Help has arrived!

Paige's sister came out this weekend to meet Sophie and help out Paige for a few days. And by "help" she apparently meant "work on her tan."

Not saying where I got this spy photo from...

See you when I get off work L... ;)

Our tomatoes are spoiled rotten

Shade umbrellas, for a garden? Apparently so. Our tomato plants were getting cooked in the sun, so they needed a little relief (yes Nate... too much sun in May.) We shall see if this works.

Salsa! The first few tomatoes are starting to turn red. That plus the garlic, onions, cilantro, oregano, and basil in the garden and we should be able to make almost complete salsa from our back yard.

When we first planted the garden, Luke skipped outside the next day looking for carrots. He was disappointed they weren't fully grown in one evening. But he is now plucking and enjoying them.

Sophie, just hanging out in the high chair, looking super cute.
 

I don't think he really planned out his exit strategy

Nacho Libre + 300 = Funny

Maybe just to me though...

He refers to themselves in the third person now

I picked up all the kids from school yesterday.  A few minutes after Ella got in the car, the following conversation ensued.

Noah:  Ella, what are you doing?!?!?

Ella:  Pick'n my nose.

Dad:  Where are you putting them?

Ella:  On the seat.

Dad, looking over to see a neat row of boogers attached to the seat:  Ella!

Levi, who has no shame in nose picking:  Gross!!!!!!

Noah:  That's not what "the twins" do with boogers, they eat them!  And they are the "stars of the nose pickers"!

That conversation was followed by an in depth debate regarding the appropriate times for winkus tugging, with admissions by both boys regarding inappropriate behavior.  But at that point I was laughing too hard to faithfully record the details.

Nearly lost in the shuffle

The Monday after we left for Ethiopia, Levi visited the bone doc to see if his arm had healed enough for the cast to come off. The doc gave him the OK. Grandma took him, and had specific instructions to take pictures for the blog. Good work Grandma!

That looks like one excited little boy. He was so proud when we got back home that he could make his arm go straight again!

Pictures of Luke that don't look like Winston Churchill

From his birthday party at Grandma's house when we were in Ethiopia

We are home. An update by the wife, since my husband has gone nutty.

So it has been a few days home now and I have a few people in particular who keep pestering me about an update.  I made Jason take Sophie in for her lab work so my arms are free for a few minutes so I thought I would catch you all up.

I will start at the beginning and you can fast forward to what ever you are interested in.

The flight home:
The flight home was very long as we knew it would be.  Sophie and Ella both did very well considering the lack of sleep and disruption of any sleep they were attempting to get.  On both flights we were given bulkhead seating with a bassinet, so that was nice.  Sophie only spent about two hours in each.  The rest of the seven hour and nine hour flights she was climbing up and down me and all over me.  But, she did not scream or cry like I feared she may.  She did really, really well.  She kept busy charming any and every one who would walk by and stop to say hello. 

Arriving home:
We finally arrived at our destination a day after travels began.  We were greeted by our wonderful family and friends at the airport with balloons, posters, hugs, and well wishes.  It was so nice to have those there with us who have walked along beside us in this journey and have showered us in their prayers for months and months on end.  Seeing all their smiling faces when we arrived was wonderful.

Settling in:
Other than Sophie still being on ET time, life is going well as a family of seven.  Sophie is relaxing more and more each day and will crawl away from me to play with toys on the floor and will even allow Daddy to hold her for short periods of time.  She is sleeping next to me in a co-sleeper at night and wakes often to check to see if I am still there.  She will crawl into bed with me and snuggle for a bit and then I can shift her back into her co sleeper.  If only we can get over the 2 to 4 AM party with mom each night, the days would be so much nicer.  I love my Sophie dearly, but I would rather not spend so much one on one time together at that time of the night.  She has the option of taking naps during the day to recover from our late night play dates, me, not so much. 

Sophie eats like a champ.  All baby food, yogurt, cheerios, wagon wheels, puffs, noodles, rice, bread, this girl will chew it up and eat it all.  Its like she has been doing it for years!  Not to mention the bottles she is inhaling.  No trouble at all transitioning to American food and formula.

Doctoring:
We had a new patient check up yesterday to look over her medical files and form a plan of attack for life in America.  We have decided to repeat all vaccinations.  We are also running a battery of tests (via blood work) to check for all sorts of things that are typically done at newborn screenings.  And the joy of stool collection to check for parasites and the like. 

Our pediatrician says she does not feel that Sophie should have a doc band.  She said if we were a new patient just moved here from Ohio she wouldn't recommend it, nor would she since I am a worried mother of a baby who laid a lot in an orphanage crib.  She said the side was "not that flat" and should round out in that area now that she is upright and more mobile. 

It was obvious at the time of check out form the orphanage that Sophie had had chicken pox recently.  Her medical file indicated that she had them in March.  She has lots of scars all over her body that we hope will fade with time and Mederma.

She weighed in at 18.1 lbs., and developmentally was right on track.  She mimics our facial cues, crawls, pulls up, picks items up with a two finger pincer grip, self feeds, babbles, claps, waves.  The only thing she was lacking was teeth.  She only has four right now.  But then, there is a range for that too.  Our pediatrician would like to see her again in two weeks for her one year well visit and we can go over lab results at that time too.  Our doctor was thrilled at her overall well being. 

Siblings:
The three big kids really love their new baby sister.  They are constantly bringing toys over to her, asking to hold her on their laps, and checking where she is.  Luke is still trying to find his place in this new family setup.  Sophie has only been home for four days, so it will take time for his little heart and mind to process that he has not been replaced.  Mommy's arms are now very busy with someone else and this is a BIG change for my snuggle bug.  Wearing Sophie on my back still allows me to hold my 38 lb 3 year old.  I tried to talk to Luke about Sophie last night and he informed me that he loved her, but he was crabby because he was not getting enough sleep.  You and I both buddy!

Letting it all hang out

Now that we aren't under the thumb of our adoption agency, and we won't be yelled at and threatened for saying online that we got a referral, this blog is going back public again.  At some point in the future I will try to go back through all the posts and tag the adoption related ones for any blog stalkers who run across this blog.  I'll probably turn comment approval back on as well, just so I can filter out any riff raff.

Happy birthday little man!

Hard to believe it's been three years since this little duffer entered the world...

Some birthday Krispy Kreme

Making a "gwass angel" in the front yard.

His present, a new "big boy bike."

Kid hasn't sat in his high chair for a year and a half.  But Sophie sits in it, and suddenly he wants to as well.  Weeeee bit of jealousy going on around here at losing his spot as the "baby."

Happy birthday little man!

Welcome to 'Merica

[The following post requires reading it with a redneck hilbilly accent, in the manor of my good buddy Jonathan.]

We 'rived home on Sunday night after 20 some hours on them aero-planes. Back to 'Merica, where we cling to our guns and religion. Land of the free. Home of the brave. Country of abundant bacon!

Land where George Washington slayed the zombie hordes of evil King George!

Land where Abraham Lincoln rode grizzly bears into battle to free the slaves!

Land where Teddy Roosevelt cleared the west of sasquatch to make it safe for civilization!

(I want all three of those posters)

Land where dad flies flags on your first day in 'Merica (at least until that nasty HOA writes him up.)

Land where your brand new brother feeds you all 'Merican food like Cheetos.

Welcome to 'Merica baby girl!

Headed for home

After all this time. After all the prayers. After all the hoping, wishing, dreaming, praying, crying, and wondering if and when. It's hard to believe we are finally at this point. Hard to believe we are finally headed for the United States with Sophie Joy in our arms!

Pray for safe travels and peace for the newest addition. She should be fine as long as she is in my arms clawing frantically at my neck. But it's going to be a long 24 hours of travel. And did I mention this girl can really cry?

Seriously thee loudest child I have ever had. And instant flowing tears too. So pray for those sitting near us as well.

For those who were interested in meeting us at the airport to celebrate her home-coming we are planning on arriving in Phoenix on Sunday night (May 1) at 7:53 pm. We should be in terminal 2 arriving on United flight 329 from Denver.

Ella can't wait to get back home and have some angel hair pasta! :) She has been a good trooper throughout, but is missing home and eating food she is used to. And I think we are all looking forward to our nice soft beds!

See you "soon"!

The complete Addink party of 7

Addis at night

The view from our room.

The room also happens to be right under the flightpath of the incoming jets.

Pizza party

One of our main goals while we were here on this trip was to do something fun for the boys at Kolfe. On our first trip, we didn't have a lot of time there and didn't plan well enough to take them anything. Brilliant of us. We saw enough though, enough to know that on our second trip we were going to go back and find some way to treat all the boys.

Thanks to an unexpected check from some very good friends, and some advice from friends at church who sponsor some of the boys, we had an inkling of a plan. But an inkling was about it. We knew the boys didn't get that much to eat, and what they did wasn't all that nutritious. So we figured we would buy out a fruit stand, or a chicken coop, or something.

The staff at the Ethiopian Guest Home helped us arrange it all. Their first suggestion was that we could buy a few sheep, slaughter them there, and have a big cookout. This idea sounded really cool. But then they called the boys, and it turned out that what they really wanted was pizza.

Where on earth do you get enough pizza for 200+ hungry boys in Addis? The staff called around and found a place that said they could make 150 pizzas. We were amazed. Which was appropriate, because the pizza joint didn't pull it off in time. But we did eventually get a whole bunch of pizza, and some hamburgers as well.

Luckily Ephrem's buddies hadn't beaten him up over lack of pizza when we arrived. Actually, they were just lining up for dinner so the timing was perfect.










The boys each got 1/3 of a pizza. It was almost heartbreaking to watch a bunch of boys try to figure out how to split 8 pieces of pizza 3 ways.













The kid in the middle reminded us of Levi... skinny, squirelly, and smily. He squirmed just when I tried to take a picture though.




They all wanted to pose for pictures.













We also got them a bunch of fruit, hopefully enough for a couple of pieces each.




Ella got no food, but hopefully her eyes opened a little. She just kind of stood there taking it all in, with a death grip on her momma.




She did eventually relax enough to actually let go and smile.




Ephrem and Solomon got their care packages.




And hopefully felt some love from their "mommas."