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.

A Family of Seven

We have been home now for almost 4 months.....wow, does that seem weird. On one hand, it seems like the girls have always been here, on the other, it seems like we just flew to Ethiopia to meet them for the first time. So much has changed.

When we first came home I felt like I had to walk on eggshells around the girls. I just never knew what would set them off or upset them. The language barrier was so hard with Ava. She would get so frustrated. Now, she is talking English about 90% of the time. I have a few videos of her singing and talking in her native language. I am soooooo glad that I took those. One day I am guessing she will remember very little, if any, of her language. She still has an accent, but I wonder how long that will last. It makes me sad that she will not be able to maintain her language skills. And Eliza knew only a few words in Wolyntinga. Now she is picking up so many english words it's crazy.

The girls seem to be doing ok, I guess. We had a few rough weeks at first. Ava was really grieving. She is so young, but she had to understand that she lost her family and everything she knew as "her life". It took some time but I think Ava finally feels like we are her mom and dad. She immediately took to Darren, but she seemed a bit distant towards me. Then just one day it kind of clicked. I put her to bed and laid down with her, she laid there for a bit squirming around. I held her hand and told her that I loved her. She leaned over and kissed me and went right to sleep. At that moment, it seemed like she "let me in". Ava's personality has really come out. She is silly, very particular about certain things, very much a "motherer", and the girl loves to clean. She has really attached to her brothers and she loves Hannah to do her hair and her nails. I think she is still on the fence about Liza...... :)

Eliza is a ball of fire. She is a teeny tiny ball of fire. She is almost two but is still wearing 12-18 month clothing. She is on full speed at all times. Liza is so afraid she is going to miss out on something that she just runs from one end of the house to the other and usually wiping out 2 or 3 times along the way. She is a monkey, she climbs everything. Up on the barstools, on chairs, up the stairs, down the stairs, and she FALLS off the stools, chairs, and stairs. She trips over her own feet, she is a wild child. And so darn funny. We laugh a lot at her and she eats it up. Liza is also very strong willed. She wants to do everything herself. Stubborn stubborn stubborn. But she is so stinkin' cute it's hard to stay mad at her too long. Liza loves her sister Ava....follows her everywhere and tries to do everything she does. Ava gets very annoyed with all of it. Ava bosses her around but Liza usually stands her ground.

The girls are very jealous of our time with each of them. It does get hard sometimes. It's those days that I am home alone with the two of them and they are both having a very "needy" day, that get so hard for me. I can tell you that I have had some rough days. I just feel overwhelmed sometimes. There are days my house is so loud that I can barely stand it, but I do. I have to, that's my job as a Mom. God has entrusted these girls to us and I really don't want to screw it up. I can honestly say there has never been one moment that I have regretted or questioned adopting these beautiful girls. I know they are supposed to be here. I just question my ability to parent them. I just want to be the best mommy I can be.
Like I said, we have our hard days....but there are so many good days too. Or even great moments. Both girls are silly. We laugh a lot and the sound of their laughter almost makes me cry. Ava was so shy and quite at first, now she talks non stop and sings, dances and loves to wrestle with her brothers. Liza is a show off, shoot-she makes herself laugh. Her smile melts my heart.

I honestly can't imagine our lives without them. Hannah, Luke and Owen have done so well adapting to our new larger family. I didn't know how they would feel about the girls once they were actually home. They are so good with them. They help out, they play so well with them....and the girls absolutely adore them. One of Liza's first words was Owie.....and she repeats it over and over and over.

We have been so blessed. We are so lucky they are now apart of our family. Whenever anyone stops me and asks about the girls, I tell a quick story of their adoption. And usually they say something like "oh, they are so lucky to have you as parents". No, we are lucky to have them as our daughters. We have been blessed by them. They have changed our family for the better. It's funny how your priorities change. We are currently looking for another house....and not necessarily a bigger one, which would make sense considering we added two kids to the mix. Our house is big, we have plenty of room for all of us. We would just like to be in town, a little closer to my job and closer to the school. Which means less running for all of us. There are many days I make 2,3, sometimes 4 trips a day back and forth into town. We actually found a house we like, it is smaller, but we really like it. I guess I was usually a" bigger is better" person. I like houses, I like clothes and I love shoes. But now....none of that really matters. I just want my kids to grow up happy and know that they were loved fully. I don't want to toot my own horn, but being ok with buying a smaller, less fancy house than what we now have is huge for me. Huge. It just doesn't matter. I now have to think about putting 5 kids through college. All I have to do is pull out our pictures of Ethiopia and it puts all material things in perspective. I think it should be a college requirement to travel to a 3rd world country, seriously. I hope it has changed my oldest daughter's thinking about things. I hope it has touched her heart like it did mine.

So to sum it up......we are all doing pretty well. We seem to have found our groove.
I want to thank all of my friends and family for being so supportive through these first few months. It has helped so much know we have people out there praying for us.

Our House is for Sale!!!!

Well, we are going to do it. We are putting our house for sale. We would like to get closer to the schools and work. Pass along to anyone you know who is looking for a great house!!!

Welcome Home

After two days of travel and insanity, we finally made it home. We came home to snow and Luke has stamped out Welcome Home in the snow in the front yard. So sweet. We were welcomed home by our boys, the Johns, Baysore and Clark families. It was wonderful. The brought tons of food, gifts and tears...yes, they were all crying when we came in!!







The girls were very shy at first. I'm sure they were wondering "what in the world is going on?" They were a little clingy at first but finally got down and explored the house. The girls did NOT like our dog Truman. He is a rat terrier, so not a big scary dog. But no matter how small he was, they were scared of him. Liza would scream bloody murder. Ava would climb up your body if she was standing on the floor. It didn't take long for Ava to warm up to Tru Tru as she calls him. Now she won't leave the poor dog alone. Loves on him, kisses him and covers him up with her dolls blanket. Liza will tolerate him, won't really touch him, but they can at least be in the same room and she won't freak out.

We have such a wonderful church family. I don't think I had to cook for about a week and a half. Everyone brought us wonderful yummy food. It was so nice. I was so tired from jet lag and just emotionally exhausted, I was so grateful for help with dinners.
The girls have been home just over 6 weeks now. What a difference 6 weeks have made. They are honestly different children.
It was tough the first few weeks. Mainly, going from 3 to 5 kids, two of those being toddlers--that don't know English. Communicating with Ava was really hard the first few weeks. But she is now understanding us most of the time and she is picking up English fast. Liza is also picking it up--she just tries to repeat what Ava says.

I was really worried about Ava at first but things are so much better. She used to cry.....she would get into a "zone" and just cry and moan. It was awful and there was nothing we could do for her. She had to just work through it. I would just hold and rock her. It just broke my heart. She hasn't had one of those episodes for some time now. I guess that was her way of mourning.....
I'm a "fixer" and it just tore me up to have to watch her go through that. Liza never really cried like that, she was just very needy and wanted me to hold her at all times. Which was hard when Ava was having a break down. Believe me, we still have our moments, but they are much more spread out.

The girls have really come out of their shells and are showing their personalities. We laugh a lot at them, yes-at them. They like to perform. They love playing with their brothers and following them everywhere. Every morning Ava and I go through the same routine.....Ava: Owen? I say- he's at school. Ava; Luke? I say..he's at school too. Hannah....she's at school. Da da, he's at work. We usually go through this 3 or times before she is satisfied. Both Daddy and Luke have been home the past couple of days with the flu and she is totally confused!!!

Leaving Ethiopia

Even typing the title brings tears to my eyes. The day we left Ethiopia was an emotional day for us. We missed home and our boys so much, but leaving was tearing me apart. I was scared, I was sad, I was homesick. But I was grateful, happy and a new momma to two beautiful little girls.

We finally took our "group" picture that we had talked about all week, we could never seem to get all of us together at the same time. Someone was either gone or napping :)



So here is the gang. It's amazing the bond you make with these people. I know some of you reading this may think...how? You only met them a few days ago and only knew them a few days....But it's strange. Ask anyone who has adopted and stayed at a guest house with other adoptive families. There is an instant bonding. I don't know how else to say it. Luckily, we had wonderful companions on this trip. The other families were all so sweet and so funny. We laughed a lot....a lot. And now Facebook and emails let us keep up with each other and find out how all the kiddos are doing. My heart is so full thinking of my friends and their beautiful children.

Darren and I packed, or should I say, I packed and Darren and Hannah tried to keep the girls out of my way. They kept "unpacking" stuff as fast as they could. They loved to "help" mommy. We left for the airport with several other families in tow. And we waited in line.....and waited. I hate to admit it but I did feel a little uncomfortable at the airport. We had a few stares and a few glares. Once we boarded the plane the craziness began. I laugh now, but believe me, I was NOT laughing then. Liza slept all through the airport, waiting in lines and boarding. Five minutes before take off, guess who is wide awake. Of course. She did not like the seat belt at all. She was a wild little monkey trying to escape. The kids are not able to stand or walk around anymore. They told me she literally had to be strapped to me while in the air. It was insane and I was slowly becoming delerious. My whole body hurt from trying to keep her sitting. Ava, Darren and Hannah had a pretty good stretch of sleep on that flight. No, I'm not bitter.....:) As we took off I began to cry....the lady next to me patted my hand. I just couldn't help it, I felt like I was leaving a part of my daughters behind. I cried for them.

We landed in Frankfort to ice and snow. Yeah fun. We finally took off about 3-4 hours after our scheduled time....all of that sitting on the plane on the runway. Holy Cow. Now it was Ava's turn to freak and I continued to try to stay awake and calm her. To say the least I failed miserably. We have been up for over 24 hours now and I got no sleep on the first leg of the flight. We settled in for another long flight and we did get in a nap or two over the course of 9 hours or so.....there were alot of kids on the flight so it wasn't just my two being loud...thank goodness. But it was still hard. The girls were scared, hungry and tired. I could only feed them so many cheerios before the "fun" and "newness" wore off. The food on the plane was not great and there was no way the girls were eating it--nor did we. So the ride continues to get worse and worse. We had a row of huge German men behind us...HUGE, they were not happy with the crying and they let us know by kneeing the back of our seats just a bit too hard to be an accident. The last half hour of the plane ride I was sobbing.....Ava was crying, Liza was squirming, Hannah had her Ipod on full blast trying to drown all of us out and poor Darren was pretty much trying to calm all of us. Unfortunately, the flight crew didn't really help..they tried a couple of times but eventually they just let us wallow in our pain.

When we finally landed in Chicago we were a mess. Everyone passing us getting off the plane just looked at us...with pity, I think. One lady did touch Darren on the shoulder and tell him "he had a beautiful family". At that point, Darren about cried....that was the first nice thing anyone had said to us in over 24 hours. We just wanted off that plane. We walked into the airport and a ton of weight lifted off our shoulders, we were finally home. Well, almost. We had a 2 1/2 hour drive ahead of us. We got our luggage, went through immigration with no trouble at all. I have heard horror stories about waiting in line at immigration. We handed the man our packet and walked to the bench to sit down.....I didn't even get my back pack off and he called our name and said we were done. Woo Hoo. The guy scanning luggage took one look at us and told us to go on through. I guess crying for an hour and looking a mess does have it's perks. :)

Hannah, the girls and I waited for Darren to get the truck. I really think he parked in Indiana. It was snowing like crazy and the girls were wound up. They were running back and forth in a little hallway. Of course, I had dolled them up with huge flowers in their hair and everyone was commenting on how cute they were. Man, it was nice to be home!!! We dug out winter coats for the girls and piled them in the truck. They really didn't know what to think of the snow. They were great on the way home and we were very anxious to see our boys.

I will continue the homecoming on another post. It has taken me all day to write this. I had to stop for lunch, to pick up the older kids from after school meetings, dinner, Luke's basket ball practice etc.......you get the point. And I am now finishing this after putting the girls to bed. I usually get Eliza to bed and Darren gets Ava to bed. Well, I had double duty tonight, Darren is out of town. I put Ava to bed and laid down with her. She tossed and turned for awhile and I wasn't sure if she was asleep. At one point, she reached over and felt my face. She let out a long sigh and rolled over. At that moment it hit me that she was making sure I was there.......I think she knows I am her mamma. I think she is realizing this is for real and this is her family now. I always tell her I love her and she will repeat it back to me. I'm pretty sure she doesn't really know what she is saying...just repeating. But I think her reaching out touching my face might have been the first time she said she loves me. I am bursting with happiness..and of course crying. I seem to do that a lot.......

The Gorge

The Gorge was beautiful. We hiked down to the waterfall and that is where the baboons were. I was so excited!!! I am a huge animal lover..even if they are wild and would most likely rip my face off if I got too close. But it was so cute to see the mommies carrying the babies on their backs.
Ryan and Darren went down to the Portuguese Bridge, but us girls stayed behind and watched. It was quite a haul and a rocky one at that. The guys got super close to the waterfall and the baboons.
I hope to one day be able to take the girls back to see their beautiful country.

Day Trip to Blue Nile Gorge

We were on our way to Blue Nile and we were in the middle of nowhere. We jokingly asked Alazar if we could pull over and take pictures of a little boy playing along side the rode. Alazar pulled over, so we climbed out and were instantly swarmed by children. They came running from all over. They wanted money, but we gave them cheese crackers instead. They all loved getting their picture taken and looking at themselves in the viewfinder. The children were beautiful. Once they got close enough, we also noticed they were all very dirty and their clothes were just rags hanging on them. It was very humbling. And it solidified that feeling that we were called to adopt and we were definitely doing the right thing in bringing our girls home.


These are all pictures of the countryside on the way to the Blue Nile Gorge.