Just normal family life ...

It's Mid-March and it's 50° - in Minnesota, that's considered balmy and it makes us feel like doing this .... (see above)! About a week ago, we still had a few feet of snow on the ground and it was looking to be a late spring ... again. But then it rained for several days on end ... several cold, misty, gray days .... and then this ... sunshine and 50°!


A friend recently asked me how all the kids were doing since I rarely comment about them on the blog lately. And I realized that sometime late last fall ... everything kindof became "normal" for us as a family again.

We no longer feel like our lives are so very different and novel, after the adoption of our two sons from Ethiopia just over one year ago. Every now and then, something will remind us of our first winter or spring with our sons, and we pause to reflect on how far we have come as a family ... but somewhere along the way, everything started feeling "normal" again. That's a good thing!

I work full-time (Vice President of Marketing for a cabinet manufacturer) and my evenings and weekends are beyond full with being a mom to 4 kids, a wife to an amazingly understanding and supportive husband, and volunteering on behalf of 68 kids at a care-point in Ethiopia called Kind Hearts! The 3 older kids have been busy with basketball all winter long, and now that the season has just wrapped up, they have already started soccer practice.

Above: Jayden (8) and Maea (11) ...


Above: Wesley (3) and Emmelyn (13) ...


When we brought the boys home last December, both of their heads were shaved because of lice outbreaks at the orphanage. We have not cut Wesley's hair yet - he has the most amazing ringlet curls - and I'm happy to let them continue to grow. We found a nice big hat for him to wear in the winter, but it still mats his curls down just a little and they need fluffing after.

The girls affectionately call him "flounder" when he wakes up from his nap, with both sides of his head completely flattened from sleeping on his curls. A quick spritz with water, and a scrunch with leave-in conditioner, and his curls are back in place. Little Wesley never stops smiling and laughing ... and if we don't join him, he's content to laugh and entertain himself!

Now that we've had a little taste of spring-like weather ... we are very ready for winter to be over!

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Post update: Don't you just love Wesley's hat??? It was one of our best finds ... it barely crushes his curls. I'm getting asked about where we found his hat ... it was the Gap. It was even on sale. Don't know if they still carry it but it's worth checking. It even keeps his cheeks warm.