OUR FIRST BABY BOY!

How quickly time flies when you have children! I was told this several times when I first gave birth to Tifanie but at 19 yrs old...it did not sink in! Now at almost 40, and with Tifanie 20 and Randy almost 18, I am wishing I had listened to them a little more.
When Randy was about 8 yrs old he assured me that one day he WOULD be a soldier like his Daddy! He would protect and serve our country and us just like he watched his Dad doing. He assured me he would be ready to go anywhere when he was told to. He was 8 so I said to him...Ok honey! That would make Daddy and I very proud. Well...as the years have passed my boy turned into a young man and the whole time he never waivered on what it was he was going to do with his life...the only uncertainty was WHAT his job in the Army would be. SO...on Friday Oct 15, 2010 we watched our son make his dream a reality. He was sworn in to serve our Country just as his Dad has done for 22 yrs and his grandpas had done before him. As scared as I was at that moment, this Mom could not have been more proud! The older Randy gets the more I see his Dad in him and that could never be a bad thing!
SO...As Randy counts down the months until he "gets" to leave and start his career, this Mom is going to hold on just a little tighter as she counts down the months until she "has" to let go and let him fly.

Blessings~

Tina

LOVING THE FALL...

I LOVE the fall. I like watching the leaves change to beautiful colors and seeing God's wonders unfold in front of my very eyes. This year has been no different other than we are sharing it for the first time with our sweet boy Elijah. He enjoys being outside as much as possible!
We took him, Emilie and his little buddy, Alex to pumpkin patch recently. Elijah loved every minute of it. He is now 17 months and so very independent already. He absolutely LOVES his Daddy. If Daddy is around that is all he wants. He will scream for Daddy if he walks outside to get something only to come right back in. So my plan for another Mama's boy has failed...so far! :)
Our lives have been so very blessed by this precious boy. He is also at such a fun age. He can really make us laugh at some of the things he does. Yesterday we were eating out and Daddy was giving him tastes of his water. Then he told me to give him a taste of my tea...Elijah suck it from the straw and said "Tank You...MMMMMM". We just laughed at him. We were also at Target and Daddy was letting him walk instead of ride. Elijah walked right up to the candy shelf and grabbed a bag then walked to my cart leaned on his tippy toes and threw it in! Now...we do not give him candy especially, snickers! We had to laugh because it was SO cute.
He is learning by leaps and bounds and I love it! He will sing along with me when I sing to him. (it isn't the exact words but I know he is trying) He will climb up on my lap for no reason and say PAY... then fold his hand gibber a little then say AMEN!
We are gearing up for a fun next few months with the Holidays coming. It will be so much fun to watch Elijah through all of it.
Here are a few pics.

Trying to ride the pumpkin at the pumpkin patch!

Making lots of noise and lovin' it!

WEEEEEeeeee! The boy LOVES the slide.

Oh...and this is one of his favorite things to do. He will climb in after I take laundry out and just sit in there and laugh at me. *Thankfully, my dryer is usually never empty!

****I am going to try and post more frequently. I figure people may get tired of reading this but it is my journal of sorts so I need to be better about posting. :)

Blessings to all~

Tina

ONE YEAR AGO

***It is hard to believe it has been a year since we saw this picture of our little guy for the first time. He continues to be such a blessing to us and our family. SO...HAPPY REFERRAL-VERSARY TO OUR SWEET BOY!

BLUES CLUES...

Our boy LOVES Blues Clues. He asked to watch it several times a day. He can even get the remote and point it at the TV to "try" to get his "booz cooz" on. His favorite part is the mail. He can be playing with toys and the mail song will come on...he will drop everything and start dancing. TOO FUNNY! BUT then he must get very close to watch the mail scene. (I know this is not good on his eyes but I had to capture a picture before making him move back.)

***I think the boy does not have enough toys! (Oh, yes...he has many more up in his room!)

SEPT ALREADY...

We have already had a wonderful Sept. We spent Mon and Tues of this week in St Louis, MO. We went to the zoo and the arch and then got to spend some time visiting with Tsegay and his wife Almaz at an Ethiopian Restaurant. This is the Ethiopian Director and his wife. What a blessing it was to be able to see them again and to visit with so many families WHO GET IT! :) Elijah had a great time. He kept trying to get into the kitchen/bar area. Emilie also loved seeing and visiting with everyone. She really enjoyed playing with the littles. She kept saying how cute they all were. She wanted to try lamb so Don ordered lamb to share with her. Then he taught her how to eat it without her fork. She did well trying all of it.

*Elijah eating injera and LOVING it!

Mommy, Daddy and Elijah at the museum in the arch

Mommy chasing Elijah through the tunnel at the zoo

* Emilie and Elijah at the zoo.

Last Sept started out as a very tough month for us. We were so tired of the waiting! We had been on the adoption roller coaster for over 2.5 years. We had been waiting for our little guy from Ethiopia for over 10 months. We were inching closer to the Holidays and the idea of spending another holiday not knowing our little guy was really tearing me up inside. Little did we know, God was getting ready to bless us in a HUGE way...

Have a wonderful week!! And if you think about it please say a little prayer for our family. We recently found out that my Dad is not getting a very good blood flow to his heart. He has been having "minor" attacks for about 3 months and has to take nitro to relieve it. He finally has an appt with the cardiologist on Sept 24th to see what they will do about all of this. Thanks~

Blessings~

Tina

SINCE I LAST POSTED...

Well, another 2 weeks have passed by very quickly. Why does time seem to get away from me these days?? Maybe it is this active little boy I spend most of day chasing after!??! BUT I so love chasing him. He is such an active little boy and we knew he would be from the minute he was placed in our arms. He was going up the all of the stairs within a month of coming home...big sign! He is already running and trying to hide from everyone. (we can usually still see him...but he "thinks" he is hiding)
School has started so the kids are gone all day. Em had transitioned much easier than we had ever thought. **Thanks so much for all of the prayers**I am certain they have helped. I forgot to turn the alarm on last night so I woke up at 602 this morning and rushed into her room and woke her up. She hopped right up...got dressed...did her hair...and all of the other things she needed to get done and was out the door by 630. She even ate a bowl of cereal. I am SO very proud of her!! Randy has it easier since he can drive himself. He doesn't have to leave the house until about 710. Em is already in her first class at that time...poor girl! Tifanie started her college courses this week. A few days a week I keep another little guy who is a few months older than Elijah. It is good for Elijah to interact with another little one AND he is learning to share his things.
Elijah had his 15 month check up this week and he is growing like a weed! He is already over 24lbs and almost 32 inches long. The pediatrician says he is advanced in his language skills. The funny thing is it came on all at once. The beginning of Aug he still wasn't really saying a whole lot of words but then almost over night I noticed him repeating words more and more. He has recently fallen head over heels in love with Blues Clues. He gets excited when it comes on and will sit for about 10 minutes straight without moving. He can even say Blue. (sounds more like bwoo) He also adores trucks more and more. I took him down the toy aisle at Target a few days ago and he got so excited when he say all of the trucks. He held is hands out and kept saying Uh huh...he wanted them ALL! Christmas should be pretty easy. :)
We are headed out of town this weekend. This will be our first weekend away from him. I have already told hubby if he cries we are just taking him with us! We will see how I do. I am sure he will do much better than Mommy will.
Hope you all have a wonderfully blessed weekend.
Tina

6 MONTHS/15 MONTHS...

On Aug. 14th we celebrated 6 months home with Elijah.
This was taken as soon as Almaz placed him in my arms. There were no tears (from him) and he just checked out my face and and looked like he was trying to figure out what was going on. You can see the startled look in those precious eyes. Poor little guy! And believe me he had no idea what he was in for. :) It is a good thing he fits right in to our crazy household! Don and I were talking yesterday and both of us think it feels like he has been here so much longer than just 6 months. We heard it would feel like this but I guess you just have to experience it to believe it.

AND...now at 15 months old TODAY...this is what our little guy is up to. He has now figured out how to dump everything out of his toy basket and climb in it to play. He is quite inventive at times and truly baffles us with what he can figure out.

This is Elijah's favorite chair. If anyone else is sitting in it he will climb up on a end table/ storage box and act as though he is counting (giving them til the count of 3 to get up) and then he jumps on them. He thinks he owns this place (and I guess he kind of does!)

We took a trip to Chuck E Cheese a few weeks ago. I love the look on his face. Chuck E was standing not far away from him and he is watching him very closely making sure he doesn't get too close to him.

He had a lot of fun riding the rides and playing. His favorite was talking on the phone and going up and down the slide.

At 15 months Elijah is saying about 10-15 words. We have only added one sign that he can do and that is pray. We say pray to him and he folds his hands and will repeat "pay". It is pretty cute. In the last week I hear him repeating more and more words that I say to him. He gives the best hugs and kisses. Last night he climbed up on my lap and laid several kisses on me....I love the MMMWAHH sound he makes with each kiss. Today at lunch he kept grabbing Tifanie and giving her bear squeeze hugs around her neck. I think she said she would forgive him for not saying her name yet after that. "Sissy and Tifanie" are both really hard words to say but we are working on it. He says bubby and Emi and Mama (sometimes Mommy) and Dada but not Sissy yet. He has just started saying OWIE...so he will get hurt and yell it repeatedly and then laugh! Or he will hit you and say it.

We are getting ready to turn in his re-adoption paperwork so we are hoping to have that all out of the way very soon and will legally change his name from Bereket Donald to Elijah Simon Bereket.

We have a busy month coming up. Don and I are going to his Yearly Guard conference in a few weeks and that will be the first time he has stayed over night with Grandparents for the weekend. I hope he does well...and me too! Then the beginning of Sept we are taking a trip to St Louis to see the Ethiopian Director and his wife. I am SO looking forward to seeing them again. Then the end of Sept I am taking my parents back to St Louis to my cousin's wedding.

Busy Busy!!

I am going to try and be a better blogger. :)

Blessings~

Tina