Decorating for Christmas

Ababa cuts the base of the tree

Amsalu, Chloe, and Essie loved exploring the Christmas storage box.

Mickey

Essie

Amsalu

Chloe

Mickey

Done with all the heavy lifting, Ababa takes a break to watch the Cats lose...again.

Mickey shows off the ornament he made.

Window clings!

Mickey & Amsalu decorate their first Christmas tree.

Mom

Amsalu strings lights outside.

Mom & Mickey string lights inside.

Four happy children

The finished tree

On Sunday afternoon, we worked on the house lights. Amy wasn't feeling good, so she went to lay down. Matt said, "If you hear me scream, call 911. If you hear one of the kids scream, call social services, because I've killed one of them."

Ababa works on hanging lights on the house

Mickey assists the ladder work.

Mickey gets the porch peak.

Thanksgiving in Illinois

This was our year to spend Thanksgiving with Matt's family, so we headed to his grandparents' in Southern Illinois where we had a combined celebration of Thanksgiving and his grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary and 90th birthdays, all of which fall within six months. Because lots of family was in, we stayed in a hotel that had an indoor pool - a very big hit.

Testing the waters

Swimming with Ababa

Mom forgot her bathing suit, so guess who got to keep 4 kids afloat?

Mickey is a very good swimmer.

Amsalu, on the other hand, has a ways to go.

Ababa enjoys the whirlpool while the kids stick a toe in the hot water.

Hanging out at Gigi and Great-Grandpa's house

Aunt Daphne, Grandma Melanie, and Matt

Essie & Chloe meet their cousin Carson (Matt's cousin's son).

Essie is a guitar hero.

We had our celebration in the church fellowship hall so the kids would have stuff to do. One of the favorites was the parachute Matt found in a closet. He and Aunt Buffy knew lots of fun games from their elementary PE days. (Thank you, Mrs. Richmond, wherever you are!)

Grandma Melanie helps prepare the feast

Aunt Buffy brought some fun crafts for the kids to do between meals.

Chloe

Essie

Mickey

Amsalu

Carson

Somebody scored "10" on the Wii.

Gigi and Great-Grandpa

A full table

On the way home we found snow on the ground at the Kentucky Welcome Center. Mickey celebrates his first snow while Ababa prepares to initiate him to the joys of winter.

Direct hit!

"It's cold!"

Ethiopia Gathering

The boys' friend Eyasu was in a town close to us tonight to visit his aunt and uncle and cousins (who happen to be from Ethiopia) so we had a big Ethiopia gathering. Eyasu came to the States the same time as the boys and now lives in Mississippi. They hadn't seen him for 3 months so they were very excited to spend some time with him. We had kids from the US, Ethiopia, Ukraine and Korea present in our group. Eyasu's cousin Grace made some excellent Ethiopian dishes and all the kids throughly enjoyed themselves.

Its hard to get 20 kids to look at the camera at the same time.

Korbet playing dress-up

Amsalu having his 2nd meal of the night

Lovin' that hat, girls!