Before the main event

The fun was not limited to Saturday's reunion. Thursday and Friday were days to get acquainted with new friends and old. Spiderman sprained his ankle on the trampoline Friday so he was pretty bummed to be limping around the rest of the weekend.


Friday Jen and her sister arrived from Michigan with 5 kids between them. They all hit it off well with our 4 kids and you can imagine it was a happy houseful. Here are some of the girls together before heading out for the reunion.

Spiderman has a double! The Morby's were so sweet to bring matching outfits for the boys (and the girls as you'll see below). Our Spiderman was thrilled to have his good buddy around for two whole days before the reunion. We look forward to keeping this friendship alive through the years as these boys have known each other since BEFORE they entered the orphanage together - a beautiful piece of the past.

Hope & Abby were stuck to each other like glue all weekend and it was adorable to watch them holding hands everywhere they went. It was precious to see relationships between all these kids rekindled.

Here's the good buddies again after some slip & slide time. As wonderful as it was for them to be reunited, the tears and emotion flowed heavily after everyone said goodbye. It's hard to watch him hurt like this but I know it is a necessary part in grieving the losses he has suffered.

In awe of God's creation

We have had so much fun this past week watching one of God's little miracles. Our "broody" hen has been sitting on her eggs (and those she stole from other hens) and we are busy watching these 4 baby chicks that hatched. Goose's face says it all, this is cool!

Boo got to "chick-sit" these 2 newborns on their birthday. We thought that we only had 2 chicks and we were happy with that. We couldn't bear to throw the other eggs out right away and 5 days later - these two showed up! The black one was named Lucky (as twice I almost threw out the unhatched eggs as "hopeless" and then later put them back) and it's VERY lucky to be alive. Later that day #4 showed up and someone named it Cinnamon, though I don't believe it will still be brown when it is grown. :)

Spiderman is so sweet with these little things. He has created a "chick playground" out of boards, buckets and an old tire. When he captures a chick, he escorts it to the playground and supervises to make sure it stays safe.

These little fuzz balls are hard to put down. It takes something pretty cool to get Jaybird this excited about something "non-Lego".

OK, I have to put in a picture of the proud momma, "broody Lily" as we call her. She is quite tempermental but in her defense, she's just protecting her babies. These two chicks are named Sparkle and Midnight and they are about a week old. The kids are praying that all 4 chicks are hens as we don't intend to keep any roosters. :)

Delayed Gratification

Well, it took over 3 weeks and 3 attempts to get a trampoline but we finally did this past week. The kids were so excited to put it together, that 3 of 4 helped out in their PJ's one morning. I think the instructions said it was a 2 person job so I had plenty of help with my 4 little people.


Amazingly, it only took a couple of hours til they could bounce on it and we did it all while my man was at work. He was impressed (and maybe relieved) to see he had a clear evening that night.

Now I'll admit that it wasn't until the next night that we finished putting up the net (they didn't break their necks Grandma!) Originally we were going to skip the net as it wasn't in our yard sale profits "budget" but Grandma got wind of that and she and Great-Grandma insisted that they buy the net for us. THANKS!

See all these happy faces? This has been a wonderful purchase. The kids get outside more (even if they bring their Legos with them), get plenty of exercise and get more practice at taking turns. :) My man is just waiting for the first ER bill.
OK, the kids call this "popcorn" as one jumps and tries to bounce the others enough to make them let go of their legs.

Please Pray

I'm saddened to bring hard news in this way but we are burdened for a friend whose 3 year old daughter, Abby, was just diagnosed with Leukemia on Friday. I can only imagine the difficult road ahead for them as they determine what treatment is necessary and how to navigate it with their precious little girl. At the same time, I stand in awe of how God is already giving them perspective and the faith to trust Him during this difficult time. They have a beautiful post on their family blog about this and it is a powerful reminder to us all. Please take the time to read it and pray for their family. http://www.riggsbunch.blogspot.com/

"Just for fun" Soccer

Tizita's family has been organizing weekly soccer games at our church. As you can see by these smiles, they are a big hit with the kids.


This week, the two newest families home from Ethiopia were able to join in and the crowd was getting pretty big. It couldn't help but remind me of watching the soccer games at Hannah's Hope Ethiopia.

Afterward we enjoyed some freezy pops and playing on the playground. Boo has a new buddy as Ridge is the closest to her in age.

Earlier that day, Hope was getting her hair braided and Goose wanted hers done as well. I am by no means an expert but this sweet girl was still impressed by her hairdo and felt she had a good connection to the Ethiopian girls.

Independence Day

Well, another first for Spiderman was celebrating Independence Day. There was a lot of explaining going into the week and MUCH anticipation. We spent the morning going to a neighbors field to shoot off Jaybird's real rocket he bought this Spring. As you can see from the background, we had a beautiful day!

This is the rocket at liftoff. It was something else as it travels 1,200 feet into the air and then we had to watch to see where it would land (or should I say the kids got to chase it some distance). He had enough motors to shoot it 3 times and now he is scheming on how to get more.
In the afternoon we went to the local parade with Hope. Jaybird and Goose got to ride on the firetruck with Dad this time and as they were at the front of the parade, there was time for them to join us when they were done.

That evening we went to a friend's home for swimming, eating and fireworks. This is always interesting for a first timer but as I suspected, Spiderman LOVED it! The Kosmiski's really get into the fireworks and we had fun watching the show and letting the kids do things like sparklers. Spiderman was in awe and on a couple of bigger ones, drew back like he was scared - just a bit.

To finish off the night, we saw the city's display not far from home. You can imagine the kids were up late but they had a "blast" right up until collapsing in their beds.

OK, I had to throw this in there as Goose has collected her first dozen eggs (and then some). We average 3-4 each day and the kids get really excited each time we find one.

chickens and turtles and friends, Oh My!

Well, we are finally chicken farmers! Saturday we picked up 5 hens from a homeschooling friend, one of them was already sitting on 6 eggs. We got home late that night and my Sunday morning, the kids were all up at 6:30 am DYING to go check on the chickens. We didn't get a rooster so we could sleep in. Now the kids are waking us up earlier out of excitement. Go figure.


Well here is my chicken girl "hangin' with her peeps" (remember the post of how she got us into this?). The hens were all terrified of us the first day so if we came in the coop, they ran to their house. I convinced Goose she should read to them so they would get used to her being around. Later that afternoon she told me she was done because, "I can tell when and animal is listening to me and they are not!"

Here is the gang trying to figure out if we had any new eggs that morning. It turns out they have been productive but we didn't know til tonight as the "broody hen" kept stealing everyones eggs thinking she could hatch them all. We "rescued" the 5 we knew were good but there were four more mixed in with the original 6 she had. For all we know, we could end up with baby chicks in a few weeks (or some really smelly, rotten eggs). This is quite an adventure for all of us.

Saturday morning we found a turtle and the kids were thrilled. Here are the boys pretending they were eating a turtle sandwish. Can you see the turtle laughing? No? Me neither. Poor turtle is completely ignored now that the hens are here. After all, what can HE do?

Last week we were hopping with extra kids around the house. The best bud was in town - from Texas - and Jaybird & Goose were THRILLED to catch up with him. Now Spiderman fell in "buddy love" with Joe as well and after a week of fun and sleepovers, was truly sobbing after saying his goodbyes on Friday. As heartbreaking as it is to see, I know that this is some form of delayed grieving as he again has to say goodbye to someone he loves. Life can be so hard.

Here they are with Joe at one of their goofy moments.