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The simple things

Everyday in our home is a new learning experience. People keep asking "how is it going and how are the kids doing." I pause and think for a minute and then usually say "All things considered, it is going pretty well." When you prepare for an adoption you are required to read various books, take several different training programs and they prepare you for the worst(scare you to death, quite frankly!) Although, each day poses it own set of challenges whether it is with the food, going to the store, going to bed, brushing teeth, flushing the toilet, or the language barrier,it, at times, can be trying and frustrating. You stop and think.Wow! what a change we have thrown everyone in this house into!

But then, there are simple things that put it all in perspective.. Like last night. We had had a long day of playing, kids not getting along, shopping, dad screwing up the breakfast, and just being worn out(that happens a lot more these days.) It came time for dinner and neither Susan nor I felt like cooking or trying to figure out what to get the girls to try next. So we made PB&J and everyone ate their dinner and we all sat down and had ice cream. If you are wondering how many flavors you need to satisfy this family of six. Well it is Six! Chocalate, Cookies N Cream, Strawberry with real strawberries, strawberry yogurt, Vanilla Bean, and Sherbert. Everyone ate their cones and as I sat looked at the table of 4 cute kids and 1 wonderful wife, and thought, well among all of this change and sometimes chaos, these are the moments like this that remind me of why we made this decision to grow our family. The food will get better, the communication will get better, and being a family will grow stronger. In the mean time, it is the simple things, like PB&J and ice cream,that will help to bridge that gap.

Baby Steps....

Happy Valentine's Day! Today, we explained to the girls what a holiday was...well we tried.. Hannah understood as we discussed holidays with her.

Tigist is feeling much better and is pretty much back to herself. The "Tigist Tude" is back as we like to call it. She is eating some today and hopefully will continue to get back to normal. What a challenge it has been to care for someone you can't communicate with verbally. You can only go off her facial expressions and what Hannah is able to translate or explain for us. Tigist is posing quite a challenge for us but Susan is quite good with her and firm in her directions. I am getting better(I am the pushover in the parenting.HA!)

The picture is a good example of progress. Susan was able to sit down with Tigist, while watching Clifford the Big Red Dog, and do her hair. She has not been able to do this since we were in Ethiopia and the ladies at the guest house were able to help her. Hannah is doing great and is a big help to us. She is learning the ways of our household and is a very good girl. We went to WalMart yesterday and I think Hannah was overwhelmed by all of the stuff, but she listened to me very well and although she wanted to put a ton of stuff in the wagon, I would tell her no, and she would put it back. So, as the title says, we are taking baby steps and things are going well with Hannah and today has been a good day with Tigist. It won't always be easy and we will have high's and low's, but I know we will get through it. Please pray for us and the girls that God leads us and gives us the wisdom and grace to work through it all.

Video Diary of our Trip

Here is a video of the pics from our trip. We took tons of pics but these are the ones we thought were the best of the kids. The song is "Beautiful Day" by U2 which is a song I saw on a friends video and I couldn't think of a better song to describe these pics.

We are home

Not much more I can think of saying right now.  36 hours of travelling and over 9000 miles. We are home. Lots of snow for the girls to have fun in tomorrow.  They love their room.