G-A-R-D-E-N Spells Garden

For those of you who have been following our blog, you know that I am a gardener. Well praise the Lord, He sent me some boys who are like minded. Yesterday, the kids had the day off of school because it was the sweet 16 basketball tournament a teacher workday, so we decided to head outside. Temps were in the mid 70s and after 8 hours outside, I even got a sun burn. My very black children can't figure out why mommy's skin turned red, but they did find it mildly amusing.

We started by creating a new garden space on the side of the house, since all the grass is dead, thanks to having to install a new water line in January. The plumbers left quite a mess and piles of rocks everywhere. So we decided to make lemonade out of lemons (or a rock wall out of rock piles in this case) and create a new garden space.

Kids being kids, they got easily distracted, but I was impressed with AJ ingenuity of hooking up the wagon to his bike.

We had to wait for Ababa to get home from work to get the rototiller started, but once we did, we rototilled to our hearts content.

Mickey didn't understand the purpose of the rototiller until we made a few passes. Then he said, "oh, like in Ethiopia we do this with cow." I said, "yes, but we don't have a cow." He said, "and it would be hard to turn around a cow (with plow) in our yard." True dat, son!

AJ took this picture and he wanted me & Ababa to hug, so thus the goofy pose

AJ took this picture of me showing the boys how its done (I know, I look pretty dang sexy in the capris with the work boots....style is my middle name).

We're doubling the size of our garden this year (since we've doubled our food intake in the last 7 months). That's AJ at the far end working on the new part of the garden.

Distracted again

Priceless videos

AJ loves to help me work outside and God love him, he rototilled most of the garden by himself. I'll probably go over it again when he's in school because he's just a bit too short to allow the rototiller to really dig into the ground. When I tried to go over it again yesterday, he said, "NO, Mom, its all done." So I left it for now.

7 Months Home

Today is the 7 month mark for the boys' homecoming. By far, it was the best day we've had in a long time. The cynic in me cringes to think of what tomorrow will bring, but I'm going to rejoice in today and not let the Devil steel my joy. AJ helped me cook some yummy Ethiopian food while Mickey told me about the garden he grew at the orphanage in ET. He said once our adoption agency director told him that he and AJ would become brothers, he used to take AJ sweet potatoes from his garden that he had roasted in a fire. We made plans to grow lots of sweet potatoes this summer in our garden, which, if the weather holds out, we'll start working on this Friday, since the kids are out of school for some unknown reason.

Since its pouring rain again outside and I needed to do Chloe's hair, we a

ll watched Flight of the Navigator tonight (which apparently was edited for language when I watched it on the Disney Channel as a kid, dang it!) I was running out of time to finish a thousand braids in Chloe's hair, so Mickey volunteered to help me finish. He's a good braider, just needs to work on his finishing technique. (HA!) He wanted to take his picture (below) with the finished product and of course Essie couldn't be left out.

I did Essie's hair on Saturday so didn't want to leave her lovely locks out of this post.

School Music Program

The girls had a special music program at school on Thursday evening. They did a great job. Here is some video:

Some Good Reads & Videos Regarding Adoption

As we celebrate having our children home, many of our friends are fearing that their's may never come home. A good article by Tom Davis on the subject.

Ethiopia Adoption Cuts: Rumors & Human Rights

Also, please sign the petition below to show your support for intercountry adoption as one way to combat the dire situation that faces Ethiopia's 5 million orphans. If you aren't sure if intercountry adoption is a good idea, click on the "adoption" tag on our blog and see the way God has used intercountry adoption to transform our 4 children's lives (and our lives too!)

http://www.gopetition.com/petition/43714.html

On a lighter note: I LOVE THIS VIDEO! Its my favorite Christian band of all time THIRD DAY getting on board with this whole crazy adoption world.

Oh my goodness...how did I miss the Mac Powell is an adoptive dad??? Oh wait..I guess it had something to do with adopting 4 kids of my own. This video is outdated as now it appears they have adopted 2 kids, but I couldn't find anything regarding the second adoption. Please let me know if there is a video/article regarding their 2nd adoption journey.

One more video to show you these kids are worth saving!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Two Years Ago Today

We were meeting our girls for the first time! WOW...what a 2 years it has been. I can't believe how much they have grown and changed.

Essie was scared to death to meet us. Chloe promptly wet herself (& me).

Didn't take long for them to warm up

Chloe with that tuft of hair that we are so thankful the orphanage staff left so we (& they) could tell the girls apart.

Happy Gotcha Day girl! We love you more than you will ever know!

We also found out our agency director was traveling back to the area the girls were born and we asked the girls if they wanted to draw a picture to send to their birth family. Below are their drawings.

Chloe drew the hut where she was born

Essie drew a happy girl

First Kiss

The boys just kissed their first women...ME!!! Ethiopian style--on each cheek. I kiss the boys every night before bed and last week they started asking me to kiss them when I wake them up. AJ "likes" (he fusses the whole time) one kiss to the forehead; Mickey takes one on each cheek and one to the forehead. Tonight, Mickey asked if he could kiss me too so of course I said "yes". AJ followed suit and giggled the whole time. Hopefully their form will improve before they start kissing women for real. Which, btw, AJ informed us a few weeks ago that he has his first girlfriend, but when I asked about kissing, he said, "yuck, gross!" Pretty sure I don't need to worry about him and kissing for a while. Mickey informed us he will not have a girlfriend until the 7th grade. Although yesterday, he told Meemaw and Grandpa that "lots of girls like me" and promptly began giggling hysterically. Heaven help us!!!

Soccer Star

Mickey had his first soccer game today with the Jessamine County select team, the Storm. His team participated in the Spring Thaw soccer invitational in Danville, despite pouring rain. Mickey scored three goals in his first game, a 5-4 victory. Another game follows tonight if the thunderstorms aren't too severe.

Warm-ups

Here is a video of one of Mickey's goals:

Here's how AJ entertained himself during the game:

UPDATE: No rain in game 2. Mickey scored 4 in a 10-1 blowout.