We LOVE Smoothies!

I made a smoothie in order to keep the girls from whining, crying, fussing anymore (I was about to have a break down). It worked. They drank the smoothie for the next 20 minutes, then dad came home and rescued me!

Reading

Two kids that love to read...

Taking a Walk

We are desperate to get out of the house these days, and I'm just plain tired of going to Target. I decided to take a walk the other day (when it was 40 degrees), we just couldn't take it any longer. I put some tiny crocs on Ainsley (there are no decent shoes her size with tough soles) and just let her and Ellie go free in our culdesac. Ainsley was very thrilled she could walk all by herself on the road, she had the biggest smile on her face. Oh the little things...

I definitely should have bundled them up some more, we went down the street and were out a tad bit longer than we should have been. Ellie doesn't mind the cold, but Ainsley definitely does NOT like it. She cried and cried until we got her little hands warmed up (neither one would wear gloves, they just threw them off. at least I was able to get them to wear hats!).

Monkeys Jumping

Ainsley Singing

Ainsley started singing twinkle twinkle one night with me, and then we caught her singing with the music video we were playing. I love it! She now will try to sing even without music, it is such music to my ears.

Bible Verses

Ellie has done great memorizing her bible verses at church each month (for the past 8 months). The only one she has struggled with was last month's verse, John 3:16, it's a little long. I recorded her (although she's a little distracted by the garbage truck) citing her verses, I'm so proud of her!

Ellie Saying Bible Verses from Laura Hanlon on Vimeo.

Verses:
"Let the children come to me." Luke 18:16
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son." John 3:16
"My God will meet all our needs." Philippians 4:19
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid." Deuteronomy 31:6
"Nothing can seperate from God's love." Romans 8:38
"God is with me wherever I go." Joshua 1:9
"Do what is right in the eyes of the Lord." Deuteronomy 12:28
"Be kind and loving to each other." Ephesians 4:32

Another Onesie Craft

This time I made some for a friend who just had twins!

Ellie is Potty Trained!

It has officially been over a week with zero poo poo accidents! If you remember from before, Ellie was almost potty trained at 2 but she refused to poo in the potty. After a month of washing out dirty panties, I decided to stick her back in diapers and wait until she was ready.

Well, at the beginning of December she started wanting to go poo poo on the potty. She was asking to go and would sit forever waiting... she actually did go a few times out of the 100 times she tried. I didn't want to mess with it over the holidays, so I waited until the beginning of January (last week). She has really loved panties, so I posed the question if she wanted to wear panties last Tuesday. She enthusiastically said yes, so I informed her that we do not go poo in panties and that if she did there would be consequences. I told her she can poo in diapers or in the potty, but we would like her to poo in the potty. She agreed and has been doing great since!

Another big motivator for Ellie was her best friend, Addison, who has been potty trained for well over 6 months now. At church, Ellie and Addison were no longer in the same class because Addison was potty trained. We have been trying to get Ellie to move up, but it just never worked. We gave up "manipulating" her, and knew one day she will be ready. Last Tuesday (the start date), after she had gone poo poo in the potty, she asked if she could go up to Addison's class. She was so cute, and was very proud of herself. I informed her that she can't go up to Addison's class UNLESS she poo poos in the potty EVERY time. I explained this multiple ways so she understood. Well, I'm not sure if it was the panties or Addison, but Ellie has been doing great!

Ellie does have a few wet accidents, but I know this is harder because of being in diapers for so long. She has only had a handful of wet accidents, and all have been understandable. It's definitely hard on my part to remember to ask her, but she does GREAT! I rarely ever ask her to go, she does it all herself! She runs to the potty when she needs to go (at home) or asks me when we're out. She can pull her pants and panties down by herself, and also put them all back on by herself! The only thing I have to do is help her wash her hands and occasionally wipe. This has been super easy, it's definitely worth waiting until they are ready! So proud of my little girl!!

Ice Storm

Not a very good picture, but it was beautiful seeing the ice shine on everything. However, I do not like ice! There's just nothing good that comes from it, you can go out in it and you can't go anywhere in it. Luckily we still were able to get out because our roads cleared up pretty fast, but YUCKY! I wish it was snow...

Fairies

Ellie and Ainsley have absolutely loved playing as pretend fairies. We have fairy wings, tutus, and a wand which they take turns wearing/holding. Zach will fly them around and they go CRAZY over this. Both of them cry when it's their turn to take off the wings. It has been a lot of fun to watch, Zach even enjoys playing (although I restricted him from wearing the wings).

Here is a video of one night while we were playing, Ainsley is running down the hall in her wings:



Ellie is wishing for candy because one night I pretended to be the fairy godmother who gave wishes. Ellie wished for candy and her wish came true.

Ellie Learns to Ride

Ellie finally has figured out how to ride her tricycle! It has been a long time coming, but she just never had the motivation to do it before. I think since we never play outside anymore, she figured the only way to convince be to bear the cold would be to ride her tricycle. It sure worked. I'm so excited she can finally do it, and I think she is too, she definitely enjoys it!

Pretty Flowers

Zach bought me some beautiful tulips! I loved them so much and little miss Ellie did too. She just kept wanting to pick those petals right off. I enjoyed them while they lasted! Here's a glimpse before the got completely destroyed:

I had five flowers. Here only 2.5 remain with their petals.

Adoption Prayer

As I searched the internet, reading articles on Ethiopian adoption, I was struck by what I found. I saw many articles that told of children being adopted that had families who could care for them in Ethiopia. I saw stories of children talking about their parents getting paid to give them up for adoption, of adoption agency workers going into villages asking parents to give their children up for adoption. This brings tears to my eyes. As international adoption has become much more common, it brings in a lot of money to both the Ethiopian government and also international adoption agencies. This leads me to pray, to pray that our child will in fact be an orphan. I pray that our child will not be torn away from his family for money. I pray that my child will be a child who is in NEED of a family, he has no one to care for him, no one to kiss him or hold him, no one to pick him up when he cries, no one to teach him about Jesus, love, hurt, pain.

As we are waiting for the day to bring home our little boy from Ethiopia, I can't forget the tragedy that is happening. Our child, who is either a newborn or has not even been born yet, will become an orphan very soon. He will be either losing one or more of his parents, or his parents will abandon him. As I get excited to see his face someday, I am saddened to think of how he won't get the chance to be with his birth parents. I would never wish adoption on a child, but the reality is that children become orphans. We have chosen to adopt NOT because we want a child to have a "better life" or to be popular and have an international child in our home. We have chosen to adopt because we want to love on a child who does not have someone to love him, we want to provide for a child because he has no one to provide for him.

My prayer would be that there would be no more children to adopt, but this is a fallen world. There is a great number of orphans in Africa, and my prayer is that each of them will find a home. I would prefer each child in Ethiopia to have a home in Ethiopia, and when this can't happen is when people like us want to step in. I pray that the government, judges, MOWA, adoption agencies, and all adoption workers will put the children first. They will follow all laws and do the best that they can to make the best decision for these children. I open my home to the orphan, the one who needs a mommy and daddy, the one who needs love and provision, the one who needs a home.

Adoption Update!

We are almost done with the dossier and will be very soon on the WAITLIST! We are finishing gathering up our references and then bright and early tomorrow morning we will have our CIS fingerprint appointment. It can take from 1-4 weeks to be approved by the CIS, which will be the final document to put into our dossier. Once we have completed our dossier, we will get them authenticated at the NC Secretary of State, then send it to Gladney for them to send to get final aunthenication by the US SOS and Ethiopian Embassy. When it reaches Gladney hands before the final authentication is when we will go on the waitlist. We are so excited to have it almost done! I will enjoy waiting around WITHOUT any stress of paperwork.

I would love to meet our son this year, to hold him and kiss him. However as I say this, I also know what comes with it, a child becoming an orphan. As I eagerly wait, I also secretly pray that maybe there will be no children to adopt. I somewhat hope that it will take a long time, but not because of jumping over all the barriers, but because there will be less orphans. Although this would be a dream come true, I know the great number of orphans in Ethiopia and I pray more realistically that each one of them will find a loving home this year. We wait patiently until the day we can open our home.

2011

Reflecting over the past years in the Hanlon family:
2007- Graduated college, married to become the Hanlon family, then soon after became pregnant with our precious Ellie
2008- welcomed Ellie into our little family, lost brother/uncle Justin (Zach's brother)
2009- became pregnant with sweet Ainsley, celebrated Ellie's 1st birthday, welcomed Ainsley into our growing family
2010- celebrated Ellie's 2nd birthday, celebrated Zach and I's 25th birthday, lost mother/grandma Wytonia (Zach's mom), decided to adopt and began adoption process, celebrated Ainsley's 1st birthday

We have had a lot happen, both good and bad, over the bast 4 years. We can definitely still say that our God is good, faithful, and continues to bless us. Praise HIS name for all that he's done in our lives. We look forward to this new year, we know that it's not going to be a quiet one. We will hopefully be definitely meeting our son. I can't even type those words without getting teary eyed and extremely excited at the same time. Here we come 2011!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Bringing in the new year was a little different this year. We decided to go to Marbles Kid Museum and celebrate it at noon instead of midnight. Ellie and Ainsley had a blast (we forgot our camera of course). They played, made hats, shakers, crafts, and played some more. We counted down, then jumped up and down as confetti was thrown, balls dropped, and the New Year song played. It was a lot of fun!