In Memory of the Dogs Michael Vick Killed...

Thanks Santa!

It really isn't as annoying as it looks. The music is pretty "jazzy" as long as you keep it on music mode and not annoying-lady-singing-the-alphabet-mode.

Nora's First Christmas

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Melkam Yelidet Beaal!!!!

Winter Wonderland

On Sunday we took a trip to the Chicago Botanical Gardens to see the Winter Wonderland exhibit. It was cool, not worth the $35 we spent for tickets & parking, but cool nonetheless.

Nora especially liked the "snow" that was falling from above.....

Some woman chastised me for letting the "snow" fall on Nora's face. C'mon lady, it's just soap and besides, does she look bothered by it??!! Sheesh, let the kid have a good time!

We ended our little excursion with some peppermint hot cocoa and a lemon bar :) I really wish I had taken a photo of Nora's face when she had her 1st taste of lemon custard! Let's just say it was priceless.

sad, sick baby:(

Poor, poor Nora. She has had a really wicked cold since Sunday, complete with a constant snot facial-which, in case you were wondering, is NOT good for your complexion.
Last night was rough, with coughing and wheezing to boot. I tend not to overreact with her but after talking with the nurse, we trekked on in to the Dr. office.
Her cold is just a cold, lungs are clear :) BUT she has a horrendous ear infection (!!@*) Aaargh, I hope this isn't the start of an endless succession of ear ickiness......

Look what appeared in my inbox today!

I think it is time to lower the crib mattress again.....

The good news is......

We've been sleeping through the night fairly consistently!!!

The bad news....

It is like an ocean in her crib in the morning! Yuck!

Suggestions?

We say dada and baba and dodo.

No mama.

We worked on that today. I would say mmmma mmmmma mmmmamma. Over and over and over again.

She just stared at me and laughed.

Oh well.

New ride

My stroller is a giant piece of poop.

I have used it for only 4 months and it is falling apart. I mean literally falling apart. Pieces fall off of it on a daily basis.
It won't turn anymore unless you strong-arm it....very inconvenient in small spaces.
Heck, it even hates being pushed in a forward direction.
It hates being folded/unfolded.

Our friendship is over already. I think it still holds a grudge from our 2 visits to the apple orchard.


Thank goodness Grandma got us this for Christmas!

It freakin' rocks!

That Peanut! She's hilarious!

*this is what happens when I'm at work

naptime

Daughter from Danang

I finally sat down and watched Daughter from Danang on Monday night.
It had been sitting in it's little netflix envelope for the past month, and although I really wanted to watch it I kept putting it off. I was scared.
It gave me alot to process and I walked away from it with a new sense of what culture will mean to my daughter. One of my goals? dreams? in raising Nora is that she will someday be able to fluidly be both Ethiopian and American. I know this is virtually impossible, as Ryan said "When she is 15 and stepping off the plane in Addis, everyone will know she is American." I understand this but I hope to give her the tools to someday be able to navigate Ethiopia. To be comfortable in Ethiopia.
Watching that movie, I felt so bad for the daughter as she struggled to understand the customs of her birth country. I felt so bad that other than being born there, she really had no connection to Vietnam. None at all. She seemed so lost and confused.

I just hope that we can do a good job at raising Nora to be comfortable. Comfortable as an American and comfortable as an Ethiopian.

Court & Christkindlmarket

Well, that was easy!

We went to court today to finalize Nora's adoption....the way our lawyer explained it was that we essentially sued our daughter to become her parents...how nice :)

Court was at The Daley Center downtown and they happen to have the coolest Christmas market goin' on right now so we indulged in a little shopping, a hot beverage and some great food!




I had the German equivalent to a Spam sandwich with sauerkraut and a boot (yes, a boot..anyone see the movie Beerfest? That's all I could think about) filled with hot spiced wine (yeah, I had wine before court..I needed to relax!) Soooooo yummy!

Here we are serving Nora her court summons!

We are officially official!

Holiday Party

We had a fantastic time at the IEKC holiday party on Saturday-it was great to see old & new friends!