Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Oregon Sibling Group

I saw this sibling groups' information posted on a Heart Gallary website and just thought they are adorable! They reside in the Oregon foster care system and are looking for a forever family. If you would like more information on them, here's the link.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

What They Do In Holland

The girls have been talking at school about what children around the world do with their teeth after they lose them. Which is really funny because that has been a topic of conversation on our agency's Yahoo group. In Ethiopia, children throw there tooth over the house (or into the woods) and yell to the bird, "take my pretty tooth and give me your ugly tooth". We are interpreting that as the children offering their better tooth to help the bird out. I'll let the girls explain the tradition in Holland.



Note the shiny shoes Chloe gave the girl and her grandfather

Monday, November 28, 2011

The Many Faces of Shelby

We headed to Indiana last week to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. All 16 of us were there and it was fun to see everyone. (Though the internet connection at my parents is frustratingly slow so thus no posts til today.) The kids had a ball playing tag on Grandpa's big round bales in the field and generally getting dirty. My niece Shelby has found her voice, though no words yet, just lots of loud squeals and screams. She is however now using sign language to express many of her basic needs, though to Shelby, the "potty" sign apparently means "make mommy frustrated by sitting on the toilet for 10 minutes and then filling my diaper as soon as she puts in on me". I wasn't sure where to start posting about our trip, but soon realized I had several pictures of the many faces of Shelby.

This is her "this is my elephant and you better not even think of taking it" face to Aunt Kelly

This is her "what was that noise?" face.
Truthfully, this is the look Shelby always gets when she's trying to figure something out or is feeling very unsure of a situation. We used to see it A LOT, but happy to report we see it less and less as Shelby begins to settle in to her new family (home 6 months now).


Uncle Jeremy was "watching" Shelby when she stuck her hand in a nearby peanut butter pie. At first she wasn't sure at all about this substance we call cool whip.


She soon figured out this stuff was good and this is her "mmm" face

This is Shelby sitting on Chloe, who is sitting on Matt. I took about 6 pictures of this trio and these are the best ones. This is Shelby's "I can't figure out this situation" face again.
And then Shelby got distracted because she's only 2 years old and there were 15 other people in the house. At least I got Matt trained on how to take a proper picture.

Monday, November 21, 2011

A Fun Filled Afternoon

We had a fun filled afternoon with 2 sets of friends who ended up coming over to play. Nothing like 8 kids in the house at the same time. As long as I kept the boys separate from the girls, everyone had fun.

Chloe Margaret, Ruthie and Essie played dress-up and had a wedding, accompanied by quite a loud, expressive musical processional.

Nathan, AJ & Samuel rough-housed, broke the Nerf basketball hoop and spilled an entire bag of popcorn. Not sure what else they did but they had fun doing it.

I didn't get a picture of Baby Tessa, but she hung out in my arms and then fell asleep. She didn't scream once so I think she had a good time too.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

More Family Photos

More photos from our photo shoot with Cydil:










More Photos of the Twins

Here are some more pictures of our girls from our photo shoot with Cydil.


Essie





Chloe






More Photos of AJ

Here are some more photos of AJ from our photo shoot with Cydil.




Saturday, November 19, 2011

Family Photo Shoot

Our very talented friend Cydil (www.cydilwaggoner.com) took some great photos of our family at Waveland Historic Site just outside Lexington. The fall colors were beautiful, and the kids were great - laughing and posing the whole time. (The locations and poses for their individual pictures were chosen by them.)





AJ

Essie

Chloe


Our twins - giggling as usual



Friday, November 18, 2011

Welcome Home Wills Family!

We had the privilege to welcome home the Wills family tonight with their twin daughters from Ethiopia (for those counting, we're up to 3 sets of twins from ET right here in the Bluegrass and I know of one other set in Louisville). I did the Wills' home study and actually suggested they look into Ethiopia. I had no idea at the time, it would take them 16 months to get their girls home. The Embassy caused all kinds of delays, but all that is behind them now as they celebrate being a family of 6 tonight at home.


The Mullins twins

Chloe & her buddy John (Taiwan)

Are they coming yet?

Kids melting down while we wait

Reni getting bored, but looking so dang cute!


Finally, here they come...




Had to get a picture of my kids helping with the luggage