Baby Face

The face of an angel, right?

Uh, huh...I thought so too.

Until I saw my lovely new tomato plants.

And my other plant...

and the window screen...



and the shower glass...(that's soap, btw)

and the broken light...

which is what happens when you throw one of these at the ceiling.

This looks innocent enough, right? You'd never know that this was the scene of a crime until you realize that there USED to be 8 bananas.

Ah, how sweet. He looks so innocent watching his daddy.

Wait for it...he's just biding his time.

Aha! Dad's back is turned for a micro second and he springs!

Success!!

Until mommy stepped in, that is.


Sooo, face of an angel?

Uhh...maybe not so much.

I sure do love him though!!

I can't believe...

...that it's been a whole year since this picture was taken.

And these...

My baby girl turned 1 last week...how is that possible?
She was # 7...you'd think that after that many you'd be a little less awed by all the different baby stages, but I've found the opposite to be true. It's blink and you've missed it and I've learned to treasure and enjoy my babies a little more each time.

I will be honest and admit that when I first discovered I was pregnant with her I wondered how this was all going to work out.
We were in the middle of the adoption. Were we supposed to continue the process? Our dossier was ready to go and we anticipated bringing home the girls (our first referral) within months.
I get horribly sick the first 4 1/2 months and life as we know it pretty much comes to a standstill. I knew I wouldn't be able to travel and was wondering how we would manage once our children were home and I would be preparing for child-birth or recovering from it. It was hard to see how everything was going to work together.

I thought it was bad timing but God knew better.

What a comfort it ended up being knowing that we would soon be welcoming a new baby to our family when the referral of the girls fell through last August and we were grieving over the loss of them.
Our adoption ended up taking so much longer than we had ever thought it would and what a blessing it was to have this baby to love and hold while we waited. We rejoiced greatly when Mikayla was born!

From day one she has been smothered with love and attention from all her older siblings.
The boys fight every morning and try to beat each other on who gets her first. At night they sneak her into bed with them and I have to untangle her sweaty little body out from among them before I head to bed.
I'll put her in her swing or chair and look up 2 seconds later to find her gone.
I was surprised that Mikayla started walking last month...I can't believe that she actually had enough floor time to figure it out.

Another thing that was so amazing was how God led us to Kidus and Biruk through her.
We wouldn't have been open to adopting 2 boys if we hadn't had another girl since we really wanted at least one more female in the family and a sister for Bella.

Mikayla was about 4 months old I saw on our agency's yahoo group that they were needing to find a family right away for some paper-ready 2 1/2 yr old twin boys.
My heart jumped when I saw that, but at the same time I felt it was probably a long shot to ask Jerry about them since he, even more than I, had his heart set on little girls. Our homestudy and fingerprints for immigration were set to expire in a few months and I felt it would be a miracle if we could get through court before then.
I prayed about it and finally thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. If God meant for the boys to be ours then He would move my husband's heart... I would feel at peace with whatever decision Jerry made.
Jerry prayed about it long and hard and in the end said yes.
We were absolutely amazed when we had a court date by the next week.
We ended up not passing that date (or the next one, or the next one, or the next one etc...) but it was still confirming to receive a court date so quickly; God was sealing the deal before we had time to question what in the world we were doing.

Kidus and Biruk were meant to be ours and God still gave us our little girl too; we praise Him for all of them!

These were taken by Mikayla's older brothers...

I won't blame her if she beats them up someday.

Pretty baby

The Birthday party

Pizza nose

We moved the party into her sick brother' s bedroom so he wouldn't miss out.

Mmm...who knew something organic and gluten-free could be so good?
(yeah...mommy ate 4!)

Happy 1st birthday, my sweet little girl!

Lost in Translation??

Shig-a-what?

We've been getting the lab results back over the last couple of weeks.
Most everything came back negative except for Kidus testing positive for Hep A. Weird how it was just him and not Biruk too. Thankfully, Hep A is unlike the other Heps in that there are no long term affects and once you recover from it you're immune for life.
The positive result wasn't any huge surprise since it's not uncommon for kids from Ethiopia to come home with it. We were planning on them being positive and had gotten immunizations for Jerry and the older boys since they were the ones traveling.

We debated about getting the rest of us immunized against it and finally decided that it's better to be safe than sorry. Yes, it doesn't leave lasting damage, but it's not a pretty virus either.

Unfortunately, our actions weren't as good as our intentions.
We never did make it in to the doctor before the twins came home.
It was pretty scary a couple of weeks when we became so sick and found out about the positive test. A lot of our symptoms matched Hep A (although there never was any jaundice) and I was pretty worried.
We made appointments and went in for lab work.

It was a relief to find out last week that the Hep A results came back negative. (and yes, everyone is immunized now!)

Still, I knew what ever we had had was SOMETHING...it was too acute to have been a regular flu virus.

Yesterday I got a call from Mikayla's pediatrician and she said that the results were back from her stool samples and that she had tested positive for something called Shigella.

Huh?

I like to think of myself as being pretty informed in the field of any and all potentially lurking viruses and nasty bacterias that might someday infect one of my precious babies. I spend quite a bit of time lying awake at night worrying about them and scan headlines for any new ones that pop up around the world.
This one caught me unaware though.

Apparently Shigella is a bacteria, a major cause of diarrhea and dysentery (diarrhea with blood and mucus) throughout the world and is transmitted through food or water or person to person contact. (you know, the trusty old fecal-oral contamination route- not a pleasant thought)
It's not an uncommon bacteria here, in the U.S...it's usually passed around in day-care settings, nursing homes, etc...

I have no doubt as to the source of contamination in our case since both Kidus and Biruk had diarrhea when Jerry got them and we haven't been anywhere but home the first several weeks.
It didn't show up on their labs because they must have been over it by the time we did the cultures.
We tried to be so careful, wiping down toilets and anything else the boys touched, washing our hands and theirs constantly, but these are little boys we are talking about.
Kidus is fully potty trained and once he figured out how toilets work you couldn't keep him out of them. Biruk is mostly potty trained, but he has had a few poop-in-the-pants-and-down-his-leg episodes.
Somehow Mikayla was exposed and the rest of us who got sick must have caught it from her.

If I never see it again it would still be too soon; that was one monster bacteria!

When the pediatrician was spelling the name Shigella out for me I mistakenly wrote down a 't' instead of a 'g'.
I blushed when I realized my error because I never use language like that, but I have to admit that in the case of this illness the name would be appropriately fitting!

Success...sorta

I'd like to introduce you to my sweet sons...

Judah Biruk

and

Elijah Kidus

( Elijah means "Jehovah is God" and Judah means "praise", or "to praise".

Gen 29:35 (NIV) She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "This time I will praise the Lord." So she named him Judah...)

or as my husband calls them...

Rocky and Bucky
which mean rock, as in something you throw and buck, a young male deer


No matter, it's what's on their legal papers that REALLY counts!

Stalemate

My husband and I are at a stalemate.

The dilemma?

What to name our new sons.

We love their Ethiopian names. They were given to them by the aunt who cared for them after their parents passed away. Kidus means holy/blessed and Biruk means blessed.
Fitting; a double blessing.
We plan on keeping Kidus and Biruk as part of their names, but we also want to give them names that we have chosen, just as we have chosen names for all the rest of our children.
The problem is that my husband won't agree to agree with me as to what those names should be.

Our first several kids didn't cause any major disagreements; we had a reasonably long list of names. Mostly it was me giving suggestions and him yaying or naying them.

By the time we got around to naming son # 4 though, we were beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
See, not only were we naming our 4th son, my siblings had also been having children over the years . Most of those children were boys and unfortunately for us, we all kind of have the same taste in names.
We finally agreed on Gabriel for son # 4 and thought that surely the next baby would have to be a girl and thus avoid any more uncomfortable and disagreeable stare- downs the next time around.

But then baby # 5 came and he was definitely a boy.
We drove home from the hospital with an un-named baby.
Two days later and after much persuasive charm on my part (and maybe a few tears) my husband agreed that son # 5 could be called Isaiah.

Baby #6 and we finally got a girl.
I had my heart set on Isabella.
Jerry wanted Brandi.
We both kind of liked Mikayla.
I made a deal. If he would let me name my first daughter (and maybe ONLY daughter!) Isabella, I would let him name the next child ALL BY HIMSELF.
It took him several days to think it over, but he agreed.

When I became pregnant with baby # 7 I was just a little nervous. In the end, my husband was sweet and gave our new daughter a name that he knew I liked too: Mikayla.

So now the deals done and we are back to where we left off.

I want Elijah Kidus and Judah Biruk.

Jerry says 'no way' on Elijah , 'maybe' to Judah.
Problem is, I've wanted an Elijah way back with kid #4 and of those 2 names that's the one I want the most.

And besides, it's not like my husband has exactly been spouting off his own suggestions, although I did hear him mention 'Bucky' and 'Rocky' the other day.

Yeah.
I don't think so.

This could go on for a very long time were it not for the fact that we are preparing the paperwork for the re-adoption and have to get it sent out this week.
Like, tomorrow.

So we'll sleep on it and maybe after a full night of rest and his wife's subliminal whisperings, Jerry will awake to see how beautifully the names Elijah and Judah fit in with our family and fill out those papers!

Happy Birthday Luca!

9-11-01
Eight years ago the day so many thousands were killed in the World Trade Centers.
9-11-99
Ten years ago the day my husband's 2 cousins died in a plane crash.
9-11-98
Eleven years ago the day God choose for the birth of an amazing blessing, the day my third son Luca was born.

Of all my children, I think Luca is the most tender-hearted and caring. If a little one is lagging behind Luca is the one who usually looks out for them. He is the first one I call if I need someone to hold the baby because he is almost always willing to take her.
Luca is super conscientious, almost to a fault at times: when he was younger he was so worried about being honest that he couldn't just say "Yes" and "No" he would do something, but instead everything was "Maybe I will, but maybe I won't, but maybe I will" ...drove his momma nuts, but he didn't want to make any false promises.
Often I'll feel little hands on my shoulders or feet and am treated to a massage compliments of my thoughtful son.
I love his innocent baby-heart (don't tell him I called it that!) and his tender conscience...I know God has a special calling for him and I am so blessed to be his mom!

I love how Luca is cradling his baby sister in this picture.

The b-day party

some of my favorite pictures of Luca

We used to always tease him about his Sponge Bob teeth

But he's grown into them nicely

Thank you, Jesus, for this incredible child!