Tuesday Treats

One day last week, Nathan brought his drill home from work to fix the picture that had fallen off the wall several months ago. It's finally back on the wall! What would I do without a handyman Hubby?!

Sunday morning, Nathan let me sleep until 8:30! And I was sleeping good, too! It wasn't just a lay in bed and pretend to be asleep kind of morning. I was out! Then we all rushed to get ready for church. Thanks, Babe!

Yesterday evening, I had plans to cook dinner, but as the afternoon wore on, I was just exhausted. He took the kids to pick up Ethiopian food for dinner and let me have some quiet time!

What an awesome Husband the Lord has blessed me with! I love you, Honey!

Prayer and Praise

Prayer~

Please pray our paperwork makes it through D.C. without any glitches. We're praying we hear something about it soon.

We are beginning to think through all the details of our 2 trips to Ethiopia and my trip to the US with our baby boy. There is a lot of thinking and planning to do.

Please remember Nathan and the guys in the hangar. There is a lot going on in the hangar right now plus inventory started today.

Praise~

Papa's back is feeling much better! Praise the Lord! It's been precious to hear our kids remembering to pray for him every night, even when we don't remind them.

Our kids are continuing to sleep later in the mornings!

The rain continues in Kenya! It's off and on, but we praise the Lord for what He sends.

Sunday Afternoon Fun

A Work Day

John absolutely loves going to work with Nathan. For about the past week, every morning he's asked if he could go to work. I guess today was a slow enough day that Nathan decided he could go. John loves the tractor. Loves the planes. Loves chai and mandazi. Loves his Daddy. Nathan finds all sorts of things for him to do, and he loves it! Today he cleaned an airplane, drove the tractor, had chai and mandazi during prayer time, had lunch with Daddy, and plenty more. After lunch, Nathan brought him home so he could have a nap. What a great father and son time for them! Although next time, I think it's going to have to be father and daughter bonding time because Dinah was quite upset she wasn't getting to go.

 Here he's helping tow the airplane out of the hangar.

 See who's driving in this one. Nathan said he drove it right where he was told and did a great job! Guess all that driving in the Nairobi National Park is paying off!

 Checking out the inside of the DC-3.

 He's ready to go!

 Nathan says it's the ultimate instrument training when you can't see over the dashboard.

What a cutie!

Adoption Update

So, things seem to be moving along with the adoption. Our paperwork at this point is almost finished. It's all out of our hands though. We have our I171-H approval. Praise the Lord! Our updated home study has been sent to a courier who was going to hand carry it into D.C. to have it authenticated. That should be done or be almost done. It will then be sent to CWA and they will, in turn, send it on to Ethiopia. It's making a full circle! :) With the referral clocks moving so quickly the past couple of months, we've started talking about what all we need to have ready to take with us when we both travel to Ethiopia, what we are going to do with our kids, how everything is going to work. It's quite exciting! While we don't know all that's going to happen or how all the details are going to work out, we know God is in control! We can't wait to see what He has planned for our family!

Wordless Wednesday

The Giant Play and Learn Book

I ordered these Giant Play and Learn books for Dinah and John, and Mimi and Papa brought them over. Rachael had recommended it on her blog a while back and I was anxious to try them out. They literally have kept Dinah and John busy for hours this week! I would say it's a good investment. :) They are really enjoying each one of the pages, especially the ones with stickers! As you can see below...

More Movement!

I just can't wait until Thursday to post this! How very thankful we are that referrals for orphans in Ethiopia have picked up. After months and months of the clocks on CWAs website sitting still, there has been tremendous movement in the past few months! I just checked the clocks again this morning, and they have moved again! The clock for baby boys is now on November 2009! We are waiting for it to get to March 2010 and then it will be our turn. They have moved about every 2.5 to 3 weeks lately so that means we could possibly know who our son is by February! Bring on February! We can't wait to see our son's face!

A Keeper

I finally realized that there are recipes out there for veggie burgers similar to the ones you can buy in the store. We can get 2 kinds of them here but they are about $8 for a box of 4. We bought those for a while. I've been trying lots of recipes to find one that actually works, meaning it doesn't fall apart, and tastes good. I've had Salome try different recipes, and I've tried some, too. Well, this afternoon, I searched allrecipes.com for a veggie burger recipe. I found one 4.5 stars based on over a thousand reviews. I decided to give it a try. And it was great! The best one yet! Tasted great and didn't fall apart like all of the others we've tried. So, here it is...

Homemade Black Bean Veggie Burgers

1 (16 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 green bell pepper, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 onion, cut into wedges
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 egg
1 T. chili powder
1 T. cumin
1 tsp. hot sauce
1/2 c. bread crumbs (I used 1 c. crushed croutons.)

After rinsing beans, let them sit to dry. Then mash beans with a fork until thick and pasty. In a food processor, finely chop bell pepper, onion, and garlic. (I used my Pampered Chef chopper, and it worked fine.) Strain chopped pepper, onion, and garlic until most of the extra liquid is gone. Stir into mashed beans. In a separate bowl, stir together egg, chili powder, cumin, and hot sauce. Stir into bean mixture. Add bread crumbs until the mixture is sticky and holds together well. Divide mixture into 4 patties. (I got 5 or 6 patties. If you only did 4, they would be really big patties.) You can grill, bake, or fry patties. I fried ours in olive oil, and they were awesome!

Pictures to come soon. We just realized we are almost out of memory on the computer because of the 22,000 photos we have on here. They are being exported to our hard drive as I type this.

Prayer and Praise

Prayer~

The first night Mimi and Papa were here, Papa fell down our stairs. We were headed up to bed and he forgot something. He turned around to come back down and slipped down 5 or 6 stairs. Thankfully he didn't break any ribs, but did bruise them pretty good. He's still in pain 2 and a half weeks later. Please remember him as his body is healing.

Mimi and Papa carried our updated home study back to the US. It's now in Poppy's hands who is going to get it send to a courier who will then carry it to Washington, D.C. to have it authenticated. Please pray this process goes smoothly!

I think I mentioned before that Nathan's grandpa fell and broke his hip a few weeks ago. He had surgery and is now going through rehab. Please remember him as he's healing as well.


Praise~

We had a great visit with Mimi and Papa, and they had a safe trip home!

Saturday we had our AIM Thanksgiving feast. It was a fun time of great food and wonderful fellowship. We are blessed to serve with such a wonderful group of people!

Our kids have been sleeping until 7:30 or 7:45 the past week or so! What a blessing!

The Elephant Orphanage

On Tuesday, Mimi and Papa got most of their things packed so we could head out for one more adventure before they left on Tuesday night. We've never been to the elephant orphanage before so we thought we'd give it a try. It's here in Nairobi not too far from our house. We had a great time! Although Papa was not able to get close enough to feed the elephants from his mouth! ;)

They had 2 groups of elephants that they brought out. When they first came out they went right to their own caregiver to down their bottles of milk.

They are only kept in by a rope, so the kids stood right by it and watched them.

They would walk right by the rope so you would reach out and touch them. They were really really hard.

When they first came out, they ran down the hill and right to the spot where their caregiver was to get their milk. You could tell they've done this plenty of times before.

What cuties!

After we saw them eat and walk around a bit, 3 or 4 guys spread out and told about each of the elephants They told how they became orphans, what they are doing there at the orphanage, and their plans for the elephants for the future. It was quite interesting.

They can down one of these big bottles of milk in just a few minutes. It was crazy!

Awww...how sweet. John put his arm around her on his own.

Well, we thought we were getting a picture of Mimi and Papa with elephants in the background, but I guess we missed the elephants.

Dinah reaching out to touch one.

It was like a dog pile...only it's an elephant pile.

This one kept spreading it's ears out.

These were playing with the ball. 

Each of the elephants has it's own stall. The bed on the right is where the caregiver sleeps with the elephant. Each elephants has a caregiver assigned and the caregiver stays with the elephant 24/7.

The name placard for the newest baby. It was only a month old.

On our way to the car, we spotted this dung beetle pushing a piece of dung across the road. Several people drove past and then another van stopped and all the passengers hopped out to take pictures, too. We didn't feel so silly for taking pictures then. :)