A Friendly Goose

 A few weeks ago we went to a bird sanctuary with our cousins. While walking around, the kids discovered a goose was following them looking for the corn we had bought for the birds.

The goose would actually eat the corn right from their hands if they didn't pull away too fast! Geese are known to bite though, so the kids were a little nervous!!!!

More pictures to come soon of the bird sanctuary....

The Perfect Blue!

The other night I was washing dishes, (I think!), and when I looked out the window, I was so amazed by the night sky that I HAD to take pictures.

It was so pretty! The clouds and gorgeous blue were so cool!

If someone asks me what my favorite color is, I would tell them purple, or I might say the color blue I once saw looking into one of the Great Lakes. But I think this sky's blue was my absolute favorite color. The pictures I took can't even show how beautiful it was!  What a gorgeous world God has created!

Pretend Friends!

Mom likes to tell a story about one day when I was little. She was bringing me inside, but I made her wait with the door open until all my pretend geese friends came in!

Well, something like that happened today! I was doing my science in my room when I heard a banging on the door. And, like it usually is, Minte was wanting to come in. This time he had Ethan with him. Minte is kinda bossy so he pushed Ethan in my room with the words, "GO!" and then he started pretending to motion in some pretend people, again telling them to go! He did this for a few minutes. Then he began closing the door with a goofy, did-you-see-what-I-just-did?, grin on his face. Then I asked him if he was letting in his pretend friends. For some reason this frightened him and he ran to me like he was scared!

I think this is too funny! Between Minte and Ana, we're always laughing!

A kiss from Minte

What do you do with a crying baby?

Take their picture! Stops the tears everytime!

Then they want the camera. That sometimes brings back the tears.

Sleepy Boy

(Check out the drool puddle under Min's face!)

Costumes for the Baby

Poor little Minte was caught and my chemistry goggle thingerabobs that I hate were put on him! He was so cute!

He didn't like them very much. He prefers sunglasses to safety goggles! I'm with him!

The poor kid has had to deal with all these costumes we like to put him in! But isn't he adorable????!!!

Another Video of Our Little Guy

In this video, Minte is running back and forth between Dad and Mom, is scooped up, kissed, and then he wiggles away to do it again! This was soon after we came back with him.

Minte and Kitties

When we first brought Minte home, as I've told you before, he was very scared of Woody and the cats. I didn't witness this, but I guess the first time he saw Woody, he freaked out and jabbered in some baby language to Dad all about it! Now when Woody's by him, he has taught himself to guard his face from Woody's tail with his arms. It's kinda sad and a little funny at the same time! But anyways, he is more comfortable with the cats now. A month ago it was an amazing thing when Min actually TOUCHED a cat, and now he rubs his face in our cats' fur!!!!

Here is a picture of Minte and Collar Dude rubbing into eachother. C.D. is our sweetest cat and LOVES people. He's not sure about Minte, but as long as he's not pinching him and pushing him out the door, he does well with him! We were shocked the first time Minte started pushing his head into C.D.'s side. He was obviously imitating C.D.! It was and still is very cute!

Not good, Not good, Not good!

 We've found out that Minte is smart. Of course we knew that before, but now we know it even more. The other day Minte was showing us his rice cereal box. He was so proud of himself for signing food and everything that Mom let him hold the box figuring he didn't know how to open it. He did.

 Mom and I had been talking across the room about something and when I started yelling, "Oh! NOT GOOD! NOT GOOD!" she thought I was replying to what she had said until I started running as fast as I could across the room. Then she realized she hadn't seen Minte in a while. And there Minte sat on the other side of the island, dumping a pile of rice cereal onto the floor. Mom thought it was funny, and once the stream of cereal stopped coming from the box, it was! It was hilarious! We took some pictures before Mom brushed him off.

I think I had as much fun vacuuming up the stuff as Minte had dumping it! Our vacuum shows the stuff swirling around. Man, that looked cool!

Field Pictures

I love taking pictures. I get in these moods where I just want to go out and pose everyone and everything. This happened the other day! I like close-ups of faces and pictures of everyday life. I like my pictures to look real. No fake pictures! No fake flowers! No fake grass. 

Poor Minte had to deal with one that day's picture taking moods. Usually I like to take pics in the field and though Minte loves to go in the field in our backyard, he has a problem with touching the weeds with bare skin! The poor guy didn't feel like smiling cheese at my camera.

When you take Ana's picture, there's bound to be a cat involved. This one was too tired for pics. And getting a cat and one year old to look at the camera at the same time... not possible.

So we tried taking pictures of Minte and Ana. And Minte wasn't in the mood to be hugged.

And over time Ana starts to give up on me...

So I go to Ethan.

And we get some really cute pics.

And then he gets so excited that he starts posing himself. This gets a little scary sometimes. For some reason I think of Horton Hears a Who with this picture. Maybe it's the flower in his hand.

Another Ethan pose.

And yet another. Where are you, Ethan? I can't see you through weeds you know!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! We love you very, very, very much! We love how you like to play with us and talk with us and how you patiently listen to all our long thoughts and dreams. 

From Emily: Thank you for listening to me talk and talk about nothing in particular. Thank you for caring about my safety and especially my education. Thank you for taking so much time to research and form a plan for my high school and college years! You're great! I totally know how much you love me, you show it in so many ways! And I love you very much too! I hope you have a wonderful, relaxing day! You're the best!

Take your Child to Work Day

Can this be happening?? Can Ethan be old enough to go to work with Dad? Wasn't it just yesterday when Luke and I were going with Dad and sadly thinking how long it would be until little Ethan could go with Dad to work?

So, yes, Ethan is now old enough to go with his daddy to work. He got all handsomed up and left with Dad. Poor Ana didn't know what to do with him gone. A few hours later we received a phone call from Ethan. He let us know about all the fun stuff he got to do. He got a tour of Stryker and everything! And in a few minutes they were gonna go to the cafeteria for lunch! How fun!

I think I can say without a doubt that Ethan had a fun time with Dad. Dad apparently let him "help" and hit some keys. He met Dad's coworkers and got to eat food not from home!

That afternoon Ethan was dropped off at piano lessons and later while the two of us were at the store, me in my normal clothes, Ethan remarked that probably everyone was wondering why he was so dressed up!

Ana keeps us laughing!

Although Ana is growing up and is no longer the baby of the house, she still likes to come up with things to make us laugh. She still calls the living room the liling room and other stuff like that.

The other day I bought chips for a friend's party. The kids were disappointed when they found out since they were my chips, they couldn't have any! Ethan saw me eating some one day and he asked for one. I agreed and took one from the bag and gave him one. Ana quickly figured out what had happened and came over to claim a chip as well. After I gave one to her, she turned to Mom and said, "Mom, Emily spoils us!" Too funny since it was only ONE little chip!

Also the other day,  Mom was teasing Ana about how she had climbed in bed with her last night. She was saying how a certain, sick little girl NEEDED to get in bed with Mom because she was so cold and couldn't pull up the covers in her own bed!   Ana explained why  by saying, "Well first I put on the covers, but it was too hot. So then I took off the covers and it was too cold. But your bed was JUST RIGHT!"

She's pretty cute!
Some new news too... Minte is saying more words! He jabbers all the time, but it's always baby language, (or maybe it's baby Amharic! We don't know!) He says ow, daddy, down, out, trees and occasionally will say other words randomly or try to copy us! He also is learning body parts and is very proud of himself whenever he gets it right. He has caught on to English fast and he recognizes phrases like, "Do you want to go outside? or Where is Woody? or Where are your shoes? or Time to go upstairs! It has been so much fun!

Hugs and Kisses

Daddy and Minte. A while ago Minte discovered a new, fun game called "RUN TO MOM AND THEN DAD!" But anyways, the idea of the game was to run across the room to Mom, get picked up and kissed, then squirm to be put down and then go running for Dad and his kisses. He did this forever!!!!! I have a video too, which I will post soon. A couple videos actually...

I want to apologize for not writing sooner. I've been having so much going on lately and have not found any time! Even over the weekend! I can't wait til school is done!