OUR SON!! We are VERY proud parents!!

Abrish

This is a video of Abraham using his Ethiopian nickname, "Abrish." It also includes some funny faces :)! I just think it's SO cute how he says his name - melts me! Love this boy!!

Tea Party and Library Bags

Whitt has been asking me for a few days to have a tea party! Lowa got to go to her friends tea party for her birthday and Whitt feels like he missed out. We had one the other day and had a blast.

We also have loved going to the library which is only 5 minutes away from our house - woohoo! We made library bags today with fabric markers and the kids are so excited for the next visit.

tea party

Making our Library Bags...

Abraham's "Smile" - makes me laugh every time!

My Lowa - all things pink!

Whitt was drawing spaceships on his bag - love that boy!

Just a few extras for you to enjoy...

Lowa Putting on Make-Up

I caught this on tape the other night and it took everything in me not to bust up laughing. Enjoy!!



The end result...

A View Through the Eyes of Whittaker

I gave Whitt the camera one day to see what he'd come up with. Here is the result...

Funny boy!

Mommy doing dishes - he asked me to make a sad face (maybe he knows how much I hate dishes :) )!

Lowa on the counter looking for art supplies

Lowa looking goofy

Daddy looking goofy

Mommy smiling

Abraham playing with a brush

A series of Whittaker faces...

The heater - hmmm

That boy makes me SMILE!!! I LOVE HIM!!!

Comment of the Day

Lowa was sitting on the downstairs toilet today doing her #2 business. Of course, Whittaker decided he MUST do his #2 business at the exact same time. He started freaking out that he was going to poop his pants (just so you know, there is another bathroom upstairs that he was more than capable of using :) ). Lowa looked at him and said,

"Whitt, just stick some toilet paper in your buns!"

NICE - always a solution from that girl!

Dancing Concerts!

Life here in Gresham world has been more than full! We have been busy moving to a new city, unpacking a house, going to Ethiopia (Kristin), starting a new job (Tom), prepping for all of the holidays, keeping up with daily chores, babysitting my nieces and nephew (which in so not a chore - we love them), and on top of it, simply trying to enjoy each other! Needless to say, blogging has been #500 on my list of things to do :)! Now that we are settled into our new home, I hope to keep up better. I know many of our Bellingham friends want to see how we're doing, so I'm posting some fun dancing videos for you all! Enjoy!!

Abraham was cracking up while we were playing football (boopball). He has been so much fun and his little personality is really coming out! He is such fun!!!!

Lowa loves dancing like a ballerina. She has many of her grace-filled moves along with some bonks too! You'll see some lovely cameos by Abraham and Whittaker - they're quite funny boys!

Here's Whitt at his finest! This kid is all skin and bone - makes me smile! Don't you love his muscle moves?! He's got quite a different technique than his sister Lowa, wouldn't ya' say!?!

We're Off

We are on our way to Ethiopia!!

Please follow our journey here...

We leave in a Few Days

Our bags are packed (all 26 of them) with clothes, shoes, donations and a variety of other items we're taking to Ethiopia! It's hard to believe that we leave in less that a week (4 days to be exact)!

Pictures from the streets of Ethiopia.

Our team is excited and more than ready to get our hands dirty, painted and working. When we arrive in Addis we'll be going over to Hannah's Hope and working! I cannot wait to see Almaz, hold babies, play with the children and work!! We'll be doing a variety of these types of things for a few days before we fly up north to Mekele!

Pictures from Hannah's Hope

In Mekele we'll be working with Dr. Geb on his new hospital. We'll be painting and helping to build whatever is left to build. I am thoroughly excited to meet Dr. Geb, hear his story and work!! While in Mekele, we'll also meet the president of a seminary. They've asked us to bring 100 English bibles for their students which we are thrilled to be able to do. I'm looking forward to learning more about this seminary and hopefully being able to connect them with a seminary here in the US. That's their desire as well. So if anyone knows of any seminary's that may be interested in forming a partnership in Ethiopia, let me know!

This is the hospital Dr. Geb is building. I'm excited to see how far it has come. I've got to say, I'm thoroughly impressed!

From Mekele we'll take a 5 hour van ride over very rough roads, mountains and hills. We'll be heading to a village called Kerbera Valley. Almaz took a team there last year and they handed out shoes. This year, we'll be taking more shoes and clothes especially for older children. I am really excited to get to know these people and get to spend some time with them (although if you want to know the truth, I'm pretty nervous too).

Some scenes from Kerbera Valley

After that we'll head back to Addis and work more in the orphanages.

Needless to say, it's a full and exciting schedule! Please lift up our team as well as all of the individuals we'll be meeting an connecting with in Ethiopia. God be praised for all that He will do in and through us!! Amen.

Please follow our journey here!
This is the blog that I will be updating while in Ethiopia, so mark it down if you want to follow along :).

Update and Move

Has it really been over a month since I've updated and posted? Wow, life has been too chaotic it seems! I miss all of my blogging buddies :) - I hope to be better from here on out!

As you know, our family moved across the state this last month! It has been such a thing of God and I'm so excited for what He has in store for us. Tom got a job as an assistant principal and is LOVING his job!!! The principal he works with is amazing and he feels like he is learning so much about what it means to be an excellent leader! God has definitely given Tom an amazing opportunity in his job and for that we are so very thankful!

As for the move, it was good but hard. We had lived in Bellingham for 13 years and had an amazing community of family and friends who were and are so dear to us. To leave that was heart wrenching. We miss them all dearly! But, at the same time we knew it was time to go. God had been laying on our hearts for a while that we were getting "too" comfortable. Life was amazingly good in Bellingham, but we knew that our faith needed to be stretched even more. What better way to do that than uprooting our family, moving across the state, starting a new job, reestablishing some relationships and on top of it all - traveling to Ethiopia :). Easy, peasy right?!! But at the same time God has been faithful in so many ways with our move. We have found a house and we LOVE it! We are with some of my family and it has been amazing! We are getting more connected with our new church and will be joining a new small group soon! God has already brought some amazing friends into our lives and we can't wait to get to know them more! He is GOOD is He not?!

As for the move... We're pretty tired because it's been a lot of transition. By the time we move into our new house, we'll have been in 5 houses within 2 months. We're ready for some dressers and our own beds :). We are not complaining by any means - we have been blessed more than we could have ever asked for. We've been able to stay with Tom's parents, my mom and some wonderful friends. We will be in our new house this next Wednesday - woohoo - we're so excited!!

Then soon after we move in (2 weeks later) I'll be leaving for Ethiopia! I'm incredibly excited, a little nervous to leave my family for that long and just a tad stressed that we'll only be in our new house for 2 weeks :). I know God is good though and He will provide all that is needed in the perfect timing - just as He always has!

Our Ethiopia team will be setting up a blog within the next week that will detail the trip and allow anyone to keep updated on the happenings in Ethiopia while we're there. I'll post the blog site just as soon as it's up and ready to go! We'd love for you to follow along on this journey.

Thanks for checking in on us, I promise I'll be better :)! I'm looking forward to seeing all that is going on with everyone else too. As for us, that's it in a very short nutshell.

Grandma working hard on painting - we had so many wonderful people helping us. THANK YOU!!!!

Yes, that's all garbage - lovely. There was a lot to clean - glad we're done with it!!

Moma and Tom working hard - LOVE YOU!

Blowing kisses goodbye to our old house.
Here's a link to see our old house - it's sold the 1st day - woohoo!!
http://13rockyridgedr.isnow4sale.com/
We loved our old home and will miss it incredibly. It was our first home, where we brought all 3 of our babies home for the first time and where we had many happy memories for 8 years. You will be missed home.

Our new home! We are so excited to move in and make it our own!! The neighborhood is simply wonderful and the home is larger and will be able to accommodate us all more easily. Should be fun!

The latest Gresham photo!

Sour Candy

Where have we been?!! Good question - we've moved to Spokane, WA - all the way across our state!! Thus, life has been NUTS and blogging has been at the bottom of the priority list. My plan is to blog about the whole process in a few days, but I thought I'd share these with you in the meantime!!

Our best friends had these sour candy's and we didn't tell the kids because we wanted to see their reactions - I think you'll agree that they are HILARIOUS!! Enjoy!!

Dancing Fiasco!

Lowa has been begging to go dance class for a good year now. She's told me that when she wants to grow up she'd like to be a ballerina. I quite like this idea as dancing is a passion of mine! Thus it was quite exciting the other day when I found out that Dancing For Joy was offering a whole day of free classes! I thought this would be a great opportunity to see what the studio was like and also give a Lowa a chance to get her groove on (and let me tell you, she's got a good groove :) )!

As we arrived at the dance studio, she was quite excited about it and hopping all about. She was led out onto the dance floor and ready to do her moves, when it's like a red flag went off in her head saying, "Wait, my mom is sitting over there watching - she's not with me. And oh yeah, my twin brother who does EVERYTHING with me is not here either. And, yikes, there are a lot of kids here that I don't know AT ALL. And, whoa - wait a second, other adults are watching me too." You could see the progression of scary thought play out in her ability and willingness to dance. She started off trying some of the moves and ended up like this...

Yep, Lowa's the one standing there frozen in her footsteps!

After the dance class (she lasted for one session - glad we didn't have to pay for it) we of course talked all about it. I asked her if she still wanted to be a ballerina when she grew up. Her response, "Um, I think I'd like to be a veterinarian instead!" Nice!!

Bryce and Kiersten - this one's for you - I've finally put something up - 'bout time! Love you guys!!

We're Still Here - Promise!

Yes, we're still here, things have just been SOOO busy! We were out of town for a few weeks and ever since we got back I've been essentially working what feels like full time preparing our team to travel to Ethiopia. Summer has been a blast and it's so refreshing to get some quality family time together. Here are some pictures from our summer thus far! Hope all is well with everyone in blog-world!

One of the views from our hike in Spokane visiting family.

Goofy faces!

Papaw and Abraham

My adorable Whitt
Little Miss Lowa - cute as ever!

My mom took us (and my nieces and nephew and 'brother-in-law' - I wish I could post photos - but can't due to a long story) to a waterpark in Idaho. It was SOOO fun. Thanks Mom!

One of the features... a big water bucket that drops.

Abraham enjoyed the waterpark too!

Camping fun - don't they look so big?!

During one meal preparation Abraham was confined to the playpen, so Lowa and Whitt thought they'd join in. It was hilarious!

Swimming was so fun while we were camping.

Lowa and Whitt earned a State Park Ranger badge for completing a list of tasks. They were SO proud - it was adorable!