The Christmas Sweater

Our small group at church got together for a Christmas party slash tacky sweater party. There were some pretty great looks, but Erin and Angela won top prize for the tackiest. Special thanks to Erin's mom for the sweetastic christmas swag. I mean, who can top blue gingerbread men?



The kids went to see Santa and Sophie managed to NOT cry this year. It was definitely a Christmas miracle. As usual, Addis sat quietly while Catherine and Easton ran down everyone's list for Santa. Sophie even managed to tell Santa she wanted a horsey.



And, just to get everyone in the Christmas spirit, all of our kids got on stage to tell the Christmas story to our entire church staff. There were a good 200 people there, so they got a bit shy once it was their time. They are a little mumbly, but the payoff at the end is well worth the wait. Somewhere in the middle Sophia starts to take her shirt off, which is not strange behavior for her. Only slightly more embarassing on the stage of a church than at home.

Enjoy the video! (Sara, you will have to leave click "read more" and go to our blog to see this.)

Holidays and Random Stuff

I know I hardly ever blog but since I have been basically husbandless this week due to the preparation for our churches Christmas program I felt like I should at least try to figure out how to post some pictures.
We had a great Thanksgiving break in Hot Springs. We spent two days with Zach's family and two days with mine. The kids got to play with all of their cousins and had a blast.
Addis turned one on Thanksgiving day. It was pretty crazy being on a holiday but he did have his own cupcake and enjoyed every minute of it...Isn't he a cutie!!!



I actually have a lot of really cute pictures of our family and both sets of cousins but they are all being used on either my parents, Zach's parents, or our Christmas card so I guess you will all have to wait with anticipation!!!

After Thanksgiving we decorated our tree. The kids all thought it was pretty awesome. Especially Addis who still continues to eat all of the ornaments. Can you tell how much help they were?...





The day after we decorated our tree it snowed!!!! I would have taken a picture but it really wasn't worth it. I would say less than a dusting. But we HAD to make snow ice cream. Lovey (Zach's Mom) told Easton, after hours of begging that he could set a big bowl outside and if it filled up we would make snow ice cream. Of course we knew that it would never fill up enough to get ice cream out of it...we were wrong. After catching the children scraping dirty snow of the table and grass they filled up the bowl. I have to say it turned out pretty good minus the occasional gritty bites that had sand in them.
All in all a great holiday!

Happy Birthday Addis!

Today, we are thankful for Addis. Happy Birthday little guy!

Saturday

The picture says it all. It just gives you a glimpse of life with four
kids. With Addis on sippy cups the sink fills up just that much
quicker now.

Makeup Mommy

Erin decided she would let the kids do a makeover on her. I think they tried every shade of makeup in the bag. We told the girls not to put any make up on, since they were about to go to bed. That lasted about 30 seconds.




We had our first post placement visit for Addis last week. He is growing and developing right on track. In fact, he started walking this week. He had been taking a few steps here an there, but a few days ago it seemed to click. He is still pretty wobbly, but it is pretty cute.

Shiloh Football

Easton and I are at the football game tonight. He is the loudest one
in the stands.
-Zach

Fall Pictures

We take family pictures every year at HarBer Meadows, a great neighborhood in Springdale. The trees are always so colorful in the fall at the park, so we headed back out there today. The kids were cuter than ever!











Here are a few pictures of our previous fall picture sessions. It is pretty sad to look back and see how fast they have grown up.

Fall and Halloween

All anyone ever requests on our blog is pictures, so here is a whole slideshow full of them.

Also, here is my favorite photo from halloween night.

Adopting from Ethiopia

To all of our Ethiopian adoption bloggers out there, go tell our friends Ryan and Robyn Maner "welcome to the adoption family!" They are using Gladney and have already done a big chunk of the application.

We love the Maner's and are excited to share this journey with them.

Project Play Room

We have been mad busy around here over the last two weeks. Our guest room is getting an overhaul and becoming playland. Don't worry grandparents, there is still a bed in there. However, it does have a few more lumps than the old one. All the kids, minus Addis, chipped in with the painting.



We wanted to do some sort of wall hanging that represented our love for Africa. I cut the shape out of MDF and with a little creativity it became a really cool project.
We used a projector to shine this verse from Psalms over the whole cut out, letting it bleed over the edges in some places.
We painted most of the letters with stain and polyurethane, and a few of the words are painted in red. The final result looks amazing.

No, we will not make one for you.
Yes, it is for sale.
No, the price is not reasonable.

Real Life Magazine

Our family was featured in our church magazine this month. There are several other families in our church that have now begun the process of adopting from Ethiopia, and we are hoping to see that number grow every month. That has been our prayer from the beginning, and it is exciting to see it begin to come to pass.

Here is the article from the magazine.

Real Life - Upload a Document to Scribd

Another picture

Surgery Day

Addis is having his "welcome to America" surgery this morning. Right
now he is pretty happy. I have a feeling he won't be so happy when he
wakes up!

Tagged

I have been tagged by my friends Robyn and Lisa.

1.I can't sleep at night if the sheets are not totally straight and even everywhere on the bed. I pretty much remake our bed every night before I get in.

2.One of my favorite thing in the world is Starbucks but I HATE coffee. I go for the hot chocolate about 3 times a week.

3.Since we just had this discussion in small group, I NEVER dress my husband or pick out his clothes. It is the opposite at our house. He picks a lot of my stuff out. He also decorates our house and sews just about anything.

4.I have the biggest fear of flying. My mom was a travel agent so I have flown a million times but just recently decided I will never get on a plane again!!!

5.I am slightly obsessive compulsive about things. Mainly how I fold clothes and put them away according to size and color in my kids closets. I usually take over an hour to fold about two or three loads of laundry. EVERY crease must be out.

6.I hate to read even though I really want to like it. I probably haven't read more than two books since I graduated from college and they were more skimmed than actually read.

7.I LOVE me some Ethiopian babies and I am convinced that everybody needs at least one!!!

I hope you enjoyed the random facts. O.K. so now I am tagging Marci, Courtney, Gretchen, Sara, Ashley, Shasta, Rebecca,

Devil's Den

We took the kids to Devil's Den State Park today to do a little hiking. We printed up a "Scavenger Hunt" checklist and gave one to each of the kids for them to find stuff on the hike.
After the hike, we had lunch by the river. The kids were dying to get in, so they took off their shoes and socks and waded out into the water for a while.



Yes, Sophie is in her panties in public. Her pants got wet, so she threw a fit on the bank of the river until we let her take them off. Trust me, she drew more attention to herself flailing on the bank than she did in her panties.


We spent the day with our friends, Ben and Carrie Butler and their three kids. They just adopted a cute little boy from Ethiopia as well. Here are best buds, Addis and Joby, fighting over crackers while their brothers and sisters played in the river.