Our current obsession...

Since we received the boys referral on December 1 of last year, Grace & Emma have been thoroughly obsessed with all things Charlie & Sam. They were one of the first to see the boys pictures. They prayed for the boys, they looked at pictures of the boys, they asked about the boys, helped paint rooms for the boys, planned for the boys...and above all wondered when the boys would get to come home!! Emma was apparently even more excited about the boys arrival than her upcoming trip to Disney World!

Well, now the obsession is being reciprocated...The boys wake up talking about Grace & Emma, when can we see Grace & Emma, when can we play with Grace & Emma, anytime we get in the car they think we are going to see Grace & Emma...They are wearing me out asking about Grace & Emma all day long!! Unfortunately, Grace is in school all day long, so Charlie and I had a little lesson the other day about what later, tonight, and tomorrow means. I think he understands... Sam even made up a new song...it has one word...Emma! And he just repeats her name over and over and over...It's really quite cute! He busted into tears the other night when she left and then proceeded to pray for her...and only her, at bedtime! And Charlie does have a tendency to lean more towards Grace...somehow the two of them communicate and it includes Grace doing a lot of talking and Charlie making a lot of facial expressions!

We love for the boys to be around the girls because they do talk SO MUCH, we figured that was a great way for them to pick up English. Wrong. Emma has reverted to using grunts and one-word phrases along with pointing. When questioned she innocently said, "I just want to talk like Charlie." (Side note: A lot of Charlie's current communication is a mixture of Amharic, English and charades. And a lot of single words as he is learning more everyday!)

Obviously, I couldn't be happier in the boys selection of best friends!! (It was my selection for them, too!) It's not like they really had a choice! Emma had them all tagged as "cousins" long before they even joined our family! Hope Dwayne & Nicole are okay with this set up, because they are in for the long haul! I don't know what we will do when they actually go to Disney in a couple of weeks...I've requested life size cut outs of the girls to replace the real versions for the week...


Today at Taylorsville Lake State Park. We were all in need of a snack, so no one is very happy. We went to the park to help Grace look for leaves for a school project, which we were successful at. And Charlie learned what leaves were. Later at dinnertime at the Jolly's, there was a bag of salad laying on the table in front of him. He pointed to the bag and said, "Mom. Leaves. No." Which was his way of telling me, he had had enough of the leaves for the day and certainly didn't want them for dinner!