Leaves

The leaf raking season started in New England and the kids are having a blast. It was a beautiful day today and we all spent the entire afternoon working in the garden and playing around.

Emma decided to sweep the backyard.

Even Jo loved the leaves.

Boys will be boys. Here they are stuffing their sweatshirts with leaves and having sumo fights.

Sam lost another tooth the other day.

Happy fall everybody.

Do not know who you will vote for?

Emma has our vote :)

Sunday Reflections

Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Romans 3:20-24

New Hair Pruducts

I have not written about Jo's hair in a long time. I have been using all kinds of products trying to find what will work best for my little girl with so much hair.

I love the blog world and I did look around for any suggestions when it comes to hair care. A few weeks ago I ordered, for the first time, hair products from Carol's Daughter and I will have to say I love their products. However I did my research on other people's blogs and I asked a lot of questions. So here their are my new hair products: Tui Herbal Shampoo

Tui Hair Smoothie

Black - Vanilla Leave in Conditioner

Hair milk

Mango Melange Shea Souffle

I wash Jo's hair once a week and here is a picture of our daily products we use (only once a day and it depends what hair style she is wearing). You can see

Suave Detangler (cheap at Target and it works great)

Hair Milk (from Carol's Daughter)

Kick for Curls (Blended Beauty)

Satin Style (Blended Beauty)

For Jo's skin I use a goat milk lotion I found in our grocery store and Mango Melange Shea Souffle from Carol's Daughter. Love them both.

My little girl has a lots of hair.

Let me know if you have any questions. I will try my best to answer them.

Are you from Ethiopia?

Last weekend when we were at the soccer fields talking to our friends. On the way to the boys game we happened to stop next to an African American father who was watching his son play. He was a very big guy. All of a sudden before we knew what was going on Emma came up to him and with her sweet high pitch voice she asked him:

"Are you from Ethiopia?"

You can imagine we all froze for a moment. But he was very nice and told her he was not and that maybe his great, great, great, great, grandmother was. Jordan was sitting in the stroller and we explained to him that Emma's sister is from Ethiopia. He smiled and said it was nice and he was fine with Emma's question.

Jordan has been home with us for over 7 months and once in a while we run into "African-Americans". I would have to say that we get two different reactions. One is from American (African-Americans) they typically say that it is nice that we adopted her. On the other hand when an African-American person from Africa finds out they start hugging Jo and kissing her and they are so glad we adopted her. I think that it is amazing that you can see they have a some kind of connection with her.

the girls colouring during the boys soccer game Since Emma was full of questions that afternoon she was on a roll and this happened only half hour later. I was not present so I did not see it but this is what Fil said happened. Emma started jumping up and down singing:

"I see HO HO (Ho Ho is for Santa clause)"

It was an uncle who came to watch his nephew play soccer and the boy happened to be on the boys soccer team. Now this man did look a lot like a Santa Clause (beard and all) so Emma was not that far off. He was very sweet about it and even stopped after the game to say hi. Emma was speechless as she thought for sure he was HO HO.

We got two good laughs within an hours time.

Sunday Reflections - One Year Ago Today

One year ago today we got "the call"

(You can read our referral story here) -------------------------------------------------------------------

Just as is the nature of light to shine, so it is the nature of God to reveal himself. True, he hides himself from the wise and clever, but only because they are too proud and do not want to know him; he reveals himself to 'babies', that is, to those humble enough to receive his self-disclosure... the chief reason why people do not know God is not because he hides from them, but because they hide from him.

--John Stott, Between Two Worlds Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith- to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.

Romans 16:25-27

Adoption Time Line

02/07 -Paperwork began

03/17 - Home study starts

03/29 - Finger prints

04/22 - Home study done

05/14 - Medical paper work done

05/18 - I-797C approved

05/24 - Send dossier to AWAA

05/31 - Dossier authenticaded

06/15 - Dossier in Ethiopia

10/19 - Got a referral

10/22 - Officially accepted the referral

1/17/08- Court date set for Feb 8th

2/11/08- Court date(#2) set for Feb 25th

2/25/08-Jordan is OURS!!!!

3/15 - We Made It ( day 1)

3/15 - Meeting Jordan (day 1)

3/16 - Sunday Morning (day 2)

3/16 - Sunday Afternoon (day 2)

3/17 - Monday (day 3)

3/18 - Tuesday (day 4)

3/19 - Sucessful Embassy Appointment (day 5)

3/20 - Thursday (day 6)

Thursday - Lion ZOO (day 6)

3/21 - Friday (day 7)

Friday - Mercado

3/22 - Saturday (day 8)

4/30 - Readoption in US

5/28 - New Passport

All I want for Christmas is my TWO FRONT TEETH

Today's blog entry is brought to you by the letters N and O

As you can see Jordan is not a very big fan of the word NO.

She is having a rough morning. Two new teeth are coming in and she has runny nose.

Beach in the Fall

When I saw the temperatures for today I knew I had a one more chance to take the kids to the beach. It was a last minute thing but we did not care. After Emma's dance and school we headed to the coast (we live only 40 minutes from the beach).
It was a beautiful day and we had a good time. I love the smell of the ocean and how sand feels on my bare feet.

The kids enjoyed every minute of it.
I did cut Emma's hair by the way (again). As you an see it did not help. She has my type of hair (fine) and it is all over the place.
Jo on the other hand has lots of hair.
She had fun playing at the park by the beach. Swings are her favorite.
Sam had fun going down the slide with his sister.

They all fit on one seesaw.

It was a fun day for us and I am glad we went. The drive through New England is like driving in paintings. Everything you see in calendars and books we now see daily all around us. We all love this time of the year.

Homemade playdough

This is how I found my girls after school this morning. Who knows what they were up to in their kitchen. I have never made play dough at home. I got a recipe a long time ago and finally today I tried to make some. We had fun and the boys thought it was a big science experiment. We got to mix our own colours and since it is fall we made orange, few greens and brown.
All of them enjoyed making a pumpkin patch.

Nate was on a roll with his own pumpkin patch. I kept Jo away from the dough since I was sure she would have loved to taste it.

Laughner's

We were able to visit with the Laughners again this weekend. It was great to see them one last time before they head to Ethiopia to pick up their boy.

As you can see Jo made a new best friend. Lori won her heart over with cookies. I cannot wait to see D. playing with Jordan next time we get together (he is only few weeks older).

Please pray for the Laughners as they are waiting for news regarding the ruling from their court date. They should have some news later this week and if everything goes well they will be in Ethiopia November 1st.

Sunday Reflections

When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them," The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negev. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.

Psalm 126:1-6

educational freebie sites

Who doesn't like Free stuff?

Today the Heart of the Matter Friday Meme is:

"What great educational freebie sites do you frequently visit?"

here is my list of few

Lapbooking 101

A to Z Teacher Stuff Printable Patterns

Printable Pages and Worksheets

Bible Activities

Bible Coloring Pages, Bible Verse Cards, Christian Lapbooks, Christian File Folder Games, Felt Board Sets, Finger Puppets, Sunday School Lessons and Homeschooling Curriculum, Bible ABC's and tons of fun Bible Activities and Bible Games

DLTK's Printable Crafts for Kids

printable children's crafts, coloring pages and more including projects for holidays, educational themes and some of our children's favorite cartoon characters.

ESL Teacher Resources

First-School Preschool Activities and Crafts

features free fun preschool lesson plans, educational early childhood activities, printable crafts, worksheets, calendar of events and other resources for children of preschool age

Free Stuff 4 Kids

Sites for Teachers

The Teacher's Corner

Teacher Resources and Lesson Plans

TLSBOOKS
free printable worksheets

Usborne Quicklinks

World altlas

printable maps

Wikipedia

the free encyclopedia

Dictionary

Let's Explore

Memories from Ethiopia - people of Addis Ababa

I only have a few close up pictures of people in Ethiopia. They do not like to be photographed by strangers and most of them ask for money (a lot of money if you ask me). I was told to give them at least 10 birr each (that was around $1 at that time). I do have many pictures of children from various orphanages we were able to visit but I am not allowed to share them (Ethiopia has a very strict policies about posting pictures of children on the internet).






I got these pictures on the way down from Entono mountain. These women look for wood all day long. It pays just enough for them to feed their families for that day.

Even though people did not like to be photographed we were able to talk to many of them. They are all very sweet and very proud of their heritage. Most of them were very happy about Jordan and her being with us (we did get few odd looks). Other then that we were well received where ever we went.