Thursday, March 20, 2008

Friday, March 14, 2008

What's For Lunch Today????

Levi and Jesse were so happy they could hardly contain themselves. They had injera and wat for lunch today. For those of you new to Ethiopian cuisine injera is their staple flat bread that has a sour dough taste and wat is any sauce or stewlike substance you dip the injera in. It still amazes me that Jesse (who was 14 mo when we brought him home) eats and dips like a pro!! I love to watch his chubby little hands handle the bread.

I am sorry to say that "mama" did NOT make this lunch. It was a gift from a friend of mine, Tess. She is originally from a village very very close (as we are finding out) to the village the boys were born. This is amazing since our town has a small Ethiopian population. She actually used to live in Medula the town of their birth. God has been so gracious to bring us together. We were able to have coffee this week and get to know each other even more. You know when you just connect to a certain someone?! Not only do we have a connection in Christ, we just plain hit it off.

Anyway, my friend made the wat (sauce) and has discovered an older Ethiopian women on the other side of town who makes and sells injera. SCORE!!! I am hoping she is able to sell some more to us soon as my friend is going to help me cook some sauces to go with. It is amazing how this food makes our little guys so happy. It gives me great joy to stretch out of my everyday comfort zone of tacos, pizza and spaghetti and think about injera and wat!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

zoobs and daredevils

Creations from our home:
the first one is way back from Christmas time, but it is still fun to see. Kaylee and Isaac worked on this together.
The second one is pretty recent, It's a T-Rex that was made with Zoobs.
We applied for Soc.Sec. cards for Levi and Jesse today and everything went pretty smooth.
We will have to do it again after we finalize, but it's still a good step to get through.


Sunday, March 09, 2008

Don't Waste Your Life

Layne and I were driving to his parents house today and had a "car date". The kids were quiet and buckled in so we had a pretty much uninterrupted conversation.....smile.......We were discussing how thankful we are to be falling less and less in love with the "things of this world" and more and more in love with our Savior, Jesus. It is by the grace of God that we can say this. We live in America and so it is very easy to be distracted by what clothes we have, how we look,what kind of car we drive, wanting to have our needs met quickly if not immediately, the size of our home, how successful our kids, being COMFORTABLE...........the list can go on and on.

Eight months ago we traveled to Ethiopia to bring our boys home. We now have a forever reminder of how much abundance we have here. How much time we can waste in a day fretting over things that really don't matter. Our time on earth is like a mere breath compared to eternity. Nothing we have in this world materially will go with us when our time on earth is over.

After pondering this we talked about reading a book we own by John Piper together. The title is "Don't Waste Your Life." We have flipped through it, but really want to read it together. We long to spend our time on things that really matter like knowing God in a deeper way, raising our kids for the glory of God and loving and serving people in this world.

Dear Lord,
You continue to fill our hearts with thoughts about the boys birth parents. Lord give us direction in how we can contact them. We continue to look for ways you want to use us in Ethiopia. Our hears our so inclined to the people there. It breaks my heart to think of their birth family suffering with hunger and sickness. Many children who are adopted from Ethiopia have no living birth parents. You have given us boys who have both still living and trusting in Jesus as their Saviour. Lord use us and give us the grace to follow your leading.

Friday, March 07, 2008

New header image

As a favor to me and b'day present for Tanya, our friend Ellen over at
My Mulberry Street
created the cool header image at the top!
Thanks so much to her for helping us look so hip in the cyber-world!

Happy Birthday, Tanya!


Yesterday, Tanya had a birthday.
It was a busy day, so we're posting it a little late!

Jesse's is next, there are a lot of March Birthday's now.

(My mom's is today!!
--Happy B'day, Meema!!)

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

LEVI bday video

The video is about 2 1/2 min.
He had a great day! Thanks everybody!!

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Happy Birthday, Levi Geremu Henn

Levi's first American birthday party today.
We are just finishing up, pictures and video coming soon!!
Layne