I don't know if it is the impending referral, the possibility of moving to a different house or my new natural diet pills (thank you Debbie- down 4 lbs.) but I can not stop NESTING.
For this little on the ADHD side girl, this can only lead to craziness....
To prove to you how bad this is I started to type a list of all the things I have done the past 3 hours in terms of organizing and cleaning (not that you can see it all with 3 kids and a dog) but then I realized that you all probably don't want to read all of it
(and I really want to go do more laundry)
Even Gene walked up to me after cleaning the stove top for the 4th time and trying to make a new meal from the extra left over cornbread and said
"Wow- I think you are nesting!"
I also have this bad urge to start getting things for our little guy.
I did break down and buy a few books from Kellsie's scholastic packet. Another adoptive mama suggested we write little messages in the books while we wait, I think this is a great idea. (If only spell check worked while I write!)
Today we are officially 9 months DTE. We started our adoption journey a little over 16 months ago and started the official wait in April of 2012. Some days it seems like just yesterday we sent of our dossier with months worth of documentation. Other days it seems like we have been waiting years.
If anything through this process we are all learning more and more about ourselves, our relationship with God and what it means to follow him.
I am still in awe the amazing events that have occurred these past months and just how much we have grown.
This month we saw two very special families bring home their children and become forever families. Watching their gotcha moments reminded me that this waiting time that seems so long will eventually end. When it does our real journey will begin as we get to bond and parent our little guy.
Our family will become one of 6 and I will be a mom to 4. We will have to communicate with hand signals and attempts at rough translations until he learns English. (my attempts at learning amharic are pathetic- however we may be using some flashcards for communication) . Our children will have to learn how to show patience with their new brother and set an example for him.We (and by we I mean I ) will have to learn how to juggle four children in the morning before getting to work and teach the new guy how to brush his teeth and where the dirty socks go.
But most importantly we will teach him to love and remember his birth parents and his country while showing him what it means to be in our family and part of this family. As crazy as we may be!
After my last raw post I needed to take a little time away from blogging but now I am way behind!
This year we decided to celebrate Ethiopian Christmas with some traditional Ethiopian food and music. It was fun to think that we were celebrating and eating the same way our new son was on the same day and we had a little helper who told us how the transition home for our agency was celebrating too so we really felt connected to our little guy even though we don't know him yet.
This is photo journal of my first Ethiopian cooking...our quest to make Doror wat and Miser Wat, two traditional Ethiopian meals. (FYI- Below may or may not be the actual instructions but an adaptation Collins style!)
Cut a million onions into pieces until your eyes burn. Add garlic and fresh grounded ginger root (which you can buy at walmart!) then make into a paste
the burning red face and eyes (not my most glamerous moment)
Add to some oil paprika and a few other spices and stir, stir, stir until your eyes STOP burning (about 10 minutes)
This one is the Doro Wat which to the onion/oil base you add a bunch of Berbere (an Ethiopian Spice I bought when I last went to STL for our fingerprints- hope it has a year shelf life!)
Add broth/water/wine and some cut up chicken then simmer for about 40 minutes, In the end you get to add several whole boiled eggs and simmer an additional 15 minutes. (Gene really had a hard time believing you put in whole eggs)
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I forgot to take a picture of the Miser Wat at this stage but you take the onion/oil mixture and add some water/stock and a pound of red lentils and then let them simmer for about 30 minutes until the lentils pop and turn yellow.
Check out the hot cook!
(Literaly- I was burning up standing infront of some seriously hot spices and onion- you can see my face is still all read and puffy. )
The other cook trying out the dish- he likes :)
Here was the start of an epic fail- I tried to make a quick Injera recepie. For those of you that are not familiar to Ethiopian quisen - Injera has a sourdough taste with a spongy think pancake consistency and is eaten with almost everything. You take a piece of it and scoop the stew/meat with it.
Normally Injera takes 3 days to make
- my recepie used club soda and took 30 minutes -
as Jeff Foxworth would say- Here's my sign!
So far not soo bad- looks kinda like a pancake but then.....
These 4 may not look to bad but let me tell you- I made about 12 of them and they stuck together or to the pan, were too runy or thick or just plain wrong.
In this picture you can see the real Injera on the left and my imitation on the right.
See the differences in texture.
On a side note- that Injera was also from when we had our fingerprints done- aside from a little freezer burn on the sides we salvaged the middle parts....
The final meal- Yum!
The three infamous critics.....
Their first bites.
They all liked it and Jacob believe it or not had 3 servings of Doro Wat,
his only complaint- add more Berbere!
And to not let you miss out on the rest of our celebration- Kellsie searched youtube and found us this great Ethiopian music and dancing.
