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.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
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.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Good news!
Hi all! I arrived home in Tulsa late Saturday night. We found out on Friday, the 11th, that Sammy had all his waiver paperwork back in and we were able to leave the country. We cancelled our flights with Britsh Air (which we had learned needed a transit visa to go through London per Sammy's Ethiopian passport) and went to the travel agency to change our tickets to Turkish Air so we could leave that night, at 2 am.
The trip to Ethiopia was very good. The beautiful sights and abject poverty we saw were very sobering. The disparity between the rich and the poor in Addis was sharp. But the people were beautiful. We enjoyed spending time with the four other families staying at the guest house during portions of our stay, and we very sad that the two other families traveling with us, were not able to leave Friday like we were - we were waiting on waivers for four kids between the three families - only two children received their paperwork back on Friday, and the other child was waiting for his sister's paperwork, so his family was not able to leave.
It was, of course, so good to see my family at home. Graham looked bigger than I remembered - I guess that comes from carrying a 17-month old around for two weeks.
So much to say, maybe I'll try to post again, once my head is a bit clearer.
Oh, and the day we left Ethipia, we learned that Lidiya Sissay passed court and is also officially an "Emory". I'll try to post some photos of her and Sammy later in the week. We got to meet her family in Ethiopia, two aunts (from mother and father's sides), two grandmothers, her half-sister, and her young three-year old cousin. so many women in her life, but no men. Her parents died about six years ago. While we don't understand why her aunt could not care for her; although she is relatively poor, we are honored to have her in our family. And yes, she does have the most delightful smile you've ever seen.
So good to be home! We were gone right at two weeks - left Sunday morning after Thanksgiving and returned Saturday night almost two weeks later. Couldn't have hoped for a better turnaround on our paperwork.
The trip to Ethiopia was very good. The beautiful sights and abject poverty we saw were very sobering. The disparity between the rich and the poor in Addis was sharp. But the people were beautiful. We enjoyed spending time with the four other families staying at the guest house during portions of our stay, and we very sad that the two other families traveling with us, were not able to leave Friday like we were - we were waiting on waivers for four kids between the three families - only two children received their paperwork back on Friday, and the other child was waiting for his sister's paperwork, so his family was not able to leave.
It was, of course, so good to see my family at home. Graham looked bigger than I remembered - I guess that comes from carrying a 17-month old around for two weeks.
So much to say, maybe I'll try to post again, once my head is a bit clearer.
Oh, and the day we left Ethipia, we learned that Lidiya Sissay passed court and is also officially an "Emory". I'll try to post some photos of her and Sammy later in the week. We got to meet her family in Ethiopia, two aunts (from mother and father's sides), two grandmothers, her half-sister, and her young three-year old cousin. so many women in her life, but no men. Her parents died about six years ago. While we don't understand why her aunt could not care for her; although she is relatively poor, we are honored to have her in our family. And yes, she does have the most delightful smile you've ever seen.
So good to be home! We were gone right at two weeks - left Sunday morning after Thanksgiving and returned Saturday night almost two weeks later. Couldn't have hoped for a better turnaround on our paperwork.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)
