to blog?

you need internet. We currently do not have that in our home. So I will be back, when this great nation of ours can figure out how to get internet to our home without us paying hundreds of dollars a month.

Or until I spend some QT at my sister's house and can steal from her wifi.

Mehaber bound

The kids and I (Zach's too busy during the summer to come with on our many excursions) packed up Thursday morning for the 6 hour drive to Minnesota. Our main reasoning for this trip is the Ethiopian Mehaber that will be later today. But as an added perk we get to stay/hang out with Tariku's best friend from the orphanage (Teshome) as well as many other awesome people we've met throughout this adoption journey. Last night as we were hanging with Cathy's family, Tony's family and, of course, Teshome's family. I was reminded again how blessed I have been by this whole adoption experience. Obviously I've gotten 3 amazing babes to pour love into, but I also got so many things I wasn't expecting. Finding other women/families who love me, encourage me, challenge me and help me has been one of the purest blessings of my life. The house is asleep but for me. I've made myself a few cups of coffee (they are not coffee drinkers in this house, the horror!) and am catching up on some social media. I'm thinking about the people I get to meet/see today and the moments we'll get to celebrate the culture of Ethiopia and I'm positively beside myself with anticipation. My next post, I'm sure, will feature an obscene amount of pictures but until then I'm off to read a bit before the house awakes. Love, T

New Chapter

So I mentioned in this post that we had a secret to share.

Sarah thought maybe it was my sister getting engaged, which is super exciting and I'll write on that later, but not it.

The news is that in a few weeks we will officially be licensed foster parents.

Yikes. I almost threw up just typing that.

To back up:

After we first adopted Tariku, Zach and I started talking about how foster care will happen for us one day. We always kind of thought we'd start it when the kids were older and then we'd be able to do some older children fostering.

But after about a year home with Tomas and Binyam we both realized we still had some room in our hearts for more children. So we thought we'd go to a foster care informational meeting and see what they had to say.

We left feeling like it was definitely doable and that now sounded like a good time. They said at the meeting that we'd start the 10 week classes in a few months and then go from there.

The next day we got a phone call, "Hey we saw on your sheet that you've adopted before so we were hoping you would start classes tomorrow."

The classes were every Tuesday for 3 hours each night, for 10 weeks straight. We needed babysitters and I needed a sub for one of my classes. Obviously without hesitation I responded

Sure!

And as is with most things like this, it ended up working itself out. Only one night did we have to leave early because Tariku fell off his skateboard and wanted to see a doctor (he was fine). Everything else fell into place.

The classes were long and sometimes really painfully boring. Because we had done so much education before our adoptions we knew a lot about what they were discussing.

We were disappointed to find they didn't do any attachment talk and very little education on privacy.

We were pleased to learn more about the birth family relationship and how it pertains to the foster family.

So in the end we will be dually licensed as foster and adoptive parents for a child 0-5yrs old. Any gender. If we are fostering a child who has parental rights terminated and they are a good fit for our family we will choose to proceed with an adoption. If not, we will do our best to love 'em while we got 'em.

If we get a placement and we can see that any of our kids are struggling in the least bit we will take time off from fostering and refocus as a family. With all things, our family is our priority and we are entering this new chapter with that in mind.

Of course I'm nervous and excited and want to throw up a little bit. Undoubtedly the thing I'm most nervous about is falling in love with a child/ren and then having to release them. After the classes, though, my mind has shifted and I feel better about that.

Because the thing of it is I really do believe Zach and I are good parents. I think God gives us all these places where our strengths can meet some of the world's greatest needs and this happens to be it for us. Parenting. We make mistakes, of course we do, but I think in some respects this is the thing I'm best at.

And so we go forward. Scared, excited, nervous, anxious, all of that. But we have each other, and our kids who are more excited than we are and we have a God who we really do believe is stringing this all together.

So for better or worse.

Onward.

where we've been

Binyam got fitted for a brand new foot brace. His left foot is as perfect as it's going to get, but the right one still has a kidney bean shape. Because of that his foot is often sore at the end of the day. The orthaped doc thought this brace should help the situation until his next surgery (when he's done growing, so we have awhile). 

Family picture. Come on, love them so much.

Until last year my parents owned a house on a lake. It was awesome. It's been a little weird not having that to go to this summer but a few weeks ago they took the boat out on to another lake. Dailah hit her stride immediately.

Here's a little factoid about me, I was originally born in a town called Pleasantville. Seriously. And they have an amazing pizza place. Hadn't been for many years but I was able to take my kids there a few weeks back and it was just so cool. Something about those moments of full circle that I love.

Love going to my parents' house. Because they are so good about doting on my kids that I get to put my feet up and just revel in their joy without thinking about how many loads of laundry I'll have to do when they're done.

The kids and I headed to my parents house for a week of camps. The 4 boys had wrestling camp (which Trysten and Tariku loved, the other two felt "eh" about it).

That same week we also took the kids to an old school ice cream shoppe. Felt like we were going back 50 years (in a good way). Delicious soft serve ice cream. Tomas hates ice cream so he got a slushie instead which insisted was the best ever.

The same week of wrestling camp was art camp. These 4 got to participate in that. It was really, really cool.

Dailah made this self portrait.

Tomas's (if you look closely you'll see he made himself into a hot air balloon with his head being the balloon. Love it.

Trysten chose to make a comic strip instead. It's pretty rad.

And because Trysten chose it, so did Tariku. Another rad comic strip.

We got to dog sit one of my friends' dogs. It was a small dog. We are used to only big dogs. She was really cute, especially when we decided to put her in a costume.

Lots of baseball games. Abe came with us to the last one, which he loved. (Pic by Dailah)

The kids' team. They didn't have a real winning season but they learned a lot and had such good kids/coaches. Couldn't ask for anything more.

The boys with 2 of their coaches (dad and grandpa).

While the kids were at camp (more on that later) I got to have long lunches with friends. I am so, so blessed by these relationships.

The hubby of my friend Chrissy got promoted to Lt that week so we went to a party store and decorated the crap out of their house. Totally fun.

 Oh, did I leave a cliffhanger last time? Ok, I promise next blog. :)

y'all

life is good.

My sister said to me the other day, "So...you just gonna blog once a month now or what?"

It's never my intention, obviously, I love this little space. Where I get to write about whatever I want and connect in whatever small way I do with all of you.

But life has been good. It's been busy. Not in the way that we're 400 places in a day or constantly on the move but in the, "I haven't taken a hike and caught helpless frogs for a couple hours, let's go do that" kind of way.

Which is definitely my favorite kind of way to be "busy".

The 3 bigs are currently playing Monopoly, Dailah and Bean are playing Barbies and cars respectively and I'm watching with a quiet grin. Thinking about how much I wanted to share all this with someone, with you.

I was thinking today on the way back home from Des Moines about all of the growth people see in their lifetime. I was comparing myself 10 years ago, 5 years ago, even 2 years ago to myself now and I couldn't believe how different I am now. I remembered how I thought I knew everything then, that I had it figured out and how now I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface of all I want to know. I have days where I don't want to go to bed because I want to stay up learning, and living and loving. Are there enough moments in the day for all of that? Sometimes it feels like there most definitely aren't.

I was thinking about how I have some amazing friends in my life. I used to be one who just wanted the most amount of friends. Not so I could look around and say, "Wow, look at how awesome I am with all of these friends" but rather so that I could tell each one a little something but never have just 1 that knew everything about me. It felt safer that way. But I do now. I have friends who know everything about me and holy sh*t they still love me, that's a pretty amazing. I'm sure you all figured this out before me, but life is much fuller when you have these kinds of relationships.

Of all my sweet babies Tariku still struggles the most. More on this later but I think constantly about him and how much I wish things were different for him. That I wish brokenness and poverty and suffering weren't part of the picture for anyone in the world.

I'm reading a book called, "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, How we can learn to fulfill our potential". Long title, interesting read so far. Now, I don't care much about "success" or not the general definition we Americans usually refer to it by but this book interests me a lot because it talks about a fixed mindset compared to a growth mindset. It's got me thinking about what we tell ourselves. The lies and truths about who we are, who we think we are and who we talk ourselves into being. We start young, if my kids are any indication, and various people throughout our lives can affect the way we see all of that. It's made me even more aware of the power of words, how a subtle difference between "wow, you're really good at that!" or "my goodness, you worked really hard at that!" can change the way we view success. Good stuff. Still have some unpacking to do with that.

My hair: have some really good thoughts on my hair. It's all feminist rant right now so I'll save that for when I have a slightly clearer head. ;)

Next weekend we are Mehaber bound. Very excited to see some good friends and sad to hear some aren't able to make it. Let me know if you'll be there and we'll figure out a way to meet!

Exciting news coming. More on that later too. :)

iPhone Photo Dump

I miss blogging, I do. But we are still caught up in the excitement of spending as much time together as we can possibly can (and sometimes more than we can possibly want!) so for now you get only pictures. 

Zach has some really awesome style. His fashion sense has always far surpassed mine, which I appreciate most of the time (one recent shopping incident, however, found me trying on a pair of neon orange leggings and oversized equally neon tank top. Fail) but especially when he buys sunglasses...in the women's department. Because we get to share. 

My sister and her boyfriend recently brought home this ridiculously cute puppy, Tucker. My niece Adley Sue loves him. I love them both too much. My bro and sis-in-law are moving my niece back to Des Moines soon. I am crying right now just thinking about it. No idea what I'll do when I can't stop by all the time to see her.

Mother's day was awesome. My kids are amazing, my husband spoils me. I am so, so lucky to be their mom.

A few days before school ended I sprung Trysten out early and took him to The Hunger Games. He had finished the book and was able to tell me all about it and even got a connection between THG and war, etc. Loved every second of that.

This summer I've started doing yoga with the kids. I couldn't believe how they all just went right into it without goofing around or giggling or farting for a full 45 minutes. The last 10 minutes of meditation they were all still and silent. They beg me for it everyday. Love that.

Last day of preschool, Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade. Can't believe it myself.

We started our garden later than last year. Doesn't matter, I'm still so excited about all of the fresh produce that will be ours shortly.

My brother is now far enough along in his chiropractic studies to adjust the family. Kind of cool to see him work it all out. Pretty surreal as well.

Baseball. Story of our summer. Boys playing LOTS but also we've gotten to go to our beautiful Single A? stadium a few times as well. Can you believe how beautiful that view is from the stadium?

Went to a Chinese restaurant and the kids got these fortunes. It is eery how well it describes them (in order of age). Crazeballs.

At a baseball game Dailah asked to snuggle up to take a nap. Despite how much it freaks me out that she's so big, I can't get enough of how much I love this when my kids do this.

He's going to Kindergarten. This was his round up. I can't talk about it.

Zach was a baseball pitcher. A good one. Played in college and all that. I got to see him pitch a few times and was nervous for him then. But nothing compares to when my sons pitch. Trysten really loves pitching, I love/hate watching him. Regardless of how good he is, the kid looks the part.

And then Tariku. So hard to watch. He's so competitive that if he throws a ball his whole body slumps. Ay yi yi. Regardless, his little booty and his afro make him the coolest looking kid on the field.

She borrowed my tank top, tied it in the back and made herself a dress. She gets that from her dad, as mentioned previously.

This would be Dailah and Binyam's lives lately. Let's watch baseball, again and again and again. They never complain mostly because they get slushies.

She loves chips. It is cute. The end.

I promise, more words later.

Summer break

ya'll summer is here. And I love it.

I get to wake up leisurely and then shuffle to Dailah's room where, still groggy from waking up, she opens her arms and beckons me to snuggle. Minutes spent breathing in her wonderfulness and talking about what she's looking forward to that day. Leave her to dress herself and shuffle downstairs.

The boys wake up before the girl so as I come down the stairs I give a quick, "Good morning, Klipschs!" and hear 8 tiny feet running to swarm me with hugs. They tell me of their dreams and then run off to start their chores.

I make coffee and begin the breakfast buffet.

Minutes later I hear daddy and daughter coming down the stairs together. I pour my love his coffee and set the table for my babes.

We eat together sometimes, or I postpone my morning breakfast to eat with the man I love more than anyone else.

Kids brush teeth and run to play outside, Zach and I shuffle to the couches to enjoy another cup of coffee together.

It's all so wonderful, so relaxed. I know the kids sometimes miss their friends from school but for me, I hit summer and never look back. It's everything to me having us all together for unrushed time in the morning (and sometimes all day).

So if you need me I'll be here, soaking in every minute, thankful I have them with these people in this spot.

Dancing Queen

A few weekends ago Dailah had her dance recital. She'd been super excited (and nervous) about it for a month leading up to it always asking when it was. It (and by that I mean "she") did not disappoint.

It's no secret that Dailah holds a special place in all our hearts as the only girl in the family. The brothers dote on her, make wonderful exclamations when she steps out in a new outfit, "You are beautiful!" As for Zach and myself, we admit to shamelessly doting as well. It's hard not to when some days she's the only one that smells good and hasn't tried tackling me all day. 

So when we got a few minutes to celebrate her very girl-ness, we jumped at the chance. She was beautiful, and precious and perfect. 

I mean, seriously.

She had so many people come to support her we took up 2 rows. Her village is rather amazing. Here with the Dawson contingency. 

Just 'cuz I can't help it.

With her flowers we bought her. But would you be able to help yourself?

My babes in all their long haired glory.

With my niece Adley who LOVED the whole show, pretty remarkable for a 1 1/2-year-old!

Jealous of her, don't mind saying it.

Klipsch contingency (with Aunt Kait just home from Japan!)

Can you feel all of the doting? Yeah.

I'm here

I promise, we are here. We are doing well, really well. School is out for summer. My mama love is so excited to hang with my little beloveds all day all summer long. Also excited to hang with this oft neglected blog a little more. Until then I give you this picture. Because I love their untied shoes and and their goofy grins and their unbridled goodness.

Oh. And holy crap how did they get so old?

On healing

Let me tell you a little something about our Tariku. He is smart, really smart. Top of his class, TAG, reading books past his age level-smart. He is sweet. Let me carry 40 bags so you don't have to carry any, let me take my sister to the bathroom, let me make life easier for you-sweet. He is gorgeous. Did you see that kid in the catalog? Tariku is way cuter-gorgeous. He is a good friend, a great brother and a terrific son.

And he has the worst self esteem of anyone I have ever known. He has virtually no memories of Ethiopia anymore and yet, deep inside him the only thing that remains is the idea that he's not loved. That he's not lovable. That he. wasn't. wanted.

That's it. That's the extent of what he brought with him for the most part.

This shows itself in a myriad of ways. Instead of telling us the truth about a situation he will opt instead for what he thinks we want to hear. When he gets praised he shifts his eyes and changes the subject or gets very anxious. Things like that.

Then there is, of course, the making decisions that don't really make any sense. Zach and I both know at least part of the time he's doing them (perhaps subconsciously) to prove that he's unlovable and unworthy of our love. We know Tariku wants to test how real and true our love is, where our line is. No matter how many times we tell him there is literally nothing on Earth he could do to make us stop loving him or stop us from being his parents he can't take that in. He can't allow that to penetrate his heart's center.

A week ago when we were trying to talk to Tariku about a decision he made at school he was shutting down. He does this virtually any time we try talking to him about reasons for his behavior (truthfully, it's so rare that it doesn't come up often). Zach, out of nowhere, asks him if he'd like to write down his feelings instead of talk to us about them.

And friends, the things that came pouring out of him made me weep. 3 pages of things. Things that were buried deep-4 years deep. Things like,

"When you get mad at me I feel like I'm not part of the family."

"I don't feel good." (as in "I don't feel like I'm a good person")

Things like that. Things he's never told us, never even hinted at.

Deep things, powerful things, touching things. Wise and old things. Hurt and trauma. Loss.

It was all there. Of course we knew it was there before but we had never heard him say it, we only saw how he was choosing to act it out.

Loss, hurt, trauma in a 7-year-old? That acting out can alienate you, it can hinder the relationship and can cause resentment and frustration and anger (from all sides), believe me, I know.

This last year, though, it's been a huge year for us. These last weeks since he started writing in his journal? Life. changing.

He still gets in trouble from time to time. He still makes poor (7-year-old) decisions.

But we know now. We know he knows that we want to hear all of that. That maybe, in fact, we knew all of that before. And that we loved him anyway.

That we knew his worst and we loved him still, perhaps even more.

That's what we all want, right? People to know our ugly, our worst, our shame and to love us anyway?

Our kids from broken places need that from us. And we will fall, we will fail. We will have days when we yell and when we wish this wasn't our life right now. That will happen because we are human.

But every day is a new day. Every moment is a new moment. We get new chances constantly.

And even when it feels like they are winning, when they have frustrated us so much we don't particularly like them in that moment we will still show up. Our love will show up. And it. will. win.

That's what I learned these last few weeks. Shame and loss and all of that, it doesn't hold any weight when compared to how much I love Tariku.

One day Tariku is going to see himself the way I see him, the way God sees him. That day is not today and it's not tomorrow but we are getting there. And today? Today I'm just so thankful for that.

ADVENTUREbalm!

We interrupt this regularly scheduled program where I tell you all of my shortcomings as a mom to do something really exciting.

WE ARE SELLING LIP BALM!!! All natural, organic lip balm. The best part? Your money goes directly to one of my favorite organizations of all time, The Adventure Project, to fund clean water solutions.

A few months ago I had coffee with my sis-in-law, Leslie and her friend (my new friend, woot!) Jennie to talk about what we could do to support TAP. Leslie had just written an article about making your own lip balm and it was there that the idea was born.

So here's the deal. If you buy your tin(s) today you can help fully fund TAP's program (read more at Jody's blog here). Time is certainly of the essence. I want you to buy them for your moms, your sisters, your aunties. EVERYONE. If you're like me and know of some of your women friends going through some stuff right now this would be the perfect, "I love you, I'm thinking of you constantly and please know I wish I could be there for you" gift.

This is the website Leslie set up to tell you more about ADVENTUREbalm.

So go here and buy 1 tin for $7 or 3 for $15. Leave me a comment or email me your address and I will send them. If you're local I will hand deliver (oh yes I will!)

All directions are on this website.

Here's what I know. I screwed up last night as a mom. I forgot to be the tooth fairy, I put the kids down early so I could start Desperate Housewives, etc. Despite all of that, I'm using this lip balm as a way to do something today to redeem myself.

Because grace isn't always big gestures. Sometimes grace comes in the form of lip balm.

 

My (early) birthday weekend

My birthday is in June. Every year just before my birthday Zach's schedule starts getting crazy. Pulling 15 hour days and such. So we never really get to do anything big for it because Zach typically can't leave camp and then there's that detail about having 5 kids home from school for the summer.

So this year my birthday is a bigger one (30, woot!) and Zach was determined to do it right. He asked what I wanted and I basically wanted 2 things: 1) friends/family around me hanging out and 2) not to plan a damn thing.

My really ridiculously wonderful husband decided on Galena, Illinois. He sent out an email to some friends and family asking who could get a babysitter for the weekend to come hang with us. Zach rented a 5 bedroom home for Friday and Saturday nights. It boasted things like a bar, hot tub and couches made for cuddling. Oh, and a full kitchen because I expected my guests to bring their favorite dishes (I know, I'm kind of high maintenance at 30, as it turns out).

If I learned one thing this weekend it's this: I am so very blessed. I cried many times and they were happy tears, grateful tears, bless-ed tears. I am a lucky lady.

There was dining at delicious Italian restaurants where they sat us in what appeared to be a wine cellar which, if you've been following this blog long enough, knows that is both the best and worst ideas for a lady like me. Yum.

There was Saturday morning golfing for the men and shopping for the women.

There were mixed drinks made (this one would be white sangria by my beloved bestie, Chrissy. Doesn't it look delicious?) and overflowing hot tubs.

I enjoyed taking pictures (per usual). This one for my sister and her boyfriend...lest they need some pictures for their wedding album one day. Cough. Please God. Cough.

And this one for my brother and sister-in-law who will be celebrating 2 years of wedded bliss in a few weeks.

There was cooking (my favorite guacamole of all time by Mr. Bruce himself).

There was snuggling with the ladies who make up my Red Tent. This picture makes me cry. Damn I love those ladies so much. (Missing Chrissy :( ).

There were back rubs

And gorgeous views as we sipped our coffees and/or wine.

There was bonding of brothers

and fires built.

There was a protective sister asking sister's boyfriend what his intentions are and then trying to make him understand how thankful we are that he's made our sister so happy. Yes, there was lots of that.

There was some pretending that Ashley "Hot Pocket" was a Berger kid.

And also some begging that the smallest woman would sit on my lap to make me feel like a giant on my birthday weekend.

There was dancing, of course there was. (With a cup of "8:30 Perker" also known as coffee, Bailey's and raspberry vodka. Pin it people, you're welcome).

There were gifts from Chrissy. Mine is the palest dead looking arm the orange one that says, "Plant Peace". I love it.

There was lots of sibling bonding. My first tears of the weekend came Friday morning when I sent off a simple text of "Woooooot" to those coming Friday night. My brother, who is typically short on words, replied, "Oh ya". My sister, also short on words, "woot". They were my first best friends. They are still a few of the biggest blessings of my life. I am so, so thankful for the beautiful relationships I now enjoy with both of them (and their significant others). We may all be very different but I would die for these people, I really would

Sibling bonding covered my brother-in-law too (obviously). He is just plain awesomesauce. Particularly when he's laying in the grass commenting on the beauty of the stars or the song of the birds. Also when he...

makes weird faces in pictures. My brother made me a cake. It didn't matter if it was from a box, my little brother made me a cake. I ate the shit out of that boxed cake and could definitely feel the love there.

There were some hangovers (as there usually is when celebrating one's 30th birthday) and subsequent wearing-of-women's-glasses by a typically reserved man.

And perhaps most of all there was a woman, who is about to turn 30, thankful for a man who loves her enough to set up spreadsheets and send them to her friends. Who organized the weekend of a lifetime. There was a woman who looked at her husband and knew that the last 10 years with him have been the best of her life but the next 70 are sure to be even better.

There was love. There was laughter. There were memories created and hugs shared. There was bliss.