365 Days ago......,

365 days ago, at almost exactly this hour, I was getting into a tiny little blue  car with people I had never met before to take me to see my daughters  in person for the first time

I remember the buzz of excitement and yet the  nervousness too of what those first few interactions  would be like. And truly, nothing can really prepare you for the moment when your life changes forever by welcoming  a child into your life. It was one of those surreal, movie like scenes where the camera pans the entire area, the music swells,and  time is slowed dramatically  as it gives you pause to consider whatever magic is happening before your eyes.

And the magic of that day was two little girls getting a forever family.

As the past 365 days have unfolded in their course, we have learned more and more of what it means to be a family and the amazing ways that God was answering prayers we didn't even know were being prayed.  For example, when Bill and I got married our sweet little daughter was praying many nights for God to give her  and her baby sister a family, and He did, but it's humbling to think she had to wait so long....

But even if God had told me in a loud booming voice in 2004 to go to Ethiopia and adopt a kid, ( or two) would I have ever considered it? Would I have thought I was hearing wrong? Perhaps. Probably! Who am I kidding?? I was enjoying marriage! I was enjoying being an adult!. And further,  I was totally unaware of what God was doing behind the scenes.

Nevertheless, Bill and I  both eventually heard the call and the rest is history!

The past 365 days have been wild, fun, hard, exciting, challenging, mind bending, hilarious, ridiculous and just amazing really.

As I reflect this evening, I'd like to  tick off a few things that never got blogged, but that bless me, or make me smile about the past 365 days:

1. While on vacation recently, we had some serious gas problems going on  which resulted in some conflict between the girls that ended with one girl shouting at the other "WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO,  I CAN'T SEW MY BUTT!!! I know what you're thinking , how is this a blessing? Well, you see, I was blessed by the sisterly love that would even CONSIDER sewing ones butt shut to accommodate another! Bill and I laughed until we felt sick.

2. While driving in the car with some longtime friends, the girls were telling elaborate, albeit false stories about their boyfriends. ( neither one has a boyfriend , mind you, in any fashion. Telling random and ridiculous stories is just a way to pass time.) Our Friends were very polite, played along and asked questions that kept the stories going. That night before bed, while I was doing devotions with the girls, they began critiquing each others stories. " So wow, XXX I heard your story about your boyfriend tonight and it was AMAZING! ( heavily laden with Sarcasm)
Her sister's response, "Yeah, It was so AMAZING, I CAN FLY!"  .....What the heck??? I started laughing so hard I couldn't stop. It's just so funny hearing people argue in a new language!

3. Many times over the past 365 days, the girls have directly asked us to pray for them or others....and we have. And we've seen some cool things happen. One time I was driving in a really bad snow storm, and saw a car behind me spiraling out of control and careening off the road. I instinctively called out to God out loud to steady the car while lifting my hands in the air in "Moses" fashion as he may have done when parting the Red Sea. The girls whipped around in their seats to see the car cover a significant distance and right itself completely, back on course. The girls whipped back around and looked me in awe. Speechless at first.  "When you prayed mom, something happened!" They were talking about it for days. I think it gave us all a little faith boost really. :)

4. A number of times over the past eight months, we have sent packages, letters etc. to the girl's friends back in Ethiopia. ( At their request mind you!) It blesses me that our daughters gingerly select pieces of their own clothing, toy stash, and  even candy reserves  to give away. Freindhsip is beautiful.

5. In  a short eight months of being in  a new country, they've acquired the ability to ( Just to name a few) : Converse in English, Read in English, Ride a Bicycle, maneuver a Kayak,Swim alone safely, use silverware, check out at Kroger, floss daily, sing over 50 pop songs in English, play the drum set, play simple songs on the piano, do over 15 Zumba routines,  use a vacuum cleaner without freaking out, make their beds in the morning ( This is a favorite of mine! Ha!), sleep through the night, write little reports on the computer, dialogue about important issues like abortion and war and healthcare,  make some friends here, express feelings in healthy way ( much of the time)  and the ultimate news of the hour..... Do  a back handspring ( AS OF TODAY YEAH!!!!!!)

Girls, when you've got enough english to read this, know that Mom is VERY proud of you. I cannot wait to see what the next 365 days will bring!


Ewudeshallo!
Enay eh na tish nighn!  Emeliya-yae and Oliviya-Yae, Anche Wudenesh!

Love,
Mom

Just a Day In The Life of a Transracial Family

We've been so busy lately with the girls starting public school, moving to a new house, my job hours increasing as business in the counseling field is booming, that I have simply not had time ot blog.

But, as of yesterday, we are on summer vacation.  HALLELUJAH!

Here's a little bit about how our day went:

Woke up AFTER 5:50 am...which was awesome!
Ate a real breakfast! Never happens around here!
Went to a  couple doctors appointments for what I deemed was our "summer body tune-ups."
Discovered that "most eye doctors hate visine":  random I know.....I'm just telling you about our life.
Sat in traffic for so long on Polaris parkway that the girls started saying "This is just disgusting."
( Apparantly they learned that from me?)
Thanked bill for taking my car to the shop for a warning light that was on....
Discovered it was going to cost 750 smackers, so we decided to shop around for cheaper labor costs.
Found a cheaper place.
Got excited!
Discovered that our girls will actually eat iIlls favortie summer food, balsamic vinagrette chicken and grape salad. Got even more excited!
At the food.
Got ready for soccer camp and a birthday party.
Got ready for work...discovered my computer was goign on the fritz and probably goign to need to be replaced.....oh well....
I kissed everyone goodbye and drive off for a random evening at work due to the fact that I had locked myself out the day before and needed to make up sessions. :)
Bill took the girls in the other car to a party.
After dropping child off at said party, the car breaks down.
Bill stated he was glad that the windows were down at least so they wouldnt be so hot!
As soon as he says that it starts to pour down rain...and since the car wont start....some serious soaking action took place.
A good freind arrives to help
We are helped.

So, we may have drama here and there.
But, we are a fmaily and we do drama together!
I wouldnt have it any other way.

Heres a few pics of some recent together times!

So...Do Seams Go On The Inside?

So here’s the update on where we are at three months post settling down at home.

The girls are speaking all day in English!!! Yeah! There are some syntax things that need to be fixed, but in time! For now it’s a celebration that all day long, we are talking and understanding each other more and more.

The other day Kalkidan played with her dolls for the first time all in English! It was fun to know what was going on. Basically, one of the dolls was famous and everyone was trying to take her picture. The other doll was a friend and trying to keep everyone back and give the famous doll some space!  So cute!

It brought my heart joy because when we first got home, we had  tried to play together with dolls, but it was just so silent. I sadly  didn’t know any Amharic words for playing with dolls and she didn’t know any English ones. To think how far we have come in three months!

Homeschooling is  also coming along quite nicely. Although I will admit, teaching all day and then trying to do anything else is almost impossible. Needless to say, I DON’T do much of anything else.  J  Sorry to all of my friends whom I never see anymore and who longer receive birthday cards, messages etc from me!  And sorry to Bill who no longer has clean laundry.

When I look at all the work they’ve done, I am impressed. It’s been a  struggle at times, because the Ethiopian school system was very different than ours and even though we are schooling at home, we are sticking with a very traditional American model.  Lots of  writing, reading and math.

But, that's not to say that we haven’t done anything creative!  One day for an art project we  all sewed a dress for a doll! That was exciting until Bill came home and said, "Oh neat, but I thought the seams went on the inside??”  L

And well, it’s true , seams DO go on the inside.....

 

 

 

Pillow Talk and The Prosperity Gospel

One of my favorite times of day is those last few moments before you fall asleep when the events from the day and or your whole life are sort of processing and playing in your mind. Bill and I have had the privilege lately of spending some of this "pillow talk" time with the girls and we are learning so many things about them that humble us, break our hearts, make us laugh and amaze us.

Last night we ladies had a really deep talk about success and what that means, what it means to love God with your life and what our goals were for the future.

Some of our talk had been focused on "Going to university" and how important this was in order to make your dreams come true for jobs, and helping others etc.

So as Kalkidan shared her dream of having a "big big big house with many, many, many Mekina and a swimming pool ( Mekina =cars) , I tried to redirect the conversation a little bit to what really matters in life and share how the bible teaches us that if we have "everything" but not God we really have nothing.

So to bring that up I said, "Ok that's a really good dream, but lets remember there is one things that is the most important thing, above all other things." I was holding up a finger and pointing to the ceiling as if somehow that would give the girls a hint.

Kalkidan was jumping up and down on the bed and saying "I know, I know!!" and she blurted out "University!!!"

I laughed and said "Yes that's very good, and very important too, but even more important than that , the most important thing in life is that we must love God. Those other things are good, but loving God is "Betam Tru! ( Very good in Amharic)

Kalkidan paused her jumping for a minute, taking it all in and said "OK Good! I already love God!" And dramatically fell back on her bed in complete satisfaction as if to indicate that since she already loved God, the the big house and the many cars were sure to follow. :) Hilarious!

Oh no! I think I may have started teaching the prosperity gospel!

I guess I'll have to clean that up later!

Failing Forward

Time for an update from the Manchester family! Up to this moment, we've been too busy to even think about blogging, but finally as of yesterday, we are in a routine and it's working. It's our third week of Homeschool and we are finally catching our stride. The girls are working hard in every subject and making gains every day. The love gymnastics class, making music in a variety of ways and they even love MATH! Go figure! I spent a lot of time at my own kitchen table as a kid crying over my math homework...not these girls! Math is almost a reward! ( And Can I just say a prayer of thanks that I married a man who is actually very good at math!) I think this morning there was actually some excitement to be back at "School" after a four day Thanksgiving break. So this is a victory!


It's our fifth week of being together as a family and we are finlly finding a rhythm here as well. Last night for the FIRST TIME EVER the girls got the bedtime routine done in under an hour and if you had been livibng with us for the past five weeks, you'd know what an accomplishment this was!


So today as I refelct on the past five weeks, I can't help but also think about all the things we goofed up, did too slow, did too fast, were too deamdning in etc. And I pray that in those moments where we were or will be sort of failing as parents, that at least we will "fail forward", meaning we will learn from our mistakes, that we will persist in love and patience when things are hard and that we will always remind the girls that even though we are not perfect, their heavenly father IS and he will never fail them.

Photos: Top to bottom:
Ready for america!
Gymnastics
Science experiment
"Art"

Time on The Toilet Seat

Time On The Toilet Seat: Before you begin to think that this is a weird potty post, ( its not what you might think) just give me second to explain how I ended up spending a couple of hours (literally) parked on the same toilet seat in Adot Tina hotel in Addis Ababa this evening ... Today was amazing to say the least. Being parents has been just as much fun as we thought and thankfully not quite hard as thought. There have been dome minor challenges, but mostly joys! We started off the day with a gourmet breakfast at our hotel where the girls practiced using silverware.... Not necessarily for the first time, but an event for sure! Before we even began, my mamma skills kicked in and I decided to sit us in an area of the dining room that was in a corner and separated from everything else, and everyone else. I can't exactly count the miscommunications, and the times silverware ended up on the floor or flying , yes flying , in what would have been a dangerous trajectory had we been near other human life and not just the flowers on the tables. Then we all got dressed for church as the girls had requested we visit a congregation they knew of. The girls were so excited about their new dresses ( and new, new shoes.... a whole other story...)and I used my momma skills again to get all of the wrinkles out from being squished in the suitcases ... When in need of an iron and none is available.... A blow dryer will suffice! So off we went with no one getting stuck in the elevator door ( this time) and embarked on our first "worship experience". When we arrived at church, we were told we had to pay 50 Bir per person and that we had to wait for the priest and a tour guide..... So we discovered that there was NO service, we were just getting a tour. A tour that ended halfway through when some of the other guests started taking pictures in other areas of the building. Ha! Bill wanted to get his money's worth so we finished the tour ourselves as the tour guide "chill axed" . The girls were enthralled and spent significant time getting their photos just right. When we left I was kind of frustrated and felt like we had wasted time, but as I reflected, and as our driver pointed out, we are blessed, church service or not...we have two beautiful daughters that God has lead to our family and my worship today is just a grateful heart. Speaking of the daughters, after the church fiasco, and an akward lunch afterward, we decided to just stay in the hotel for the rest of the day and bond. Room service baby! We made a magnificent fort where we used bills IPhone flashlight app strobe light to do some dancing in the dark. We also pretended to be asleep and snoring and then " woke up" to scare the girls. They were dying with laughter at our snoring and trying to do it too! But they couldn't! So for now snoring makes me cool! We also tried out our gymnastics skills: doing back bends, flips and (probably somewhat dangerous for the all wood floors )and handstands. Kalkidan through guestures let me know she wanted to slide around on the floor , so we came up with all kinds of crazy ways to do just that. ( thankful for a long hallway and room big enough to do this in) she also let me know she liked bring thrown in the air, twirling around in our arms and getting that dizzy feeling. So we all did this until we all felt sick. We then played some serious hide and seek! Kumnager was almost always last to be found. She somehow contorted her body to hide in a space smaller than a microwave! Kumneger also wanted her hair " undone" which was a hour plus long project... So we all pitched in there to undo braids and thought we would be kind of done with big projects for the evening. Time for rest! But no, Kumnager had other plans. Even though she'd already taken a shower and had pjs on, she decided her hair now needed washed. A couple miscommunications later and we found ourselves next to yhe jacuzzi tub ( I know right! ) in our bathroom and a few minutes later Kumnager was in her swimsuit preparing for the Olympic swim team in the tub! Ha ha! Kalkidan eventually joined In the fun and again, my momma skills bubbled to the surface and I spent the entire "swim meet/bubble bath/ spa night/ chick fight" parked on the toilet seat beside them, getting splashed, getting covered in suds, breaking up altercations, washing hair and laughing myself silly! When most people think of being on the toilet for a couple hours in a foreign country, they assume gastrointestinal /medical problem"!! Ha ha! But in this case I can honestly say that there was no other place I would have rather been than on that toilet seat.

Jar of Joy

This weekend our amazing freinds hosted an adoption shower for us!

It was a beautiful and fun time!

 

We received lots of gifts for the girls all worth blogging about.... :) but one gifts contents in particular is the easiest to blog  about because it was a glass jar filled with handwritten messages and quotes of hope, parenting advice etc.

 

 One quote for each day for the next five weeks in case that's how long we have to wait!

 

Here are  two of the quotes so far:

 

"Making the decision to have a child is momentous. it is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."

-Elizabeth Stone

 

"Hope is greif's best music."

-author unknown

 

And how true this is! Our hearts are walking all around Ethiopia right now. Actually to be exact ..they are hopefully still sleeping for another half an hour or so! :)

 

And HOPE, it's the thing that's so easily crushed and grinded to a pulp when you walk the painful path of infertility ( or really any painful path where life deals you an unexpected blow).....but it's still alive in us and  now growing every day. 

 

And hope is one of the greatest gifts we could give our girls!

 

Hope that God really does love them and will take care of them.
Hope that he has an amazing future planned for them.

Hope that we will love them even when they act silly.

Hope that  they will be home with us soon!

 

And on a lighter note...I am hoping their birthday packages arrive by the end of the week so they know we haven't forgotten them! Feel free to post in the comments section or on facebook a happy birthday to Kumneger and Kalkidan!

 

So, while we continue to wait for the good news that we are on our way back to our beloved, we'll dip our fingers in the Jar of Joy each morning  and feel hope being renewed.

 

 

PS:Thanks EVERYONE for the outpouring of love at the shower!

If someone sends me more pics, I can upload! :)