Blog Entry
Posted by Loren Alldrin on April 04, 2010 to Adoption blog
Another Month Closer to "Normal"
(click any image to enlarge)
Valentine's Day Beauties (and One Beast)
Here are the girls dudded up for V-day, with Samuel just being his cute self.
Mackenzie's Square Foot Garden
Mackenzie gets some help with her new garden project.
Samuel Loves Gadgets
What's more fun than a big, noisy machine?
On a Ladder
Loren walked in to find them posed like this. Click!
Yarn Extensions are Cool!
Though they're very time-consuming, yarn extensions look great (and last a long time).
We are so BAD to have let our blog go stale for such a long time. Please accept our apologies!
This last month has been one of slow and steady improvement in almost every area. Just recently Kristen said to me, "I really feel like we've turned a corner". And we have. Things are just feeling so much more normal and natural, and everybody is "finding their groove" in the family.
It sure helps to have the new kids healthy. After two rounds of antibiotics, Olivia's GI issues went away for a short time. Then they came back. Then they slowly improved again. At this point, she's basically clear of all symptoms. This is a major praise, as it really seems she's feeling much better overall. She's cheerful and chatty, and we've been blessed to hear more stories about her life in Ethiopia. Her language skills are just exploding, so we're better able to understand her (and vice-versa).
Naomi is still the quietest of the bunch, but she's definitely speaking and understanding much more. Other than a surprise resurgence of head lice (now eradicated), her health has been great. She's doing better in school, developing her fine motor skills, and eagerly tackling her studies. She still loves to play with dolls. Like all of her siblings, she loves to be outside on the swings, tricycles or trampoline when weather permits.
Samuel is a bundle of personality and cheerful spirits. He's just a happy kid, plain and simple, and he makes us laugh a lot. He's a gadget freak, playing with anything he can get his hands on (and generally figuring them out quickly). He chatters and points and acts out scenes like any two-year-old, and he's a prolific tattle-tale. Some of his most amusing one-act plays have been him trying to tell us of some great injustice.
Samuel is heavy, strong and more rough in his play than any of the girls have ever been. Heck—he plays like a boy! Kristen knocked him down while playing the other day, and he fell hard. Any of the girls would have burst into tears, but he bounced up with a smile and came back for round two.
He didn't bounce up so quick the other day when he fell face-first on the sidewalk. The problem was that the boy loves to put his hands in his jacket pockets. That's where they were when he tripped, and he wasn't able to stop his fall like usual. So he picked up some road rash on his cheek and temple. Ouch!
Olivia's hair has turned out to be a fun project, as Kristen and Mackenzie try different things. The latest time-consuming operation is yarn extensions, which you just have to see to believe. We all know what's worth a thousand words, so enjoy the attached picture.
Speaking of Mackenzie, she's been thrilled to finally start her "square foot" garden (SFG). She's read her SFG book cover-to-cover several times, and has been compiling notes and lists and plots and dates and calculations galore for months now. She's been driving us crazy, but this project has turned out to be the best home-economics class ever. Now if all that effort will actually produce some fruits and veggies...
Anneliese went up to an older (and much more competitive) age bracket, but she still placed in the top 10 in her last competition. She played very well, and really enjoyed the process. She also graduated to a larger fiddle (now 3/4 size), which sounds much better than her previous instrument. She hears and feels the difference, and seems to be having even more fun with her fiddle.
Emily continues to bless us with her good attitude and helpful spirit. She's often the first one starting on her schoolwork, and she's really good at staying on-task. She's also really enjoying her piano lessons, and she practices diligently. She and Mackenzie both did so well at their last recital.
Jillian has struggled more than anyone with the new siblings, but this month has been much better for her. She seems to be having more fun with the new girls and Samuel. Kristen and I have also been trying harder to make sure she feels cherished and loved, and it seems to be helping. The girl who just wanted to have someone younger to "force around" is discovering that there's much more to it than that!
Enjoy the pictures—I just uploaded some of the best from our last six weeks or so. Head over to the gallery to see even more.
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