Happy Family Day

March 15th 2009- both my boys together.

San Diego

Hannah's Hope Buddies Reunion 1-15-10 to 1-18-10
All these little buddies were together at Hannah's Hope Ethiopia in the Fall of 2008, and came home between November 2008 and March 2009. Elias' mom sweet talked us all into getting them together for a sunny (and amazingly cheap) San Diego getaway. We all got to stay in a beautiful Cornado beach house for free! (She didn't have to try to hard to sweet talk me into coming :) Thanks Autumn! Sitina

Elise and Malia

As you can see, Christian was quite the ladies man. For some unknown reason a few of the girls took right to him. Elise started holding his hand the minute we walked in the door. Elias
Dance Party

The big brothers (who were very pleased to have each others' company amidst all the "babies" :)

Somehow I completely missed getting a photo of Liam, perhaps his mama will take pity on me a send me one (hint hint).

Vultures

I was reading a number of articles about Haiti today. Many focused on the child victims, collapsed orphanages, and children struggling to survive without adequate food, medical care and water. On one CNN article there was about a million comments from people who wanted to adopt the children, like this very minute. Several comments in particular really sent me over the top. People were actually leaving their phones numbers and trying to get information on a particular child they saw featured in the photos or videos. Literally one comment said, "My phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx, I would like to adopt the little girl in the green dress."

I wanted to reach through the computer and strangle these people. It was sickening. Like a bunch of idiots at the dog pound trying to call out "dibs" on the cutest one. "Oh look how cute they are, I want one, I want one!" Guess what folks, three weeks ago there were HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of orphaned children in Haiti STARVING TO DEATH and you people didn't give a damn about it. And even the kids that still had parents were being carried into emergency feeding centers only to die from kwashiorkor and malnutrition. Haitians were baking "cookies" out of DIRT to eat. And now it's all over the news and they want to run in there and save these kids (who might not even be orphaned- just displaced). Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that many of the pending adoptions are being expedited (some families I know personally waited 2-5 years to adopt their Haitian kids) for cases that are pre-existing of established orphans. But why does it take a major catastrophe for an adoption to finalized in a reasonable amount of time? And providing emergency evacuation and foster homes for displaced kids is an awesome idea, but you better document the heck out of where every one of those kids goes in case they have family looking for them. And if they need to be adopted and do- fantastic. Obviously I'm a fan of that plan. But I dislike the way mass media and pop culture cheapens adoption and treats the kids like objects instead of actual people with lives and families and memories...
I'll get off my soapbox now.

Happiness is...

Yummy!

The Trouble with Monkeys

An interesting conversation this morning. Ashi was literally hopping across the bedroom floor saying "eee eee Aah Aah" and Christian and I were joking that he was our little monkey boy. At which point Christian joked that he thought Ashi was half monkey. Uh oh! I explained to Christian that even though we sometimes call Ashi a monkey boy because he is such a crazy climber, and silly too (just like we called Christian that when he was this age), we might not want to say things like that around other people because they might think we are saying something mean about Ashi's brown skin. Christian totally got it (yay- because that could have sucked to explain). He thought we should think of another animal to call him that isn't brown. His suggestion: a chihuahua :)

Life in Thirds

Sometime last week we hit a family milestone. Ashi has been with us, in our family longer than he was with his first family, and longer than he was without a family. 8 1/2 months each. It has certainly been 8 1/2 months of crazy around here, with no signs of slowing down. He sure has one heck of a stubborn streak (but then I figured that when I met him :).

Actual Art

This was an incredibly sweet shower gift from my dear friend Elizabeth orchestrated at the Orphanage Shower we had back in February. She actually let the rest of us work on it too, but she made sure to only supply us with carefully selected (and coordinated) supplies to keep us from screwing it up. She dropped it off at Ashi's Adoption Day party so I could put the photos on. I think I'll change a few out- but at least it's done for now! I have so many cute pieces of canvas art hanging on my walls all of a sudden. That ploy of dropping off a CD of my adorable children at TOM sure paid off!

The Adoption Day Photos!

Go here, no really, go there! And see the photos from adoption day. Then leave lots of nice comments so Sandi will continue taking photos of my kids for me. It really takes a load off to put down the camera when she shows up!

Adoption Day

**Update- look and see who's in the photo of the day at the Bellingham Herald online since I couldn't be bothered to post any good photos :)

For such a long, exciting and action packed day- I sadly have only three photos to share. Pathetic, I know. But when I get all the good ones from Sandi I'll do a post to do it justice. For now, you get the 25 teddy bears in the courtroom for the 25 adoptions completed in that room today. Below you see the Nes.quik bunnies for the siblings, no really they are actual Nes.quik bunnies. Hee hee, ruthless marketing. When we finished our turn and Christian was handed his, he told the judge, "Oh good, I really wanted to get the bunny!" It was hilarious!And here we have the little mister waiting to go into court, and of course chasing the girls. This was too funny. He spotted little Ada, and stopped running around to crawl on the floor after her! "Hey darlin', come here often?"

I apparently did a really lousy job of explaining today's re-adoption to our friends. I think everyone had their own incorrect interpretation of why we were having a party this evening :) Today was our county's National Adoption Day, so I got my butt kicked into finishing up paperwork to do this final step of his adoption on a fun day (instead of a ho hum day at the courthouse). It really has nothing to do with his adoption, because that was already totally and completely final. It does allow him to get a US birth certificate, change his name (more on that another time) and complete his citizenship. All good things of course, I was just procrastinating that last big fat check. Nice to be done with that too I guess.

The First Time I Saw Your Face

The first time I saw your face was one year ago today. At 4:30pm on Monday the 17th of November, 2008. I was sitting at my desk, wrapping things up at the end of the day. It was already dark outside, really dark. The day was done. And then it wasn't, because I met you. I saw this face for the very first time.You can read about it here, because who doesn't love a referral story?

This is the first photo ever taken of Ashenafi, in September (quite possibly the 5th, when he arrived at Hannah's Hope). Almost 11 months old and all skinny legged. Wasn't he a cutie pie? Such a tiny little thing.

He was one tough little dude, from the day he was born. His Dad told me that, and I know it's true. In the photo above, that tiny little malnourished baby has hepatitis, tuberculosis, anemia and an infected eye that just barely opens. Within a few weeks, after a tube of ointment, a vitamin A shot, and some TLC he looked like this.

This one is also in September, his eye is starting to look better and his legs are filling out already! They do such an awesome job getting those kiddos healthy fast at Hannah's Hope.

These photos are from October, right around his first birthday. Only 17lbs, and most of that in the belly :) You might remember those sad looking slippers. They were passed along to a little girl after Ashi, and his little bear slippers that I sent stayed behind to keep another set of toes cozy.

Look at that face! And look at the little guy peeking out from behind the bushes in the background. That cracks me up, such a typical scene from HH. Kids crawling everywhere, with their mischevious grins.

November, 13 months old- happily bonding with Genet and finally bearing some weight on his legs.

January, 15 months old- Goodness, he still didn't really have any hair. And still not walking yet either, but almost. Autumn Gossett was the first to report Ashi walking in February, at 16 months.

And finally, March 2009! 17 months old, and getting ready to come home. I couldn't resist the buddy boys on the potty photo, aren't they adorable?

That little guy is home now, along with his siblings. All of the kids that were at Hannah's Hope with Ashi are home now. It's pretty crazy to think that there is an entirely new batch of 65 kiddos there now, waiting for families. And when they leave, there will be 65 more to take their place. 6 MILLION children in Ethiopia are orphans. Can you even fathom that number? 6 million faces just like these two.

Now one whole year later- he hardly looks like the same kid!

6 Months Home

It's been 6 months today since Ashi came home. He's gotten bigger, sweeter, and sassier every week.
He's especially become a little lover, with his brother... His auntie...and his snugly friends...Especially his lambie!

He's a climber,And an escape artist...

Seriously! An escape artist. That latch is five feet high!

He has a great appetite, and is a lot of fun to feed. Last night Grammy made jerk chicken and he's the only one that enjoyed it. Best of all, he loves Thai food which makes us all very happy. Whenever he sees you starting to make anything to eat, he starts grunting and whining and climbs up into his highchair.He's gotten 8 new teeth since coming home, big fat molars and little pointy canines. A year ago he had none- not even little bitty nubs.And he LOVES to get wet. The sprinkler, the ocean, the bathtub. It's all good. Over the past two weeks he's gone swimming in the Sound several times- he loves the waves and having them splash him in the face. He'll crawl around on his belly, or walk out as deep as I'll let him (usually until my shorts are just about wet), then he'll crack up like crazy when the waves crash in on him. And he's started handling the cold water well- he can stay in and play without turning blue and shivering like he did when we first came home and went to the 90 degree Aquatic Center. (Photo courtesy Rebecca B.)

Even the bystanders are in awe that a child (in sweat pants and tennis shoes) is swimming on this blustery afternoon.We love you little man.

These Faces...

Oh I enjoyed seeing these faces together last weekend at the AGCI picnic. There were more, mostly much littler ones, but I squelched my inner paparazzi urges and left the little guys alone. Ashi and sweet Betty. I didn't get any that really show how beautiful this little lady is, so I'll include one from Ethiopia.

Those eyes!!

Betty melted me into a puddle. When her family arrived I called out hello to her, and she ran across the lawn to give me a big hug. I couldn't believe how well she remembered me and that she would be so happy to see us again (the feeling was totally mutual)! She told me she had brothers now, just like Ashi has a brother now. It was the sweetest thing ever.

Oh man... I just about jumped out of my skin when I saw this face! I didn't think I'd ever see it again, let alone right here! Ahhh, I was so happy to see him!

Together at Hannah's Hope.Rolling down the hill.

What's this? Ashi has located a stray shoe... It must be returned to it's rightful owner.And sealed with a kiss! I had my lousy point and shoot camera, so I totally missed the money shot. But that's Betty beaming right after Ashi planted a smooch right on her lips!

Bubbles!And a very fun spray park.