A Good Dream....

"I have a dream that one day, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers."  

--Martin Luther King

Can't write that quote without tearing up.  

Can't even imagine a time when the above statement could not have been true.  

When I look at our children, I truly see no difference.  

I just see my kids! 

Thankful to be living out his dream every day and that God has allowed us the priviledge to raise all of these children together.

Time to Celebrate again, and again, and again......

So our birthdays and celebrations all come in two waves.  Between December 5th and February 4th, 6 of us have birthdays, we have American Christmas and Ethiopian Christmas, New Years and our anniversary.  That's a whole lot of party in 2 months.  We have a smaller wave of birthdays with the three younger girls celebrating their birthdays within 3 weeks of each other in the summer.  It gets a little difficult to make everyone feel special on their day with so many happening at once, but we do our best.

Caleb turned 10 this year......I really don't know how that happened so fast.  He is growing into such a nice young man and we are very proud of him.  He is a great reader, a talented artist and lego designer, a hard working baseball player and`has a thoughtful heart and compassion for others.

My twins.

The day before Caleb's birthday was actually Ethiopian Christmas, but we waited until the weekend to celebrate with friends at our local Ethiopian restaurant. 

Caleb was at practice during the photo shoot.

I made Caleb throw on his Ethiopian shirt over his practice clothes once he arrived.  He was a good sport.

 And, we celebrated Rahel's birthday which fell on the same day as our Genna (Ethiopian Christmas) celebration.  Can't believe in just one more year we'll have a teenager.  Rahel is also growing up to be such a nice young lady.  Her many talents include drawing (can literally copy a picture just by looking at it), cooking, sewing, playing softball and pretty much anything else that she puts her mind to.  She is also a kind and helpful big sister to her six younger siblings (most of the time :-) and is a blessing to our family.


So that gets us started into the new year.  Today is actually my birthday and the day that four years ago we met Hermela and Meron in Ethiopia for the first time.  I hope to post on that soon as well.

Until then, let the good times roll!

2013 Year End Review

Well, Thanksgiving, two birthdays, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, our anniversary, lots of baseball, family gatherings and a trip (currently in progress) to visit friends and family have all come and gone.  The 2013 holiday season is nearing an end and so is this year so here is a glimpse of how we celebrated the past month.

This is not really a holiday picture, but it is one of my favorites.  Look at how Eli stares at his daddy.  He just loves, loves, loves him and daddy feels the same way.  Such a sweet relationship between these two buddies.

We decorated the tree on Thanksgiving weekend.

 Then we squeezed in daddy's birthday.  The big 3-4!!

 Next up, a gingerbread decorating party.

Nick's mom came down for a surprise whirlwind visit.  This weekend we decorated, went to Caleb's tournament, went to the Nutcracker ballet, the kids had their Christmas play at church (we have video, but no pictures of that: Hermela played the part of Mary like a natural, Caleb made an awesome shepherd, Caroline was a caroler and Meron and Colton went out on a limb and played the part of children).  After the play, it was off to see a boat parade and a drive through nativity.  I think we wore her out! 

The finished products! 

Switching gears, we drove straight to Caleb's baseball tournament.  Prince Eli enjoyed the usual royal treatment.

Caleb's team played two great games and Caleb had one of his best days of baseball yet.  He hit well, got on base, scored several runs and pitched his tournament debut inning with two strike outs and a hit that was caught in the out field.  Such a good day for him and so fun to watch.  To top it off, the team won the tournament and Caleb got the honor of taking the team trophy home!  Worth all the LONG days at the fields!

Next came lots of baking fun.  I've baked my grandmother's Christmas cookies every year since she passed away.  Now I have lots of helpers to assist me.

Christmas Eve was spent first at our church for the candle light service and then at our home for our annual Christmas Eve  party.  We've done this for four or five years now and each year it grows.  This year we had almost 70 people and unfortunately, I took zero pictures.  This is one of my favorite nights of the year because we spend it with most of our favorite people.

Then Christmas morning.

Next, we celebrated Colton's birthday eve at home.  He's 6 now!  That sounds so old.  Colton is our ball of fire, full of energy, takes life full speed and is a ton of fun.  He's smart, loves baseball, isn't afraid of hardly anything and lives life to the fullest.  We pray great things for you Colton and know that God has many big plans for your life.  This summer Colton asked Jesus into his heart and we pray he will continue to grow in his love for his saviour!

We drove to visit Nick's family on Colton's birthday and arrived to a fun birthday celebration.

We've been visiting with friends and family ever since!

Nick's parents surprised the kids with a game truck yesterday.  The kids (big and small) had a blast!

Nick and I had our 12th wedding anniversary on Sunday and will celebrate with a night away later this week!  We watched our wedding video Sunday and took a walk down memory lane.  My favorite part of the ceremony was when our pastor prayed that, "God would richly bless our marriage."  Hearing those words 12 years later as we watched the video with our 7 children was pretty awesome.  God has no doubt richly blessed our lives beyond our wildest dreams and we continue to be blessed by that prayer that was prayed 12 years ago.

So that about wraps it up.  

So long 2013!

Praying I will love more in 2014, focus more on the people in my path and live a life open to what God has for us in the coming year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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