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My Shameless Request for Your Vote
My photo of Lucy at the beach was recently selected as a finalist in a photo contest. Please help us out by voting for us. It’s not my best photo, and not even the best one that I submitted, but Lucy...
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One Year Ago Today
One year ago today, we met our kids. Always smiling. Our first meeting…he kissed my hand. I went back and reread my blog post from that day. Some of our first impressions were spot on, like how Ayub...
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The Next Debate
Photo by MBK (Marjie) This morning, I was conflicted as I dropped my children off at school. On one hand, I was devastated for the parents who won’t be dropping their kids off today. My heart aches...
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Why I Love Santa Claus
I’ve read a lot over the past few months, and I’ve sat by silently. I’ve read a lot of blog posts about people “don’t do Santa” for one reason or another. Maybe it’s because they want to focus on the...
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Think Before You…
There is a graphic floating around facebook right now encouraging people to “THINK BEFORE YOU DONATE.” It list several charities and why you should not donate to them and then lists several charities...
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Puzzling
Here’s a fun one. For Valentine’s Day, my mom sent the kids a puzzle. She had opened it and sorted the pieces into individual bags. In addition, there was a bag for me, with no puzzle pieces, but a...
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And the winner is…
The winner of the hair care product giveaway, as drawn by Lucy herself: The Winner Is… from Kristin W on Vimeo. Congrats! Hope you find something that really works for you.
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What I Know About Runners
Some of you may remember my brief running career. While waiting for our kids to come home, I trained for and ran a half marathon with my husband. He’s the runner in our family and has done several...
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I’m Back – Summer Recap with LOTS of Photos
Well, I didn’t mean to take a hiatus from the blog for the summer, but it turned out that when pinched for time, the blog was the first to go. So, in an effort to prove why I neglected the blog over...
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Valerie Browning in Afar
This video is from the Afar region of Ethiopia, where Ayub and Lucy were born, although they were not a part of a nomadic tribe. This shows some of the severe conditions of their people. Truly amazing.
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Sweetness
Sometimes, in all the madness that surrounds life with Ayub, I forget what a sweet, compassionate kid he is. Today is hat day at school. Kids are allowed to wear a hat if they bring $1 for cancer...
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Another Birthday
And then he was seven. It’s hard to remember back to when Ayub was just a little four year old wearing mis-matched pajamas and pink Crocs and staring at us from a faraway referral picture. I remember...
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The Hair
As a white woman with super-stright, incredibly fine hair, I was worried. I mean, really worried. Before our referral, I secretly hoped for two boys, so I could just keep both their heads shaved and...
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Baby No More
When we were waiting for a referral, I didn’t really expect that we’d get a baby under a year old. In fact, the week before our referral, we had a conversation with our case manager about whether we...
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Back-to-School Edition
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about life. And I realized recently that I really miss it. I write a post in my head every day, it just doesn’t always make it to the web. But, I wanted to catch...
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My Thoughts on Ferguson
This is a hard post to write. Mainly because I know lots of you will disagree with me. But, last night my Facebook feed blew up with outrage that Darren Wilson wasn’t going to be charged with murder. I...
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Annual Report
I just mailed my annual post-placement report to Ethiopia. I know that there are many adoptive parents who have stopped doing these. And I understand why. No one ever reads them anyway. Hardly any kids...
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Eight is Great
And another year has clicked by. Ayub turned eight today. At eight, Ayub is amazing. He is the kid who definitely can make my emotions swing the farthest in both directions. I feel sometimes like I...
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My High School Kid
So a few days ago (maybe it was longer), I was taking Sam for his first day of Kindergarten. I was so proud of myself. I didn’t cry like some of the other sniveling moms who just couldn’t let their...
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Eight is Great
And another year has clicked by. Ayub turned eight today. At eight, Ayub is amazing. He is the kid who definitely can make my emotions swing the farthest in both directions. I feel sometimes like I...
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