Those Pesky Leprechauns and Mother Goose

Every year on the night before St. Patrick's Day, the kids make and set out traps in the hope of catching a leprechaun and forcing him to tell them where the pot of gold is...... As you can imagine, their attempts are always in vain because those pesky leprechauns are just too fast and tricky. They do, however, usually leave some treats for the kids efforts. This year the leprechaun escaped through our air vents..... Better luck next year kiddos!!

Connor and Spencer checking to see if they caught a leprechaun....
Graycen, too.

The boys following the footprints left by the leprechaun to the air vent....

On another note, the boys had a fun party at preschool celebrating Mother Goose rhymes and everyone had to dress up as their favorite Mother Goose character. Here are the kiddos with their teacher. By the way, Graycen was not invited to the party, but she insisted on dressing up for the ride to school.

In case you're a little rusty with your Mother Goose rhymes, here are Old King Cole, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Little Bo Peep.......

(Note...my aunt actually made this dress for me when I was Graycen's age)

Intentions....

I had fully intended on thoroughly updating the blog tonight with pictures.....however, it's almost 10 o'clock and I have other things to do even though I really just want to go to bed. Honest, blog update coming soon (if anybody is still reading this one). Until then.....

Graycen wearing her favorite shirt.... she does love puppy dogs!

Please Consider........

For those of you who don't know, there are some disheartening things happening in Ethiopia this week regarding intercountry adoption. The government department responsible for approving adoptions and making recommendations for court hearings has decreased their processing from 50 cases a day to only 5 cases per day. The goal is to decrease intercountry adoptions by 90%....While they are trying to insure time to properly investigate cases and stop unethical actions by certain entities working in Ethiopia, the decrease is greatly disproportionate to the issues. A best guess from officials is that this decrease will delay those cases currently registered with the Ethiopian courts by one year. For us, since we are still waiting for a referral, then a court date, the delay will be even longer. Please consider signing this petition which will be presented next week when meetings take place to come to a new agreement regarding how many cases are processed each day. If this decrease continues, children legitimately waiting for families could spend years waiting in institutions and orpanages because of the policy changes and delays. Here is the link for the petition.... http://betheanswerforchildren.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/emergency-campaign-for-ethiopia/

Good Night, Moon!

For a while now, Ryan has been taking each of our boys on special one-on-one dates and recently they were talking about whose turn it was to go and Graycen kept saying "Not me? Not me?" So, we decided she was old enough for her own special dates with daddy. Ryan took her to see a play about the children's classic, Good Night, Moon and she loved it. She was so excited that only she was going and she talked about it for days..... Here are a few pics from the night.

The Kimyal People

Wow! We have so much to learn from our brothers and sisters around the world.... Check out this video of the Kimyal people in Indonesia receive the New Testament in their language.

The Kimyal People Receive the New Testament on Vimeo

Spring is on the Way!

Thankfully, it seems that warmer weather is on its way. The kids just love being outside and this past week they have been able to play outside most days. We continue to see lots of birds, deer, squirrels, and even the occasional bat (you'll have to ask Ryan about that one :)outside at the new house. Here are some pictures from a few recent family hikes.......

Big Boy Bikes

It's official......we are now the parents of 5 year old twin boys. It seems like yesterday that they were crawling around our house. To celebrate this momentous occasion, the boys got Spiderman bicycles for their birthday and they are getting really good at riding their big-boy bikes. On their birthday, we also went bowling with friends and had another Tom and Jerry party. They really love that crazy cat and mouse.....