A Thanksgiving to Remember

ALOHA!

Thanksgivings Hawaiian style is Heavenly.

These are the brave cliff divers at "the end of the world" today. I was a little sheepish, and didn't partake...they needed a picture taker, right? Gone are the days of my cliff jumping. Now that I have six children to mother and care for, I'm not as brave as I was in years past. Oh, well.

The waves this morning were enormous, and Sicily did a lot of running from them.

Carter was the first to take the 35 foot plunge.

Happy Turkey Day 2009! We need a tan.

I've Got Proof

We got birth certificates of the boys this week and it was such a great feeling to see they are officially Smiths. They had a passport photo attached to the birth certificate and they both looked like hell, which breaks my heart. Last week they were moved from the orphanage they have known for the last 18 months to our agency's care center in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. Luckily, they have each other and 13 other children from their previous orphanage to be with them, as everything familiar is taken away. I think this is one of my favorite pictures I have. Knowing they have each other has brought me a lot of peace, on many a sleepless night when I wake up worried about them, as we moms tend to do. We should have a travel date in the next few days...I'll keep you posted.

SCARY

Girls wanting to be vampires for Halloween? Not a princess, a fairy, a bug, or rock star...VAMPIRES. I tried my hardest to convince them otherwise, but they would not have it. So here you go, my two adorable vampires ready to suck your blood, complete with custom made fangs from dad's office. I'm glad I forgot the red-eye reduction button too, it is so fitting for thirsty vampires.

Spencer had a party with 15 of his friends to celebrate the night. They watched The Sixth Sense, and they might be pretending to be screaming for the picture, pre-movie, but they were screaming like a bunch of girls moments into the show. I've never seen 15 thirteen year old boys snuggle up so close in all my life.

Poor Carter spent the night quarantined in my room with the likes of the swine flu. Thank goodness he is on the mend now.

Happy Birthday Nathnael

Happy 5th Birthday to Nate!

And Happy Halloween to all. I'm not sure I love that Nate's birthday is on Halloween, and I might just have to fix that. In Ethiopia birthdays aren't a big deal or even celebrated, which would be really great after about age 30, but not when you're 5. In fact, they don't even really remember the exact date of their birthday, but more or less the season it was and an event in history it might have happened around. Ethiopia also has 13 months, 12 of which have 30 days and the 13th month has 6 days. So really, according to Ethiopian calendars he wasn't born on Oct. 31st, there is no such day. So what do you think... is it cool to have your birthday on Halloween or a drag because it's never really all about you? I'm thinking we might just have to celebrate it on October 30th, or November 1st from here on out. But for today,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATHNAEL, WE LOVE YOUR GUTS AND CAN'T WAIT TO GIVE YOU YOUR BIRTHDAY HUGS AND KISSES!

Happy Day!

We passed through the Ethiopian courts today, and it is official, Nate and Dag are ours. I am the mom of these two adorable boys and I can hardly wait to hold them in my arms. We are so excited, and I honestly feel like I am 20 pounds lighter today. The emotions I experienced the last week in anticipation for this day were like no other. More to come, but I just had to shout with joy and put a few pictures of these darlings back up on the blog...because I can now.

Grandpa...This is For You

So this post is for my dad and Garth (father in law), who might get a kick out of watching this video Spencer put together of himself playing football this season. It's a little lengthy, much better in high definition on the big screen, and doesn't even quite do his season justice. I'm not usually a bragging parent (at least I try not to be), but Spencer was pretty dang good at football this season, if I do say so myself. I think he had 12 or more touchdowns and many amazing defensive plays as well. His games were really fun to watch. We tried to video tape all of them, but that is super hard to do. Sam and I would both give it a try and than you would get all excited watching some amazing play he was doing and we would forget we had a video camera in hand. Finally, we enlisted our fabulous friend Makita, and thanks to her we have some good footage.

Spencer is really into Michael Jackson right now as well, hence the music that goes with it. I think I have listened to more MJ music the last month than I have in my lifetime. My kids do think I am pretty cool though, because I can do the moonwalk. This poster hung in my yellow and orange animal room when I was 10 or so, and I still think it is the best he ever looked...I loved him then.

THERE IS BEAUTY ALL AROUND

It is so beautiful in Boise right now. The leaves are changing and thanks to a wet summer the colors are amazing. Today it was 75 degrees and just fabulous. I'm not usually an autumn lover, it means the end of summer and the precursor to winter, which I really struggle with. But, I just might have a had a change of heart this year. I have quite enjoyed fall.

Today is also Dagim's 3rd birthday. I hate that he is getting older without us. Oh, how I wish he were here to celebrate. He has a really cute bike sitting in his room and my other children would probably talk him into going to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, and ordering fried macaroni and cheese, because that is what they love. I wish I could put a big giant picture of him on this blog too, but as you may or may not have noticed there are no more pictures of the boys on our blog. Earlier this week we found out from some new found friends, also waiting for children from our same orphanage, that until we pass through court, we aren't allowed to have pictures of the children on the internet. Truthfully, I don't know why I didn't know that until 5 months later. I have read all my papers our agency sent us about 20 times, but maybe it's selective reading, because I never saw that...oops. So you will know when we pass through court because pictures will be back. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAG!...10/28/2009 Pictures are back.

And if these aren't three of the cutest girls around showcasing the fall foilage, I don't know who is. Sicily had a fun play date with her friends Kerrie and Susanna yesterday, who were recently adopted by our friends, the Dildines, from Ghana. I just want to eat them up every time I see them. They are Nate and Dag's exact ages...could we prearrange some marriages right now?