A year ago

A year ago, on this day, we met Belachew for the first time. Here is my post about meeting him:
http://paulandcindyadopt.blogspot.com/2008/06/update.html

What an amazing year it has been together! It has been so hard at times, yet Kenyon Belachew has added so much fun and joy to our lives. He is truly an amazing, resilient child and I love being his mother.

He likes to party

Belachew likes to party. He was invited to a "whale" themed birthday party last weekend. The host had a nice pool in the backyard, with plastic fish and fishing poles. The first thing Belachew said when he saw the pool was "I swim?" I held him back for as long as I could, but once I agreed (with the host's permission), he jumped in. The other kids at the party followed him and they had a blast. They would run across the yard and jump in the pool. On the car ride home, Belachew kept staying "I had so much fun, I got wet and dirty!"

Adoption update

I had posted a couple weeks ago about a setback in our adoption. I am so happy to share that this issue was resolved last week and our adoption is moving forward. We are still waiting for some paperwork to get processed and then our agency will request a court date. We are hopeful that our case will pass court before the Ethiopian courts close in August. We appreciate the prayers and support we received during those hard days of uncertainty. Belachew has been praying that he could hold his baby brother soon. That is our prayer too.

Enjoying the spring

Popsicles, playdates at the park, pony rides and tricycle rides... we are enjoying the beautiful weather these days.

Breakfast of champions

This morning as Belachew was waking up and we were talking about our day, I told him it was time to go downstairs and eat waffles for breakfast.  He looked at me and said, "No, I'll take a popsicle please."  He did not get a popsicle for breakfast, but you have to give him credit for trying.

 

 

 

My farm boy

Last weekend, we went to Missouri to visit my family. We celebrated my dad's retirement and birthday, as well as Mother's Day. We went to Purina Farms, where Belachew had fun with his cousins and got to milk a cow (he is still talking about squeezing the cow), and to my cousin's farm, where Belachew got to drive a tractor. He had so much fun on the farm and made a new friend. He was quite impressed with this little girl, who knew a lot about tractors and horses.

World AIDS Orphans Day

I tend to be a bit late on getting things on my blog, but yesterday, May 7, was World AIDS Orphans Day.

15 million children, orphaned by AIDS worldwide.

Rich Stearns, President of World Vision, US said,

"I believe that this could very well be looked back on as the sin of our generation. I look at my parents and ask, where were they during the civil rights movement? I look at my grandparents and ask, what were they doing when the holocaust in Europe was occurring with regard to the Jews, and why didn't they speak up? And when we think of our great, great, great-grandparents, we think how could they have sat by and allowed slavery to exist? And I believe that our children and their children, 40 or 50 years from now, are going to ask me, what did you do while 40 million children became orphans in Africa?"

Please take the time to go read this wonderful post here.