Happy Gotcha Day Solomon!

It just so happens that Solomon's first Gotcha Day occurred this year while on our family vacation in Gulf Shores, Alabama.   Keeping with tradition, the day started with breakfast of Solomon's choice and a small gift that we purchased for him while in Ethiopia.

Does it get any better than Krispy Kreme's on the beach??!!

He loved the Ethiopia bracelet.

After essentially dragging both boys off the beach at the end of the day, we went on a Dolphin Cruise in the Gulf Coast to continue the celebration.  And then headed to Grandma's for cake!

Can you tell we were just a little excited to celebrate Solomon being a part of our family?  We reflected before bed on those first days home last year.  Solomon admitted he was a little scared those first days home, mainly because he couldn't understand what we were saying.  Wow - so much has changed. Over the past year his English has grown tremendously, he has learned to really like American food, he successfully completed the 2nd grade (and loved school), played on a  "real" soccer team, learned how to play basketball and baseball, and has formed a healthy attachment to our family. 

Praise God for how he has grown our family! Happy Adoption Day Solomon!!!

4 years and going strong

In April, we celebrated this sweet boy's special day.  Four years ago a very special woman on the other side of the world gave birth to this sweet boy. Although there are not pictures from that day, I do have this one which is the first picture that we have of our baby.

This is how we celebrated the day.

We interviewed the birthday boy on his special day and here is what he had to say. . .

1 - What do you want to do when you grow up?

• I want to build bridges like my Uncle Greg.

2 - Who are your best friends?

• Declan, Gavin, Solomon, and my Mommy (Mommy conducted this interview) :)

3 - What are your favorite things to do?

• Playing on the Kindle Fire and Daddy's phone and crazy dancing.

4 - What are your favorite foods?

• Hot Dogs, Mac and Cheese, and Injera

5 - Who is Jesus?

• He is our King.

And if you are wondering what the crazy dancing is. . . . well here is a taste of it from a recent wedding.. . .

March Madness

Sometimes it does seem like madness around here, but what I usually tell people is that it is a "good madness" and it sure has been a lot of fun.  The boys finished up their rookie year of basketball season with Upward Sports earlier in the month and both had a blast.  Solomon was able to play on the same team as his best friend and by the end of the season had really gotten the hang of the game.  Joseph, on the other hand, was doing well just to be on the right side of the court at the right time.  He was a hoot!

Solomon thought it was cool that his Dad was a coach!

Tunnel shot before the first game.

A little romance for Joseph on the sidelines. . . .

At the end of March, Jack and Solomon spent a week in Honduras on a medical mission trip with CMDA. Jack was the medical director of the clinic and Solomon helped Grandma run the children's ministry.  We look forward to the day that we can do this as a family of four!

Not the clearest, but you get the picture - making friends in Honduras!

And it is certainly fitting that we would end this last day of March madness with a reminder of the One who has risen from the dead to erase all the madness of our lives.  He is risen, He is risen indeed!  Happy Resurrection Day friends!

Happy 2nd Gotcha Day Joseph!

Two years ago today we stepped off a plane, Joseph officially became a US Citizen, and we started our lives as a family of 3.

Little did we know when we left the airport that day what joy this sweet boy would bring to us over the next 2 years.

To celebrate his 2nd year anniversary as part of our family, Joseph was allowed to pick his breakfast - a chocolate donut with sprinkles!  And keeping with tradition he received a gift that we purchased while we were in Ethiopia.

He was probably most excited to take his "Gotcha Day" cookie cake to school to share with his friends.

Joseph - our lives were changed for the bettter 2 years ago.  We feel so blessed to be a part of your life.

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Today marked the official end of our Christmas season and I must say that celebrating Jesus' birth was a ton of fun this year!  Joseph was at a great age to enjoy all the festivities and Solomon loved learning about all of the American Christmas traditions.   Here is a glimpse of our first Christmas as a family of four.

Transformers were all the craze this year according to these two. 

Both boys enjoyed multiple meetings with the jolly old man in the red suit.

Solomon finally got to experience his first snowfall, build his first snowman, and go sledding.  This was huge considering he has been asking since he came home in the 100 degree weather in June when it was going to snow!

This weekend, we celebrated Christmas Ethiopian-style.  Ganna is celebrated in Ethiopia the first week of January, therefore our St Louis Ethiopian Kids Community gets together yearly in January to celebrate.  Here are some pictures from today's party.

Happy Birthday Jesus!!  Thanks for giving us a good reason to celebrate!

6 months home

This weekend marked 6 months since Solomon came to live with us in the United States.  It is amazing the progress he has made in so many different areas during this time. Reflecting back on the first several months home, I can see how far we have come.  There were some rough moments!  However, our prayers were answered and Solomon's wounds have slowly been healed.

One of the areas where we have seen great improvement is in language development.  It is incredible how quickly these young children can pick up a language when fully immersed in it.  Solomon can now understand most of what we say and we are to the point where we can have conversations with him.  Granted - many of these are very basic as his vocabulary is small.  We know that it is going to take years for him to catch up to the language proficiency of his peers.  To give you an idea, read these statistics which I found from an article on older internationally adopted children:

"The typical 6 year old understands over 20,000 English words (Owens, 2000). A 5 year old child adopted from another country would need to learn an average of 54 new words every day in order to fully catch up in language comprehension abilities by age 6. If the catch up timeframe is stretched out to 2 years, the adopted 5 year old would still need to learn an average of 27 new words every day to fully catch up by age 7. However, while the adopted child has been playing catch-up, his 6 year old friends have also added an average of 5,000 words to their vocabulary. By age 7, the typical child understands 25,000 words. In order to fully catch up within a 2 year window, the adopted 5 year old needs to learn an average of 34 words per day. In summary, expecting older adopted children to develop proficient English language skills within 1 or 2 years of adoption is unrealistic."

School is also going really well.  He is in 2nd grade and fully immersed into the regular classroom.  He does very well in Math and Spelling where complete understanding of English is not always necessary.  As for reading and phonics, he is hanging in there.  He is certainly below grade level, but improving weekly.  His school does not have ESL services, but he does meet with the Kindergarten teacher after school for private tutoring.  He has lots of friends at school, too.  His best friend is a boy in his class who was also adopted from Ethiopia!  Love how God does things like that!

Sibling rivalry has settled down quite a bit.  We dealt with some of that from both ends in the beginning, but their love for each other has really grown over the last few months.  In fact, they are now sharing a room and beg to sleep together in bed nightly.  It is heartwarming seeing the love that they share.

Art & Soul Photography

Overall - we are loving life as a family of four and we are looking forward to what God has in store for us in the future.

Gratitude

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. Psalm 100:4

My intentions were to have this post done before November was over, but with two rowdy boys at home that became difficult.  Nonetheless, I am just a few hours late.  :)

The list of what we are thankful for this year is really never-ending.  God has blessed us in so many ways and with so many things that we feel so unworthy of receiving.  For this, we are very thankful.

Just one of the things on our list of thanks that I want to highlight this year is our gratitude for the Himes family in Texas.  You may remember this post about the family that sponsored our sweet Solomon through Compassion International while he was living in Ethiopia.  We want to again publicly thank this family for the care that our son received through their generosity.

And we aren't the only ones who have wanted to thank this family!  Recently, their local newspaper recognized them in a very nice article you can see a glimpse of  here.  And better yet, they recently received a personal note of thanks from Compassion International's President & CEO, Wess Stafford! With the permission of the Himes Family, I have copied the letter below.

Dear Brian,

Thank you so much for reaching out to me through your recent letter in which you shared the precious story of the sponsorship and adoption of Solomon of Ethiopia.  I must say this story warmed my heart in an otherwise very "CEO" type of week...it's much easier to witness the results of Compassion's mission when I am on the field interacting with children instead of sitting at my desk catching up on paperwork!

Isn't it wonderful that God has our lives so completely orchestrated?  We don't always fully know our role in the drama that is unfolding in our lives and the lives of the people around us.  I deeply appreciate the way your family stepped up to assume sponsorship of little Solomon, allowing him the opportunity to then be adopted into a loving family. 

Thank you for allowing God to speak to you that day and to use you so lovingly and so powerfully in Solomon's life!

On behalf of a grateful ministry,

Wess Stafford

Dr. Wess Stafford

President and CEO

The Debut of Batman and Robin

Batman and Robin made their debut tonight and had a blast!  Such a fun night.  Solomon still can't believe that people gave him candy for dressing up like Batman.  I know he is thinking that it can't get any better than this.  :)  Both boys had a great time showing off their costumes and telling their rehearsed jokes during Trick-or-Treating.  (For those of you not in St. Louis this is a requirement to receive your "treat" in our town.)  I must say that finding a joke that Solomon really understood was difficult - but he finally found one that worked. 

Here they are!

Brothers and Partners in Crime

First pumpkin carving

They loved the baked pumpkin seeds with berbere.

I swear this was their idea!

Celebrating!

I haven't posted in a few weeks, but it's not due to a lack of excitement around here.  We've had lots to celebrate this last week! First of all Happy 2005!  That's right we celebrated the Ethiopian New Year earlier this week.  And no - 2005 is not a typo - the Ethiopian calendar is different from the Gregorian calendar.  The 7 year difference is due to an alternate calculation in the Annunciation of Jesus.  We celebrated the Ethiopian New Year with some of our dear Ethiopian friends who cooked us the traditional New Year goat dishes (sorry can't remember what they are called and Solomon doesn't know how to spell them.)  We are so blessed to have these amazing friends right here in St. Louis!

And this weekend we celebrated Solomon's 9th birthday.  Wow - I can't believe how fast those 9 years have gone.  Haha!  We are not typically the type that has huge kid birthday parties but I just couldn't pass up the groupon for an "In Home Animal Show."  So we gathered up a few friends and this is what happened. . . .





First the big lizard - Joseph thought it was pretty cool.



Oh yes - it got to sit on everyone's head too.

And then came the tarantula.

The hissing cockroaches crawling on my floor were interesting.

The porcupine was a hit!

When he pulled this snake out, I wasn't sure what to think . . .



I freaked out just a little when they pulled this out!!



Can you believe I allowed this in my house?



If I don't get mom of the year for this birthday party then I never will! Seriously, though, the party was awesome and I highly recommend the In-Home Animal Show from the Wyman Center.

Happy Birthday Solomon and Happy 2005!

School Days

It's hard to believe that Solomon has been home for over 2 months and it is already time for him to start school!  Here are a few pictures of his first day of 2nd grade and Joseph's first day of preschool.

If you are wondering why Solomon's clothes are a little wrinkled, it is because when I went into his room to check on him at 1000pm last night (1.5 hours after we put him to bed) I found him lying on his perfectly made bed, wide awake, with his school clothes on that we had set out for today!  Apparently he was really excited about starting school. (But then disappointed that I made him put his pajamas back on.)  :)

We are praying for this school year and that Solomon will quickly overcome the language barrier and fit in perfectly with his new class. 

How child sponsorship saved one child's life

If you are anything like me, you've probably seen the commercials on TV asking you to sponsor a child in need for only a dollar and day and thought, "Do these programs really make a difference?"  You can call it being a skeptic or just plain ignorant, but up until our involvement in child sponsorship programs, I didn't realize the real difference that these programs can make in a child's life.  You may remember reading my post here about meeting our sponsored child in Ethiopia through Yezelalem Minch and how wonderful of an experience that was.  Well, more recently we learned about another sponsored child and how a Compassion International Sponsorship saved his life.  Here is the touching story . . .

Five years ago, a youth group in Texas was attending a youth event where Compassion International was working to find sponsors for children.  The youth group picked the picture of this child from Ethiopia out of a group of children and decided that they wanted to sponsor him. 

Picture courtesy of Compassion International

The sponsorship was eventually taken over by a Texas family who worked with the youth group.  Over the years, this family not only provided financial support for the child, but also prayed for the child and corresponded with him via letters.

Compassion also sent updated pictures to the family over the years.

Photo Courtesy of Compassion International

Little did this family know during their sponsorship what a great impact they were having on this child.  The boy had been living with his mother in a very poor area of Ethiopia and the two had essentially nothing; the boy, therefore, was in poor health.  The sponsorship provided by this family changed everything.  Soon after the sponsorship began, the family was provided with financial help to provide for basic needs, the child was able to attend school, and they were connected with a church in the area who provided for their spiritual needs.  The child's health improved and his family was back on their feet.  It was clear that without the support that they received through this sponsorship, this child would have been left in a grave situation.

For those of you who haven't caught on by now, this sweet boy pictured above is our Solomon!!  And the story is ALL TRUE.  From what we learned in Ethiopia, this Compassion International sponsorship saved our son's life!!  While I won't divulge all the details online - what I can tell you is that he went from being in a very bad situation to receiving life-saving care.

And how do I know who sponsored Solomon you may be wondering?? Well , after learning this story and upon arriving home in St Louis, I contacted Compassion International to see if I could get in contact with Solomon's sponsor.  That was when I was given the name of the man mentioned above and his family in Texas.  I contacted the family last week and learned how they came to sponsor Solomon.   They shared with me that when Solomon was moved into the orphanage, his sponsorship ended.  They said that they have been SO worried about him since, and were very happy to learn that he been adopted and a part of our family.  The family even sent me all the letters that Solomon had sent them while he was in Ethiopia (hence the letter above.)  I can't tell you how thankful we are for this wonderful family.

So if you weren't a believer in sponsorship programs before, I hope I have made a good case for you today!  I have seen first-hand how child sponsorship for $1.00 a day can save a child's life!  I urge you to consider sponsoring a child in need.  There are many reputable organizations that have sponsorship programs.  Of course, I am a believer in Compassion International, but you may also want to check out World Vision, Yezelalem Minch, Holt International, or Bethany Christian Services.  Most programs are $30-$40 a month and you have the opportunity to communicate with your sponsored child in most of them.

Heavenly Father - THANK YOU for laying it on this family's heart in Texas to sponsor our son.  We sing praise to You that they stepped into his life at just the right time and gave sacrificially for our son.  We ask that you would use this example of faith to raise up more supporters and give more children a chance at life.

How great the love lavished on us, that we should be called children of God.  1 John 3:1

Let the Games Begin!

It seems like just yesterday that I wrote this post about the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.  If someone would have told me then that I would have a 3 and 8 year old from Ethiopia at the next Olympic Games, I think I would have laughed at them. . .

And here we are just two years later. . . the Summer Games are here. . . and we have not one but TWO Ethiopians living in our house! This certainly makes watching the Olympics much more fun. 

In true Olympic fashion, during the opening ceremonies we hosted a party where our guests dressed representing their favorite country or sport.  (Read more on the fun details of the party on my cousin Amy's blog.)  Solomon decided to dress as Kenenisa Bekele, the Ethiopian runner who won Gold and set world records in the 5000m and 10000m races in Beijing. 

Here are a few fun Ethiopian Olympic facts for ya:

• There are 35 Ethiopian Olympians participating in this year's games.
• While Ethiopians have obvious, natural abilities in the track and field category, this year Ethiopia will have TWO swimmers enter the games.
• Yanet Seyoum, the countries first female swimmer to enter the games, did most of her training at a public pool where her mom timed her on her cell phone.  Read her story here.

And here is our sweet Joseph.  He dressed up as a US Men's Soccer player.  (Don't tell him that the US Men's team didn't even make the Olympics.)  :)