ballet, first day of first grade, and labor day

Hazel and Maggie started dance class this past week. Maggie started taking dance last year, but this year was Hazels first year. Maggie did great during her class and really enjoyed it. She is a great dancer. When Hazels class first started she just sat there while the other girls were dancing, but after 5 minutes or so she got up and started joining in. She LOVED it and it was so CUTE! last year she really enjoyed watching Maggie dance and would always wear dance clothes to Maggies class, she is excited now she gets to take her own class. the pic above and the one below are hazel in her class.
Maggie and Hazel posing after Maggies class and before Hazels class started.

Maggie dancing

Maggies first day of first grade. I cannot believe my little girl is a first grader! She goes to school twice a week and we homeschool 3 days a week. The best of both worlds and we LOVE IT!

Labor day
Chick fil a was giving away free chicken sandwiches to each customer. 4 free sandwiches, we are there! it was so crazy busy inside that we pulled out a blanket and sat outside of chick fil a and had a picnic! we may have looked crazy, but we were having fun!

We had a coupon for 20 free tokens from Chuck e cheese (For hazels birthday) so we enjoyed about an hour or so there.

Hey Haz do you think my driving is ok?


We had a picnic that morning with donuts at the park

me and my littlest man

Our stunt girls

mr cool

Our family on the swings and the little bouncy riding thingys

All of the kiddos having fun

random recent pics

Mr. Emery chillin on mommys legs

Me wearing Emery in the Moby wrap and carrying Zek. You do what you gotta do

Brothers

Emery is like "I really like your hair zek, but its getting in my way"

Emery and Great Grandma "neigh"

Emery's fav spot

maggie was at school and I wanted to do a little preschool time with Zek and Hazel. It was Zeks first time painting. He would rather eat the paintbrush than paint with it.

Zek loves to play with the kitchen and food. he make a complete mess out of it. He was rockin the big fro that day :)

Ethiopian dinner for Zeks birthday

For Zeks birthday we went out for Ethiopian. We invited family to come along and enjoy the experience. None of them had tried it before. We got mixed reviews. I think the more you eat it the more you like it. I liked it more this time than I had in the past. We all had a great time. The owners of the restaurant are awesome hosts! They told us as we were finishing our dinner that they wanted to do a coffee ceremony free of charge. How awesome is that! The kids really enjoyed sitting around and watching her make the coffee and eating the popcorn. Everyone really enjoyed the coffee, even those who didnt normally drink coffee. The popcorn goes so well with it.

Maggie got her very own "kid" coffee. It was just a bit of coffee and sugar and lots of milk. She had two cups. She really liked it.

Hazel decided to sit in the basket where the bread was. Thats our Hazel!


Maggie and her coffee




Emery trying to fall asleep

Our fam

These two pics. The one above and the one below are of Zeks first bites of Ethiopian food. He was unsure about it, but ate it. He is just starting to eat most table foods, so he is getting use to it all anyways. We want to eat it often so that he likes it. We cant have an Ethiopian child that doesnt like Ethiopian food :)

Daddy having some food. His shirt say "ok" in Amharic

He liked eating it with a spoon a little more than with the injera.

I think everyone had an awesome experience and the owners really made it special. If you live in Indianapolis or are ever in Indianapolis you need to go to Major Restaurant.

We are having a party for Zek at our house on Sunday (his birthday) so I will post pics of that later.

Period.

So this is something else that I came across lately on a blog that I follow...I never really thought about women in Africa and what they use when their monthly visitor comes along. I can just go to *walmart and buy as many boxes of pads or tampons that I want, not even thinking about an ordinary women in Africa having to deal with her period in such different ways. So upon reading this I have felt led to participate and put together a few kits for the young women in Korah. My mother in law and I will be sewing them up this weekend. If any of you out there are interested you can visit Sarahs blog and get her email address on the right of the page. her blog address is...
http://titus-home.blogspot.com/

Here is her blog post...

For those of you who are not familiar with Korah, here are a few facts:

• Korah in Amharic means "cursed".
  
• 75 years ago the Ethiopian government moved everyone with leprosy to this area of Addis Ababa.
  
• Approximately 100,000 people live in the slums of Korah - the "outcasts" of society.
  
• The city dump is located in Korah.
  
• The people, both adults and children, spend their days digging through the dump searching for anything to eat or sell.
  
• God is alive and well in Korah thanks to Pastor Sammy Liben and Project 61 ministry. They have started an education sponsorship program for the children of Korah.

In Africa

* ordinary woman are unable to afford basic sanitary protection.

* one pack of sanitary pads costs more than 50% of the average monthly wage for women.

* millions of African women are forced to replace tampons/pads with newspapers and dirty rags.

• this can lead to vaginal infections for which there is no available medication.

• these vaginal infections are often mistaken to be sexually transmitted infections leading to social embarrassment and domestic violence.

* wives and mothers are unable to work when they have their periods, further hindering already impoverished families.

* girls are forced to take time off school, further jeopardizing their education.

• because of the economic and cultural crises in Africa, its schools serve as more than academic centers. they provide community resources where young people receive basic care and services, such as food programs, clean water and counseling

Can you even imagine having to use paper and rags? We take so much for granted. To most of us, even the thought is unfathomable. But this is a monthly REALITY for thousands of women and girls, not just in Africa, but around the world.

I have felt burdened and challenged to want to do more than I'm doing. To make a difference in other people's lives and show them God's love in every way I can. And this is such a basic need - something that is not too hard to do provide and it doesn't take a whole lot of money either!!!!

So a group of women and myself have decided to do something about it for the girls of Korah. Since pre-made pads can be very expensive, we are working together to sewing kits that will be delivered to Sumer with Project 61 in Ethiopia, and distributed to the 75 girls attending boarding school in Shashamane. A big thank you to the Red Tent Project for giving us your pattern!!!



BUT before we hardly got started with sewing, our project had expanded!!! We are getting such great response so far with women wanting to help us sew, that we decided to expand the vision. My friend Andrea is part of an organization that works with precious widows and orphans in Zambia - Wiphan. And we would like to provide kits for them too.

Each kit will contain approx:

10 re-usable pads
2 pairs of panties
a drawstring bag

Our goal is to make 300 kits. Yes, you heard right - 300 kits. 3000 pads.

Would you like to help??? Please email Sarah (to get the pattern for both the pads and the drawstring bag, and more information on other ways you can help!!!!

You can go to her blog here... http://titus-home.blogspot.com/ and the link to her email is on the right on her profile picture.

This has been laying heavy on my heart lately...

Ordinary Hero~ A day in the trash dump in Ethiopia from Kelly Putty on Vimeo.

Giveaway

Go here http://tisha-myrestingplace.blogspot.com/ to my friends Tisha's blog for a fantastic giveaway supporting a fellow adoptive family in the process of adopting again!

and someday I do plan on starting to blog again....i have to make some time :)

welcome Emery July 7th

Emery 2 weeks old

Zek 10 months old

Emery right after birth

me and my little guys (Zek seems so big now)

So it's been over 4 months since my last post. Let's just say things have been crazy around here. Getting adjusted with Zek and being pregnant.

Emery (Emerson Thomas) was born July 7th and weighed 9 lbs 4 oz and was 22 inches long. He is so beautiful and so loved by his big sisters and big brother.

Zek is trying to adjust to his new roll as big brother. Big changes for the little guy. He is having some issues with crying a lot and clingyness towards daddy. Thankfully Zek is an awesome sleeper. Waking up with two babies would not be fun.

Zek is doing well otherwise and is crawling everywhere and getting into everything. He is pulling up to stuff and will walk behind a little walk behind toy. I think he will be walking really soon. He is also growing like crazy.

Zek loves to get into the girls toys and seems to do it to make them mad. He is filling his roll as little brother really well :)

We are all doing well, just trying to adjust to life as a family of 6 now. We jumped from 4 to 6 very quickly. I think we are adjusting better than I had imagined, though.