GO CANUCKS!!

I have no stories, or pictures to post, but I'd just like to say....

GO CANUCKS!!!!!!!!!

We just watched them score their first goal tonight (7th game- Monday night) and let me tell you, I'm almost deaf from all the screaming going on around here (including me!) I'm not usually a huge hockey fan.. I mean, I'd love for them to win, but this time... I actually care!!! :D :D Go Canucks!!

Dressing Up

Ayana and Moses both love dressing up. We never used to have many costumes, but since Ayana and Moses have come home, we've gotten a little collection. It's not much, but we have a few cute things, and its enought for them to have fun playing dress up with. Of course, they aren't the only ones! Me and Megan used to love dressing up too, and there are countless pictures of us dressed up (mostly as Jo and Amy from Little Women, or Laura and Mary from Little House on the Prairie- the only things we had were old skirts, an apron, and a couple shawls, so the options were a bit limited!) And Joshua still does love dressing up. His newest costume is this wonderful Jack Sparrow costume he's showing off here. He had just bought the compass, head band, sword, eye stickers, and rings, and I had helped him with his makeup (that was fun! :P) and the rest of it. He was really excited about it, but when he came downstairs, Ayana shouted at him, "Ayana no like it! Naughty Joshua!" He couldn't stay downstairs for long, because she actually started to get quite scared, but he couldn't resist posing a bit, and chasing people around with his sword! But for the most part, Ayana and Moses really enjoy their costume times, and as you can see, they look adorable as kittens and cows!

Playing with the bunnies

Today me, Megan, Ayana, and Moses went outside to play with our bunnies. In reality they're more middle aged rabbits or even seniors than bunnies, but we always call them "the bunnies", so they'll be babies in our minds forever! This wasn't the first time that Ayana and Moses have seen them, but we haven't gone out there to play with them for a while, during the winter. Ayana is still afraid of them, and Moses still adores them. Mine, called Calico is probably the gentlest of all of them (we have three, mine, Megan's, and Josh's) so she's the one we get out for visitors, or younger kids to play with. Little Brown, Megan's, used to be quite fierce, and would bite if you picked her up, but she's calmed down a lot, and is actually getting to be quite sweet. So Calico, and Little Brown were the ones out on the lawn, getting pampered (and pulled- Moses still likes to grab their ears and whiskers and try to pick them up). Ayana, however backs up, and runs away when they get near. What was funny was that she half screamed, ran away from them, up the stair, and into the house, grabbed onto my mom, and said to her, "Ayana see bunnies. Ayana like bunnies. Funny bunnies!" I'm not quite sure where that came from! But by the end, we got her to sit beside Calico, and pet her gently. She was so proud of herself, that she didn't want to go inside to dinner, and just wanted to keep on petting Calico. And Moses stood up in his high chair, turned around, and pointed out the window, saying, "Buh, buh".. we're assuming he meant bunny. :) So all in all, it was a fun time, and we almost cured Ayana of her fear of rabbits. Maybe we'll work on our friend's terrifying tiny baby puppy next. :D

Hair and Hats

A few days ago, we caught Moses in the kitchen with a very lovely look. Balanced on top of his tricicle, tying to ride it under the table, he had somehow managed to grab Ayana's hat out of the closet, and balance that on his head. He was very proud of himself for this daring feat. I think it was on Easter Sunday, so the colour of the hat matched perfectly with those nice painted eggs on the counter!

Well, apparently this wasn't enough to satisfy his love of hats, because yesterday he came up to me holding the hood of his jacket- not the jacket, just the hood- and patting his head. I asked if he wanted it on, and he looked at me very seriously, patted his head again, and said "Ow" (yes in Amharic). So I strapped it on him, and he trotted off grinning, to show everyone else his beautiful "ha" (hat). What made it hilarious was that his entire outfit was a diaper, and a bright blue hood.

A couple of weeks ago, Ayana also had a very cool "decoration" on her head. Her hair had been in little twists for a few days, and they were starting to get a little fuzzy, with hair falling out. So, when they were getting ready for their bath, my mom quickly took them out. The result was adorably funny! My mom showed Ayana in the mirror, and she grinned and laughed, and said to her, "Wow! Ayana funny!"

Our (belated) Easter Egg Hunt

While most people probably do Easter Egg hunts on Easter Sunday, we decided to do something different. (in other words, we forgot!) So on Easter Monday, my dad took our basket of beautifully coloured eggs, and hid them around the living and dining room, with about 50% of them in plain sight, for Ayana and Moses to find. Ayana was a bit confused at first, but Moses got it straight away, and began picking up those eggs, and putting them back in the basket. With each egg he found, his grin grew wider, and in the end, he was shrieking with delight at each new discovery. Ayana finally got it, and loved it too, although in her excitement, she would find two eggs, take one in each hand, and bang them together, shouting, "Ayana found it! Ayana found it!" We quickly discouraged her from doing that too much, as about 2 out of every 5 eggs are now beautifully decorated with cracks and chips. :)

In the end, everyone grew tired of it, except for Ayana and Moses, so my dad and I hid them, while they both tried to find them. Moses kept on coming over to me, patting my leg (hard) which is his way of getting people's attention, and doing the sign (baby sign language.. he only knows one word!) for "more". So then we would have to show him an egg, put it down, and let him go and find it again! He never grew tired of it, and was a bit grumpy when we told him that it was "all done". Here are a couple of pictures of Ayana and Moses having fun finding those eggs!

Happy Easter

I'd just like to say Happy Easter to everyone!

We've had a great Easter so far, and it was so cool remembering that it was exactly a year ago that we first laid eyes on Ayana Kalkidan and Moses Ermias Wiebe. They were only 17 and 3 months old then.. they've grown so much since those first pictures. Especially Ayana. Looking at those referal pictures, and then watching her at church this morning, dancing with her new friends, or "helping" us on our treasure hunt, or eating a little hollow chocolate rabbit.. there's such a difference! And Moses was, and still is, just a baby, but you can still definitely see a difference from those first pictures.

We had a great breakfast this morning, and then headed off to church. Ayana wore the most adorable little summer/spring dress, and she just looked so perfect for Easter morning. Her and Moses love dancing around to the music at church, especially with their friends, and with the flags they provide for kids. Then this afternoon, after delicious french toast with strawberries, we all went upstairs to wait in my bedroom while my dad prepared some incredibly hard clues for our treasure hunt. Ayana and Moses got to help us, and loved the little jelly beans along the way with each new clue we found. When we finally reached the end, we each got some treats, and a new cd (Ayana and Moses got a few jelly beans, a card, and a little chocolate bunny). I got a Switchfoot cd, and I'm going to listen to it, as soon as I post this! :)
We just decorated our eggs yesterday, and we gave Moses one to hold while we took a picture. Well, he had just been eating his chocolate, so as soon as the egg touched his hand, he jammed it into his mouth, and began sucking on it! We took it away quickly, and left him with a strange look on his face as he peered at the eggs in the basket. Once he found his chocolate bunny again though, he was fine!

Ayana and Moses had to go down for a nap, and Ayana was heartbroken to have to leave her precious chocolate, and would only go upstairs after she had been promised that there would be more chocolate after sleepy time. They're just getting up now, so I think I'd better go and make sure all my candy is out of the way for now!

A Close Call.. Looking back

I just wanted to say a word of thanks to everyone who might have been praying for Moses last week. Moses and Ayana had to have a few TB tests and x-rays, to make sure that they did not have active TB. They had a skin test, and if they reacted to it, they had to have some x-rays. Whether it was active or not, they had to take meds, as children under 5 are more at risk that adults, once they have reacted to the skin test. Well, they did end up reacting to it, so my mom took them to a TB clinic to get the x-rays. We didn't expect them to have active TB, and were not surprized when the doctor said that they had latent TB, which means that they just have to take some meds, and will be fine. We also didn't expect the doctor to freak out about Moses' x-ray. We had a huge scare when the TB doctor told my mom that Moses' heart was "So abnormal" and he had "never seen anything like it before." I was so scared when my mom came home and told us that. I looked at Moses, dancing and running around, and didn't really believe that anything could be wrong with him, but when a doctor says something like that.. you usually listen! Thankfully, he went to a cardaeologist at Children's Hospital, who ran a bunch of tests, and told us he is completely fine. There had been some confusion because of a certain gland by the heart which is larger in children than in adults. But we were quite scared for a while. It was my mom's birthday, and she didn't really get to spend it all that nicely, as her and my dad were rushing around to Children's to get all the tests done. But there was a nice ending. So I'd just like to say again, thank-you to anyone who is reading this that was praying for Moses. It really helped! He's 100% fine.. which is quite easy to tell just by watching him for a few minutes... or for that matter, babysitting him for several hours. That can be interesting. :)

Back from Pender Island

We were on Pender Island, in the Gulf Islands for the past week, and we just got back yesterday. It was a really great time. We had a whole week to just do whatever we wanted, and it was such an awesome holiday! The cabin we rented (I say "cabin".... it was more like a house!) was beautiful... and it had a hot tub! We went in it at least twice a day.. although by the end of the week, it wasn't such a big attraction.. I think we actually got sick of it! :) But it was so nice to have! We went in it almost every morning, every night, and several afternoons too! Ayana and Moses loved it too. Ayana called it the "big bubble water", and Moses loved to sit and splash whoever he could reach!

The house has 2 bedrooms, plus a loft, so Megan, Josh, and I slept in the loft, and Ayana and Moses shared the second bedroom. The only thing was, we only had one play pen for Moses, and Ayana had to sleep in the bed.... she was terrified! She's never slept in a bed (except for the first week back home, before we got her crib) and she hates them, unless she's with somebody. It would take her hours to fall asleep... she would sometimes still be awake at 11! She finally got over it,and got used to the bed, but it was so sad at first when she was crying at telling us to come back... my mom had to stay with her for a good 20 minutes before she would settle down.

Apart from that though, it was a great experience. We went to the frisbee golf course (soo much fun! We went twice, and the holes 19-27 were killer!! Up and down huge hills.... we almost died by the end!) We also spent a lot of time on the beach.. the views were gorgeous! It really is a beautiful place! We had picnicks all the time... just a great holiday for everyone.. and Moses and Ayana loved going to our favourite beach. It had pebbles, instead of sand, but there were actually really cool rocks.. I came home with quite a few in my pocket! All different colours and sizes.. I found the smoothest one.. it feels like glass! Ayana and Moses LOVED throwing rocks in the water.. and at us too! But my parents quickly put an end to that!

The island had a little shopping center, called the Driftwood Center, and it had a grocery store, a bakery, a book store, an eye clinic, a souvenir store, and a gas station. We loved going there, and we got movies from the gas station almost every night. The book store was really cool, because the front half had new books, and the whole back half had used books... shelves and shelves of them. We made quite a haul there! :)

They also had these really cool craft angels at the book store, called African AIDS Angels. They're $5 each, and all the money goes towards four different orphanages and/or organizations in Africa, working with adults and children who have AIDS. The angels are each given a traditional African name, in memory of a child who died from AIDS. They're so sweet. Me and my mom both bought one, and mine is called Selema, which means peace. They're all handmade, and they're actually really beautiful. I think you can find out more about them on this website: www.wolfweb.ca/angels ... I hope that works! It's really cool, because it was started by these seven people who went to Africa, and wanted to make a difference, and in the last 4 years they've raised over $100,000, just by selling these little angels! You should check it out. :) It's a really cool project!

Anyway, we just got home last night, and we're sad to be home, but happy that we still have another whole week of spring break ahead of us! I love having a two week spring break! :D

Half a Year has gone by!

It's so hard to believe that its been half a year (tomorrow) since we came back with Ayana and Moses! Half a year has passed already since we walked through the airport, into the cheering crowds of people, welcoming Ayana and Moses to their new home. So much has happened...

~Ayana moved from a bed to a crib... its a little reversed, but it worked! :)

~Moses took his first little wobbly steps

~Our first special events as a family:

> Thanksgiving

> Halloween (Ayana was a fairy princess, and Moses was a little cowboy... they liked the dressing up and the candy, but not all the neigborhood decorations so much. The skeletons were a bit scary, but the scariest of all for Ayana.. our neigbor's tiny new puppy! Terrifying!)

> Megan's Birthday

> Christmas Eve

> Christmas (So much fun... Ayana was amazed by all the presents... "AGAIN??" And why was there a tree in the house??)

> New Year's Eve

> Ayana's 2nd Birthday (Ayana spent the whole day dressed up as a fairy princess with red sunglasses! Very cool!)

> Moses's 1st Birthday (One of his presents was in a bag bigger than him.. we have a picture of him on tip toe trying to reach into the bag.. very cute! :) )

~Ayana and Moses's first snow (Ayana looking out the window, "Oh Wow! Uh Oh! Who did vat? Ayana no did vat! Mama did vat?")

~Getting to know new friends and family (Oma and Opa, Gran-Gran, Aunties and Uncles, Molly and Kohl Peters- Ayana's new best friends and role models- baby Jamie, also known as "Baby Jesus" by Ayana! :) and lots more)

~Meeting Gran-Gran (my mom's mom) from England for real, instead of on the computer on webcam..she doesn't actually live in the computer screen like Ayana used to think! :)

~Learning more and more English.. even Moses is starting to understand simply words, and even has his own (coh=cold, booh=book, dow=down, Mama, Baba=Daddy, cack=catch, ba=ball)

~My friends have all fallen in love with them.. especially Ayana... one of my good friends, Kristie, just adores her! Once she asked if she could come over.. to play with Ayana! :S

~Ayana and Moses were dedicated at church.. it was a really cool service, and everybody was crying at the end!

~We've all bonded so well... we actually feel like a real family now, instead of just trying to make it through!

Its been an amazing half year, and I can't believe how much has happened. I'm looking forward to what will happen next. For spring break we're going to spend a week in a cabin on one of the Gulf Islands. It'll be really nice to have a whole week all to ourselves to just relax and be together, without having to worry about being anywhere, or doing anything particular. And the best part... a hot tub on the deck!! I'm so excited about it! :) :)
In the summer we're planning to go on vacation with our friends for 1 or 2 weeks and rent a trailer, which will be a lot of fun too. Plus... I'm turning 16 while we're there!! Sweet Sixteen! I can't wait until I can drive, and I'll take Megan and Ayana places, once she's a little older, and we can have sisters outings! That'll be really fun.

Just a quick little story from today: I was giving Ayana an "airplane" ride on my legs (while I'm lying on the ground, she balances on my feet, I hold her hands, and then lift my legs up in the air) She kept on coming off, running around, then coming back and saying "Aypane again!!" Then on the seventh or eighth one, she let go, and kind of slipped off my legs. She pretended she was fine, tried to laugh, got up, ran around, came back and said "Umm... aypane all done! Careful Rara! Gosh!" It was so cute!

Well, I should probably go now.. this is a pretty long post, and my mom needs to use the computer. Bye for now!

~Erin~

Sisters

Today I made this cool slidshow on onetruemedia.com, about my sisters (Megan and Ayana) and me. It's really cute.. and it was really easy to make! Just click on the link below, and hopefully it will work..
~Erin ~
http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=240b8b34689f8c6626cc00&skin_id=0&&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url

Ayana and Moses' Dedication

Here's a picture of Ayana and Moses in their traditional Ethiopian clothes. They're sitting in front of an Ethiopian flag, right before we left for church for their dedication.

Moses' 1st Birthday, and their Dedication.

Moses turned one on January 12th. We didn't do anything fancy, but when he got his presents, he was soo excited. He got 3 extremely loud toys
and a trike. He had no clue what was going on, but it was pretty funny to watch him get all excited over the tissue paper! :) His new obsession is reading books, and watching an Australian group of dancers/singers called the Wiggles. It's on right now, and I can probably say I know every song on those four episodes off by heart. They're on constantly.. 24/7. It's pretty cute.. Jeff is really annoying, but the rest is.... cute. Here are some pictures of Moses getting his new toys on his birthday. We did go out for dinner (Ethiopian food.. what else?) but that was about a week later.

Last week (Sunday) Ayana and Moses got dedicated at church. They were in traditional Ethiopian clothes, and it was really sweet. We made a slide show about the whole adoption journey, and I'd say about 99.9% of the church was crying by the end. It was really nice. I'll put a picture of them in their outfits in another post, because it won't let me do more than 4 pictures at a time.

It's A New Year!

When I posted the one about Christmas, I forgot to write anything about New Year's Eve. It's now 2007! That's so wierd. Our New Year's Eve and Day were nice. Of course, Ayana and Moses went to bed a lot earlier than midnight, so they didn't get to welcome in the new year, but they were obviously with us on New Year's Day, so that's ok. We went over to our friends' house, and ended up staying there until 3:00am! I think that's the latest we've ever stayed there! It was really fun.. just our family, and their family, and it was a lot more relaxed and fun than the huge party we had last year. We played some games, and all of us (except for Ayana, Moses, and their son) stayed up until midnight (and past). We had sparklers, and champaign/sparkling apple juice. :) When midnight finally came we all (even the adults) grabbed pots and pans, ran outside, and made as much noise as we possibly could! We were all screaming, and jumping around, and hugging, and our friend was videoing the whole thing! It was a lot of fun. Then on New Year's Day we just kind of hung out again. Josh went to our friend's house again, and they went swimming, and then in the evening we ordered out (Red Robins!) and then went to Chapters. It wasn't anything extra special, but it was a really nice family day, and we all had lots of fun. Well, that's about it, and I better go now. Happy New Year!

Christmas

Christmas was really good this year. Our Oma came for Christmas Eve, which made it really fun. We always do our stockings on Christmas Eve, and Ayana was so excited about that. After all our Christmas Eve traditions were over, Ayana and Moses had to go to bed (which neither of them were very happy about, while the rest of us watched a new movie from Joshua, my brother's stocking. And none of us wanted to go to bed in the end either(except me--> I was really tired!) But we all finally got to sleep at around 11:00, which is very early for all of us to fally asleep on Christmas Eve, and then woke up at 6:00am, and had to wait another 2 hours, as my parents refuse to get up any earlier than 8. But we survived, and eventually got to go downstairs. When Ayana saw all the presents under the tree, she just kept on saying "Oh!! Konjoi!" (sp?--> means Beautiful in her language) Every time a new present would come out from under the tree for Ayana, she would say "Ayana, AGAIN??"It was so cute! And she wanted to help all of us open our presents (even when it wasn't our turn.. she would just grab a present at random, and start opening it.. which wasn't quite so cute!) She got soo excited.. it was a bit much, since she got too hyper, and didn't know what to do except run around screaming and opening other people's presents.... it ended in a couple tears! But she enjoyed it for the most part. Her very favourite present was a Disney Princess bike. It's a two wheeler (with training wheels), but it's so tiny! She rode it around the house all day. Moses didn't really get any of it, but he liked his new books and toys, and loved the turkey dinner, so he was happy. We had a really nice day, just hanging out, playing games, reading, watching movies etc. It was really nice to relax and have fun like that. And all of us stayed in our pajamas all day! That was nice too! :)

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!!!.........

We now have our house all decorated for Christmas, we're out of school, I'm done all my Christmas shopping, and it's Christmas in 2 days! But even though all of that is happening, it still doesn't feel like it should be Christmas all ready... we just finished school today.. I'm not used to working right up to Christmas. But it's sooo cool getting ready for Ayana and Moses' first Christmas ever! It's going to be soo cute. And my Oma is going to come for Christmas Eve, which is going to be so cool.. it'll make it so special. I can't wait to see Ayana and Moses' faces on Christmas morning.. even Christmas Eve! It'll be so cool to see what they think. So anyway, we decorated our tree a couple of weeks ago, and I'm going to put some pictures of that on here. Ayana was so confused... she did not get why we were putting a tree inside the house! But she was really excited none the less. I can't wait till Christmas!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D :D

Snow Day!

Today was Ayana and Moses' first snow day. They were soo excited! Ayana kept looking out the window, and saying "fnow! fnow!" It was so cute. When we actually went outside to play, she loved it. She saw everybody throwing snowballs, and wanted to join in too.. so she did.. right in Moses' face! She laughed.. he cried. :D We went sledding at our friends house, and Ayana loved it the whole time. Moses got fed up, and went inside, but she kept right on going. After about an hour and a half, though, she suddenly realized that it was cold, and started to freak out. We went home, and she fell fast asleep. Moses was already asleep in my arms... dead asleep. It was really fun to play in the snow with them for the first time, and this was probably the coldest they've ever been in their lives. And now we get another day with them tomorrow... no school! Yay! Oh, and by the way, it's been snowing since 6pm last night.. and it's now 8pm the next day and still going strong... I'm hoping to get two, maybe three snow days out of this!

Ayana's Birthday Party

I know I'm a little late, but on November 12th, we had Ayana's 2nd birthday party. It was really cute. We invited like 4 people, and she didn't even get it, but she was soo excited all the same. It was a fairy princess theme, and she got allll dressed up. We did dancing, keep the balloon in the air, presents, and cup cakes, and everything was adorable. When she had to go to bed, Ayana was not happy. She's going to think we do this every month... November it's her birthday, December it's Christmas, and January it's Moses' birthday... February is going to be a big let down! :D I'm going to put some pictures of her birthday party on, and I might post about the snow today after too. Sorry about the picture of her costume... I couldn't figure out how to turn it around on here.

Ayana's Birthday

Today is Ayana's second birthday. She had no clue what was going on, but it was really cute. We were going to go out for Ethiopian food, but since it was raining so hard, we decided that it would make more sense to go tomorrow... so we're having Ayana's special birthday dinner tomorrow. But we did everything else today. We got her a little doll stroller. It was soooo cute... she LOVES it!! she was so upset when she had to go to bed, cause she wanted to stay with her "baby beep beep"! We kept on singing Happy Birthday to her, and when we were watching our movie, she turned to me and said "Appy ifday a yoo!" It was so cute.. so then we had to sing it again of course! She's two now! I can't believe it! She had a really good birthday day, and was soooo excited to get her presents..... it was really really cute. Can't wait till Moses' FIRST birthday!!!!! :) :)

Surprise Shower!!

Tonight our friends had a surprise shower for Ayana and Moses! It was so cute! There was a huge pile of presents, and a bunch of balloons, with "It's a Boy!" and "It's a Girl!"... it was so cool! I'm at home right now, babysitting Megan, Ayana, and Moses. My parents and Josh are still at the shower. I just finished looking through the presents..... they are so cute! Ayana got a HUGE pile of Groovy Girl stuff.... like 11 eleven groovy girls, with clothes, and accessories and tents and all that. It makes me wish I was younger, and there was a surpise shower for me! haha... I always used to want ALL the Groovy Girl stuff. I guess I'll just have to help Ayana get to know her new stuff! haha... jk... and all the baby toys and books and clothes are soooo cute! Everyone was so excited. It was really neat. Well, I'm gonna go now.. I'm pretty tired. I just thought I'd do a bit of an update, seeing as I'm not exactly all that regular at doing that! :)
**...By the way.. that bag is crammed full with just Ayana's Groovy Girl stuff!!**