Gran Gran's Here!
My whole family lives in the UK, and as such have not yet seen Ayana and Moses...much to their distress!
My mum has been dying to see them and phones them all the time. You can imagine the phone conversations with a 2 yr old still learning English and a 1 yr old who points. Anyway, we also "visit" Gran Gran on the web cam and so Ayana thinks that Gran Gran lives in the computer. If you say "where's gran gran?" she runs and points at the computer screen. Very funny.
So, mid way through January, my mum finally arrived and what a glorious airport trip that was. I was so excited that I started to shake when I saw her and she just ran and held onto Ayana and Moses who straightaway hugged her. It was so awesome. Of course, Erin, Megan and Josh got huge hugs and kisses too. She left at the beginning of Feb and it was very hard to see her go. She is very British in that she doesn't usually cry in public, but she broke down at the departure gate when Moses blew her a kiss...it's hard to live thousands of miles away from family.
We had the most awesome visit and now when I ask Ayana where Gran Gran is, she says "Gran Gran said Bye bye and mama cry" :(
I made a short slide show of a couple of pictures taken on the first day of her visit here. Please click on the link below and turn on your speakers. I would suggest that you don't enlarge the picture as it tends to distort. I really HOPE that this works.
PLEASE leave me a comment so that I can see if I did it properly!
http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=23fe24c2fb5cb341f84ca4&skin_id=0&&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url

What a Disaster!!

Yesterday I dropped Megan off for her voice lessons and decided to quickly run into Save On Foods for a couple of things before picking her up again. I had half an hour and I also had Ayana and Moses with me.
I zipped around the store and was quite proud of the fact that I had done a shop and was back at the van in 20 minutes. Pride always comes before a fall, I should have known!
I put Moses in the van, turned round to put Ayana in, put all my bags in and then reached across to buckle Moses up. As he was squirming away, I put my keys down on the seat. You can guess what's going to happen.
I turned around for a moment (now I don't even know why) and turned back to see Ayana push on the door which slid across and clicked. I froze.
I frantically pulled on the door. Locked.
With Ayana and Moses inside, not strapped in their seats. With my purse, my keys, my cell phone on the front seat.
At first I just stared into the van in desperation.
Then I tried to get Ayana to press the button on the door which would have unlocked all the doors. She of course could not understand me and just stared back at me. Then I was pointing to the button, "Ayana, push the button" (two words she doesn't know yet are "push" and "button" I've discovered) She waved at me.
Soon a little crowd of three guys had gathered as they all tried to get Ayana to push on the button! She waved at all of us quite happily. One guy kindly informed me that this would never happen to him as he always carries two sets of keys around. Thank you sir, you can leave now.

Moses meanwhile thinks that this is hilarious. He starts to go through the shopping bags and throw things around the van. Then, in his new found freedom, he stands up on the arm rest of his car seat. I was trying to tell him to sit down...good luck!
Finally, I got hold of Dave at work, half an hour away and he said that he would come and open the van with his spare key. I didn't even think of calling a tow truck and anyway, they take about half an hour too. (How do I know this? Another deadly embarrassing thing happened to me in the van last Sunday involving running out of gas and having to call a tow truck :0 )
Anyway, Ayana now is tired of waving at me and starts to cry and then to call out "shinti" (meaning "pee") She starts to jump up and down and then finally just pees in her pants which upsets her and sets her off into a complete fit of crying.
Moses is now throwing bottles of 7UP around the van.
I stood there for over half an hour and I have never been so glad to see Dave pull into the parking lot. Oh the magic sound of that key turning in the lock and click, the door was open! Ayana looked at me and then sighed. "Poor Ayana" she said! I had to laugh!
Meanwhile Megan is still sitting outside her voice lesson waiting to be picked up, we were over half an hour late in getting her.
All in all, a horrible, frantic experience. When I think back on it now, everything ended up OK, the kids were fine etc, and it is quite funny. However, at the time.....

(Almost..) Six months already!!

In 10 days, we will have been home from Ethiopia for SIX WHOLE MONTHS!! I just can not believe it. Dave and I were talking about it today and saying how fast the weeks and months have flown by.

Major events in our new family have been and gone in a flash..

The first picnic in the park.

The first Autumn, playing in the leaves.

Being featured in the local paper...our one and only claim to fame.

The first snowfall...Ayana's eyes grew huge and her mouth opened wide as she peered outside at the snow and breathed, "Who did that?" Moses was VERY unimpressed.

The first time celebrating Ayana's birthday in her forever family...a happy, giddy little girl dressed up in a fairy costume and sunglasses all day.

First Halloween. Dressing up as a princess and a cowboy was so fun.

Trips to the hospital with Moses.

Our first Christmas all together, simply magical. Moses' first birthday.

Their dedication at church...

Moses learning to creep, then crawl, then walk.

So many huge events, some of which I will post about separately to give you a glimpse into our lives. As I reflect back, in the grand scheme of life, six months is nothing. BUT six months has made such a huge difference in their lives and also in ours. They have grown physically and emotionally. Ayana now understands so much English. Moses even follows simple directions showing a basic understanding too.

They both frequently run to us for hugs, kisses, reassurance and cuddles, another indicator that they are attached and bonded, ( one of the greatest, and sometimes never mentioned, fears of an adoptive parent..."what if they don't attach to me?")

They adore their older siblings too and we were also thinking today of how wonderfully our older children have accepted their little brother and sister. They literally welcomed them with open arms and were ready with lots of hugs and kisses right from the moment we set eyes on them. They are the best older brother and sisters that Ayana and Moses could ever had and we are so proud of the way that they have adapted to all the huge changes over the last six months. That is a blessing and an answer to prayer.

Ayana and Moses eat well. They sleep well. They laugh a lot. They run around the house being crazy, laughing and falling over each other and then getting up to do it all over again. Moses is obsessed with The Wiggles and now we all know the songs off by heart. We hum "Dorothy the Dinosaur, Queen of the Roses" as we go about our daily routines. (Not sure if that is good or bad?)

I am so grateful for this chance to parent these amazing little children. What a huge challenge and responsibility. What a joy.

I am excited to see what the next six months will bring.

Arriving in Vancouver, Canada!

I explained in my last post why we arrived in Vancouver stinky and exhausted! We came through Customs and went straight through Immigration without much of a wait at all. Finally our Ayana and Moses were landed immigrants of Canada, we had done it. They were home with us at last. We asked the Immigration official to sign something special for them in their papers and he wrote, "Welcome home to Canada" What a feeling.

The euphoria faded somewhat as we came to realise that all of our bags except one were missing plus our stroller. Is it possible for bags to go missing both ways on a journey? I suppose it is. Is it possible that it always happens to us? I suppose so!

I had a moment of madness where all the frustration, stress and my general feelings of being overwhelmed rose to the surface and got the better of me. I saw a BA official, explained our situation in no uncertain terms to her ("We have been traveling for two days with 5 children, one of whom has very bad diarrhea. Our bags are all missing again..DO SOMETHING") and then we just said forget it. We want to go home. We will deal with the bags another day.

We left baggage, walked around the corner and were met with the loudest cheer, whoops of joy and delight, banners being waved and an enormous crowd of friends and family waving and crying. They had been waiting to meet us for almost 2 hours as we went through Immigration/ Customs and tried to find our bags. The picture above is of us first walking through...I still cry when I think of that reception. (I'm crying as I write this)

After all that horrific journey, after almost 2 years of waiting to bring the children home, after tears and ups and downs, we were home. Our family and friends were there to welcome Ayana and Moses into their new community. I was bowled over by the emotion on people's faces as they met them for the first time and it became so real to me how very special and "wanted" these children are. While we have been waiting, so have our friends and family, it was incredible. I have to say that it was one of the highlights of my life to be greeted and welcomed by that crowd of special people. I will never forget it.