amazing with what they have already learned and it is so fun to hear new words and expressions almost every day.

WE LOVE THESE BOYS!!

Washington DC

A week ago we went to Washington DC for a night. Our niece, Mariah, was visiting from CA and wanted to see the sights. We actually lucked out on weather as it wasn't TOO hot or rainy. The White House.... there was a demonstration going on outside it and Yared was a bit scared of the "angry voices".

The boys getting ready for a day of walking.

Mariah taking in the view and enjoying the sunshine.

Daddy and Yared resting.
As you can tell Nati loves to escape the stroller and get a ride up high.




Yared entertaining himself as the Washington Monument. He LOVES to roll down hills.

How to keep your 4 year old moving at the end of the day.... make it a race.
If you click on this picture you will see the sign and laugh at our 5 11" niece pretending to get knocked down.
We ended the day with dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. It was delicious. Yared ate so much he felt sick. Then he tried to accuse Daddy of feeding him too much. He looked at me with big sad eyes and said, "Daddy gave me five." In Yared's world 5 is the biggest number so obviously it was Daddy's fault for giving him too much. We didn't mention that Yared fed himself the whole time:).

Ladies Man

This last weekend we took our niece up to DC for a quick visit. I have some pictures to post but I had to put this story up before I forgot it.  

We were in the Air and Space Smithsonian.  Yared and I were looking at old airline posters.  We saw one for an African airline that showed a Maasi woman in traditional clothes and beads, African animals, and a safari jeep with a bikini clad tourist next to it.  Yared was admiring all the pictures and then he says, "Mommy, Yared likes this one."  He was pointing to the jeep, which is no surprise as the boys love cars.  "You like the Jeep?" I say to him. "No, this one." and he points to the bikini clad tourist.  Ahhhh I think inside and try to move on when he smiles at me and say, "Mommy, no pants."  This what he says to any lady he sees in a swim suit.  

I think we have a ladies man already.  Oh NO!!!

Our First Popsicle

It sure is fun introducing the boys to new things.  One day this week we had their first popsicle. They loved it.  As usual I had to chronicle it with the camera. 

The first bite and they decided they liked them.

Going down quickly. 

All Gone Mommy!!

"Show me your tongues boys." 

Then Yared ran to get the boys bikes to ride.  Nati was upset that he couldn't bring his own bike, he is just too small to do it yet.  He sure can break your heart when he cries but he got over it as soon as he saw his bike.  

More Lunchtime Chatter

Yared loves claymation so we dug through our videos and found Wallace and Gromit for him to watch.  He can't get enough of them.  He randomly picks up lines from the DVDs and says them over and over.  This is his latest line.  Sorry for the enchilada faces. 

Nati is really putting words and actions together to communicate with us.  Here are some of his latest tricks:).   I didn't video his other trick of flopping on the ground like a limp string bean and crying when he doesn't get his way.  You can just imagine that one.