Jan 14
As I mentioned the other day, we celebrated one year with Aidan and Eva this week. Today we were able to spend some time as a family doing something fun so we went bowling and then out to dinner. Liam’s friend Eli was along for the ride as well. Here’s a little bit of our day.
Dec 19
Eva has recently learned the word “eat.” When she’s not eating but would like to, she will point to her highchair and say, “Eat!” Aidan has had, since the day we met him, a bottomless stomach: the boy does not know when to stop eating. As a result, I’ve taken to calling them our Eat-iopians.
Dec 17
We’re celebrating Christmas at home with the kids today, before we begin traveling to and fro throughout the Midwest to see family and friends. This will be our first Christmas in the US with our new, larger family. Last year, we celebrated Christmas in Illinois with Erin, Liam, and Maura followed by Christmas in Ethiopia with Erin, Aidan, and Eva. Today we celebrate with everyone together.
Every year we do Advent readings, although we always get started late. We missed the first two weeks of readings this year but have been mostly consistent this week. We had some friends and their kids over last night (between our two families, I think we had 47 people here; or 13–what’s the difference, really?) for the Advent reading and lighting the Advent candles. Suz had made a Happy Birthday Jesus cake and the kids made a reindeer candy cane craft together.
Once again, we have a red dragon in one of our nativity scenes as well, a not-so-gentle reminder that there is a great price to be paid for peace on earth and good will toward those on whom God’s favor rests.
After our Advent party, we watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on Hulu. Ironically, this classic program about the search for the meaning of Christmas was punctuated by commercials from Best Buy featuring a dad running through the house on Christmas morning, past the kids, to find a huge flat-screen TV in the living room and exclaiming, “How’d it get down the chimney?!” Pathetic, Best Buy.
Not sure how much we’ll post in the upcoming days–we posted a grand total of 14 times this past year. Maybe that’s a new year’s resolution for 2012. Either way, blessings to all of you in this season and the year ahead. Peace on earth and goodwill to those on whom God’s favor rests.
Nov 19
Instead of mouse traps, what about baby traps? Not to harm the babies but just to hold them down until they can be removed.
After a long journey, Suzanne wrote her master’s thesis this past year and graduated from the Seminary at Lincoln Christian University a few weeks ago. Two local news outlets, Lincoln Daily News and The Courier, published stories about it. Her degree is in biblical studies and her thesis was entitled “God’s Heart for the Fatherless,” a study of biblical texts on God’s perspective on caring for the orphans and widows. It’s quite good–you should read it. You can email either me or Suz and we’ll send you a PDF copy.
Congratulations to Suz–she’s worked hard to earn this and has done a terrific job.
Apr 30
Erin celebrated her 11th birthday with a slumber party and friends old and new this year. No special themes, just a chance to hang out, have fun, and lose some sleep.
Apr 22
Getting caught up on posting some photos–here are a few from Maura’s birthday back in April. She had, of course, a princess theme and invited several of her fellow princesses over for some princessy fun.
Apr 4
Life has pretty much gotten away from us, at least when it comes to updating this site. Michael is back at work (after being on sabbatical last fall) and Suzanne is working hard to finish her master’s thesis. Oh—and we have five kids here now. But we did celebrate a milestone today: Eva’s first birthday. Our friend Emmary brought over two of her children, Ella and Eli, to join in some fun with Eva and Aidan. Later this evening, Eva shared her cake with the family. Here are a few photos from the day.
Jan 29
So… we’ve got a lot of catching up to do here. Since we arrived back in the States on January 13, we’ve had Eva to the doctor for no less than four visits as well as a four-day stay in the hospital. She left Ethiopia with a fever which led to a diagnosis of pneumonia the day after we arrived here. She’s had three different oral antibiotics as well as antibiotics administered via IV during her hospital stay. After coming home from the hospital this past Monday night, the fever returned today. We knew we’d have our share of crazy once we took on five children but this has been somewhat unanticipated. At any rate, we press on and hope for some new insight from the docs this week.
On a more pleasant note, the other four kids have been playing indoor soccer the last two Saturdays. Although Aidan turns 5 in April, we signed him up to play with the 6 year-olds on Maura’s team since we figured his skills would probably put him beyond the younger kids. After he scored three goals and dominated the first game (Maura also scored a goal in that game), however, the league coordinator felt it would be good to bump him up to the next age bracket. So now he’s playing on Liam’s team with the 7-8 year-olds. How did he do today? Aidan and Liam’s team scored five goals to the other team’s zero; Aidan had two goals and one assist while Liam also had two goals. Aidan’s assist, actually, was a pass to Liam—sweet. Aidan’s soccer chops have become quite the buzz here and it was great fun to watch the boys play together.
Jan 15
Last night, Liam was engaged in a destruction project: he was attempting to take apart a remote controlled car that was no longer working. The two main screws that held the top of the car together, though, were giving him difficulty so he came to me.
“Dad, do you think you can get these screws out?”
I wrestled with it for a few moments and loosened them.
“Wow–Grandma and mom tried and they couldn’t do it.”
“Well it’s a good thing you have a dad then, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d be without you.”
“Right back at you, bud,” I replied.
He smiled, then returned to dismantling his car.
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