Life as a Single Mom

The last week of July I was on TLO again. I think I am getting spoiled being off so much this year, but what a great year to be off work and with Tegegn. I had never been to the Fort Wayne Zoo (which is much better than the Indy Zoo) so Tegegn and I met our friends Ashley and Audrey. We had a great time catching up and Tegegn loved the tiger and the carousal.

As Tegegn would say, "choo, choo!" We rode the train and he loved it. I thought this was a really cute picture of Ashley and Audrey on the train.

Chris is in Florida this week for his business sales meeting. We miss him bunches. Everytime Tegegn hears a sound at home that he thinks is the garage door, he runs (he does this a lot now - running that is) from the living room, through the kitchen to the laundry room yelling "dada, dada!" He is a daddy's boy. Luckily, he will see him on Friday.

I am not sure that I have mentioned this recently, but Tegegn is a pretty good traveler. He loves bringing all his toys with him to keep him entertained. We are on the go a lot and he doesn't seem to mind. You can always assume he will pick a toy with wheels to spin. It keeps him entertained for long periods of time.

I have enjoyed my time this week with Tegegn, but it will be nice to get back to normal. I find myself waking up early in order to make sure that I have time to take a shower before he wakes up for the day. I am known to fall asleep when putting Tegegn to bed and this week I have fallen asleep with him every night. One night, I must have been really tired because I didn't wake up until 11:00 pm and I only woke up because he started mumbling in his sleep.

Loads of Fun

We love the summer. We always think that the summer means more time...however, we are always non-stop. We thought that having Tegegn join our family would slow us down a bit. Nope. Not at all. I actually think that we are busier now than ever before. What a great busy though. The past couple of weeks included a trip to Chicago (Tegegn's first time to the city, but not his last). We went there with Chris's sister and her family. We had a great time. Tegegn LOVED the subway. We also took a boat ride and a bus ride. What a great time!

After Chris and I get home from work, we are usually outside because Tegegn literally takes our hand and drags us out there. He would live outside if we would let him. Silly boy.

My boys. I love them dearly. I never knew that I could love these guys as much as I do. I would do anything for them.

Tegegn still loves bath time. He loves having bubbles in the tub with him. As soon as the bubbles form, he sticks his mouth in the bubbles and creates a crazy ring around his mouth of soap. It makes us laugh everytime. Again, he is so silly and he doesn't even know it yet.

I thought this was a cool picture. We were in the backyard and he was going in an out of his pool. He currently likes the hose better than his pool. Maybe that will change next year. Who knows?

So, I thought I had a great deal at a garage sale in town. I found this Power Wheels 4 wheeler for $1. Great deal, right? Well, Chris ran into Walmart to purchase the 6Volt battery and $38 later it was working. Seriously, people. Who ever thought a battery would cost that much. I could understand $20, but $38. I am in the wrong business.

Tegegn still has some amazing BIG brown eyes. We call these Baby Einstein eyes because it reminds us of the first time he saw something on DVD.

Post Adoption Update

I can't believe that it has been over 6 months since Tegegn has been in our lives. We continue to love being parents and the joy that he brings to us is unreal. We have had quite a bit of adoption things to do recently. We went to Indianapolis to register his adoption with the state of Indiana. This allows us to get birth certificates for hime through the department of health. It was a fairly easy process and by doing it ourselves, we saved a lot of money. It only took 20 minutes in the City Council building to get everything approved. I am proud to be a Hoosier when it comes to the ease of adoption. We haven't had any issues with Tegegn's adoption.

Our family picture outside of the City Council Building after seeing the judge and him approving the adoption.

On Saturday, we had our second post adoption meeting with our social worker. It was nice to meet with her and catch up. Her and her husband have also adopted a little boy from Ethiopia so we enjoy comparing stories. My parents had never been to an Ethiopian restaurant so it was a fun experience. I think they were pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed the food.

We are planning to apply for Tegegn's US Citizenship as soon as we receive his birth certificates from Indiana. We hope to do this at the end of July. We have one more post adoption report with social worker next January (required by Ethiopia) and then one report done by ourselves until Tegegn reaches 18.

Other than that....nothing else is required. We can just enjoy the time with our son.

Summertime Fun

What a summer! It continues to amaze me how much love I have for our little guy. He fills our world with laughter, kisses and incredible moments that I find myself putting off other things to spend a few more minutes with him. We recently took him to his 18th month well child appointment and he is growing!!!! He is now almost 25 pounds and 31 inches tall. He is still in the 25th - 30th percentile for his height and weight, but his head is still in the 95th percentile. Poor kid....he will grow into it someday.

This summer we have been so busy that we actually decided that we are not going to open our pool this year. We have been gone every weekend and decided that it was one thing that would have to wait until next year since our swimming season is almost half over. It needs a new liner and would be a lot of work, so we will be on top of it next year and we will just enjoy other pools for the time being.

Tegegn is a daddy's boy. He loves being with him at all times. Chris actually has a hard time stepping 5 feet away from him because Tegegn loves him so much and gets really sad if he is not right there at all times. Tegegn continues to understand more and more each week. He continues to dance and shake his head "no" quite often. He is still learning sign language with his most recent one being "love you." However, when he signs you, he points to himself. Cute.

Tegegn loves shoes. Here he is with both of his feet in Chris's shoe. He is to the point where if we ask him to get something, he will bring it to us. He really likes to bring us shoes.

The weekend of Father's Day, we went to Ohio with Chris's side of the family to go to King's Island. On Saturday, we went to the aquarium in Kentucky. It was fun. Tegegn did great. His favorite part was when he could splash in the water.

On Sunday, we went to King's Island. Tegegn rode a couple of rides, went to the water park and rode the train. He loved riding the train and would often say "choo-choo." Aunt Kristy and Grandma Gerry watched him for a bit while we rode a couple of roller-coasters. It is so funny how your priorities change with kids. I was totally content riding his rides instead of the adult ones. The smiles and flapping arms totally make it exciting.

We had to capture this moment. He loves playing with the hose and it was so cool how the water beaded up on his hair. This was close to his bed time so you can imagine how easy it was for him to go to sleep that night.

Our good friends, Syd and Katie, were married this weekend. We forgot our camera, so I don't have any pictures, but the wedding and reception were beautiful. It was a great time to hang out with friends. I really enjoyed catching up with Todd and Micah Nicholson. I went to high school with Todd and he is currently a pastor in Maryland. He officiated the wedding ceremony and did a great job.

Chris and I took a week off for vacation. Originally, we were going to go to Boston to visit some of my family, but we decided to stick around Indiana and Ohio instead. It has been nice. We have throughly enjoyed our time. On Sunday we went to Ohio to hang out with my aunt and cousins. Tegegn loves it there. He is always so busy and loved on so much.

On Tuesday, we decided it would be fun to go to Indianapolis and spend the night in a hotel (one of my favorite things). So we packed up and headed downtown for a miniature trip. Our original plan was to bike the monon trail and then go to the zoo. Instead we had lunch with Chris's sister, Angie, and then walked the canal. It was an overcast day and the zoo was sold out. After we walked the canal we went to the hotel to swim. Tegegn had a great time and has absolutely no fear when it comes to water. After a quick nap, Tegegn was ready to go so we had dinner at Rock Bottom and then headed to an Indians game. He was so busy on the lawn so we put him in his stroller and were actually able to watch a couple of innings. We headed back to the hotel and crashed.

On Wednesday, we decided to get up early and go to the zoo. Tegegn liked it. I think he will love it next year. He was more interested in watching other kids than the animals. He did great though. He was excited about our train ride in the zoo.

We also went to the butterfly observatory and the outside gardens. There were so many different kinds of butterflies. They are really beautiful. It amazes me that they start as a caterpillar. It was cool to see.

So far it has been a great summer. We are busy. We really thought that our life would slow down a bit with Tegegn, but we are on the go all of the time. We love it. It is fun. Until next time....

Take a minute!

Take a minute and take a look at these beautiful necklaces our good friends Mark and Wendi are making to help support their adoption. We received ours and they are beautiful. Hand made sterling silver Africa pendents.

http://www.mwasilver.etsy.com/

The Past Six Years

Six years ago, I stood in front of my family and friends to marry my best friend. As we continue to grow together and see God's plan for our lives unfold, we are humbled. God has been so faithful to us over the years and we continue to be blessed. This year we decided to celebrate by taking a trip to Chicago. We had a great time. We used our hotel points and were able to stay downtown for free (even better). This was our first overnight trip without Tegegn and he did great. He stayed with my parents and was attached to his Grandpa all weekend.

Chris and I have a tradition of going to baseball games. I had never been to Wrigley Field so we decided this would be the perfect time to go. The Cubs ended up winning and I was thrilled because we were able to sing the "Go Cubs Go" song. You got to love the Cubs spirit. Nothing compares to it.

We had great seats and we even arrived early enough to watch batting practice.

After the game, we decided to just walk around Chicago and take pictures. I really enjoyed doing this with our new camera. I thought it would be fun to take some creative pictures. Some of the pictures turned out great and others did not, but that is the great thing about digital cameras! While we were walking around the town, we stumbled on the best popcorn place ever.

Tegegn is growing...he insists that he can feed himself even though he misses his mouth half of the time.   We have a therapist working with him once a week and we hope that he will catch up to his age group real soon.  Every week he seems to awe us as he does something new.  This week he is really into shaking his head "no".  He still loves to dance and he would be outside all day and night long if we would allow him.  

The Friday afternoon of my TLO week we (Chris, Tegegn and I) went to the Indianapolis Children's Museum with Cari and Elliot.  We had a wonderful time and so did the kids.  They did great and I was surprised how many activities they had for kids Tegegn's age.  He really enjoyed playing in the water, the sand and on the foam maze.  We ended up spending the evening with Katie, Syd, Greg and Cari.  We grilled out and talked about camping sometime this summer.  What a great time!  Katie and Syd are getting married at the end of June.  We are super excited for them and are looking forward to all of the wedding festivities. 

This picture is of Tegegn at the Children's Museum playing in the water area of Playscapes.

Elli was fascinated with the mirror in the maze.  What a precious little girl.

One of the few words Tegegn says is "car".  However, no one would really know what he is saying because it is a hard, raspy "ca"sound.  Well, as you can tell, he is in an Indy car and loving it!  

I thought the colors of the blown glass were beautiful.  I actually remember this being in the Museum when I was a kid.

Tegegn is not always smiles.  I thought this picture captured his personality.  He is a little stinker at times.  Last week I was putting him to bed and he confirmed why I LOVE being a mom.  Tegegn likes to cuddle.  As I was laying there with him, he fell asleep and I wiggled myself out of his arms.  Before I transfer him to the crib, I always like to make sure he is in his deep sleep.  As I was waiting for that last big sigh, he sits up, stands up, leans over and kisses me on the cheek.  He then precedes to sit back down, lay down and go to sleep.  I couldn't stop laughing.  It was such a special moment.  

Tegegn decided he was going to help us wash the car.  He was such a big help between eating the car suds and splashing in the water.  It is so hard for me to remember our life without him.  He is so fun to be around and provides us great entertainment.

Our nephew graduated from high school on Friday.  We worked around the house on Saturday and on Sunday, our anniversary, we watched our pastor's four children.  We had a great time and we are looking forward to watching them again on Sunday.  They are in the process of moving to Indy and needed some time to get some things done.  We have enjoyed their friendship over the past year.

LOVING my TIME off WORK

What a joy it has been to bee off of work with my little boy.  As most of you know, the auto industry is not doing so hot right now and so I am required by my company to take 8 TLO weeks throughout the year.  This week is one of my weeks off and I value the time that I get to spend with him.  He is growing so fast and has learned so much in the past 5 months.  He is now 17 months old and he is WALKING!!!  He loves this new found freedom.  It has been fun watching him.  He still falls quite often because he is a bit off balance, but overall he is doing great!

My First Mother's Day

What a special day!  We celebrated by going to church as a family, eating a lunch prepared by Chris, playing outside and hiking.  Life can't get much better....

I am truly blessed that God has given me the opportunity to be a mom.  There is really nothing like it.  It is challenging and rewarding all at the same time.  I honestly love it.  I am shaping the life of my son each and every day.  Boy, that is a big responsibility, but I wouldn't change it for the world.  

Tegegn loves his car; however, he likes to push it more than he likes to ride in it.  Silly boy.

Still Alive - I PROMISE!

WOW - It has been hectic around here the past three weeks and I can tell you that our lives are finally back to normal!!! I have finished my last class or my master's degree! I feel like I have so much additional time on my hands - I LOVE IT! We have been spending time together as a family and it has been priceless. 

Since I had to pick and choose what I had time to do, the blog was one that I had to put off because I can't just write on my blog. I have to check out everyone's blog and I knew that I couldn't do that so I had to stay away.  :)

My little cousin went to prom so we made a quick trip out to Ohio to visit our family in the middle of April.   We had a great time!  We really enjoy hanging out with the kids.  Tegegn loved riding the go-cart and four-wheeler.  

The following weekend my brother's family came to Indiana to spend the weekend with us.  It was a full house, but we love all of the fun with our nephews.  Tegegn was baptized on Sunday so it was pretty special to have both sides of our family here to celebrate him.

It is really hard to get 4 boys to sit still and take a picture.  We actually did get one with all of them looking at the camera, but I personally like this one the best.  You can see our little boy pushing his 2 1/2 year old cousin off of his seat.  His face is great!

Here we are sporting our Ethiopian attire on the Sunday Tegegn was baptized.

Tegegn couldn't get enough so he went back for more; therefore, he did not want to come back to Mommy or Daddy.  He wanted to be with Pastor Steve.  He let the entire church know this...

This past weekend we celebrated the upcoming marriage of Syd and Katie.  We had a nice time hanging out with them and some of our friends.  We are looking forward to their wedding!  It is right around the corner.

Here are a couple of pictures of our son.  He makes us smile.  

Tegegn LOVES finding the toilet paper in our downstairs bathroom.  I remember counting and he had 12 rolls out on the floor this time.

Not much has changed...Tegegn still slobbers and goes through atleast 5 bibs a day!

More to come....