Why D won't be babysitting any time soon

So since we have been home D has taken an interest in her baby dolls. However, her parenting skills need a little work still...




She didn't buckle her baby in the swing and baby almost fell out, she is carrying the baby upside down... We are having to watch her close as she also wants to be "mommy" to K. The other day I left KW sitting in her Bumbo chair on the floor so I could dare to go to the bathroom alone (gasp!) Within a minute, coming around the corner is D, with a diaper (luckily clean) that she had decided to take off K. Somehow (and I don't really want to know how) she got K out of the Bumbo, took off her pants and "changed" her. Unfortunately, she forgets that an important piece of changing involves putting the diaper back ON the baby!
Oh well, I can wait till they start Kindergarten before I go to the bathroom again, right?

Who We Are (more or less)

A is our oldest boy. He is currently 8 years old and about to enter third grade
X is next. He is 4 years old and will be in preschool this year (in my class, no less)
D is our oldest girl. She is not quite 2 and a half, but thinks she is 16. She spends her free time hanging out at day care, chasing the cat around the house or bothering her sister. She was born in China and came home in May of 2007
K is currently the baby and she is almost 9 months old. She was born in Ethiopia and came home in July of 2008.

So in 14 months we went from 2 to 4 and often people look at us and wonder "what were they thinking?"

That's okay- sometimes we wonder that too.

Responsibility- Or Lack Thereof

So A got a Ninentendo DS last year in anticipation of our trip to China. However, 2 weeks before we left for Ethiopia he couldn't find it. He didn't know how long it had been gone for, couldn't remember when he had it last and had no idea what happened to it. We searched his room (no small feat, believe me) and the car but no Nintendo. Initially my reaction was "you lost it- too bad. You can get a new one after you save up the money" However, I realized that with the prospect of 24 hours of flight time (each way) plus countless hours of "down time" my punishment was really only going to punish, well, ME! So off we went to Target and I shelled out the money for a new DS. I did include a lengthy lecture about responsibility and taking care of your things just so I didn't feel like I had totally caved in by buying the new one.

Fast forward to last week. I was up on a chair in the kitchen putting candlesticks on the top shelf of the cupboard. I turned toward the refrigerator and there on top was, you guessed it, the original Nintendo DS. Apparently at some point in the past, we had taken it away from A due to some inappropriate behavior and we all (including A) forgot about it. So now X has a Nintendo DS too.

But before we go

A couple of recent photos

So Here We Are

on our new blog. I have decided to keep the adoption blogs pretty specific to the adoption process so that the folks who want info about adoption and not my deeply profound thoughts on life as we know it can find what they need. So here is where you will find updated photos, funny stories and well, anything else I might want to talk about. I promise to try to update it at least every week or so (and by weekly I might mean monthly) depending on how things go. However, I think I have the settings fixed so that you can set it up to be notified when there is a new post. As always, nice (or funny) comments are welcome- so please leave some.

We are home

It seemed like it took a million hours but we are home. Many people looked at us traveling through the airport and either were in awe that we would do this with 4 kids or pity that we would do this with 4 kids. Either way we are home!!!!!!! I will try to update again, with more pics in the next couple of days

It would seem like we did not need a transit visa since we are here but it was a little nerve wracking while we waited to see what would happen.

The Most Amazing Gift

We went to the care center for the travel (departure) meeting and each family was given a Lifebook for their child. For those of you not in the adoption/foster care world a lifebook is a book that tells the child's story- the good the bad and everything in between. We got both a written life book but also 2 DVDs. One is called My story and it has some basic info on K's birthplace but focuses on her time at the care center- it's more like a scrapbook. It is meant to be shared with others and includes video of us meeting her and the farewell party

But the other DVD is her birth history and it goes hand in hand with her written Lifebook. I am not going to go into specifics about what is in the DVD as it is her story and not mine to share but I will say it includes very specific early history including video of and interviews with some members of her birth family. It will no doubt lead to some tough talks when she is older but it is an absolutely priceless gift to have that information and those images for her as she grows.