Happy New Year!

Well, who would have thought a mom with five kids, two part-time jobs, & who tries to occasionally clean the house and cook meals would have time for a blog? Well, apparently that is the case - she doesn't.

Just wanted to say "Happy New Year!" to you all.

We are doing great - just keeping busy as you can imagine.

It's time to write my one year post-adoption reports for the agency and I can truthfully say we've been so blessed, because our kids are fitting in so well - and things are just great. So thought I would post an end of the year update here.

We moved to a bigger house at the end of October 2010 and it is so nice, although it will probably never all be clean at once, because there just doesn't seem to be much time for all that :)

I started back to teaching ESL a few days a week in October and working for dad on the other days. All the kids are in school. Lidia in a "Newcomer's" (ESL) class at the Union 6th Grade Center. She has a wonderful teacher (as do all the kids really) and seems to be enjoying school a lot. Lydia Grace is finishing her time at the local elementary school. Elise is in second grade at the same school, and Graham is in kindergarten there. Sammy attends the Christian preschool near our house, so mommy can work. He is well-loved there and is very happy.

Todd has been a web developer for the past year and may be transitioning to a new job soon. Hopefully- we're waiting on an offer from them.

We have a student from China staying with us. We are hoping he'll be exposed to lots of English here, so that his language skills will develop quicker.

The older girls have their own rooms here at the new house which they've enjoyed, although they still spend a lot of time together. Elise is quite the artist and is always drawing pictures for us as gifts. Graham is busy playing with his Christmas toys and Sammy is busy running around trying to see what everybody is doing.

Well, I hope to round up some new photos as I have to do that post-placement report anyway. Hopefully I can post some here.

Happy New Year! Hope it's your best yet - for us too, although it may be hard to top 2010 for us!

the EMORYs

New photos

Don't have much to say except that things are going really well. Our pastor's wife took some good photos of us yesterday. Wanted to post one or two really quick.



Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We were just reminded today of my husband's grandfather who married his grandmother after her first husband died in World War II in Italy. Todd's grandfather was the brother of Banks, his grandmother's first husband. I don't take for granted the sacrifices that many have made for us to have the wonderful freedoms we have today.

Spring Break!

Hi all! Again, long time, no post.

We've been having fun hanging out this week on Spring Break. We had a cleaning day today. The girls did great. They all had great attitudes, but it took us forever. I'm ready to hire a cleaning helper now!

We went to our annual Spring Break zoo trip yesterday. Fun overall, but Lidia came home petrified of snakes. Was sure there were some in the house. I was a bit surprised at the level of her fear. We tried to assure her that the Oklahoma snakes are different than the African snakes, as well as the ones we saw at the zoo (including the 130 pound 1/2 grown Anaconda in the rain forest). She slept with her 7-year old sister last night and is sleeping with her 5-year old brother tonight so she has a bodyguard handy. :)

Don't have much to report. Things are going great. Think I will name her "Lidia Rahel" (Well, I'm still trying to convince her of the Rahel middle name). This is "Rachel" in Amharic. I love it. And since we're having to utilize middle names, want one that has a nice ring. We'll see if I can talk her into it. Also, going to change the spelling a bit, to appease my sense of "correctness" (the spelling "Lidiya" just seems a bit off to me (it's not the only way to spell her name anyway, since Amharic has a different alphabet, I don't feel like I'm taking away her real name.) Especially since we are keeping her name. Her sister, Lydia Grace, gets annoyed when folks call her Lydia Emory, since that is, of course, her name as well. Need some way to get this all ironed out.

Brother Sammy is doing well. Still taking good naps, sleeping through the night, and getting healthier by the day.

I've been so blessed about how they both fit into our family so well. I love this life - so full, so blessed.

Everybody's home!

Wow, I've been so lame keeping up on my blog. Sorry! Lydia Sissay came home last Thursday, the 14th. My mother-in-law, Lydia Grace, and I traveled to Chicago early in the morning and hung out until we met her about 2:30 p.m. - then we traveled home that night at about 10:30.

So, she's been home almost a week! Things are going really well. She isn't much of an eater (now we know why she's so thin). In fact, she's rather a picky eater. So that's my only complaint. She is a sweet girl and we already can't imagine life without her. And yes, the names are still confusing. We still haven't decided what to do yet about the names, but we are tentatively calling her "Sissy" after her last name in Ethiopia "Sissay" pronounced "Siss-eye". She is willing to change her name, but we don't have a name that has leapt out to us yet.

When I visited her in Ethiopia in December and asked her about her birthday, She told me April 26th, and then I asked her how old she would be, and she answered, "13." Oh, my. We thought she was 9, and although the agency warned us about the ages possibly being incorrect we just didn't think much about it.

Now, it's no big deal - but we've been able to confirm with a dentist appointment and our pediatrician's take on it this week that she probably is, in fact, 12. We didn't really feel she had lied about her age to us and it seems like it fits the pattern of some adoptions at least in Ethiopia. Since many families don't want to adopt older children, especially teeenagers, the extended family members who put the child into orphanage care, often say they are younger than they actually are, with hopes that a younger child will be adopted. This makes a lot of sense and again, we knew she was meant to be in our family. And possibly if she had been 12 on paper, we might not even have considered adopting her in the beginning. Adopting an older child was a stretch for us, but a teenager - yeah, we probably wouldn't have made that leap of faith. Anyway, that's the big surprise.

She will start school Monday - I decided to put her in 5th grade because of her "real age". Lydia G. was disappointed that they wouldn't be in 4th grade together, but I was scared of 6th grade and with needing to ramp up on the language, I think this will work really well. And the four older kids will be at the same elementary school, which will also be really great!

Thanks for all your prayers, everybody, as we went through this process. God's grace has been really strong for us. The day I felt I couldn't stay in Ethiopia one more minute, we got Sammy's paperwork approved and could leave. This thing about the age. The names. Getting Lydia home in mid-January when we were worried it would take long. So many times where God just demonstrated Himself strong in our behalf. That's the only thing I can say.

Ironically, as I was paying my last bill to the adoption agency to have her escorted to the United States, I looked at the receipt and our first payment was January 5, 2009. Our last payment was January 5, 2010. We were so blessed to have such a short time frame for the entire adoption - well, it seems short now! :)

Tomorrow night ( Friday, January 22), we are having an open house at my in-laws house if you're interested in meeting the kids. Send me a message on my email account and I'll send you directions. Sorry for the late notice. I posted it on Facebook, etc. but I'm not sure everybody heard.

One more comment

Oh, I'm so sorry. The framed photo is Lydia's late mother. She died when she was 27 or 28, I believe.

Few photos from trip - mostly Lydia's family

Hi, I found a few photos from the trip. This is Lydia's family. Her two grandmothers, two aunts, cousin, half-sister, and family friend, the older boy. The house is Lydia's maternal aunt in Debre Zeit. Some of the photos Lydia took for me. I may be able to send a few more photos later.

Pictures from Faith

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