Last warm day of the season

Last week was unseasonably warm, and we tried to take full advantage of it! We went to the zoo for one more nice warm day. We have a membership, so we still go to the zoo when it is cooler out and just stick to the animals inside the buildings, but it was nice to enjoy the warm sunshine and watch the animals play. As cold as it has been this week, it's hard to believe that just a few days ago we were running around outside in t-shirts!




"Journey, this is about a kangaroo! Want me to read it to you?"

Pumpkin picking!

In the past we have gone to a local apple orchard that just stacks their pumpkins in big piles by the barn, but with this being Jeb's first American fall season, I wanted him to see how they grow in a patch, so we found a different orchard.


We rode on the hay ride all the way back to the pumpkin patch

Jeb was determined to find one he could carry all by himself. He would start to pick one up, then decide it was too heavy and find another one. He finally settled on this one


Vivi had no interest in picking up any of the pumpkins because "they're too dirty!" I made her hold her pumpkin for a quick picture, and she hasn't touched it since ;)

And Journey is going through a phase where she thinks everything is going to eat her and was afraid of the hay ride tractor. Luckily Bapa was there to protect her and her baby pumpkin!

As we walked through the parking lot when we got there, Vivi, our resident nose, sniffed the air and said "I smell cinnamon donuts here!" And it's not a trip to the cider mill without eating some warm cinnamon donuts!

Journey's 23 hour EEG

Journey finally got her 23 hour EEG that we scheduled months ago. She was not thrilled about having dots drawn on her head, then wires glued on, but the staff was really good and they even wrapped her baby's head.

She was attached to a machine behind the bed by her wires, and she was pretty bummed about that.

Then lunch came and all was well :)

A volunteer from the DIA brought some kind of quick drying dough to make pencil toppers. She thought it was very cool, and named our creation Journey.


I invented a 'game' for her to play with some foam cubes I got at the dollar store. She had to match them to the colored squares I drew on the paper. She really enjoyed it and did it a few times. While getting the wires attached, she told everyone that purple is her favorite color, so the nurse went and got her a Project Linus blanket with purple in it to cuddle with.

And of course, multiple calls to Bapa and Daddy were made. Bapa is her go to person when she has something brave to announce, such as every single time we put in or take out her ocular shell. The moment it's done she says "I call Bapa??"

We still haven't gotten the results of the EEG, she didn't have as many seizures as usual (of course!) but we did catch a couple so hopefully that will give them an idea of what is going on.

Jebby turns 5

Woops, I just noticed that I never hit publish on this one!

Jeb's 5th birthday was more low key than his party, but we made sure to make it really special. The night before his birthday we went to the store for his birthday 'picks', a tradition in our family where the birthday child gets to go shopping and pick special treats like juice, sugary cereal, chips, etc. Jeb picked Bolthouse Farms mango lemonade, Envirokidz Chocolate peanut butter cereal, Natural Cheetos, and because he doesn't like ice cream, I let him pick a different treat, so he picked Kashi blackberry graham cereal bars. He also picked clementines and green grapes to go with breakfast and lunch. He had a lot of fun walking up and down the aisles saying "I think I should probably get this for my birthday" to the most random things like energy drinks and spice packets :)

We also got the ingredients for his birthday dinner, which was an Ethiopian feast. He specifically requested injera (Ethiopian spongey bread that is used to eat the food), and 'beef siga' (siga is Amharic for beef, the all of the kids use both names for it.) Even though it's kind of a small thing, I was thrilled that he chose Ethiopian food for his birthday dinner. I'm glad that he still loves his first culture and of all the new American foods he's had, he chose injera and siga for his special day.

After we put him to bed for the last time as a 4 year old, we got to work blowing up 3 packages of balloons to fill his room. That was more work than I realized it would be!


It was so worth it, we woke him up and as he sleepily climbed down, his face lit up and he said "balloons!"and got right to work playing with them.




All 3 kids are somewhere in this picture, the balloons were a hit!


Jeb's birthday was also his first day of school at the Homeschool Enrichment Hub, he was excited to get to wear his 'birthday boy' shirt to school.

After school we opened presents, we gave him $5 in singles (he's really big on saving money for specific toys), Cooties the game, a basketball hoop for his room, some new cars, a Mickey Mouse nightlight, and some clothes. After all of the presents, he still said the best part of his birthday was the balloons ;)


I was so busy cooking and serving and eating the Ethiopian food that I forgot to take a picture, but I made injera, doro wat (spicy chicken stew), siga wat (beef stew), and a spicy lentil stew. It was reallllly good and Jeb ate a ton of it :)

Cinnamon rolls for dessert, his favorite and the only dessert he'll eat a whole piece of. We pointed out that there were 5 candles and asked why there were 5. He thought for a minute and said "uh...because it's a big cake?" :) We sometimes forget some of the cultural things like that that seem so obvious to us aren't obvious to others.


Last year he *should* have been home in time for his birthday but didn't pass court in time, so we were a little bummed out on his 4th birthday. We still made a cake and we knew he'd be home for his 5th birthday for sure, but this year's birthday celebrations more than made up for the agonizing wait :)

Halloween Costumes

Halloween is a brand new subject for Jeb, and the girls still don't have a great grasp on it, which made costumes easy this year! I explained that you could dress up like animals or people, and Jeb announced that he wanted to dress up like a puppy. Vivi, his shadow, wanted to be a puppy to, and Journey yelled "a kitty!" So that was that. We used sweat pants that we already had and bought shirts. We bought a kitty set that had ears and a tail for Journey, and I made ears and tails for the puppies with faux fur and plain headbands from the craft store. I used washable marker for their face paint since I knew they'd rub it on everything. Aren't they adorable?




Jeb wanted to have white ears and very short tail



Vivi wanted black ears and 'a little bit long and short' tail

My puppies

All the animals :)

Happy Fall!

Ethiopia doesn't have autumn like we do, it's sunny and warm all year. So this was Jeb's first experience with leaves changing colors and falling to the ground, and he has been loving every minute of it! I'm so glad I was able to capture his joy so well:

We jumped in the leaves, we threw the leaves, we took pictures in the leaves,  we buried the kids in the leaves, we raked the leaves, we crammed leaves into overpriced garbage bags with jackolantern faces on them, we drove cozy coupes into the leaves. I'm calling it a successful fall day!