Sad News...

If you haven't already, please check out my Egypt blog (http://erin-egyptandbeyond.blogspot.com), as our team just yesterday found out some extremely bad news. It will take too long to explain again, but in case you haven't heard about this, I am part of an outreach team from my school (going in Spring Break), and we found out at the beginning of the year that we are Team Egypt; the first team from my school to ever go to Egypt! However... well, just go and read my blog. Please pray for our team, as we try to understand this news, and discuss what it will mean for us.

Happy Birthday Ayana!

Yesterday was my sweet little sister's third birthday!

I can't believe that Princess Ayana is already three years old... it seems ages ago that we first met her, at 21 months old, so scared and anxious. Now she's a happy, confident, bubbling three year old!

She certainly made the most of her birthday too. She had been excited for about a month ahead of time, when one of us made the mistake of mentioning that "Ayana's birthday is coming up."

But this last week has been one of endless, agonising waiting for her. I really don't know how she managed to survive.
The first thing she said when she woke up yesterday morning was, "Ayana's birthday, presents, cakie with candles, happy birthday, please, thankyou!" She was so excited she could hardly put together a cohesive sentence!

When we finally got downstairs to where her presents were waiting (after having to sit through a terrible 5-whole-minutes-long hair session!) she could hardly contain her excitement. And I must say, we did spoil her a bit! Not that there were piles and piles of extravagent gifts, but there were quite a few.. maybe a few more than a 3 year old could truly appreciate. But she was happy, and was very, very grateful (saying "Thank-you so much guys!" after every single present.) so I guess it wasn't too much.

One of her favourite presents was a little kitchen, complete with a sink that makes sounds when you turn on the tap, an oven, and a stove that sizzles when you cook on it. It came with a pot, a pan, and two serving spoons. My parents also got her two sets of food (one fruit, one vegetable- they're all halves or thirds attached with velcro, so she can actually cut them apart!) with a knive and a chopping board.

She also got some puzzles, two books, a Diego (as in Dora the Explorer's.. cousin is it? brother? I don't know.. related to her somehow :P) safari lego set, and a My Little Pony DVD. By the end of the day she had played with, put together, read, watched, and baked with every single one of her presents, and was a truly happy little girl.

In the afternoon we went to visit my Oma, who gave Ayana her very first money ever (a loonie and a toonie.. $3 for the 3 yr old!), which was very exciting. Ayana likes it so much she's not going to want to "trade it in" for a toy.. maybe she'll just end up keeping it.


In the evening, instead of going out for dinner like we had originally planned, we decided to order food from Milestones, and pick it up on the way back from my Oma's house, which was very delicious, and much better than going to a restaurant. Moses hasn't been very.. complient lately. As in, he has a temper tanrum whenever he doesnt' get his way. Going to a restaurant with him in tow isn't the best decision these days!

Me and Megan had also baked a chocolate orange layered cake (which was delicious if I do say so myself!) which we topped with candles, and gave to the very excited little birthday girl. She had been talking all day about "cakies with candles" and the look on her face when we all started singing to her as we brought the cake out was priceless.

So by the end of the day, Ayana was one very happy, very full, very sleepy little girl. Of course, she didn't really want to go to bed, but she was pretty good about it, and didn't complain too much, or get angry.

Oh, and she even learned something new. If you ask her how old she is, instead of saying two, she says, "Umm.. FWEEE!!!!!"

**Please excuse the massive amounts of pictures I put on here, but there were just so many cute ones, I couldn't resist! **

Coming into the room, and seeing her presents for the first time (her smile is a bit funny because she was laughing.. we told her to wait in the hall, then we all ran into the kitchen, got the camera ready, and told her to come back in. The moment she came in, we all starting singing Happy Birthday to her, and cheering.. much to her delight! She was definitely Princess for a day!)

Moments before opening her presents!

Moses with his special present (from my aunt and uncle)

She is such a poser! Say, "Smile!" and she'll stop whatever she's doing (even in mid-sentence), turn to wherever the camera is, do a cute pose, smile, and wait for the flash. As soon as its over, she'll go right back to what she was doing, as if nothing had interupted her!

This was her face when my dad brought out the kitchen set. It was so big we didn't wrap it, but saved it for the end.

Figuring out the Diego lego set. Moses was very excited about this present!

Washing her hands in her very own sink!



Here she is baking a "lemon avocado cakie" for everyone to enjoy.

Oma and all us kids.


It looks kind of messy, because the filling/icing was put on a bit more excessively than necessary, but trust me.. it was good!

You can't see it very well, but this is Ayana's face when we were bringing out her cake, while singing Happy Birthday to her.. pure joy!

Forks take too long.. let's dig in!

As you may have noticed, there were only a few of Moses... please don't think he was forgotten on her birthday! While he did have a bit of a hard time with it, he certainly wasn't "ignored"! He got his fair share of the attention, cake, and even got his own present from my aunt and uncle (seen in the picture above.. the little plush baseball and baseball bat!) Trust me, even if we had been planning to ignore him, his personality would not have allowed that.. he would have been back in the center of attention in no time! :D

Congratulations Ayana and Moses

This is just a very short little post to say...

Ayana and Moses are now officially Canadian Citizens!

We just got their citizenship cards tonight, along with the certificates. This is the very last step in the adoption process, and now its finally all over.

Ayana and Moses had no clue what was going on, but my mom was so excited, and she told Ayana and Moses that they're Canadian now. Ayana had seen me hand the mail to my mom, so she said, "Ayana, Doy Doy (we still call him Doy Doy.. it just stuck!) Canada now! So exciting! Thanks Ra-Ra! (and they still call me Ra-Ra!) Thank-you so much!" :P

It was so cute. Anyway, that was just a quick little bit of exciting news.

I'll post soon with Halloween pictures, but some of them are on my friend's camera, and she's taking a little while to send them to me. So hopefully I'll have been able to post them by the weekend at the latest.