Ni hao China!

Hey everybody! I have been quite a horrible blogger lately, sorry! We have a lot of things going on in our house lately!

I am VERY excited about this in particular though. I just sent off my application today and I am really hoping they accept me! I will post when I hear back from them. This trip sounds so awesome and would be an amazing opportunity! I have always wanted to go to China and it looks like I might be getting my chance! Please pray that I get to go! I will have to raise about $2,700 for the trip but with God, all things are possible!

lil' bug

Here are some more pictures of my cutie little nephew!!

Jeremiah-dancing machine!

I found this video of my little brother dancing in CA at my uncles house about three years ago. How cute is he?! He was really rockin out! ( Yes, that was my squeeky 11 year old laugh in the back.)

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Vaden Elliot Pearce

I am an aunt! Vaden Elliot Pearce was born at 7:05 am today and weighs 7lbs 7oz and is 21 in. long. He is a red head! I can't wait to meet him. Mom is at the hospital with my sister and brother-in-law now.

* I did get to go to the hospital tonight and was snuck in by a nurse to see him :) He is soooo CUTE!!! He is tiny! He smiled at me and is all together precious. Vaden, Melissa and Randy are doing well. Vaden couldn't be cuter and I can't wait to hold(/squeeze) him again! :-)

Congrats to the Winters!!!

They just recieved a referral for a baby boy today and I am sooooo excited for them!!!

Library at Kolfe

Some of you might remember me posting about raising money for the library at Kolfe. Well Solomon, who lives at Kolfe, ( you probably have seen his letters to my mom on her blog) sent me an email today saying it is done! We were there while it was being painted. It was so neat to actually be able to see the somewhat finished product of the fundraising we did. Here are some pictures of the library when we were there and the letter from Solomon : Here are the pictures of the library... They were so proud! ( The library might have actually been on the other side of this wall but we only went on this side of the building.) Hello Eillie, It is your brother Solomon. I remeber you always. How can I forget you. you are very generous. I always proud by you. I really have a wonderful sister. In Kolfe this time many peoples re caming to visit us. They share there love for us. The library also open. Two computers are also bought one for the library one for the office. the weather in Ethiopia this time is warm because it is summer. School is good. I finished the first semister and I look my result I score high mark in my class. I meet with Trevor and Keva also I send a letter to all of you. I pray for all of you every day. I pray that God help me to live with all of you. I always remeber you. I can't sleep in the night. I saw your family picture and I crying. I don't know what to do. I don't know how I can express my love but I love all of you million times. I miss all of you.Tell to mom I am write soon and I love all of you very much.(xxxxxx) this means hugs!!!. (ssssssss) this means kiss. until later God bless all of you!!!!!!!. Your brother Solomon, To my sweet sister Ellie AWW!! Did that break your heart or what? :-( I wish he could come live with us! Also, soon-to-be traveling families, they are in need of books for their library. They wanted some English dictionaries and I am sure other books to help get their library started. I am sure they appreciate it very much!

Kezzie's first steps!!

Keziah took her first 5 steps on St. Patricks Day 2008. She was so proud and even clapped for herself! Of course she had a whole house clapping for her too!

This is just a picture of her standing a few days before she took her first steps. She is getting braver everyday and will stand up more and more lately!

One More...

Praise God!!!

Genet, Aschalew and Yesalemush have a soon-to-be forever family!!! The Wolfe family have stepped up to adopt them and we are so excited!! We have been praying for these kids to be adopted and they will be soon!! Hooray!!!

Update

Josiah, Keren and Keziah have adjusted amazingly well. The boys have decided they are triplets. I asked Jeremiah if Josiah was his twin and he said "Yes!" and looked at me like 'hello?!' and then Jimmy said, "No, we are triplets." They are so funny and so precious!! They really have turned into triplets. We always dress them the same and they are big in to matching now. If one's pajamas match another one's pajamas and one other boy has a different pair, whooh, there will be tears. "We has to match!!!" So they have become a little obsessed with the matching thing but they will outgrow It I'm sure.

Since we have been home Josiah has :

1. Learned English amazingly fast

2. Has eaten gum off the shopping cart

3. Learned all of the songs in the Chicken little movie

4. Learned most of the names of the Characters in the Thomas movies

5. Grown an inch since we got our referral

6. Swigged pepper from the shaker at Chick-fil-a and found out it was spicy " Agua Agua!"

7. Oh! Learned some spanish

8. One night around his third week home he decide he didn't want to go to bed. We older people were downstairs watching a movie. After the twin boys fell asleep, little Mr. Sneaky Sneak decided to go though bedtime routine again, all by himself. He went potty, ( unrolled the rest of the toilet paper on the roll.) He brushed his teeth ( with practically all of the toothpaste in the tube.) He changed his pull-up to the Cars movie one and even had time to write all over my homework that was laying on my bed. He felt very productive no doubt. Until Mom talked to him and sent him back to bed. (Oops! That was the last of that! Thank goodness he didn't get into anything too dangerous upstairs!) He is so funny!

9. Bonded extremely well with his new family

10. And most of all, stolen our hearts! :)

We were eating at Chick-fil-a the other day and while we weren't looking, ( after he 'drank' the pepper) poored some of his water out onto the table and licked it off, sending his brothers into hysterics and sending himslef into a 'Don't Do That There are Germs!!!' speech from mom. He just laughed and said "Wo-kay (ok) mom" He is the family clown. We LOVE baby boy Siah! The girls have quickly become the little spoiled princesses and don't like to be put down anymore and they have their whole family wrapped around their chubby little fingers. I will have to try to post pictures soon but don't have any recent ones on this computer.

Day 5 In Ethiopia

Today is Thursday, November 23rd 2007.... It is official. I LOVE Ethiopia and don't want to leave. (I can't wait to go back to stay longer next time. As in like move there.) Today we got up kind of late and had breakfast downstairs in the Hilton. Josiah had something that he didn't like and made a huge deal out of it, spitting it out all over the floor. He has had some tummy problems all day today poor lil' fella. Papa got some "Anana" yogurt thinking it was 'Banana'. Nope, it was pineapple. It was pretty good, just not banana like he was expecting. :)

"Peekoo!" Ok, this next picture was taken right before he smashed his little finger in this mean ol' highchair. :( ( it latched on the bottom and he kept sneaking his little finger under and unlatching it,laughing and lifting the tray [he knew he wasn't supposed too] and the last tikme he tried it he dropped it. ouch.) From these pictures you can see how the restaraunt us pretty nice and very clean. And Josiah just spit his food out going "Ptuh! Ptuh! Eww!" oops! We took Josiah out to the playground today and he loved it!! Cutie trying not to smile :) There is that gorgeous smile!! You can just read the look on his face "I better hang on tight!" ( yes, i rode on the nauseating merry go round thing, one advantage to being small! :) Ellie and Keziah on the tiny swing... Ellie and Keren on the really tiny swing... After breakfast, we went to buy more water bottles and headed off to eat at 'Top View' The food was VERY good and the waitress gave me and Joanna a talking to about not eating our veggies :) "You don't like??! Why you don't eat?" (pointing to the veggies on our plates) After lunch we went outside and took pictures of the view. It was so amazingly gorgeous and heartbreaking. (Much like Entoto Mt.)

Then we headed off to a little coffee shop where Travis accidentally payed about 25 American dollars for two jump ropes :) It was sooo funny because he didn't even realize it until we were gone. It was a confusion with the birr again. Travis joked later about having looked up the word 'thief' and 'rude' in his Amharic dictionary so he could go back and talk to that guy. He ended up giving him 200 more birr though instead of telling him off when we went back a few days later :)

Then we set off for Kolfe! You will have to go read what my Mom posted about our time at Kolfe if you haven't already. Click here for that post.

Here is where The Cutie, Hilarious, Silly, Goober of a Keren comes in... The ride to Kolfe was long and it was exceptionally hot this day. Well, I had Keren in the snuggly in the car. She was being such a little stinker, first she pinched me with her sharp little nails, then she hit me and Josiah and guess what she did next? She threw up all over me and LAUGHED!! The burp cloth stayed dry miraculously but I didn't. (*I brought a change of clothes with me everywhere after this and let my mom take Keren :) I love her so much and she is soooo sweet most of the time but I was not very happy with her right then. Going to Kolfe was one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. I am so glad that we went, spit-up covered and all. We went back to he hotel and ate in again. It was an amazing day and I wouldn't take out a single experience. Well, it would have been kind of nice to stay dry...:-)