new house

gameroom upstairs



girls rooms on left, boys on right

boys room on the left, guest room on the right

boys' room - it's HUGE



 

one of the girls' rooms -

Jack-n-jill girls' bathroom

other girls' room - little window in closet

 Grandma room :)

 

 

 Family room

kitchen - huge breakfast bar

white appliances :(

 

pantry is almost as big as old house





study, to right as you enter

(they had the mother in law in here)

 

dining room (on left as you enter)

 laundry room

guest bath

 

 my closet

Maggie:

I had a dream last night that I had four feet. And two of them were Abraham Lincoln's.

 Had our follow up visit with the social worker today. 

Shep found out that we were moving (away from his next door buddy) right when the social worker was leaving out house today. He burst into tears, ran to his room, and slammed the door. As we said goodbye in the foyer, he yelled, "WHAT KIND OF MOTHER ARE YOU?!?!?"

Me: Are you gonna obey me, or are you gonna argue?
Eva Rose: I'm obeying AND I'm arguing!
And then we both cracked up.

Bethie said 2 words yesterday, uh-oh and Dada. Then today, 3: kaka (Amharic for nasty), GG, and ruff-ruff for puppy. She also mimics the kids and will do "tricks" for them (which they love), like make faces or noises etc. I hope this means we are having a language explosion! So ready for my baby to talk!

Sometimes adopted kids get real narrow in their diet and only eat a couple of foods because of sensory overload etc. You're just supposed to roll with it.

The past two days Bethie has eaten nothing but toast with butter, frozen organic waffles, and milk.

I'm loving it. Makes my life so much easier. #lazymom #onelesskidtocookfor

I laid with Bethie for over and hour and she would NOT go to sleep. Finally I said, your turn Daddy....10 minutes later he walks out, she's crashed.

So it has been proven. All five of my kids know I'm a sucker.

We watched The Bible with the the 3 oldest a couple nights ago. Maggie's questions "How could dey film them when cameras hadn't been inbented yet?" were much, much easier than Eva Rose's "But I don't get it! How could Abraham have a baby with Hagar when he was married to Sarah? How? Tell me now! I need to know!"

It's time for The Talk. Lord help.

I just stand and stare at Bethie in the bath. She is hilarious. Asks for soap, then dips her washcloth in the water, then washes her tummy. Dip, heinie. Dip, one armpit. Dip, other armpit. Dip, face. Dip, leg - every body part down to her fingers. At 27 months, she already knew how to do this. She also rubs lotion all over herself and can rub product in her hair. Makes my others at 2 look like lazy bums. Which, they were.

Since Bethie's been sleeping in our room, I've been showering in the kids' bath. I noticed that the water was taking a very long time to drain, so I reached in the drain, thinking I'd find soap or hair or something. Big glob of poop. Motherhood: the glamour never ends.

This was the first time I saw Bethie's sense of humor. She would eat and pretend to fall asleep and I would say "Bethie! Wake up!" and she'd giggle. She cracks herself up.

Facebook status from 2-26-13

If I may just share some prayer requests:

1. Please pray for her to attach to Walker. She is totally rejecting him. It is normal, it happens a lot that they reject one parent at first and better him than me. But that means that I am 100% everything from sunup to sundown. No, after sundown, because she sleeps with me too. 24/7. He can't even change a diaper. It's just exhausting.

2. If you think to pray for us from 3pm-6pm, please do. That's when the kids come home from school and you know, it's the Witching Hour. Homework, chores, baths, they all want me, the other four are transitioning and feeling neglected as it is, and this is when Bethie wants me to hold her full time. And I am at the end of my patience rope by then. Thank God for friends bringing meals. There is no way I can handle making dinner now. If you have friends adopting, please, for the love, TAKE THEM DINNER.

3. During that time Bethie gets wound up and tired and she has starting hitting etc. And I have no clue how to discipline her when we are working on attaching. I am at a complete loss. I've been saying sternly NO HIT but half the time she answers by hitting me. Can't put her in time out because of her abandonment issues. Trying to remember that even with my bio kids I was usually dumbfounded by 2yo discipline - adoption makes it 1000x harder to figure out.

4. Bethie thinks Eva Rose hung the moon. She just looks at her and laughs. Which is great - except it is breaking little Maggie's heart. Maggie has been acting out the most and I think it is because she is jealous. Bethie finally started playing and laughing at Maggie some tonight - please pray it continues. She also rejects the boys but they don't care as much.

5. Walker is driving to Beaumont and back tomorrow. I have this irrational fear of him dying in a fiery car wreck. Downton paranoia? Please pray he, like, survives.

thank you!!!

Walker Dollahon

February 18, 2013 · 

LOL. While Missy Hooks Dollahon, Maggie, and I are in Ethiopia this week Shepherd, Eva Rose, and Ike at staying with my folks in Houston. Shepherd was forced to sleep in the same bedroom that my grandmother passed away in. Eva Rose sensed an opportunity to pray a prank. In her words from an email we got this is what she did: "I played a joke on Shep. He has to sleep in great grandmothers old bed room so I wrote on a napkin in some made up handwriting that said "I've been looking for you. -Great Grandmother." Creepy, huh."

Shep: But.....how could Leonardo da Vinci's parents have him and not be married?
Me: Well, sometimes, especially back then, men who were married would still have lots of girlfriends. So his mom was one of those girlfriends.
Shep: You mean he was a play-ah.
 

I am really really hoping that 2 weeks from today I will be in Ethiopia with our new Valentine. Another paperwork messup has been resolved and hopefully the Embassy will email us next week.

Maggie just asked me, "Are we going to always celebrate the day we get her? We can call it Bethie Day!!" And then she decided all the dances she would do and the games she would come up with for Bethie Day. :-)

Ike tells me all the time that he wants to marry me. And this, my friends, is why he gets away with murder.

Eva rose said there are two angels in the bible, Michael & Harold. 
We said Harold? 
She said 'yes, hark the Harold angel sings.'

MAGS 

 

Bless her heart, Maggie can't spell worth a lick. But she spells just like she talks - which is ADORABLE. 

'I just played computer then Eva took my place then I had nothing (nufeg) to do then I had a plan to make Eva get off the computer it failed :( I was sad'

Shep just said "I think Santa would want us to leave him a beer instead of milk." This might qualify as a parenting fail.

A couple of weeks ago, we took our nine year old son to Ethiopia. There he toured an orphanage that reminded me of Auschwitz. He met a boy whose mother died on his 6th birthday, at which point he lived on the streets until he came to into the orphanage. He saw children wearing literally rags, with empty bellies, who had no idea where their next meal would come from.

We did this to try and give him some perspective on his life, and all his blessings.

We did this so that if, for instance, he were playing a video game on a Kindle that cost more than most Ethiopians earn in a year, and he spent a lot of time building a house in Minecraft, and it somehow disappeared, he would not burst into tears and say, "It's not fair! I hate my life!"

Two words:

MISSION FAIL.

Walker's morning words of affirmation: "You're an extremely good looking woman. You have lots of other really, really negative qualities. But know this, you're very good looking."

 Eva Rose reading her Kindle, which I thought I had censored: "Mom, I just looked up cannibal on the dictionary on my Kindle. Ew! What does 'sexual organs' mean?" Holy crap, what are you reading? Bugs. It's a book about bugs.