LOTS O'PICTURES & UPDATE BULLET-STYLE

we've had many a friend and family member asking for updates so to be as concise as possible -I'm going to update bullet-style!

*the boys have been moved to CHI's Transition Home already. They will stay here until we come to get them.

*when are we going? -good question! The US Embassy has changed their rules and instead of a 4-6 week notice of your Embassy Date (the day we HAVE TO be there), it is now a 7-10 day notice.

that means we will be told to go roughly 4-7 days prior to needing to leave.

*we did get confirmation today that our agency reps in Ethiopia are submitting paperwork for us to have an April 27th appointment. It is not certain, but will hopefully work out.


*our YWAM director just returned home from nearly 4 weeks in Ethiopia. This afternoon she emailed us an update on the boys. They seem to be doing well despite all the transitions they've gone thru this past month.

*Eyob, our 12 year old, is my size now! oh my! the boy is 5'3"...though much thinner than I :)

*Bruk is just 1/2 inch shorter than Andrew! I believe they'll be wearing the same size clothing...I might need to re-do the closets and dresser as I was expecting him to be smaller than Andrew!

*I'm in full nesting mode and am not quite sure how I'm going to get everything done in 3.5 weeks.

*we're trying to learn some basic Amharic words/phrases -talk about a "crash course"!


and on top of all of the adoption stuff -we're dealing with everyday-regular life stuff too!
which brings me to the pictures.

They chronicle last week -mostly this past weekend.

this is how you'll find Andrew 90% of his awake time right now -reading.

At our garage sale someone had donated a St*r W*rs Early Reader.
He read it 8-10 times a day....so we figured it was a safe investment to buy him a few more.

The 3 new ones arrived in the mail last week -his nose is stuck in one of them all day!

the 24th was Becca's 5th birthday. we kept it fairly low key-having 3 of her cousins over to spend the night.

John's mom sent a big box of gifts -Becca's absolute favorite was her H*nn*h Mont*na jammies.

This past Saturday was crazy busy for us.

It started out with Andrew's first football game of the new season.
If you can click on the pic -you'll see Andrew on the left bending down...and John on the right wearing a "coach" shirt.

The head coach is the dude in the middle. We met him last season -he wasn't the coach but told us he was going to coach this season and we thought he'd be great to put Andrew with.

Before the season even started, he called John and asked if John would be the assistant.

It's going to be quite a bit of work, but John is enjoying it and I think it's great for Andrew to have his daddy on the field with him.

the girls running around before the game

just had to include this -look! she is almost fully bent in 2

After Andrew's game it was home for 2 hours and then off to Rebecca's 2nd soccer game of the season.

She has BEGGED us to let her play soccer~
so we acquiesced for the Spring season cuz it's only 6 games.

the first 2 practices and the first game were more like "social hour" for her. :)
she was enjoying making new friends, skipping around the soccer field....just not really into it.

last week I had a little talk with her and told her that she really need to try hard all the time-that God tells us to do everything unto Him ~that we didn't care if she was the best player out there...just that she needed to hustle all the time. I tried to give her a little pep talk about being aggressive, etc. :)

Saturday -she was a beast on the field!

seriously.

we don't know what happened cuz we fully expected the meek little socialite to show up on the field...but nope-the Becca that showed up played her little heart out

she did everything the coaches asked of her...volunteering to go in even though she was tired....chasing after the ball....showing some skills NONE of us knew she had.

We were so proud of her!!!

and now the coaches are oohing and aahhhing over her too. :)

then straight from Becca's game it was home for the "March Birthday Party".

3 of my sister's kids and Becca are all born within 10 days of each other, so this year we decided to have just 1 big family gathering.

Becca's cake -she LOVES my sister's chihuahua's...so she asked for a chihuahua cake...my mom did the next best thing -a dog bone with a stuffed chihuahua. :)

Curi*ous Ge*rge was for Jeremiah -who has the exact same birthday as Becca -the 24thth.

Julia and Janae shared the berry trifle instead of having separate little cakes.

this pic is kinda cool -not sure why so much light is on Jeremiah -but thought it looked neat

Janae and Julia along with Happyness -the daughter of the refugee living with my sister's family.

and yesterday the kids decided they wanted to give the pool a try. outside, the weather is in the mid-80's...but the pool is still pretty chilly. :)

but they all got in!

we have a fairly busy week this week as I try to finish up "spring cleaning" around here and then I'll start organizing "stuff" for our trip -command central needs to be tidied up!

CELEBRATING EYOB & BRUK

**just a quick note that I'll be removing the pic of the boys in the previous post. I hate to do it, but rules and guidelines in Ethiopian adoption keep changing. Our agency rep said it was fine to post their pic but the director in charge of their care said it might be better if we waited closer to when they come home. So, out of caution, I'll be removing their pic...but reposting it once we're a tad closer to traveling.

Now-to celebrate our precious boys' official adoption day, the kids and I made a cake yesterday!

it still hasn't sunk in that we have 2 more boys.

things have gone at lightning speed with this adoption and it's just hard for me to wrap my mind around it all!

it took us 2 years from start to finish to have Elizabeth home...if things continue to go at the pace they are, it will be 8.5 months from start to finish with this adoption. CRAZY! in fact, I want to do a post just about God's provision with this adoption...how He has allowed things to go so much faster than "the norm".

HERE THEY ARE!

**3/9/10 -just edited the photo so you can see the smile that captured my heart 4 months ago..i'll have to find a photo of Bruk for me to crop so you can see his precious smile too : ) **

we just received a call from our agency...the adoption has been completely finalized, the boys are legally ours, and she said to "feel free" to post their pic....so I am. :)

here are our handsome boys!!

Eyob is the older one and Bruk is the younger.

Our YWAM director is in Ethiopia right now and will be getting their sizes for us (over the summer Eyob was only 3 inches shorter than me!!) and asking them about their names. If they'd like to keep their Ethiopian names, that is fine with us...if they'd like to have Amercian names, we can do that too. :) Being that they are older, we want them to have a part in that decision.

but for now, they are Eyob and Bruk to us!