Boy Band

I think Waymond is secretly forming a boy band in our basement!

And, they are all loving it!

Legos

Once the snow hit last week the boys wanted to play with our Lego Ski guy a lot more. We took a few shots of him. This one is the best.

Isayas REALLY wants to go skiing now.

Another tooth gone

Ermias lost this third tooth this morning. He really wanted to get it out last night, but it just wasn't quite ready. I told him that he needed to let the other three grow in before any other teeth get loose! He is cute!

No tooth fairy in Ethiopia so since Isayas came to us with most of his baby teeth gone we decided no tooth fairy here either! So Waymond let Ermias throw his tooth as hard as he could in our front yard. He said in Sidama that's what they did. Makes sense to me, why keep old teeth?

After work today, I picked him up and when we came home he wanted to play with the craft sticks he got for his birthday from Aunt Lauren. He said, "I'm going to build a bird house." He's still working on it!

One year today

One year ago we met the boys for the first time. They were pulled out of class and introduced to us as their new parents (can you imagine)! They had only seen photos of us. We took this photo moments later.

About an hour ago we took this one:

They are doing amazingly well and are growing like crazy. Their English is recognizable, but they've still got cute accents. They still love Ethiopian food, but Isayas has added on spaghetti as a favorite. Both are OBSESSED with Star Wars. They could talk to you all day about it; they know names, who has what color of light-saber, who fights who and all about the force. You wouldn't imagine they've only lived in the US for eight months!

Happy Birthday Ermias

Ermias is five today! What a great year it's been. We picked this birthday for him because it was the first day we met him (last year)!! Here's a few great ones:

At the guest house in Ethiopia with daddy's pajama pants on. He's been a joker from the beginning!

Waiting at the airport in Ethiopia. Probably calming himself by coloring. He was very nervous to fly. Who can blame him!

Look how tiny he looks! Those pants now hit his ankles and have holes in both knees.

Safety first.

Lego fun!

Who doesn't love capes?

A new favorite thing, pancakes.

Gingerbread house at Christmas.

Loosing his second tooth.

Oranges for teeth!

I usually get this face first when I'm taking a picture!

We had a small party for him today. Happy birthday!!

The Wii Lightsaber Game

Math games

Since Isayas & Ermias have been out of school all this week, we've been doing some "homework" at...home. To make it more incising we used M&Ms.

Isayas worked on "partners" which is like pre-addition. In the picture Isayas is doing the partners of nine (5 and 4 shown).

Ermias worked on counting and sequences. As a bonus, everyone got to eat their M&M's after lunch.

Ice skating

Kind of like ice skating!

Icy

It's been a strange day of freezing rain, regular rain and snow. The boys weren't out too long today. They did make sure the igloo was still standing.

Igloo

Isayas and Waymond made the most amazing igloo in our front yard yesterday! They worked a long time but it's still standing. We've had freezing rain all day today, so I'm pretty sure it has a nice solid 1/2 inch of ice all over it now. Bear Grylls would be proud! :o)

The boys are adventuring out now to check it out.

More Snow!!

It's an official snow day! We got a lot of snow last night and more throughout the day today.

We didn't go out to play right away. We did a little reading and some puzzles.

After a little playing outside we made snow ice cream, yummy!!

Playing in the snow

Seeing snow

It's a bit dark at first.

Sledding

Sledding fun

We took the boys to a friends house for a little sledding this afternoon. Our friends have an amazing hill in their backyard! The boys had such an amazing time they didn't even realize how much work it took to walk back up the hill to go again.