Pumpkining

Yared told me last week that he wanted to go pumpkining. How can you resist that sweet request so we drove down the street to the local church pumpkin patch. He knew RIGHT away which one he wanted. It was a bit deformed but he didn't care. We then went to our friend's house to carve them up.

Nati built this snow pumpkin by himself.
Yared became the head.
Let the carving begin...

Of course Yared had to smell it and....
the face says it all:).

Notice how the kids are all off doing other stuff and the two engineers are left working:).

The final product in daylight.

And at night with four happy little campers.

Adoption is FINALIZED

On Oct 13th we finalized the boy's adoption. As we adopted them without meeting them in person first, you are required to readopt them in America to get citizenship. We had thought we needed to do this for our tax credit but it turns out we didn't. We are still super glad to have everything finalized and this time we added the boys into the Happy Dance mix.

Yared's Thoughts

We followed our regular routine today... Sesame Street followed by breakfast. Here is our breakfast conversation. Notice my stellar response to most questions.....remember it is early

Yared - Mommy, the elephant on Sesame St. was funny.

Me - Horatio? Yeah he is silly.

Yared - He's big. Is he bigger than you Mommy?

Me - Yup

Yared - Is he bigger than everyone?

Me - Yup

Yared - Is he bigger than Jesus?

Me - Not really.

Yared - Jesus made elephants?

Me - Yup

Yared - Jesus gave them air?

Me - Do you mean he helps them breathe?

Yared - Yes.

Me - Then yes, Jesus gave them air.

Yared - Jesus gave elephants bones too?

Me - Yeah he did.

Yared - He gave me bones as well?

Me - Yup

Yared - Jesus has bones too?

Me - Yes

Yared - Otherwise he will float like a jelly fish.

Me - laughing as I grab a pen and write down the conversation.

Yared - I'm funny? You like what I say?

Me - Yeah I like the way you think.

Yared - Mommy you making a face like this (proceeds to make a strange face with moving lips) when you use that pen.

I decided to type this up right away so as I am on the computer, they are finishing breakfast and Yared has not stopped talking the whole time... to who? To Nati who has no idea what is being said:). I just asked him what he was saying and he said, "Mom I am just entertaining Nati."

Bunna Tribe and palest member of Hunter tribe

I love this picture. I remember seeing it back in my parent's slides but whenever I went looking for it again I couldn't find it. My mom sent a copy of it to me this morning. This is me as a baby with two Bunna women. Yared saw it and wanted to know if I was brown as a baby. I think he meant did I live with brown people:).

Packpacks

We are going on a plane trip next month with the boys. In order to be fully prepared to entertain small boys on a long ride, we ordered them back packs or as they call them packpacks. They arrived in the mail today and boy were they a hit. My plan is to have toys and treats in them to be pulled out randomly throughout the ride. Ben is convinced that we will end up each carrying our own carryon, a child and now a child's back pack. We will see who is right:).

Dedication

Yesterday we had the boys dedicated at our church. This is not child baptism but rather a commitment to raise them knowing Jesus and to do our best as Christian parents to make good choices for them. We have waited so LONG for kids and we truly believe God brought us these particular two boys to us. They are such a blessing, so for us it was also a chance to stand up and say Thank you to Jesus for these boys. We tell them they are our gifts from God. Yared loves to be thought of as a present. We had purchased little outfits for them and some shirts for us when we were in Ethiopia. Our friend let me borrow her dress so we had the whole shebang to wear on Sunday. Here are some shots of the dedication.

Auntie Marian

We have been so blessed by an outpouring of friends and family this summer. We have a had a total of 15 people come and visit us this summer and meet the boys. It has been great. The last visitor was my oldest sister. She came this last week and we had so much fun. I was sixteen when her first daughter was born so it has been ages since we have had time together where she didn't have kids. Of course now I have kids, so it was an interesting role reversal. The boys loved Auntie Marian. So much so that she was able to babysit for our FIRST date since we got the boys. She is also really into taking pictures so I finally got some pictures of me with the boys:).

Here are some of our adventures.

Ok this is a funny picture. We were playing in a tree and Yared pointed to this knot and said, "Look Mommy a little hiney."
Practicing our muscle man look.

Nati discovered his pockets this week. He calls them his paba and won't heed warnings that it is not a good idea to keep hands in his pockets, so right after this shot he took a header and couldn't get up without help.

We are swimming. Evidence that I am still as weird as ever even though a mom:).

We took a trip to Williamsburg. Yared wasn't feeling so hot but Nati had a blast running and talking to nearly everyone he saw.




We went to a picnic where the boys were able to get their face painted. They loved it but Yared had a tearful time when it started melting off.

Super Models

Need we say more... they are just so cute and so so so so much fun.