Tribute To Uncle Greg

I have to be honest.  It has been a rough week.  Last Tuesday, my Uncle Greg went to be with the Lord.  Chris and I were really close to Greg and so this hit us pretty hard.  Greg was only 43 years old and he has a beautiful family that resides in Ohio.  

Death is really hard for me.  I don't like the pain that is caused by death.  My heart hurts for his wife, children, father and sisters.  I know that God has a plan, but it is really hard to see what His plan entails at this point.  

We were able to spend time with our family which always helps when grieving to loss of a loved one.  The viewing was on Saturday and Sunday and I have never seen so many people come to show their respect to Greg and the family.  The Memorial Service was on Monday and the church was packed.  Greg made a huge impact on the people he knew and it was neat to remember his life in this way.  

Greg and Nancy have been our role models for a long time.  We look up to them in many ways. 

The family is CRAZY!  Here is a family picture that was taken in the fall.  I love all of them so much and I miss my Uncle.

On February 15, 2009 (two days before he passed away) Greg and his family came to Indiana to meet Tegegn.  We are so happy that Tegegn was able to meet his Great Uncle.  While the family was here, Tegegn would not let anyone else feed him or hold him other than Greg.  Greg will always hold a special place in Tegegn's heart. 

I am thankful that Greg was my uncle and that he was a part of my life.  I will cherish all of my memories and will continue to trust in the Lord because I know that He does not make any mistakes.  

More Favorite Photos

I thought it was time to update the blog with some of my favorite pictures.  I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend!

Tegegn showed no emotion when we pulled him in the sled.  I have to admit that I don't think that he was able to move so that might have had something to do with it.  Since he is a bit short, we had to put hair ties at the bottom of the snow suit because he did not fill it all out yet.

Some mother and son quiet time.

Tegegn did a face plant in the snow and could not move , so he just laid there.  I don't think that he was super excited that I took a picture before I cleaned it off his face.  Oh well!  I think the picture was worth it.

One night this past week we were getting ready for bath time and as we were taking off his shirt he loved having it stuck on his head.  He seriously was a wild little boy for 15 minutes with a crazy shirt stuck on his head.  He thought it was great - silly boy!

Tegegn LOVES driving with his daddy.  I intentionally dressed him in his vest after I knew that Chris was wearing his.  I am glad that they didn't mind sharing the same fashion for the day.  

Happy Valentine's Day!  

My Boys

I have to tell you that I can't get enough of our son.  Whenever we are together as a family it makes me happy.  I seriously want to be with him and Chris all of the time because they make me smile.    This week we are in our normal routine and it went better than anticipated.  I think it helps me knowing that he is with his grandma's while we are at work.

Every night around 7:15pm Chris and I start chanting - Bath Time, Bath Time...Tegegn starts flapping his arms because he loves it and understands what we are saying.

This play mat has been our saving grace when it comes to changing Tegegn's diaper because it keeps him entertained.  I think most people use these for infants, but not the Ponslers!  

I think that one of Tegegn's favorite things to do is slobber.  He has been slobbering nonstop since we met him on December 15.  We now own more bibs than clothes.  

We were biting this block for at least 20 minutes and he thought it was so funny.  I love his laugh.  

Tegegn loves his Daddy.  He laughs really hard when Chris puts his nose on his tummy and sometimes he even snorts.  

Here is a shout out to my friend Ashley who will be induced on Monday night - Although I have no idea what you are experiencing with the pregnancy, the end result is the same and nothing compares to being a mother.  It is amazing!  You are in our prayers!

Sleep?

Been a while.  Everything has been going really well.  We have talked to a social worker with CWA and she gave us some tips on helping him sleep better.  It has been working a little better.  We are getting a solid 6 hrs without waking (knock on wood) so I think this is helping all of us.  He has been such a joy.  He is incredibly good during the day, spending full days with both grandma's this week. They tell us he is doing great as well.  Hopefully he hasn't convinced them to cover for him yet.  We went to church for the first time since getting back on Sunday and it felt so good!  We missed it but we wanted to ease him into everything.  A surprise to us he spent the entire service in the nursery without us.  Sarah was planning to stay with him but as soon as we got there he jumped down and crawled right over to all the stuffed animals.  We are so lucky to have an awesome nursery with only 4-5 kids so he gets a lot of attention.   To everyone's surprise we have been staying busy on the weekends.  We had a chance this last weekend to spend the night Greg, Cari, and Elli's.  We had so much fun and it was great to just hang out, catch up, see Chris and Ehrin and their kids.  I can't wait until all the kids are running around and we can go camping and take trips together.  For some reason I don't think that is far away.  Both Elli and Tegegn LOVE Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and if your kids haven't heard the Hot Dog song and dance at the end of the show, it's worth checking out. Elli and Tegegn love dancing to this song.  We were already talking about our first trip to Disney World.  

We spent a few hours at the Ghion Hotel one day while in Ethiopia and someone decided he was a little tired!

We have mentioned before how flexible he is.  Those are his feet. 

We were having a little fun with Photo Booth on the MAC.  Someone was enjoying seeing himself on the screen, and Tegegn was having fun too.

Someone thinks it's funny to squint now when we take his picture.

This was on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.  Poor little guys had his arm wrapped in a sling thanks to the pediatrician who helped us out, pooped all over dad's pants, we all smelled horrible, and we hadn't even taken off yet.  Needless to say the guy beside me kept his headphones on the entire flight.  

Family Time with the Coon Cousins

When we arrived home, my brother was actually in China for work.  Since they were not able to make it to the airport, they ended up coming to Indiana the following weekend.  We had a great time hanging out at our house with four kids playing all day long.  The kids were adorable.  

Life is good.  Being a parent has changed our lives.  We look forward to the time that we get to spend with Tegegn.  His laugh is contagious.  His smile melts our hearts.  We are forever grateful that God had a plan because we would not have it any other way.  Tegegn knows we are his parents.  He looks to us for comfort.  He knows he is safe with us.  He loves to be held.  He hates peas.  He likes cheerios.  He can wave.  Children are amazing.  I am happy that I am a mom.  God is good!

Tagged

I'm sure much to Kevin's surprise I am going to do this.

Three jobs I have had in my life: Landscaping, McDonald's (for a month), College Admissions

Three movies I would watch over and over: Man on Fire, Emelle, Knights Tale

Shows that I watch: Big Bang Theory, Dirty Jobs, PTI

Three places I have been: Ethiopia, Greece, New York

Three of my favorite foods: Cheeseburger, Filet, Ethiopian Tebs

Three places I'd rather be right now: home, out on a boat anywhere, Sarasota, FL

Three things I am looking forward to this year: Watching Tegegn grow up, the start of the NFL and MLB seasons (I know the NFL season isn't over but it is for me), all our friends children coming home for the first time from Ethiopia

Three jobs I would love to have: Missionary, beer taster (I have to stick with Kevin on this one), rock star

Everything has been going well. We are both exhausted hence the lack of updates, hope to put more pics up soon.

Reading some books

We were fortunate to have Zac and Laura come visit this weekend with all the cousins. We all had a great time. Tegegn played well with all the cousin and the cousins played AMAZINGLY with him. They were so loving and fun with him. It was great. We are in the process of reading some books on the sleep issues. Not much has changed as he still wakes up 3 or 4 times a night. So we are looking for different methods to help him and us out. He is doing great with each grandma. He is starting to crawl more raised up off the ground and is pulling himself up, standing up, and climbing all over us. He is doing really good. And likes to feed himself now. We figured this out after grabbing spoons full of food! Yay! Sarah was really sick Sunday night so I am running on empty. I traded time with Sarah being sick and Tegegn waking up in between so this has been the reason for the delay in blogging.

This is a priest at one of the churches. Ty carry a cross around and people will come up to him and kiss the cross and he touches them on the cheek with it. It is a form of respect for the priest and a way of blessing. This is at an Orthodox Church.

We had amazingly generous friends and family who donated money and supplies to take to the Orphanage. Here is a picture of the CWA staff in Ethiopia with the donations at the CWA office.

Here is a pic from one of the local markets. All the food is organic and has so much more flavor than our food. And it's a lot cheaper. We wanted to get some Papaya from Miejer last night. $3 here, $.60 there.

Lamb is the main meat in Ethiopia. As you can imagine, they are sold everywhere. Most of the time they are being herded through town. When you need one let them know and they will bring one to your house.

A pic from the weekend. Looks like he is ready to starting climbing.

A couple better nights sleeping.  Starting to get filled up during the day and taking very little milk at night, which is the direction the Dr. said we should be heading.  We had the opportunity to visit with our friends David and Abbe and there wonderful twins.  They are all doing great.  We had a nice dinner and a chance to talk for a while.  Then all the kids, especially Tegegn decided they were getting tired and started to get restless.  Zac and Laura are coming down today with all the cousins so we are really excited for all the kids to play together and be with everyone.

This is a catholic church service and during the service while they are giving communion they hold these beautiful umbrellas over the priests.  Also while they are walking outside.  This is a picture of the head of the catholic church in Ethiopia.

This is Tegegn watching Baby Einstein for the first time.  We knew he had big eyes but my goodness we didn't know they were that big!

This is driving through Merkato.  Merkato is the largest market in Ethiopia and VERY overwhelming.  We didn't get out as it is well known for thieves and pickpockets.  So we just drove through and it was quite an experience just driving through.

This is the helper making Injera for us.  She makes it about every four days.  She is actually making a special one with Berbere and butter that was very good.  I can't remember the name.

 

This is a mini bus kind of like a taxi.  These mini buses go up and down the same road stopping several times.  What they do is the guy hangs out the window yelling where the next stop is and you flag them down if that's where you are going.  

Some more pics

First off, thanks for all the notes, comments, calls, food, support, emails.  We can't tell you how much it means to us.  We have an amazing groups of friends and family!  Tegegn is doing awesome.  He is playing great with both grandma's each day and we think the transition into them baby sitting is going to be good.  Knock on wood right!?  The nights are still pretty rough as he is waking up two or three times.  We switched to Vitamin D milk so he wasn't real hungry at night just needed comfort and fell right back  asleep.  

Some have asked about the picture at the top and it is one I took walking through the Eucalyptus trees at Washa Mikel.  There were some Ox roaming around.  It was by far one of favorite places in Addis Ababa.

These are the ruins of the Washa Mikel church.  It was carved out of stone.  It was bombed by the Italians when they invaded Ethiopia.  Around a hundred priests were killed when it was struck.  It is on top of a mountain so it was considered an important position in the war.

Nothing like food on the forehead, tear in the right eye, and a filthy face.  You know we had to take a picture.

Along with sheep, donkeys , dogs, there are also ox who own the roads.  This is a major road and.....a guy is herding ox right down the middle.

This is outside Trinity Orthodox church.  It is one of the most popular and important sites in Ethiopia.  We drove through the gate and were greeted by a guard running towards us asking us why we didn't pay.  We were a little upset at the idea that they were making us pay to see a church, so we just drove through.  It is interesting, the sites are always triple the cost for foreigners.  We later heard from some other tourists we met that they take you inside for five minutes and it's over.  So we were glad we didn't pay to see it.  The outside is beautiful though.

This is Kaldi's Coffee.  The Starbuck's of Ethiopia.  Very good coffee and it is also attached to a mall where we did some shopping and where I went to the internet cafe.  This is about a block from our house and we walked to this area at least once a day.  

Another good day.  Both grandma's came over again and he did great.  Later in the evening we needed to do a little shopping so we took him on his first shopping trip.  He is so curious about everything he just looked around the whole time taking everything in.  Still getting used to the car seat as he has never been in one until now.  Does pretty good.  Cries a little putting him in but is fine afterwards.  We head to the pediatrician this morning for his first check up.  The only thing we are having a few problems with is the sleeping.  We are going to switch somethings around.  We think the crib is reminding him of his time at the orphanage so we are going to try some new things.  We knew this was going to be one of the hardest parts and have heard the same from many adopting families.

This is inside the Saviour Orthodox church in the Bole region of Addis Ababa.  This is the beginning of the Christmas service which begins at 8 pm and finishes at 3 am.  We didn't stay for the service but wanted to see what it was like.

Hanging outside on the porch.  We were able to get a few laughs out of him.  

This is at Maryam Church (St. Mary Church) atop Entoto Mountain.  Almost all of the older Orthodox churches look like this.  There are many throughout the city.

This was our tenth attempt to get a pic with him looking at the camera.  We were never able to. 

This is a pic of the home we stayed at.  In the pic is myself, Teddy, and the helper Genet.

Slowly catching up on sleep

Good news, Tegegn woke up yesterday using his wrist like nothing ever happened.  He was crawling around and climbing on everything like he was before.  We already had a doctor's appointment scheduled for him for tomorrow so we decided to wait and have them look at it then.  It was amazing, the first night of sleep, we all went to bed around 8:30 and he woke up at the same exact times that he did in Ethiopia but on our time.  We were a little jealous.  Because Sarah and I both woke up at 4 am and starving.  We had both grandma's hang out with us most of the day yesterday to start to get aquatinted and he did great.  Grandma Gerry even brought her new puppy over and he was making some interesting noises.  We think that he was getting a little jealous when we pet the dog because he was fine when he pet it on his own.  And ofcourse Grandma Peg was making him laugh more than ever.  We had a great time being with family.  We have really been surprised at how out going he is around new people.  He is still very clinging to us but has no problem showing off, and warming up to others.  

I know several of our friends have court dates coming up and some are getting ready to travel so I thought it might be helpful to see what the airport looks like.  Get ready to scan your luggage and carry on luggage 100 times on your way over.  All international airports we went through scanned our carry on every time we boarded a new plane.  Best to be safe I guess.

Some of the food we had from left to right, Macaroni, vegetables, Shera Watt (red) Watt is the sauce and the first word is what you put in the sauce Shera is kind of like lentils, Barley, Fish, and Sarah's favorite Sambosa which is kind of like an egg roll with different things in it such as lentils, meat.

A couple teeth coming in

There are a lot of new building going up in Addis Ababa and this is one thing that continued to blow us away.  They use wood posts for scaffolding and as you can kind of tell it's not real straight.  

This was one of the first nights, we were rolling because he was sleeping on his arms.  For some reason he loves to sleep on top of his arms.

A few pics

I think they got everything.

Atop Washa Mikel overlooking the city

With our host family buying traditional dress for the three of us at the Entoto Market

One of our favorite pics, we were getting ready and we look over and he is folded in half fast asleep on top of bunny

Meeting for the first time, we don't know what happened to that little boy who didn't say a word and had a blank stare the whole day.