To “Ababa” – who is working tonight – here’s to another eventful, exciting year!

We had a very nice time at Shuswap Lake for Xmas… as you can see from the video above.  (Note it’s 12 min long.) For a more condensed view, here’s a picture of my whole family on Boxing Day. 

Hope your holiday was as good!

Wishing all our friends and family the very best!

Sugar, Jrock, Spice and Nicky

We’ve had quite a few guests in the last few weeks. It’s been great to catch up with some friends we haven’t seen for a while, and celebrate with people that we have spent quite a bit of time with this year.

What are they doing? you may ask. 

Well, silly!  they are showing their “babies” (dolls) the birds eating the seeds off the pinecone birdfeeders they made and hung outside their window. Of course.

Moments like this I forget that they were whining, crying and bossing me around an hour ago. It gets ya through.

Sugar (again) was a little too darn friendly at first (tried to crawl all over Grannie 30 seconds after meeting her), but soon she reverted to her usual slightly ornery self, and we knew she had stopped the indiscriminate affection thing.  Poor Grannie had to endure”this is MY house” “this is MY car, no for you!” “this is MY food, no take on plane” and the like for the week.  But I think they still really enjoyed themselves.  And they respected our “no pick up, no sit lap, no cuddle” rule, which made it a lot easier for us. (It was the first time Jrock had his relatives visit and I think he finally understood how hard it is to put the kids first and your parents second.)

Anyway, Grannie was super happy when she got genuine kisses from Spice (Grandad wasn’t to sure what to do about the little girl pretending to go to work and puckering up!) and ecstatic when they sat on her lap for the photo on the last day (with Mommy’s permission). 

Here are some pictures of their visit.

We spent a week in Calgary – sad circumstances brought us there (the passing of my grandfather) but it was still a good visit with family and friends.  The girls and I travelled the first night to Invermere and stayed at my sister’s house, then continued onto Calgary.  Jrock joined us for the last of five days in Calgary, flying in late night on a many-times delayed flight.  But then we had a really nice two day drive home, stopping at Emerald Lake Lodge in Yoho National Park halfway. 

There are a bunch of pictures from the week below.  My favorites are the two large ones, both on the theme of family resemblance. The snowsuit pic at Emerald Lake is one of the few pictures of the girls where they look pretty identical (to me.) And I cherish this picture of my Grandma and I, even if it was a sad day. I felt really close to her – and because it’s one of the few photos where you really can see how I look like her. 

Well, apparently NOT “Damina”!

The girls were pretty thrilled when we went to visit Santa yesterday afternoon.  Sugar was surprised that his nose was “just like hers”; I think she had Santa and Rudolph mixed up.  Spice was the braver one, as per usual, and sat on Santa’s lap and chatted with him.  Sugar said she was “a little shy” and just sat on Mommy’s lap (the only reason we are in the picture too!)

The girls are really into Christmas – we decorated the tree, went to a Christmas puppet show, and the girls bundled up to their nosehairs so they could come outside while we strung up the lights.  It’s -12 and windy in Kelowna right now – our version of really stinking cold! but it couldn’t wait much longer. (Sugar kept bugging me how our neighbors had them up but we didn’t yet.)

They’ve also been making presents for everyone, as Jrock and I started to get a little disenchanted by the money/consumerism last year.  We made a vow that our presents would be homemade or benefit a charity. Anyway, all our presents this year are made by Sugar Elf and Spice Elf. I can’t show you pics of their creations, cause it would take away all the surprise! But for three year olds, they sure are making some awesome gifts.

For all of you parents-to-be waiting for referrals or court: Last year was a terrible Christmas.  I was so bummed.  But this is already a thoroughly enjoyable one, and we’re only at Dec 10! So chin up, my waiting friends… next year will be awesome.

Today the girls told us that Santa is called “Da-MEE-na” in Ethiopia. 

Can anyone with older Ethiopian kids confirm this?  Their language sound ability is a lot different from this time last year and I’m wondering if they got it right; plus I’m pretty surprised they had word of Santa at all in ET-

Thanks for your replies!

If you are like me, you love giving books.  I wanted to draw your attention to a few books that have gone over really well with my kids (you can see a small selection scrolling on top but there are tons of multicultural / adoption / nature kids books in my store) as well as some great adoption books, books on Africa and Ethiopian music for all family members on your list.

If you choose to buy books from my bookstore (and I do have a great selection of adoption/kids books!) I donate every cent of the 4% commission earned to Faya Orphanage. 

And… if you go to my bookstore (which is a subset of amazon.ca) and then continue to click and buy stuff on amazon, then the commission from those items will also be added to the total. You can always find a link to my bookstore at the top of my blog, on any page.

So enjoy shopping, and know that a small portion will go to a great cause!

The strangest thing just happened.

I was getting ready for a Christmas party this evening, in the bathroom in my bathrobe, when the doorbell rang.  I opened the door and apologized for my appearance to the two teenagers standing on the steps.  They asked if I had any bottles or cans I wanted to get rid of. I said “sure – I have a bunch of wine bottles in the basement, if you want them!” and asked them what they were fundraising for.  Not fundraising, they said with a bit of a downward glance.  They were raising money for food. I asked them if they were on their own, but they said “no, we live with our parents.”  Yikes.

So we hauled a bunch of bottles out of the basement and I stuffed a bag of apples and juice boxes and granola bars in their hands.  As my girls exchanged names with the shy boy, who was obviously a bit older, I asked the girl if they lived in the neighborhood.  Just 2 blocks away, she said. 

They took the bottles in two loads to the depot (just another two blocks away.) I was pretty shocked.  I mean, I was used to this and so much more in Ethiopia, but that’s the first time I’ve had neighborhood teens come to my door in Canada for help.

Please donate to your foodbank. It’s a really really tough year for some families.

If you can’t get there or find them online, drop some cash into the Salvation Army kettle on-line. Thanks so much.

My first crack at wedding veil braids.  Turned out decently!

The wreaths the girls made at home from some reused tissue paper.  Cute, eh?

What do you want for Christmas, little girls?

Today the girls wrote their letters to Santa Claus – they were really excited to send them off. 

You can see that they put a lot of thought into their letters (scribed by Daddy and Mommy.)

The whole Christmas thing is pretty darn exciting for them – they are looking forward to seeing all my family, who we are spending the holidays with, and of course, presents!!!

Will post soon on our trip – still digesting and sorting pictures.