1,2,3 Birthdays!

This year Eva was so excited for her birthday. For the past year, when asked, she would tell you when her birthday is and how old she'll be. Eva remembered her 2nd birthday party being at the Bounce House. So when I asked that this year if she wanted it again, she squealed with delight.

I was also excited because I wanted to do something special for her as a "big girl." She's really into this princess stuff. So when I asked her if she also wanted a prencess party, all she could say was "Princess Tiana!!" OK. Done deal!!

Her actual birthday is February 4. And for several weeks in January/February, we were in Florida visiting my parents. Eva is always excited to be with her Poppi and Gaia, so she was especially happy to be with them on her actual birthday. :-) It was a regular day for the most part. The night before my mom and I wrapped her birthday gifts and set them out for her to see in the morning. (same thing my Mom used to do for me)

When Eva woke up, it took her about 10 minutes to see her presents. She couldn't open them up fast enough. Bless her heart, she waited for her slow mom to set up the camcorder and get the camera. She spent the next several hours playing with all her cool stuff :-)
 
John and I had been waiting for her 3rd birthday so that we could witness her first Build-A-Bear experience. She was so overwhelmed by the wall full of bears....and it didn't help that she had no nap by this time of the day. She has such a good time helping to fill her bear with stuffing, give it a heart and a hug. She spent a lot of time giving him a bath and getting him nice and clean. She got to name her bear and get his birth certificate. Introducing....

Pirate Bear

Afterward, we did a little shopping and headed home. We surprised her with a birthday cake and she joined us in singing to her :-)

When we got back to Ohio a couple of days later, it was time to get ready for the Bounce House and Princess Parties. That Saturday was her Bouce House party. Everyone had such a good time. (Eva was especially excited to see her godparents!) This party was a little bittersweet because I knew this would be Eva's last (Bounce House) party in Ohio. I felt so blessed to see her big brother and sister, cousins and other Ethiopian adopted friends there. 

The next day was Eva's Princess party. I wanted her to have something special, just with her little girlfriends. And of course, it had to be Princess Tiana. She LOVES Princess and The Frog :-) She so enjoyed wearing her Tiana dress and being the birthday princess of the day. Quite a few of her friends had gotten sick just a couple of days before her party :-( So there weren't many girls there, but the kids had a good time all the same! 

 


 






Make no mistake......this is NOT the beginning of multiple parties based on age!! Haha. Next year, there will be just 1 party. Happy Birthday Baby!!

To My 3-Year-Old

Dear Eva,

Oh My! Where has the time gone to? I mean, really! You are officially 3 years old. I can remember, just like it was yesterday, when Mama and Daddy flew to Ethiopia for the first time to meet you. It was just a few days before your first birthday. We tried to celebrate the best way we knew; we got you a cute outfit and Daddy brought you a Hostess cupcake. He just KNEW that you would take to the sweet, sugary taste of it. Wrong!! You wanted nothing to do with it or us. You scraped that cupcake right off your tongue and cried the whole time.

Fast forward 2 years: I can hardly believe you are that same little one that we held back in Ethiopia. Where do I begin to talk about how amazingly fabulous you are? You are so smart and determined and independent. Your personality is like a bright light that shines in a room. All anyone has to do is be in a room with you for 10 minutes and they can see your energy, attitude, and spunk! Your beauty truly radiates from the inside out.

So what are you into lately? You still like Doc McStuffins, but lately you’re all about Tiana and the Princess and the Frog. You can recite practically the whole story, and when I try to help, you tell me I’m wrong and correct me. You still like the color purple, but every so often you’ll choose the color blue also. You still love to eat. You’re always hungry!! And now candy is assumed to be one of the main meals of the day. When we go out to eat Ethiopian, you know that’s where to get injera…and you love it!

I don’t know where to begin on describing how smart you are. You hear every conversation going on around you and know right where to chime in. You can retell something that has happened weeks ago….with all of the drama and hand gestures as if it had just happened. You are such a whiz with your colors and numbers and everything. You are the one who says the blessing at dinner, and at bedtime you say the prayer all by yourself. You amaze me. Should a 3 year old know this much?

Fashion! Can we talk about fashion for a minute? What a little fashion plate you are. You want things to match...shoes, jewelry, hair accessories. You’re not into purses yet, but I know when that time comes, that will become part of the fashion as well. You are quick to remind me that crocs are not shoes and flip-flops are not sandals.

For all the things that I’ve tried to show you, teach you, discipline you in, it is only a speck to what God has done. God has truly done an awesome work in you and He’s not done yet. I can only be excited with anticipation about all of the things that you will learn in this next year. What will I need to teach you? What will you need to teach me? Will we both learn what we need to? Will one of us be more stubborn than the other? We’re so alike, you and I, in so many ways. I thank God everyday for the grace that He gives me for the challenges that we face. You are my precious girl. My big girl. My girl.

I love you always and always,
Mama

Our 2012 Year in Review

It really is hard to believe that we're in 2013 now. Last night as the ball dropped John and I were still groggy from waking up 5 minutes earlier. There was no champagne, no wine. We barely cheered. Hahaha! All we wanted to do was go back to sleep. The year before was so different. What a difference a year makes, huh?

Looking back on this year, I realize how much Eva has grown and how God has blessed the important life decisions we've made concerning our family. So far everything is going very smoothly which lets me know that God's divine hands are involved. This is how the year of 2012 fared for the Mancini family:

 January - Eva's first experience of snow.

February - Eva's dedication 

 and her 2nd birthday

 March - Celebrating Eva being home for 1 year!

April - Eva's first church Easter egg hunt.

May - Eva met her uncle for the 1st time & she and I spent a month in Florida with her grandparents.

During this month, we also came to the realization that it would be possible for John to retire from his job 

and for us to move to Florida by June 2013. 

June - A wonderful unexpected opportunity afforded us the ability to go to Bermuda and stay with family for 10 days. Eva got to see old family members, meet new family members, and swim in the ocean for the first time.

July - Eva got her first face painting picture. 

This month we were able to go back to Florida to see my parents, celebrate my birthday 

and our 9th wedding anniversary!

August - A very busy month: We went to our first and last Ohio State fair. Eva tried cotton candy and other yummy fair junk food! We went to Cincinnati to attend an AGCI adoption picnic. The weather was sweltering. We felt like we were melting out there. This month was also Eva's last month of Mommy & Me classes. She started potty training. Also....

 She started her 1st ballet class.

We went apple picking for our favorite Honeycrisp apples! 

 September - We celebrated 2 very important Ethiopian holidays: Enkutatash - 

Ethiopian New Year and....

Meskel - The Finding of the Cross

Also this month, I started homeschooling Eva and she started a 1-day/week preschool class.

October - This was an equally busy month:

It started out with the 1st annual EOR (Ethiopian Orphan Relief) 5K run.

 Eva's 1st time going to a pumpkin patch and picking her pumpkins.

This year we went to Boo at the Zoo AND trick-or-treating!

While all of this activity was going on, I was busy packing us up for our month long business/vacation for November. For 2 weeks we stayed in a condo, so I had to pack up a mini household. That proved to be NOT an easy thing! 

November - We were in Tampa so that John could attend a 2-week law enforcement certification course. This was a MAJOR step towards our move to Florida in the summer of 2013. While we were in Tampa, Eva and I did a lot of really cool things: We went to the zoo and Eva....

 

Rode a horse for the first time.....

And rode a camel for the first time!

She even fed a giraffe!!

We also went to Glazer Children's Museum and the Aquarium. Eva met new family members and fell in love. We were blessed to be able to spend Thanksgiving with my parents, and very thankful that John passed his Florida State Exam to be able to work as a police officer in the state. 

December -  While this was not Eva's first Christmas with us as a family, it was her first Christmas in our hometown. She enjoyed every aspect of the season: the snow, watching it fall, helping her dad, grandfather and uncle build a snowman, make snow angels, and have a few snowball fights. It was a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

I pray that in 2013, God continues to bless us and move us all in His direction as a family. Happy New Year!!

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!