Our first visit with Santa

Christmas is always a special time of the year. My favorite part is taking the kids to go visit Santa. Santa comes to the Train Depot in Monticello every year. Hannah, Luke and Owen have all grown up going to the depot to visit Santa. The kids get Santa all to themselves in a cute little room, just our family and Santa. It is amazing. No line of parents wishing you would hurry up and no screaming kids ruining your time with Santa. We get tons of pictures and lots of video.

Last year at this time, Ava and Eliza were only home 20 days before Christmas. We figured that introducing them to a huge white man in a bright red suit and a long white beard may throw them into culture shock, so we skipped visiting Santa. This year, the girls were very excited about meeting Santa, until we got there. When they spotted Santa behind the window talking to another little girl, both girls got very quiet. Then Liza kept saying "I no like Santa". We kept telling them that Santa was sooo nice and would love to meet them. Both Darren and I started getting nervous....you just never know how they are going to react. But luckily, they walked in and warmed right up to Santa. He was so sweet with them. Each year the kids get a poster to color with a special message from Santa. And he always gives the kids two candy canes, one to keep and one to share.
Enjoy the pictures!!

One Year Home

One year ago today, we landed in Chicago with our daughters after a very long flight from Ethiopia. There was a ton of snow on the ground and the girls had no idea what to think of all the white stuff. Ava touched it and did NOT like it at all. Now she is begging for snow.



I can't believe it's been a year. Some days it feel like just yesterday we walked into our home for the first time as a family of seven. Other days, it seems like years since we were in Ethiopia. I miss it, I miss the people, the food, yes, the food - believe it or not. I miss the feeling of everyone being happy with what they have, even in the face of extreme poverty. The Ethiopian people we encountered were sweet, friendly and happy to be alive. I think everyone should experience a third world country, whether it be Ethiopia or somewhere else. The time spent immersed in the culture has forever change my life and outlook on the world. For the better. It has made me a better person, more forgiving, less judgemental and much more compassionate.



Ava and Eliza's family have given us the biggest blessing and responsibility I can think of. They have asked us to love their daughters as they were our own, to teach them about God, and give them a wonderful life. Something unfortunatly, they were not able to do. I know many people feel it is best for children to remain in the birth family home. And I will agree, in some situations it is better to leave a child with their extended family. But - do to death, disease and unbelievable poverty, sometimes that is just not possible. Many times a birth family has to consider adoption or fear the death of their child. I cannot imagine having to even consider that. Can you imagine? Either I let my child go, or I let my child die? What would you do? It hurts my heart to even think of it.



We had the gift of meeting Ava's Mother and Liza's Father while in Ethiopia. I will NEVER forget that moment I first looked at them. I broke down crying. My heart ached for them. They looked so sad, but yet when we approached they both smiled and give us hugs. Unbelievable. The conversation was very hard going from Wolaita, to Ahmaric to English, but they were able to give us their blessings and asked us to teach the girls about God. That is a promise we will keep. We tried to explain to them that we will love them with all our hearts and we promise to give them the best life we can. I hope they understood. I just kept hugging them. When the girls are a little older I want them to understand how they came to be in our family. I want them to understand that their parents did not "give" them away, they "gave" us a huge blessing. To give your child to someone else to love is one of the biggest sacrifices you can make. It's not that they didn't love the girls. Actually, they loved them so much they were willing to sacrifice their "family" to keep them alive and well. Only Jesus has made a bigger sacrifice. So what does that say about the birth families? Well, it says that they are amazing people and stronger than I could ever be.



Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. James 1:27 Defend the cause of the weak and the fatherless; Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Deliver the weak and needy from the hand of the wicked. Psalm 82:3-4



Job 29:12
for I rescued the poor who cried out for help, and the orphan who had no one to assist him;

John 14:18
“I will not abandon you as orphans, I will come to you.

HALLOWEEN

Last night was Halloween. Ava and Eliza honestly had no idea what was really going on..... We talked it up and made it sound fun and not scary. We got costumes and told them all they had to do was walk up to a neighbor's house, knock and say "Trick or Treat" and they would get CANDY!!! They were very excited. But when the time came, the nerves came out!! Check out the pictures and their faces will tell the whole story.

As you can see, they were less then thrilled :)

As time went on Old Man Owen, taught them the art of looking super cute to get more candy

Liza, my frog, getting ready to JUMP!

Ava, my beautiful cowgirl.

Liza and Luke...we weren't really sure what Luke was supposed to be...some sort of Zombie SuperMan, I think :)

Owen, the Old Man......funny that he is wearing this mask. Darren has had this mask for years and it used to scare the boys to death. They hated it when Darren would get it out, seriously, they would run in the other room. Oh, they grow "old" so fast...pun intended. Hope everyone had as much fun as we did, ration the candy kids!!!!!

My Heart is Full

Today was the first day that our little girls were really away from us. Ava started preschool and Liza went to the sitter while I worked. I was so stressed out I was making myself sick. I know how the girls are...they rarely let me out of their site, so I knew this morning was going to be a nightmare. But much to my surprise, the girls did great. Darren dropped Liza off at Miss Mary's house and she went with no fussing. He then dropped Ava off at school and she walked up like she had done this a million times. No tears, no freak outs. Well, except for me :) I picked the girls up after I got off work at the bakery. Liza was outside playing with Miss Mary and was happy to see me! Liza and Mary had a great day, went for a long walk and played outside. As we left Liza said " I go walk with Me Mary"....she can't say Miss yet, so it comes out Me. She has talked about Mary all day. I am so happy to have a great friend that I trust so much who is able to watch Liza for me while I work. We are very lucky.

Then off we go to pick up Ava from school. I waited outside nervously with the rest of the parents. You could tell we were all thinking the same thing....."oh boy, I hope he/she had a good day" All the kids came out smiling with their backpacks and in their lines following the teachers.....and there was my little Ava with a huge smile and she walks up and says "hey Mom". I was in tears, again. I spoke with the teacher after all the kids we taken care of and she said Ava did wonderful. This huge weight was lifted, I was so worried about her. She still has her moments when she shuts down and won't make eye contact. But not today :)
My heart is so full and I am so happy. Let's hope next week goes as well............ :)

Here are a few pictures from today.


Ava and Owen having breakfast before school.



Liza eating breakfast....with that look of "don't mess with me"




Self portrait of Miss Mary and Liza


A few pictures of Ava at school

It's Official....again

Once again, I apologize for not keeping my blog up to date, but hey-I have 5 kids, what do you expect??? :)....This entry goes back to July 7th. We appeared in court and officially re-adopted the girls in the USA. They now have Illinois birth certificates, names changed and Ava's birthday was also changed. For the last 6 moths the girls have legally been named Meskerem Darren Bodine and Tabita Darren Bodine. In Ethiopia, it is customary to give the fathers first name as the child's middle name. I wasn't real keen on the middle names and I doubt the girls would be either come high school graduation when they had to walk across the stage............ :) So, they are Ava Meskerem and Eliza Tabita now. We also asked the judge to legally change Ava's birthdate. If you remember from another post we had Ava's wrist x rayed and it showed that she was really older than what her ET birth certificate claimed. It is not unusual for birth certificates to be really off, I've heard some kids were even 2-3 years off. Ava's was about a year off judging by her language, x ray and dental exam. So we, along with the doctor decided it would be safe to move her birthday up about 6 months to make adjustments for her learning english etc.

It is never a dull moment with the Bodine gang and the court room was no different. We entered and all was well.....for a short time. I was sworn in and answering questions when the girls started fighting over a pen. The baliff quickly came to the rescue with markers and paper......but they continued to want what the other one had, OF COURSE. Meanwhile, the judge keeps talking and the court reporter keeps typing....I look at her like "oh my gosh, I am so sorry". She just smiled and kept on typing. No one said a word to us about the commotion but I bet the look on our faces said it all. After all was said and done, Darren joked on Facebook that he was surprised that we weren't found in contempt of court!!

So, all paperwork is done other then post placement reports. YEAH!!! Here is our picture of the final outcome with our lawyers, judge and the whole Bodine gang.

and more and more

and more.....

Summer Vacation --more pictures

Summer Vacation

Obviously, I have not been good about keeping up this blog. With 5 kids, I feel like I can't keep up with anything. So I thought I would at least post some pictures of our vacation.
Every other year we go on a big vacation with Darren's side of the family. Grandma Judy rents a big house for us and we all stay for a week under the same roof. Yes, seriously :) I know of so many people that comment that they could not vacation for 2 days with their extended family. We must be the exception because we always have a wonderful time. It is so much fun and we can't wait until the next time we get together. Usually, about a week after we return there are emails back and forth about where to go on the next vacation! This year was extra special because everyone in the family was able to join us. Cole, my nephew, is now in the Air Force, and we weren't sure if he would be able to make it, but he did!!!! Zac, also my nephew, just graduated from the U of I and was job hunting at the time. We didn't know day to day if he was going to make it either, but he did. Along with Seth who got to experience his first Bodine vacation.......poor guy. We are a very loud family :) Hannah brought her friend, Chelsie, and she was an awesome addition to our family......but also mentioned the loudness....... :)
Darren is Mr. Photo, so he took a TON of pictures, but here are a few of my favorites.

Home 6 Months

So, we have been home for 6 months. That is really hard for me to wrap my mind around. It seems like years ago we were on a plane traveling to Ethiopia. But it also seems like we have barely been home a month. So much has changed, yet we still have so far to go.

In general, the girls are doing great. They have settled in to our family very well. Ava and Eliza LOVE their brothers and sisters. They also love their dog, fish and hamster, unfortunately, Buddy the hamster went to heaven today. Ava was very very upset. She cried herself to sleep. Sorry for the downer, but it is part of life.

Ava has really changed. When she came home she was quiet and withdrawn. Now is she very talkative and a silly little girl. She still has a few moments of digression, but there has been a huge personality change. I do think that she was old enough in ET to understand that her mother could not care for her and had to take her to the orphanage. She immediately took to Darren, and it took Ava some time to warm up to me. Now, she barely let's me out of her sight. She went from one extreme to the other. She wants to know where I am at all times and does not like it when I have to leave. I guess she is finally getting attached to me :)

Ava has gone from this:


To this!!!


From early on, we knew Ava was older than her ET birth certificate stated. We decided to celebrate her birthday in May. We are hoping to get her birthday changed, but we won't know until we go for our final re-adoption in July. Anyway, here are some pictures from the celebration.





When we met Eliza for the first time in late October, she was teeny tiny. Barely 18 pounds and wearing a size 9 month. She was still crawling and very shy. Now.....well, she is running, jumping, laughing and talking nonstop. She has done a complete 360. Liza will be 2 next week, by her ET birth certificate. I think the date is fairly accurate. She has been screened by a speech therapist and developmental therapist. She was at about 50% in January....now she is off the charts. She has grown and changed so much. She talks nonstop, runs nonstop and plays nonstop. She is exhausting just to watch!! I wish I had half her energy!!!
Liza is your typical two year old. Into everything!!! She still does not sleep through the night, that worries me a little. I know at the orphanage they would give the babies a bottle at bedtime, and Liza still wants that....but she is also still waking up in the middle of the night for a bottle. I have no clue how we are going to break her of this habit. But his mamma needs some sleep!!!
She has also started throwing major fits.....not sure if this is an "adoption thing" or a 2 year old thing. You would think after raising 3 bio kids of my own, I would know how to handle this. But she had me stumped. I kind of feel helpless when it happens. But I am looking into having someone work with us....hopefully, it will help both of us.
This was Liza the first day we met her:


This is little LiLi today


What can I say? That pictures shows ALL of her personality!!!

Is there such a thing as "good insanity" ?

It seems like forever that I have been on here. It is so hard to find time to collect my thoughts and actually type them out. To say the least, our life is insane......but a good insane. I have 5 kids ranging in ages almost 16 to almost 2. YIKES....scary on both ends of the spectrum. Really for those of you with kids.....that's all I need to say. You know how nuts things get.

To be very honest, this road has not been easy- but so worth it. I wouldn't change anything.....other than maybe not getting audited by the IRS and STILL not having our tax credit. But I digress........back to the kids. As all of you know, we adopted two beautiful girls from Ethiopia and brought them home December 5th, 2010. How life has changed. :) My bio youngest, Owen is 8...so I have not had toddlers around for a long time. Man, can they trash a house in a matter of minutes!!! I'm back to buying baby dolls and tutus. Hannah is almost 16 and she no longer lets me dress her up like I used to...darn. I can no longer take off to run to Target at any time of day....I had forgotten nap times.....I'm home every afternoon now!! :) But what has changed for the better is that I have two sweeties running around saying "mommy mommy" all day long. And the first time Ava told me she loved me....well, my heart nearly stopped. And of course, you can't forget the slobbery wet kisses from Liza.

We have had some rough days, language barriers, emotions, culture shock...you name, we've had it. Along with Giardia and ring worm :) But there are a lot of good days in there too. Ava and Eliza have only been home just over 5 months, so we are still getting to know each other. What I have learned in the past 5 months is that their personalities have changed dramatically since we meet them back in October for the first time. We really had no idea who they were.

We still don't....but I do know that Eliza is the most strong willed child I have ever crossed paths with, Seriously. Ask anyone who meets her. She is also funny. So funny that she laughs at herself quite a bit. She is every bit of a super crazy almost two year old. She runs, doesn't walk, she screams, doesn't talk. But she is sooooo stinkin cute I can hardly stand it. And when she snuggles with me, I melt. And believe me those snuggles are few and far between. She is way too busy to snuggle. She has places to go and people to see.

Ava is complex. She is almost 4 or 18....at least the attitude is 18. She has also changed so much since December. She came to us a very shy and quiet. She can still be a bit shy in new situations but she is not quiet by any means. In the first few months she would try so hard to talk to me. I had no clue what she was saying. We communicated with alot of pointing. As time went on and she picked up some English things got better, but still hard. I will never forget making lunch for the girls and Ava kept pointing and saying what sounded to me like "yummycake". And since I own a bakery and bring home treats a lot I figured she wanted cake. The more I told her we didn't have cake, the more persistent she got. She kept pointing to the top of the fridge...so I showed her everything up there. When I grabbed a napkin, she said "YES, numikin". Poor thing, I swear she was asking for yummy cake. I have funny video of her telling me stories about the boys....in very broken English. I could pick out "Owen" "chow" and "booty" that was about it, the rest was foreign to me....literally :)
Here it is, have a good laugh.



I would say Ava is speaking 90% English now. It's kind of sad actually. I miss the ramblings and songs in Wolientinga, her native language. She still struggles sometimes to get her point across, but things are much easier. She has picked up on a few American culture items fast....one, the cell phone. She loves the phone. She has a old cell phone that she plays with all the time. She carries on conversations and actually pauses to listen to whomever answer :) When I ask her who it is, she usually says "Grandpa". Other times, it's Huddy, Sena or Joey. While she is having these long conversations, she usually has one hand on her hip. She also loves Owen's Nintendo DS. She has no clue what she is doing, but she sure tries. She has also figured out my iPhone. You may have gotten a random phone call from me.......with no one talking on the other end. That's usually Ava, although I have been known to butt dial a few people myself. :) When it comes to adjusting and bonding, I think Ava is a work in progress. She is doing really well, but will have a set back now and then. Sometimes when she is upset she "zones"....can't really explain it. She doesn't talk or make eye contact. She used to get in the "zone" a lot, now- not so much. But when it does happen it just breaks my heart. It takes me back to that day we had to take her back to the transition house in Ethiopia and leave her again. I have pictures of that "zone". It's heartbreaking. As far as her personality, not sure yet. She has really change since October. Ava is also very strong willed, but nothing compared to Liza! She is very much a "motherer" she loves her baby dolls and Liza.....there are many times that I have to tell her, "I'm the mommy, let me do that." I swear if I let her she would do laundry, clean house and take care of Liza for me. Don't get me wrong.....when she helps it's amazing. But I don't want her to feel like that is her job. But, my girls love to clean....give them a towel and they will take the finish off a table!!!

So that's it. We are taking it day by day. We are having so much fun getting to know our girls. My bio kids are amazing with them and the girls LOVE them. They light up when the kids get home from school. Ava wants to know where everyone is at all times. So we go through the schedule many times a day. And with the 3 big kids running here and there it can get pretty confusing....even to me. :)

Here are some recent pictures of the girls. They are getting bigger although still small for their ages. Liza is a whopping 22 pounds at 23 months!!!!!! She is still in 18 month clothing....Ava has finally hit the same age-same size. 4T, but she is still short for her age. My little peanuts.

First picture is Ava, Liza and Sena-also adopted from ET, they are all playing with their phones.
Next picture is Ava and Owen or "Owie" as the girls call him.
Ava at Grandma Judy's for Easter.
Liza at Grandma's Sandy's for Easter, this picture is a perfect representation of our girl!!!
Liza "running" to find Easter eggs at Grandma Judy's house.