Today is Sept. 28th. Yesterday was Calvin and my 4th wedding anniversary. I was thinking today: For our one year anniversary, we were home with our 2 month old Hannah Grace. For our two year anniversary, we were home with 1 year old Hannah and 1 month old Luke. Then, for our three year anniversary, we enjoyed the fact that we hadn't just brought home a baby. And this anniversary we spent supervising Hannah (now 3), Luke (now 2) and Maree (5) in one room, while the other was in another room doing homework with Journee and Meya...... Wow, how things have changed so much. How blessed we have been in just four short years!
I also want to say that I am so blessed to have such an amazing husband to share my life with! He has exceeded my wildest dreams. He is such an involved father. When he comes home from work, the girls anticipate when he will come to their room to do homework and spend time together. Whenever I need a break, he tells me to just go (All by myself!!!). Thank you Calvin, for being sure a great husband, father and friend. I love you!

The girls are working hard to personalize their walls! They love thumb tacks:) They almost get as excited when I provide more tacks as they were about their bikes (prior to the accident).
When they first arrived, they didnt understand how to color or why to color, they are doing great now. They draw lots of pictures and figured out how to trace. They also do good mixing crayons and markers.

Yesterday Meya stayed home from school, to rest after her great fall. So we spent the day around the house, and played a few games of memory. Calvin came home from work early, and we ate as a family. Then I packed up Hannah to go get her stitches removed, and took Journee along. Calvin gathered the other three and headed to a soccer game.
The stitch removal went well. She was excited about her sucker after words. It was good for Journee to see what was going on, because we are really working with the girls on slowing down and not pushing. It was a good bonding time for Journee and Hannah also, there have been some jealousy issues on both sides since the girls came home. We ran errands, and got ice cream at McDonalds. Journee ate ice cream for the first time, but not too much:) Without her sister by her side, she is willing to try new things.
It was a good time of bonding, no one had any fits:) YEAH!!!!
On the way home, Journee communicated to me a big plan she has come up with. By her calculations, we could easily fit 7 more kids in the upstairs of our house. Four more in the double bed in their room, all girls of course. She said Maree and Hannah could share one bed, then two more girls could fit on the other, and Luke can fit one more boy in his bed. I was laughing so hard! She has put a lot of thought into this. She said three will come next year, when she is in 5th grade, then two more in 6th grade, and the last two in 7th grade. She said Calvin should travel next time to get the kids. Then, when everyone is grown up, all the kids will pay to move everyone back to Ethiopia! Im not sure what her total will be once she discovers we have two hide-a-beds and an air mattess, not to mention two more rooms downstairs!
So...... If it is SO terrible to live here, why should be bring 7 more kids into the house?? To me, this was her way of saying, "I like it here, and I think other kids would too." It was a very nice time with her. She acted more grown up, and not so selfish. I told her I agreed, but she needs to convince Daddy.
I am reading and VERY much enjoying the book "Theres no me without you" by Mellisa Faye Greene. Anyone with a compassionate heart, or who enjoys true stories, should read this. It is SO good. I have cried only twice. It is taking me through a lot of emotions. One, because it paints a picture of Africa that I used to think was real. But, after our adoption, the africa in my mind has changed. My africa is now, not so poor. Then I get angry, angry that these arent the kids we adopted. Then I feel that our girls future children would have been those kids, even though our girls werent. It is all very confusing and overwhelming. I am really enjoying learning more about HIV/AIDS from the book. Wow, our society is really scared for lack of knowledge. It makes me want to adopt 15 AIDS orphans, to provide what American has and Africa doesnt. Really, read this book if you arent already!

Despite my many warnings, the girls thought they would run their bikes up the road (we live in the mountains), and ride back down at 25 mph. Meya didnt factor in the curb, and hit the guard rail. Thank God there was a guard rail! I saw the whole thing happen and I will say it is a miracle that this is all that she is suffering from. I felt sick all night. The people in the ER know our family now, we are considering putting all the kids in padded suits and not allowing them out of the house.

Hannah's first stitches, 12 of them!
The girls are So pushy, Hannah got shoved into the fireplace! We are working on patience.

Our Meeting............
The meeting went pretty well. There were tears of homesickness more then anything else. Meya is very homesick and sad.
The girls were able to tell us the baby also died when their mother died, we have been wondering about this for a while. We feel this is the truth, it was emotional for them. We were able to tell them we are sorry this happened to them and their family.
They got very upset over the age issue. We told them their ages, according to the doctor. Journee insisted this can not be correct, because they were born in a hospital, and their father took their birth records to the agency. This makes us wonder if then the agency changed it or if the hospital made some up for him. It is not possible that Journee is just turning 9. They did not seem interested in trying to catch up with their peers, so I guess she will stay 9:)
They have an attitude that the military is not a good job. Of course, no jobs are good to them except doctors and professors. We had a chance to explain that America is at war and that Americans support our troops. I explained that I was proud of my time in the AF and that I am proud to be an AF wife.
They were able to explain that the reason they thought they were going back to visit in 8th grade is because a man from the agency told them this, with their father present. I guess this is his way of getting the children to leave their parents. They said when they were moved to the orphanage in Addis, they were told they were going to school there. Some of these things may just be children telling themselves what they want to believe. I am not slandering the agency, I am sharing their perspective.
There were moments of attitude, like when Journee thought she was smarter then our friend and tried to quiz him with 15x10. This man has a PHD in some molecular something that I will never even be able to pronounce. He just laughed at her and went on. And when she blatantly ignored some of his questions. Or when she (with lots of teenage attitude) was asking what age to tell people, making a big cynical scene. It is amazing how much we can pick up on, just watching her.

I want to start off by thanking everyone who blessed us with gift cards, as part of our adoption shower. You are truly a blessing, this has helped SO much.
We have had a few rocky days and a few good ones this past week. Friday night Calvin went to a movie, so no one got thrown from the roof of our house, (we have to give each other breaks) and I was home with the kids. One conversation led to another and soon enough they were on the subject of going to Ethiopia to visit. I explained how much they will have to work to buy just one ticket. I told Journee to get on her bike and go find a job. She was DEVISTATED that I would not get a job to pay for it. She also thinks the only jobs of value are Doctors and professors. In Ethiopia the military is where all the misfits go, so they have NO respect for what Calvin does. Tonight we are going to visit our Ethiopian friends, and this will be part of the discussion. They will be told how the military is respected here and how you have to work hard to be in the military.
After the Ethiopia discussion, we started talking about jobs and how I used to be in the military. I got out my photos of my time in Kuwait, and then my photo album of growing up. It was really good bonding. I look forward to when their English has improved and we can talk about real issues, and share our pasts with them.
We are trying to decide if it is time to make the rule that only English is to be spoken out side of their room. We know they talk about us and our country in their language, right in our faces. We are getting really tired of it.
Meya's doctor appointment went well. Maree has some minor hearing loss, we will follow up on this. We are still waiting on blood work and stool results.
Im sure we will have more to say after our meeting tonight, I expect it to be eventful.

Could he be any cuter?
He does look like his mom:)

My handsome baby boy!!

A day at the Zoo.

Little sisters and best friends!

Hannah and Maree are two peas in a pod.
And great little mommies too!!

It's a Dad thing.......................

Wow has this last week been busy. Three weeks home!
We have had success with avoiding some of the meltdowns, it has been a week since the last one. This makes the attaching process a little smoother, because being on edge of triggering a meltdown almost causes you to stay at a distance. We had Journee's first full doctor appt, and it went well. She was VERY nervous at first, but I assured her the Dr. is nice and a woman, so that helped a lot. The Dr. said Journee has a small gotter in her thyroid, but will be easy to treat if it doenst go away on its own. She said her extimate would be that she is about 12, according to US standards. It would sure be great to get her caught up to her peer group, but right now she is still acting about 7. I know the adoption has been tramatic for them. We started having her go in with the mid-schoolers at church, so she can start learning to assimulate into our culture, with her approprite age group.
Meya is getting more challanging over time. She wants very badly to be like her sister. We are pretty sure they get together to decide what areas to misbehave in:) At first she was very laid back, but is now basically acting just like Journee. This is frustrating, but she will learn eventually that they will not win. This morning she felt it important to be disrespectful to Calvin, so she wrote 100 times, "I will tell Dad good morning". She did it too! I bet tomorrow we wont have that problem again. In Ethiopia, kids are beaten for bad behavior, so when these kids come to the US, they think our parenting is a joke. We decided rather then to get all worked up, we will make their discipline educational. They will count or write things, ect as punishment, over and over and over again. They may still think we are lax, but it will help with their schooling.
Maree is doing well. She is actually very age appropriate. She pouted today because I wouldnt buy her some shoes. I told her she already has some, so she whined all the way to the car, like any 6 year old. We moved the bunk beds and Hannah and Maree are sharing them, and Luke is in their room also. This way the older girls have their own room, and wont have all night long to talk about how horrible America is in front of Maree. She is a little giggle bug!
The two older girls are grieving the loss of their country in may ways. One way is that they are sure Ethiopia was SO wonderful. Anything we do was better in Ethiopia. Anything I show them, they had in Ethiopia. It feels very frustrating from our end, because we have given so much to bring them here, and we feel non of it is appriciated. We have to remember they are grieving and very sad.
We had a hard reality hit us this week. While spending time with our Ethiopian friends, the girls asked when they will go visit their family. They said their father told them this was basically an education program, and that after college they will come back and support the family. This is something we had suspected, but hearing it broke our hearts and shattered our hopes. We were devisted. After a few days, I really began to gain comfort from God that He will help us through this. He put on my heart that we can make this good or bad. If we raise them angry at their bio father, they will resent us. But, if we raise them open to the idea of returning to Ethiopia, then we can use that as an avenue to train them to be missionarys. This way, they will go back (if they choose to) to do Gods work, not their bio fathers plans. I can not understand why a father would put such a huge burden on a child to carry, but shame on him. We will never have the answers, but it is our responsiblity to raise these girls to love the Lord and do His work. I dont know if I feel this was Gods will, but I do know He allowed it to happen. God never gives you more then you can hadle, and He uses all kinds of situations to get the glory from.
Now that we know why they think they are here, we are using it for our advantage. For some reason they DO NOT like to bathe. So the new rule is, No shower, No school. We havent had any problems with showering since!!!
About every other night before bed, we all play hide and seek as a family. It is great bonding and tons of fun! We all enjoy it!
Last night Calvin snuck in their room to scare them, just playing around. They saw him on the top bunk and got freaked out and thought he was a ghost. One thing led to another and they got pretty worked up. They had an all out singing, praying, chanting, crying church service in their room. We listened from their door to not disturb them. These are some little Christian worriers, they certainly werent sent here for salvation, Im thinking they could actually get us back on track. They are so serious about their faith and have such incredible relationships with God for such small kids. I am humbled by their faith!
Thanks again for all the prayers going up for us, I know by faith, that God will use this situation for a purpose SO much bigger then we realize.
I would say that over this past week, I have gained an appriciation for my own parents on a level I didnt before. I have great parents and have always felt that way, but this process is making we realize the depth of their greatness as parents! Thanks Mom and Dad!!

The end of week two (at home)! Things have gone better the past few days. I would say at this point we are having a textbook adoption. We were prepared for the things that have gone on, not to say that that makes it any easier at the time when you are emotionally exhausted!

Journee had a few rough days, but we all got through them. We learned from our wonderful friend Julie how to prevent us contributing to bringing on her meltdowns. She needs to have them, but we should not be the cause or she will depend on us getting upset for her to release her grief. During one of her 45-minute meltdowns I stayed in the room with her and cried. Once she calmed down she allowed me to comfort her, I think this was a bonding time for us. Julie also advised me on ways to bond more with Journee, since she is the oldest, this process of adoption will be the hardest on her. She also mentioned older kids can experience PTSD from the adoption process; so that is something we are becoming educated on.

Meya began quietly grieving right before we left Addis, I would say she is still about at the same place. She enjoys school and has made a lot of friends. She and Journee sing ALL THE TIME, I think they find a lot of comfort in it. Once in a while I have to ask them to stop, like after 8 straight hours of itJ

Maree is attaching the best of the girls, which is normal for the youngest. The past three days she has spent a little more time with her sisters looking a little gloomy. I think there is a loyalty thing going on between them. She is also grieving and I’m sure finds comfort in her sisters. She and Hannah are good friends and play good together.

Hannah is having a little bit of difficulty handing over her role as oldest child. She has always been challenging, so she is acting pretty much normal. She enjoys her sisters maybe a little more then they enjoy her. She loves them already and is excited when they get home from school. I have been making sure to find special time for her. One day we got ice cream and went to the park to swing, and she learned to pump her legs!

Luke is a little over whelmed with all the love he is getting from his two new mommies. Meya and Journee love to smother him with kisses and think he should be carried at all times. He gets frustrated sometimes and needs some space. They just adore him, but then again, we all do! Overall he loves his new sisters.

Tonight we played a fun game of hide and go seek in the house. The kids are all so funny. At first Hannah thought if her head was hidden, that was enough. Luke caught on pretty quick and was hiding in good spots. I would say Maree was finding the best spots tonight. She is such a little giggle bug when she is in a good mood.

Yesterday Journee and I went grocery shopping. On our way to Kinkos, after getting groceries, out of the blue she said “Mommy, wadalo”. This means I Love You in their native language. I told her I loved her too. This is the first time I have felt it was sincere, not just a rehearsed phrase they were told to say in the foster home. I truly feel like she loves me, and I want our bond to deepen. I will take her to get new shoes this week, and I know that will be good for us. She has several pairs, but they hurt her toes. Several of her toes were broken over time and healed wrong, so her shoes hurt. We will be looking into if she should have then fixed, I would think it would be best. I know she is also self-conscious about them.

Thank you all for your many prayers, they are helping us everyday!