Ethiopian Laugh

We fell in love with the traditional wheezing that all people who speech Amharic seem to do. Mid-sentence they wheeze in and then finish their sentence, as well as when they laugh. Taft doesn't seem to have brought that little treasure home, but Zeke has always done it when he laughs and I hope he continues. Little tiny fragments of their past and culture that they have continued in the states are little glimmers of who they are and where they came from. Enjoy our Zekers!

Recent Phoenix Trip

We percentile went to PHX and it was a great little Mommy + Boys trip. We hit up IKEA for some great finds, the off to our friends house for a lunch date who are anxiously awaiting their own Ethiopian bundle of joy, and a birthday party for a little Ethiopian girl who spent her first months of life in the orphanage with our little boys.

We had a great lunch date with our friends and the boys even got to run wild with all of their dogs and exotic birds. The most animal action they get is our little fish bowl, so they were a little on edge but loved and giggled with their pets. We are excitedly joining in their wait for an Ethiopian child to joining their family, and look forward to playdates with kiddos of the same heritage.

Then off to the Weber's house! We adore their entire family and had a great time visiting with all their friends and family who joined in Alli's 2nd birthday party. Heart warming to know that her 2nd birthday was so fabulous, since her first was in an orphanage in Ethiopia. We will always have a special connection to that family after traveling to meet our children together, spending time seeing Ethiopia together, and now enjoying life in the states together. They are a family first Christian family, like ours, and their little girls are adorable. I love to see the progress, development and love of adopted families! I thought it was hilarious to watch my kids compared to the insane number of children there. If you sit and watch the kids, for some reason it looks like my kids drank a Red Bull on the way there. They run fast, jump higher, scream louder, act more nuts, then ALL the other kiddos heir own age. God really dealt us a wild hand of cards, knowing we can keep up I guess! Another first at the party.....an ice cream bar with too many goodies! Did my kids eat ice cream, chocolate, etc..NO..grossed out by it, accept M&Ms. They got their hands on them and went nuts, Taft had dye streaming down his face and stood at the counter begging other people to hand him one as they went through the serving line. OUR FIRST CANDY! First of all I can't believe I let them have one, second I cant believe they liked it, or that they begged strangers for them. I think this moment is a loss of innocence and the beginning of an addiction!

Words! and Sweet Hubby!

In the past few days Zeke has added a few words to his vocanulary: God, Car, Cat and....

What's that? Yes he asked the questions "What's that?". I was bathign the boys, hence the photo, and Zeke pointed and said, "What's that?". Unfortuenatly he was pointing at a poop Taft had made, gross!

The best floral deliveries are those for absoluetly no reason or holiday!!! Tyler is the best!

Tubes

Grrrrrrr......
After the drama of tubes and adenoids for little Z...the tubes fell out after only 7 weeks, so much for the 12-18 months the ENT said, they lasted 7 weeks! Grr...

Speech

We have officially started down the path of speech therapy for little Zeke man. Our new therapist came to the home to give him an overall evaluation before scheduling regular visits. As usual it was the whole hosts of exam type questions: can he make animal noises on command, can he do a puzzle, stack block, the usual! The results: GENIUS!!! Well the silent genius that is! He scored in the 27-29 months range in basically every single category of development, and he was 18 months old!!! Basically his little mind is a year ahead! However, his expressive speech fell in the category of 6-9 months when they take signing out of the scenario. Therefore, we are beginning to work with her weekly for the next ???? undetermined amount of time. Exciting, scary and frustrating all at once. I am always just so amazed at how God places these amazing people in our lives that know just wheat we need and how to give it to us. He has blessed this little family in ways to big to ever describe!

Dino fear!!!

Zeke has a abnormally serious fear of dinosaurs. Ever since we visited the children's museum, that has a life size dino exhibit, he growls at anything that has teeth. He points to crocodiles in stories, puppies across the street, hippos on posters, basically anything that has teeth, and makes a terrifying growl sound. The T-rex at the museum periodically growls, so I assume that is where he got the idea. We have now added dino to our repertoire of animal sounds. I ask "what does a dino say?", and he lets out a giant "ROAR!" The other day we got to the museum parking lot and I am searching the car for change to put into the parking meter. I got to grab Zeke out of his seat and he keeps saying, "No, no, no, no", and shaking his head No. I asked him what was wrong and he loudly ROARS at me. That little stinker has figured out that the parking lot that requires meter money, is the same lot that eventually leads to a museum, that leads to a dino room, with a T-rex that Roars! So go figure I must carry him from room to room in the museum, protecting him from the chance the next room holds the giant T-rex monster!
Silly boy!

Taft: The Man Mermaid/ The Green Hornet

We have entered the world of therapeutic "Fancy Pants". Taft now wears his fancy pants for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. The pants are shiny spandex and basically have the legs sewn together so when he walks his feet barely move apart. They are intended to help with his muscular disorder, so that he holds his legs closer with each step and prevents continuing to destroy the cartilage in the arches of his feet(aka NO ORTHOPEDIC SHOES!) I know the pants are not meant to land my by on the runway of fashion week, but he is so ADORABLE. His tiny little diaper booty covered in shiny spandex with no shirt and his little belly hanging over the tight waist band, just makes me cover him in kisses. Top it off with the fact that his first pair were Kelly green, so he looked like The Green Hornet super hero. We have an additional black pair now, which look much more presentable, but not nearly as adorable. His therapist and I both see a great improvement.

In love..with each other

The boys love each other in a way most of us will never understand. When I get one out of their crib first, they go stand at the other's crib until he gets out and then they run off together. Same with their high chairs. Zeke is usually cleaned up first and then he runs around to Taft's side of the table and stands at his high chair until T is cleaned up and put down to play. I find them laughing together constantly. Lately when they are given sippy cups they like to go find a little hidden space behind a club chair or between the cabinets and wall, etc and will both squeeze into the tiny space and drink their sippy cups together. I have asked at the nursery, gym, etc about their interaction. They are BEYOND SOCIAL, but always stay together when playing with the other kiddos. I love it, not only are they brothers, but best buddies, what could be better! My favorite moments lately are when one kiddo gets upset and cries, gets hurt or whatever else makes them upset, the other runs into their room and finds the appropriate lovey and comes sprinting back to the upset brother and hands him the lovey to make him feel better. Empathy is beautiful between these two!

We are getting to be big boys!

We officially had our 18 month giant check-up!

We are proud to announce some GIANT numbers:

Taft:
Weight 39%
Height 39%
Head 98%

Zeke:
Weight 17%
Height 71%...he is KONSO...and is growing like a weed to be a typical one!
Head 51%

Continuation of: Feeding/Meal Therapy for both(mostly Zekey), Physical therapy for Taft, Occupational therapy for Taft.

New news:
Zeke is starting speech therapy, yes he can sign 100+ words including piecing together sentences, but he needs to TALK! However, yesterday he said "Cracker". I was organizing the pantry and he was signing "Cracker please", and I acted like I was too busy I didn't want to watch his hands as he repeated himself, so he out of the blue said CRACKER!!!

Taft has a little ligament attaching his lip and two front teeth. We all have this little connector but his meet right at his teeth, not an inch up or so like the rest of us. Therefore, we are looking into having it snipped before speech issues arise. We have an appointment with his ENT we adore for next month to see where we go from here.

We get more adorable daily!

God makes our little miracles light up our life ever moment!

Silly moments:
Taft desperatelt loves trains, so much that he lines his cars up in a row and pushes the last one in the sequence as though it is a caboose to a train.

Zeke loves raisins but can not shew them well, so feeds them to me and then squeezes my cheeks to open my mouth, digs the raisin out and eats them himself..gross and adorable at the same time.

At the gym the other day Taft was starring at what I thought was the floor and then realized his eyes were tracking this little boy's feet. He then started screaming "TRUCKS!"..what was he talkign about? The little guy had cars on his shoes, and Taft was content to sit there and stare his feet down, infatutated with the shoes.

Zeke has convinced himself that a TI83 graphing calculater is an Iphone. He pushes numbers on the buttons and then holds up the phoen to his face and blabs away. He then looks back and pishes buttons like he is checking emails and things. So cute, but seriously why is he micking a smart phone behvior at 1? Then at our new, AND AMAZING, in home community group bible study for families he couldnt leave my side. We had a sitter in half the house to watch all the kiddos, but he stood at the gate and cried, so we let him join the study and he sat there quietyly flipping through a picture book on our Nook color. I can't imagine a color computer screen as a kid,let alone a touch creen color electorinc baby book...wow!

Our big eater!

One of the two monsters has found his appetite! I couldn't help but post Taft falling asleep mid bite during lunch and his giant dinner the following night. Everyone might have a tiny bit of sympathy for me in seeing what a mess he makes for me to clean up 3 times a day..yikes!

Drop it low

Sorry about the clothign choices...this was post food therapy when we were a total mess. However we are adorable getting our groove on!

ONLY One year ago

Our 1st Anniversary

On August 2, 2010 was the day we met, held and fell deeply in love with Taft and Zeke in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Yesterday marked exactly 1 year and we spent the entire day celebrating! We started off the day with telling the boys the story and sharing with them pictures of the events leading up to and including our day. Then a giant breakfast with homemade whole wheat blueberry pancakes with fresh made applesauce for dipping. Next off to the Children's museum (first day with no stroller on a outing!) for hours of play. Then, a lunch date at Pei Wei thinking they might be able to try at least something on the menu. Taft fell asleep with a noodle hanging from his mouth, and Zeke had to harass him a bit. Noodle bowls were not the success we hoped, but we tried and had a blast doing so. Off to GAP for new little sandals and we passed by Cinnabon so I couldn't resist the temptation, since it was their big day and all! Zeke wanted to have nothing to do with his treat..go figure! Taft you ask????? ATE THE ENTIRE CINNABON!!!! Yes bite by bite with a little fork, but my little big guy was all about that roll of fat and sugar! Next, headed home for their big gift, a tool table with too many tools to count! Each and every tool works just like the real thing. A bit ambitious on our behalf, but I think they will grow into the toys! Afterward, a great dinner, their favorites of course! Not sharing what those favorites might be or you might just report me to our food therapist! I gave into a lollipop after dinner. First one for Taft and only second for Zeke. They don't suck the pop, just drool all over it, which turned into every inch of the house covered in stickiness! The Zeke screamed bloody murder, and I realized he got to the Tootsie roll center and it was stuck on his teeth. He stood there with his mouth open wide until I pulled the tootsie roll bits off each little tooth. That was the end of the pop, pure fear of the CENTER! We then had to watch our video of the day we met. Finally bath time...all chaos breaks loose here! After bathing I am drying Taft off and smell something dreadful only to catch a handful of poop in my bare hands 2 seconds later. I scream and start rinsing my hands in the sink and turn by back for about 15 seconds, in the mean time he has pooped again and smeared it all over the wall and bathroom door. Yikes..rebath! I hear water, oh no little Zeke is now peeing on the bathroom rug. Could they be any more disgusting! A wild night to end our beautiful day. The day couldn't be topped off with anything better than the gift from Memaw and Pepaw in honor of our day, no not a toy or clothes, water! The made a contribution in honor of our big anniversary to Charity Water. The lack of water in Ethiopia, and all over Africa for the matter, is shocking. Children in Ethiopia simply begged us for partially empty used water bottles, not money, toys or goodies we have become accustom to seeing. What a joy and blessing to celebrate our day with the gift of clean water! God is good...one year later..wow we are blessed! Our favorite verse and prayer of Ephesians 1:4-5 resonates more real every day! Pictures are from 1st anniversary, but the video is the moment we first met!

Frustration with military regulations!

Tyler's location this deployment has been much more restrictive on communications. Rarely is the Internet or phone system consistently working. This has added a whole new dynamic to the deployment with such limited communication compared to the last ones. However, we have been able to Skype periodically for the boys to see Daddy and for him to at least recognize their developments. So hard to see them together when he left and they were infants, now full grown toddler! Then upon returning from CO we were hit hard..NO MORE SKYPE! Not sure of reasoning or length of time this is for. Prayers are needed for this let down. We worry about the boys and their understanding of a Daddy figure out there somewhere. Attachment issues are always on our mind, even when Tyler was home daily, so this blow to our communication has been a low one.

Twiblings: So alike yet SO DIFFERENT

On the hunt for a train table for Christmas

Taft spends hours at every single group, museum, friend's house, etc piddling with trains and the tracks they belong on. We are going to be the greatest parents ever when we eventually find and purchase his very own train table...at this point we are aiming for Christmas!

Zeke melts my heart

All the chaos is worth it for love like this!

When I ask the boys to give me Mommy hugs they come running full of joy and literally pounce into my arms and smother me in true love!