Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Hope you all are looking ahead to a fun day tomorrow!

Every Thanksgiving we take turns spending the holiday at either the Vander Hart or Siefker get together. Usually my Grandpa and Grandma Vander Hart have the gathering at their church or another building. But this year, my Dad's cousin and his family are hosting the big "reunion" at their house. They live in Ohio, so we will be having a long trip down!!!!

So that's up with us. Mom is making fruit cabobs and I'm making apple pie. Mmmm... I'm looking forward to turkey, and stuffing especially!!!!!

Have a wonderful holiday!

News

Well, it didn't work out. Sorry to get your hopes up!! :)

Singing

My Dad is a great singer. At our old church, he used to sing up front with a team or by himself for a "special". He got his singing abilities from his parents. In fact, his whole family is great at singing.

I think my grandpa has the best  voice. His voice is really deep and SO cool! I absolutely love it! He sings with his brothers.

Since Lucas has begun to dig into html,(Oh my goodness, I'm already lost!), he is going to see if he can get one of Grandpa and his brothers' songs on this post. The best song to hear Grandpa on is On The Jericho Road. Grandpa does the leading chorus part. (The really deep voice).

So has this talent of singing passed on to our family? I'm not sure. But we are given concerts quite often by Ana, who becomes lonely quite easily in the bathroom. Some days we think she should try opera. Other days we can't help laughing at the deepness of her voice.

So, anyways, we'll try this out. Hang on...

Funny story

One day Ethan and Ana were cleaning their room. They decided to try the ever used push everything under the bed method.

So Mom came into the room to check their progress. To her amazement, everything was clean in record time! So, as she has been a mother for 16 years, she looked under the bed. And.... there was all the mess!

So Ana says to Ethan, "I told you she could lean over!"

Another story,

Mom was working with Ana on her letter sounds in the living room one day. Suddenly Ana stood up and shouted, "SANTA" Mom looked and there was a man working on the neighbor's roof with a red sweatshirt and hood on.

So today Ethan and Ana were discussing where Santa's reindeer were. He must have left them at home.

Just now we were trying to remember how the story went and Ana spoke up and said, "He WAS Santa!"

Ethan is always coming up with new, fancy, "big kid" phrases to use during his every day talking. He has used therefore and now then.

Ethan has informed Mom that he will live next to her until she and Dad die, then he is moving to Europe!

But see, he has also said that he will live in Europe, his wife will be a waitress in Australia, and their kids will live with Mom and Dad. And Mom will have to do his daughter's hair , (thinking of Ana), unless his wife comes back to do it.

The Social Worker just left

We have a new social worker. This is the first time we've met her though.

Today she came because our baby in Ethiopia is older than we had in mind in the beginning. So now we have to change all our information to an older age. The social worker was only here for an hour and a half or so.

Usually when the social worker visits, we clean the house from top to bottom. Not that we're trying to hide anything... :), but we never know whether they are going to walk through our house inspecting it. And we'd like our house to be kinda clean ! Unfortunately, there have been waaaaay too many times when the social worker HASN'T walked through our house. And then we cleaned the house for nothing!

So today Mom has us just do a basic clean up. It was SO much better! It only took us about 45 minutes. And, hey, the social worker only stayed in the living room and kitchen!

We accepted the referral!!

Mom was looking at some children from Ethiopia. She saw a couple little ones that she was interested in. She showed Dad who later told her to e-mail for info. After learning more about them she and Dad decided that the one had too severe special needs for us to take care of him. The other baby,( a little over a year old), was a possibility.

They talked to an internation adoption doctor last night, prayed and discussed it, and  told us they were going to accept the referral!

I can not give much more information over the internet, however.

Emily

Several new things...

So, besides this referral, (I'm not allowed to give any details at the moment), we have had several new things happen since last I wrote.

1st. On my way home from spending time with friends, my car began to smoke through the exhaust pipe in the back. Looking behind me, and seeing nothing because of the white smoke, I pulled to the side and called Dad who came and drove my van home. After calling Grandpa, Dad concluded that my van had a problem that seems to be common with Montanas. Unfortunately, this is not a cheap problem to fix, so I am hoping Dad will be able to fix the problem himself with less money! So right now I am carless and driving our family van.

2nd. Lucas and my basketball practices have begun. Luke has one in fact in a couple minutes.

3rd. (And this is funny.) Tuesday Dad and Mom took the little ones shopping in our red car. When they got back, Dad took out their carseats to move them back in the van. As he was moving Ethan's, something jumped out! Our cat, C.D., grabbed it. It was a mouse. A VERY large mouse!  Obviously Dad was freaked out, and Mom was grossed out. Apparently this mouse got in the seat when it was in the garage. Then it took a ride in the car. (Dad even stuck his hand through the back to pull the seatbelt soon. He could've touched the mouse! Eeeew!!) Ethan even sat on it. (Have I grossed you out yet)? So, obviously we have been cleaning carseats for the first time in years. Mom says there was a lot of food in there for him to munch on.

There might be more news I can't think of, but I will try to share later.

Referral

We are looking into a possible referral! Please be praying!
Emily