Mowing in January

Wally's creativity is brought out with toys like blocks and tinker toys. Though he still needs a lot of help building with his tinker toys, he has a lot of fun and really adds to the creations. Here, he is mowing the lawn.

The last month or so...

I've been crazy busy with editing and adoption paperwork. Good news is that we now have things shuffling between adoption and government agencies. If things go smoothly (we can all hope), then we will be ready to receive referrals by mid- to late-February! Yea! I'll get back to Christmas pictures soon...

My boys... My silly boys...

I love those eyes and smile!

My "King"

Why I should never check my email while Wally is awake...

Because Ethiopian Christians are mainly Orthodox, they celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7. Therefore, to celebrate with our kids, we made Ethiopian food for dinner and had a little party. Our adoption agency gave us 3 teddy bears. One for Wally, and 2 for Wally to take care of until his brother and sister come home. They joined us for dinner. Hopefully next Christmas it won't be just the teddy bears with us!

How to eat Ethiopian food:

Wally and the bears. I think the bears have really made the kids seem more real to Wally. Since the bears arrived, he hasn't talked about the babies in his pocket that came out of his tummy, only "our babies from Eeteeopa."

Next year, there will be kids holding all of the bears (we pray)!

It has been so cold here lately (even by Montana standards) and we have had high humidity. We decided to go on a hike when it was in the 20s a couple weekends ago. I think Wally needed to get out and run.

He enjoys going off the trail and through the trees.

Kissy Monster!!!

We found the vines that we played with when Gramma Kathy was up last June. It was a little colder this time, but still lots of fun!

Ahhh, the joy of painting.

This was actually taken this morning during our traditional Saturday morning pancakes. Joel is getting more and more creative with the pancakes for the more demanding Wally.

Wally has said many times lately, "Daisy is my best pal in the whole world." Did I say that in my last blog too? It's been so long.

We had an ice storm last week. We got almost 1 inch of rain in a single day. I had never seen anything like it. As soon as it hit the ground or anything, it froze. We stayed home, but it sure was neat to watch.

Luckily, we didn't lose any really big branches or even lose power. Salt certainly didn't cut it on the sidewalks this time.

A couple days before the ice storm, this was falling from the sky. Snow shards? Weather in Iowa sure is amusing!

Christmas Preparation Part 2

Wally and I decorated Christmas cookies. I made the first batch of frosting too runny, but ran out of powdered sugar, so it was just a sloppy mess...Wally loved it! No one but us was allowed to eat the cookies considering the "hygiene" that may or may not have been.
Here is the translation for the following video: "I love doing bells with pink!" Wally's favorite cookies to decorate were like Grandma Mary's, the bells.

We got a lot of snow. Joel may not have had fun shoveling, but Wally sure had fun in it!


Our little angel. His first attempts at making snow angels were unsupervised until I noticed him crying. He didn't like the snow on his face. I then had to tell him to make the angel while laying on his back.

Our neighbor girl and her friends make great snow caves. This year they made one that was an actual tunnel with 2 doors. Wally thought that was great. Too bad the snow plow came around the next day and crushed it.Wally had his friend Joel over to play in the snow. Two 3-year olds and a huge pile of snow makes for a great time.

Here is a picture of our Christmas tree. It was so lopsided that the first night it was set up, it fell over. We then proceeded to tilt it way back against the wall and tie it to the banister. How we didn't realize how lopsided it was when we chose it, we don't know. It was beautiful though and Wally sure enjoyed it. When we took it down, Wally's version of Jingle Bells. He is still singing the tune of Jingle Bells, but inserts his own words or weird sounds.

Wally is/was very into "show time," where he takes us into his room and sings and dances for us. Here is Joel's favorite, for obvious reasons. The show was called "Baseball."

Random Christmas Preparations, Part 1

The weekend after Thanksgiving, as is a tradition in my family, we went Christmas tree hunting. In Iowa, it is a little different than in Colorado, Montana, or South Dakota. Like last year, we went to a Christmas tree farm. Last year, it was so cold that we took the first tree we saw. This year, no hats, no gloves, just sun. Our friends Van, Stacy, Sander and Levi joined us.
Wally and Sander are self-proclaimed "best friends."

Wally tried really hard to pull the tree like Daddy...

But in the end, decided holding Daddy's hand was just fine.

Well, maybe if Sander helped...

Wally thought having a tree in the house was pretty cool. He told me yesterday as we were taking it down that, "I want the tree to stay long time!"

Oh, bath time. Always cute, even if it is over.

We found a little old (I mean obviously really old) artificial tree in our attic, so it got to be Wally's tree in the basement. Here he had to pose by it with his trike.

Our church had a "Christmas Pageant" of sorts. We all had a soup dinner, got the kids dressed in rather lame costumes, and headed out in the bitter freezing cold for a rather miserable walk to a neighbors driveway. There they read the Christmas story, we sang songs (luckily it was cut down to only the first verses) and then toted miserable kids back to the church for cake. This was the best shot we had of Wally dressed as a lamb.

Thanksgiving at home

I think Wally was born to be a model. He was really proud of his sunglasses on his head! Wally was saying tonight that "Daisy is my best pal in the whole world!" I guess this picture doesn't show Daisy thinking the same about Wally, but I think she does feel that way.

As a fun art project on Thanksgiving day, Wally painted our feet and we all made foot prints. For our first Thanksgiving on our own and our first Thanksgiving knowing about our babies in Ethiopia, we decided to start a tradition of making injera, an Ethiopian staple. It is kinda like a pancake, kinda like a crepe. The use it to eat with in place of utensils and plates. Though it doesn't have much flavor, it is rather addicting.

Our first injera hot off the griddle.Even Wally couldn't get enough of this stuff. We'll likely be making it a lot once the kids come home. It makes me feel better to know that we can successfully and easily make a food they will be used to.I decided a good time to make a full Thanksgiving meal would be when no one else is around. That way there was no pressure. Though we only had one pie, we had the turkey and all of the fixings.

Oh, where to start...

Where to begin... I have not blogged for so long that my list of pictures to upload is covered in dust, so I will try to upload lots of pictures and skimp on the words.

I guess this blog will be about our "Thanksgiving" trip to South Dakota. Wally is still our great traveller. Who knew a Happy Meal box could be fun for 4 hours!?!?! By the time Wally used the box in every way imaginable, it was nothing but confetti.
We went to SD earlier than planned because my grandmother passed away. She was an amazing woman full of more stories than one could imagine. We will miss her stories, her music, and the history that died with her.

We went to visit the cows. The kids didn't know what to think this time. Every visit the cows seem to get a different reaction from the kids.

Reder was the brave one that would actually feed the cows. Wally, was oddly too scared of the cows to feed them. He instead gave Peni more than her share of cake.

We were blessed with a visit from Steve, Linda, Mary, and Kathy. Being in Iowa, we cherish even more the rare opportunities we get to see them.

We went on a walk across the big field at the ranch. Wally of course had to prove he was still super cute.

If Wally can find Gramma's hand, he will be holding it. Here, he was shooting off "fireworks" for Gramma. Since we all came to SD in early November, we figured we couldn't really make it back in a couple weeks as planned for Thanksgiving, so we had Thanksgiving early. Katie looks excited for the food, for good reason. Yum! Don't worry, we had at least 5 pies (and only 6 adults)!

Though Reder and Wally don't see each other very often at all, they still obviously have a very special bond. It is great seeing how the boys are starting to play more together as opposed to next to each other. Oh, how we wish we could see them more often!

I think Grandma Mary and Papa Randy put a huge tub in their bathroom just for when the grandkids come to visit!

We made it to the Reptile Gardens, which is a definite favorite of the kids. I believe that the snake Wally is looking at is the most poisonous snake in the world!

We were able to stay an extra day after Jason, Katie and kids had to leave, so we made the most of it...AIRPLANE!!!! Wally is obsessed with Papa's plane. Any plane we see, where ever we are, he compares it with Papa's. Maybe he will be a piolot some day! He knew exactly what to do when we got him near the plan...get the buckles, get the things on the ears, and start jabbering into the thing by your mouth.

Proof Wally knows what he is doing in a cockpit!

He got to go up and down the runway this time. He was just a little giddy when he got out, but at least he would get out this time! Thanks Papa!

Oh, I guess this is out of order, but we remembered to take a family pitcure before we all parted. We are truely blessed with all of our family!