Noahs giggle

I couldnt resist getting Noahs obvious glee at hitting his dad with the ball on video. Love, love, love that belly laugh of his. Didnt love the mess that also made it onto the video. Me working all day + 3 kids in full destruction mode + toys(of the 2 and 4 legged variety) aplenty = house in distress.

Will we (or he) survive

the terrible twos. Noah is in to EVERYTHING! Logan was busy but Noah is busy times 100. Constant. Have to put him in a high chair to shower so that he doesnt wreak havoc upon our abode. Enter his new way of tormenting. I just bought a new houseplant recently and it was doing pretty well (keep in mind I kill plants without even trying). While my back was turned and he was in the highchair he decided to reach WAY over to my new plant and pull one of the stalks out. Swinging it in the air like some sort of a lunatic. Dirt and leaves all over my floor, the highchair and the reason this all ocurred. I texted a picture to Mike. Caption "Look what your son just did". He texted back. "Is that your plant". My response. "Yep". His final words. "I will miss him". Yep, there might be casualties during the terrible twos.

Doing a great thing

Just went to Tomsshoes.com to purchase my pair. What a great thing they are doing to help give children in Ethiopia a pair of shoes!

Its been awhile....

Since I've been able to catch up on blog time. Yes Mary Alice I know you are laughing right now and saying "I told you so".:) We've had an uneventful couple of months. We are REALLY ready for spring around here. Heres what we've been up to.


Easter morning


Love my family


My very own little 3 stooges


Can you say "HAM"?


Brushing the dragons teeth at the Childrens Museum


Our waterpark trip

New Friends

We are so fortunate to have a wonderful family living just down the road from us who just brought home their 6 year old daughter from Ethiopia. We went to visit her last week and her and Helina enjoyed playing dress-up together. Their personalities seem very similar in alot of ways and I think they are going to be wonderful friends! So glad more wonderful Ethiopian children are finding forever homes within this community! Warms my hear for sure.

Happy Birthday Noah!

Today is Noahs 2nd birthday. I cannot even begin to explain how far he has come in the last year. To think that a year ago he could not even sit up on his own. Today he is a running, jumping, chattering comedian. He has so much personality and everywhere we go people seem drawn to him. Today at lunch I was looking away from him and when I turned back to him he was entertaining a table of ladies sitting behind him. He had them all laughing and waving. Such a ham. We are all so thankful to have him in our lives!!!!

Happy birthday little man!

Exciting Times.

I am so excited for one of my BFF's Rebecca. As I am writing this she is probably dragging herself (or her hubby may be dragging her:)) off of a plane in Beijing China. They are there to pick up their adorable son Owen. If anyone is interested in following their journey you can go to her blog www.ourfamilyjournal.com.

I have been so nostalgic this last week. Its hard to believe that one year ago I was in Ethiopia picking up Noah and meeting Helina. It seriously seems like only yesterday. I can still see so vividly all of the sites and smell the Berebere and other spices. On the other hand I cannot remember what life was like before Noah and Helina. I am already planning in my mind (if not my pocket book:))our family trip to Ethiopia. Logan talks about the country (he calls it "opia") like he lived there for a period of time.

Here are a few holiday pics. I actually havent had time to download the pics from our different Christmas gatherings. Will try to do so this weekend.

Journey to "The Dark Side"

I will be the first to admit that I have always harbored this secret "distaste" for mini-vans and those who drive them. I have been known to comment that getting behind the wheel of a mini-van must somehow alter your ability to function/drive. Lets face it, who hasnt gotten a little crazy when they are trying to pass in the left lane on a 2 lane highway (yep, thatd make the left lane the PASSING lane) only to get behind some mini-van driver who thinks the left lane is the "coasting along beside the car in the right lane" lane. All of this previous negativity recently came back to bite me in the behind. I have been driving around in what I lovingly refer to as the Geri-mobile since my grandma passed away 2 years ago. We have been nice and cozy with all 3 kids lined up in a row in the backseat. Getting them all in and out has been interesting to say the least. When Mikes old jallopy drew its final breath a few weeks ago we were presented with a great deal. Yep, you guessed it......a mini van. And I have to say that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!!! I love the heated leather seats. I love the automatic doors. I love the fantastic stereo system. I especially love that I dont have to fling Noah into his seat in the middle of the vehicle anymore. I love this vehicle so much that I dont even mind that I have gone over to the dark side! I can handle it when my friends and family call to tell me to be very careful on the roads.....now that I'm a mini-van driver.

Waiting for the "Bill"

Last week, while dining at our favorite Mexican restaurant I realized how far Helina has come in her "knowledge" of the English language.

Helina: Mom, is it time to go yet?

Me: No Helina, I have to wait for our bill

Helina (after a 3 or 4 second pause to ponder): Mom, we dont know any Bills. Who is Bill?

Helina (now looking at Logan): I dont know any Bills. Do you know any Bills?

Halloween pics

Its been a busy couple of weeks. My niece Megan celebrated her 13th birthday (holy cow I dont feel old enough to have a teenage niece) and Helina and Noah enjoyed their first Halloween. The weather was absolutely beautiful for trick or treating and Logan and Helina are still basking in the sugary glow of life!:) I am looking forward to the next "family firsts" we'll get to experience with Helina and Noah. We have SO much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!

I've been tagged

Well, I have been tagged by Miss Gina to share 6 random things about myself. So, here goes...........

1. I have no eyebrows. My dad has Cherokee Indian in his heritage and the one aspect that I have inherited (it couldnt be the beautiful dark skin of course) is that I have very few, very light eyebrows. My cousins tease me mercilessly about this. When I try to "draw some on" they stand out like a sore thumb. Like I'm wearing a sign that says "hey, look at those eyebrows". Insanity.

2. I attended Purdue University (Go Boilers!!!!) and for 3 years was a recruiting hostess for the football team. Got to take all of the potential recruits around campus and onto the field. Had GREAT seats on the 50 yard line to watch the games with them.

3. My favorite food is Mexican. LOVE IT!!!!! If I were forced to live on one type of food it would be Mexican.

4. I am currently addicted to the Twilight series books. One of my co-workers has talked about them non-stop for months and I finally decided to see what the big deal was. WOWZERS. Finished all 4 books in about 5 weeks. Now every girl at my clinic is reading the series. We are Twilight junkies.

5. My favorite movies are "Sweet Home Alabama", "Remember the Titans" and the Lord of the Rings movies.

6. Every year my cousins, aunt, mom and I head to a huge shopping mecca about an hour away to shop literally until we drop the day after Thanksgiving. We leave at about 4:30 in the morning and get home anywhere between midnight and 2am on Sat. Look forward to it every year.

Ok, that was more work than I thought it would be. So now I'm going to spread the wealth by tagging my blogger buddies Rebecca B, Rebecca M, and Chris M. Looking forward to reading your random goodies.

Parent Teacher Conference

Mike and I went to Helinas first parent teacher conference last night. We "found out" what we already knew about our vivacious daughter. Her teacher describes her as a butterfly.....she just flits from one thing to the next. She is highly intelligent (her teacher cannot believe she has only been speaking english for 7 months) and everyone in her class loves her (and she them). Her struggles are in the area of listening. I often have to tell her "focus" at home and her teacher does the same at school. She is a whirlwind of motion and her zest for everything she encounters sometimes makes it hard for her to listen. I have to laugh a little because I can imagine that my mom must have heard some of the same things about me when she and my dad sat down for their first conference with my teacher alot of years ago. God truly blesses us with the children of our hearts whether they are the children of our womb or not:)!!! Thanks dear Lord for our sweet, head in the clouds Helina!!!!!!!!!

Its been awhile

I have been a very bad blogger lately. We have hit the fall season running and my time on the computer lately has been limited at best. We have had some beautiful days and being couped up in the basement on the computer instead of outside just hasnt seemed right.

We were able to go to my cousin Jamies last weekend for a big family get together. It included a hayride, haunted barn, pinata, great food and a bonfire. We had a blast. Below are some pics from our evening as well as a couple of the MOST good-natured and tolerant dog on the planet. She sits motionless for hours and lets the kids use her as the big mountain overpass. Too cute!~

Oh boy

I have to preface this picture by stating that at this point in Logans young life he is a little man living in a little womans world. He is surrounded by girls. Noah is too young to play with (although the 2 of them have started wrestling. Jeez boys are weird. Enjoying wrestling at 20 months). He wants to do whatever his sister and cousin (whom he idolizes) do. His best friends are the neighbors twin girls. Man oh man is he going to look back on this period of his life and wonder how it all went so wrong. He went over to our neighbors with Helina and Megan to have lunch on Sat and this is how they spent their time. Mike is convinced it is going to scar him for life. I think he makes a pretty girl. One who may very well be able to wear high-heeled shoes better than I can. Sigh.........

Great news

A couple of weeks ago we found out through the "friend grapevine" that a family who lives in our baby sitters neighborhood is adopting a 5 year old girl from Ethiopia. Her name is Tess. The principle at Helinas school emailed me today asking for permission to give our email address to this family so that they can contact us and find out about Helinas transition. All I have to say is YAY YAY YAY. We have several other families in our community who have adopted or are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia (BIG congrats go out to one of those families James and Nancy who just returned with their baby boy last Sat!!!). To have a little girl exactly Helinas age who will be in the same school system (and maybe even in the same class) is so awesome. I know that it is going to be so important as these kids get older for them to have others within this community that share their culture.

What WAS I thinking

Since I have all of Logans baby clothes/accessories, clothes that Noah and Helina have outgrown and a TON of toys, etc that have managed to multiply in our house over the years I decided to have a garage sale. I obviously had no idea what a hassle this would be. I have been dreaming of prices, "50 cents, no 75 cents, no I think I can get a buck for it" for a week now. "Garage sale frequenters" as I will lovingly refer to them are quite the unique bunch. They park WHEREVER the mood strikes them and buy some of the strangest things. Like a pleather suitcase from the late 70s in a lovely shade of brown that Mike dug up from the basement and marked for a buck. Seriously? Ignore the Abercrombie jeans on the next table marked at a price thats a steal but certainly make sure you take home that lovely suitcase. Then, to make it all much more fun add intermittent rain storms all morning. Now mind you it hasnt rained in 8 weeks (no exaggeration) but today the skies opened up. Move tables into garages.....move tables back out......in........out. I am hoping I will be laughing all the way to the bank by tomorrow afternoon. It'll be awhile before this girl decides to garage sale again for sure.

Progress is good

A couple of months ago we had a speech therapist come a few times to work with Noah (she couldnt keep coming because she was allergic to my cats). She told us that once he was walking proficiently his speech would start "taking off". She was so right. In the last week or so he has become a TOTAL chatterbox. His favorite things to say are "Hi dada, ouch, dog, thank you, mama, and the ever present NO". He also likes to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Too funny. I'm afraid now that he has started talking we might not ever get him to stop.:)

Another area of progress I have seen in the last couple of weeks has been the relationship between Helina and Logan. They have always played pretty well together, but lately I've noticed that they actually enjoy their time together and would rather play together than alone. This afternoon they played with about every toy that they own over a 4 hour period. They read books and played barbies and pirates and rode their bikes. Not once was there a harsh word or any attitude. I am certainly NOT naive enough to think that this will be the status quo between the 2 of them. I am however thankful that their bond continues to grow.

For 2 and 1/2 hours a day.........

I am down to 1 kid again. I had forgotten what it was like to be able to go to Walmart, strap that 1 sweet kid into the front of the cart and shop. Yes folks, actually shop without saying 150 times "stop touching that" or "if you dont sit down in the cart you are GOING to fall out" or "if you dont stay with me where I can see you, you are riding in this cart". I told my dad I was doing some shopping this morning and he asked me if I wanted him to keep Noah so I could shop and I laughed and said "heck this is going to be a piece of cake":)

Now, to the flip side of this giddiness. 2 of my kids are going to school. I cant believe Logan had his first day of pre-school today and that Helina has had 4 days of kindergarten under her belt. Another reminder of how precious time really is. Both of them are LOVING school and that is what is most important.

Hope Reunion

We went to St. Louis last weekend for the first annual Hope Adoption Agency Reunion. We had a fantastic time. It was so fun seeing the Pruitt gang (Grace and Miranda were my traveling buddies on my trip over to Ethiopia to get Noah) and catch up with some of the other "Hopers". It did my heart good to see all of the children together. It really feels like we are family. We all share a love for Ethiopia and these wonderful children. We also got to meet our agency director Shimellis. Helina couldnt have grinned any wider when she first laid eyes on him again. After a jam-packed weekend of Ethiopian food Friday night, picnicing on Saturday and the St Louis Zoo on Sunday we came home tired but refreshed. Wishing I didnt have to wait another year to see everyone again!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Beating the Heat and birthdays

My little man Logan turned 4 last Thursday. I always get a bit nostalgic each year as his birthday approaches. You see, 2 weeks before he was born I had told Mike (and the Lord) that I was finally "done". Done longing for, wishing for, dreaming about having a child. We had been foster parents for a period of time and had had several short-term placements that had left us feeling a little weary. I had finally begun dealing with the idea that I was obviously not meant to be anyones mommy. Then, on Saturday morning July 24 at 8:15 am we were awakened by my BFF Kelly (who is also a caseworker for DCS). Mike answered the phone and when Kelly said "we have a baby for you" he said "Oh for heaven sake" and handed me the phone. All we had was a crib, so I very calmly called my mom and told her we needed to go shopping. We picked our sweet boy up at the hospital 48 hours later and ......the rest they say is history. My aunt said it best when she explained that I got pregnant on a Saturday and delivered on a Monday:). God truly stretches us in times like these and the blessings He bestows are oh so sweet!!!!!!

Its been SO hot here the last week or so that we have been spending alot of time hanging out at the lake or under the sprinklers. My little water bugs are loving it.