Christmas 2012

From the time that we returned home after Thanksgiving until just a couple of days ago, it has been extremely hectic. From decompressing from all the traveling to getting Eva back into her classes, keeping appointments to getting the house cleaned in time for family, I feel like I am just now able to take a breath.

In years past, Christmas for our family has been in Florida. Both John and I have had our more-than-fair share of snowy white Christmases, shoveling, ice and just bitter cold. So Christmases in Florida were paradise for us.

However, for this past Christmas, I really wanted Eva to experience her first possible white Christmas. I wanted her to wake up in her bed, in her room, run into our room excited to go downstairs and open presents. You know, the whole fantasy. So blessed to have the family I have, they came from both the east and west coasts where it's warm and tackled the cold for over a week for their girl Eva.

The festivities started just one week before Christmas when my brother arrived. The next day my parents arrived. For Eva, that was Christmas! Presents were just icing on the cake. 

Usually Eva wakes up around 7:30 in the morning but this Christmas morning she woke up a little earlier. Normally I would take her back to her room but not this morning. As John was talking to her and getting her excited for opening presents, she just had a bit of a meltdown. Go figure! So, back to her room she went for about an hour until she settled down. We finally got downstairs around 9 o'clock and this is what Eva saw:

One of her aunts (John's sister) got her this adorable Little People Nativity set. I love it. And so did Eva. She was no longer interested in the gifts under the tree once she saw it. I had to coax her to start opening up gift bags and the such. She's still getting used to the concept. After opening a couple of gifts, she was ready to be done and play with her toys. It actually took a while for her to go through them and even then we had to take an intermission so she wouldn't have another meltdown.

It was a wonderful day. So relaxing. Eva had the best time and that's what was most important. No naps on Christmas! I didn't dare suggest it. I just let her wear herself out!

Merry Christmas to all. I hope you had wonderful and blessed time with family and friends this holiday season.

A Visit to Tampa Zoo

For the first 2 weeks in November, we were in Tampa, Florida. John was enrolled in a 2-week course that allowed him to make his police officer certification in Ohio equivalent to Florida. After his 2 weeks of 6 days per week, 10-hour days, he received a certificate and was then able to take his Florida State Exam, WHICH HE PASSED!!!

We stayed in a really cool resort/suite that had a living room, full kitchen, and balcony with a gorgeous view of Tampa Bay. For the first several days, Eva and I did not venture out much. We did one day of major grocery shopping, but other than that, we stayed in and got used to our new normal. 

By the end of the first week, we were both ready to do something fun. 

Enter the Tampa Zoo!!

We got there late morning and Eva had already given me her list of animals that she wanted to see. Some she got to see, some she didn't get to see. She was able to ride a couple of the kiddie rides - of course, ride the carousel - and had a few really great experiences :-)

The first one was with the giraffes. Tampa Zoo has an interactive experience that gives you the opportunity to feed the giraffes. They were so beautiful. I was more excited than Eva at the chance to see her feed them. Our first attempt was a bit of a failure. Our giraffe walked away from us and wouldn't come back. So we got some lunch, had another fun experience (I'll talk about that in a minute), got some ice cream, rode the carousel again, and then went back for another try.  
 
Fortunately, a different giraffe was ready for some attention. Eva and I ran up to the platform and bought a bunch of lettuce. I don't know why I keep thinking that Eva will somehow be freaked out by these opportunities - the girl has NO FEAR!!! She took the lettuce from me, walked up to the fence, stuck her arm out and fed the giraffe. She didn't even flinch when the giraffe's tongue licked her hand. MY GIRL :-) 
I was so tickled that I bought another bunch of lettuce and let her do it again. What an awesome experience!!

  

The second experience was in between the giraffe feedings. After lunch, we made our way to the kiddie part of the zoo, where the small rides and petting zoo are. After spending some time petting some goats, Eva informed me that she really wished she could have a "horsey ride". OK. Time for me to make another wish come true :-) Again, I thought that once she got up-close-and-personal with the pony, all bets would be off and she wouldn't want to ride it. I could not have been more WRONG! She got her little helmet on, climbed on, held the head of the saddle and talked with the girl leading the pony the entire time. My girl - The Little Equestrian.

Our last cool experience came after our giraffe feedings. Still on my little high from watching Eva feed the giraffes, we started walking deeper into the zoo when I saw this:

My thought "Ooooo, I would love to see Eva ride that!!" Little did I know I would HAVE to get on that thing and RIDE IT WITH HER. Oh boy!!! Here we go. 

It wasn't that bad. It was different......interesting. Eva liked the ride and right after it was over, wanted to ride it again :-) It was a very full day. Eva got to do some of her favorite things, got to experience some new things, see some new animals, and have an all-around awesome day. So thankful that I get to be there when these days happen!!

Halloween 2012

Our Halloween was very busy this year. And it started with activities the week before Halloween. It started with Boo at the Zoo. It was mine and Eva's first time doing something like that. What a beautiful day....sunny, warm, a slight breeze. Eva was layered up, so she was totally comfortable until around sunset when it got really chilly and she started getting cold.

This year Eva has really gotten the concept of wearing a costume, trick-or-treat, and candy :-) And she absolutely LOVES the Zoo. This was truly the best of both worlds for her! We spent almost 3 hours there, checking out the animals and trick-or-treating at all the different vendors. For dinner that night, we went to our favorite Ethiopian restaurant for dinner.  

 












The morning of Halloween, Eva had dance class so she got to wear her costume again. She absolutely loved her giraffe costume. She had her 30-minute dance class with all of her friends and at the end the whole class took a photo op. Fun!!!!

That evening started with one of two Trick-or-Treat events. The first one was at an event called Boo on Broadway. It was held in our town. A few streets were blocked off and small business vendors as well as businesses on the street passed out candy and treats to all the little ones. It was cold and rainy but Eva had a good time. There's something to be said for getting there right when an event starts. We hit every vendor and small business there was and in an hour we were back home!

 












After we got home and warmed up for a couple of minutes, we were back out trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood. We only visited about 8 or 9 of our neighbors. Eva was totally at ease knocking on a door, saying "trick-or-treat", saying "thank you", and then moving on to the next neighbor. By this time, it was totally dark outside and very cold.

We were back at home inside of 45 minutes and Eva had acquired enough candy to last her the next 6 to 8 months. Wow!!

Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkin carving is always something that I've admired from afar. I always thought it was so cool to see the pumpkins all "designed" up but I never imagined how much work went into it.

Well this year I was very enthusiastic about carving pumpkins, probably because I knew this was our last "Ohio" fall and I wanted to experience and have Eva experience it. I had the templates, the tools and my right-hand man! 

John had carved pumpkins before, so he knew exactly what it would entail. Me, on the other hand....totally clueless :-) Here's how it went down:

It started out fine until John realized how thick the pumpkin was. He had to use a lot more muscle than he thought.

When it came time to clean out the pumpkin, Eva was ready to lend a hand!

 

Next, it was time to carve out the face. I had a heck of a time getting the template to show up on the pumpkin. After 10 minutes of using some tool that's supposed to score it, I had to use a marker so that we could actually see where to carve.                    

And here is the end result. Eva is saying "Hooray" for her cool pumpkin!

          

By the time we got to the second pumpkin, Baby B's pumpkin, we were WAY less tolerant with carving it out, as you can see. John was tired and wanted to be done! Hence the triangle face :-) But once we put the changing lights in them, they looked really cute.
                         

                  












Now that I've helped with carving pumpkins, I don't need to experience that again. Been there, done that, thanks for the memories :-) Maybe I'll come across something next year that will be really cute and less time consuming!

Pumpkin Patch

So much has happened in the last 3 to 4 weeks, I hardly know where to begin. I actually had to go back to all my pictures to make sure I put all of these blog posts in the correct order.

So, let's start with the pumpkin patch:

Waaayyyy back in October, we were able to take Eva to a pumpkin patch that I had learned about back when I was working daycare. Originally I wanted to take her in the beginning of October but there was a glitch in the plans. Then she got sick for about a week and soon after we met with days of rain. Towards the end of the month, though, we were finally able to get there and we met with a girlfriend (former co-worker) and her family. Eva and her daughter are the same age :-)  We got there before my friend Gri, so we started out taking some pictures.

 

My little Buckeye

Once they arrived, we decided to take the tractor hayride to the pumpkin patch. Eva was so excited to see all the pumpkins. The tractor dropped us off at the corn maze. We had to go through the maze first, and then as we exited, the pumpkins were right in front of us.

 

It took a while, But Eva eventually found her pumpkin and even picked one out for Baby "B" :-)

After we got our pumpkins, Eva and her BFF Alli rode back on the tractor together.

After some lunch and s'mores (yummy!!) we got a couple of pictures taken and then the girls played together for a little bit.

 

          

School Time!

During this past summer, I spent a lot of time doing research on curriculum for 2 year olds. I wanted it to be the basis of homeschooling but I also wanted the curriculum to have the foundation of the Bible, the Word. It wasn't until mid-August that I found a curriculum that I was willing to use but not totally satisfied with because it was not Bible-based. Then I read a fellow adoptive mama's blog who was also a fellow Embassy trip traveler and found the curriculum I had been looking for the whole time.

I spent the next several days on the website reading up on everything. The more I read, the more excited I got about implementing the curriculum into Eva's schedule. ABC Jesus Loves Me (ABCJLM) is all about incorporating the lessons into everyday life. There are 36 lesson plans. One for each week, starting mid to late August and finishing up in May.

For the past 6 weeks, Eva has been learning about how God created the world. We've read bible stories, sung Bible songs, learned poems, memorized Bible verses, read related books from the library and done all kinds of arts and crafts to complement the lesson of that week. We've made a Creation Book and are almost finished with it.

Because I used to work in daycare, I have also implemented some things that I used to do at work into our schedule as well. We call it School Time! I have a small throw rug that stays rolled up until it's time for "school." When I unroll it, Eva knows it's School Time :-) She gets so excited. We sit down in front of our big calender and go over the month, day of the week and year. We sing the days of the week and then we practice our numbers by counting all the way up to the current date. Then we sing a couple of songs, practice our Bible verse and practice our poems. After that, I read our Bible section and book for the week. If we're doing really well that day we'll do one of our arts and crafts projects. Doing ALL of that usually takes about 30 minutes.

Most days though, we're busy running errands or at Eva's classes. Those are the days when we can do stuff in the car, like sing songs, practice our poems or Bible verse. The curriculum is SO flexible. I love it. It definitely takes into account that a 2 year old has a not-so-long attention span.
 

Here's our School Time rug

 The Bible we use

 

I even have a School Binder

 

Our Calendar and Artwork Wall

On the wall, around the calendar is where I hang all of Eva's paintings, coloring pictures. She's so proud of her wall. Because she goes to Preschool once a week for half a day, any craft that she does also goes up on the wall. I leave it up for a month and then as old stuff comes down, new stuff goes up, so it's always rotating. Because I don't want to throw any of her artwork away - (I just can't seem to part with it and I don't know if I'll ever be able to) - I scan it and put it on a flash drive.

I was even able to get Eva on video singing the Bible verses that we've been learning. I just love her voice! 

2012 Meskel Celebration

It's amazing how quickly time goes by. I remember thinking 2 weeks ago that I had to blog about this.....then last week. Now, it's 2 1/2 weeks after and I'm just now getting around to it. 

Around to what?

Two and a half weeks ago, on September 26, was an Ethiopian celebration called Meskel. It is the celebration of the Finding of the True Cross. 

Here's a little history on it:

In the 4th century, Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great found 3 crosses buried. One was the True Cross that Jesus Christ was crucifed on. She took pieces of the True Cross and distributed them to all the churches, including the Ethiopian church. This piece was then brought back to Ethiopia and later buried at the mountain of Gishen Mariam monastery in Wollo region. The monastery also has a book that has this whole story recorded.

We had not been to a Mekel celebration for 2 years. So I was really looking forward to this. The whole day leading up to the celebration it looked like the sky was going to open up and pour down buckets of rain. 

We got there early, around 5 o'clock and were able to spend some time with friends before the prayer ceremony began. 

Eva was very excited! 

The priests and other clergy members came out around 6:30 and the ceremony began.

Prayers lasted for about 40 minutes. By the time prayers ended, it was dark outside. The bonfire was lit and everyone with a firestick (similiar to a candle wick) started lighting theirs as well. It was very pretty.

Eva was so mesmerized with the bonfire and the firesticks all around her.

Everyone began singing and dancing around the bonfire and then it was time to eat. After waiting several hours and only eating a few pieces of injera, we were definitely ready for dinner.

The food was absolutely wonderful, as usual. As God's design would have it, just as everyone was starting to say their goodbyes and farewells, the sky opened up and the first drops started to fall. We were so glad that Eva got to be a part of the celebration.