Sweet times

Life is good!  We are all adjusting here at our house.  Ryan said the other day, "I can't image life with out the little boys" after he described how every time we had added a child to our family it's almost like we can't ever remember life with out them.  That's how we are feeling these days.  I can't image not having our twin toddlers.  They are amazing!  We love them so much.  I am so blessed to be their mommy.  I get to be a "stay at home mom" so I have not really been away from the boys much.  The other morning Grace had a dentist appointment and Amanda had a tennis lesson at 7:30am.  The boys were still tucked in and sleeping, so I left Hannah in change and took the other girls to town.  We were only gone for a few hours, but as I walked in the door I was greeted with big smiles on two little boys as they came running for a hug shouting out "mommy".  Life doesn't get better than that! 

Here they are playing us a song!

But, I'd be lying if I said there has not been some hard moments too.  There have been nights that either I wake up Ryan or he wakes me up after we've both fallen asleep in the rocking chairs with the boys ... at midnight hoping that we didn't fall asleep before them.  Life is exhausting these days but we wouldn't change it for anything.   Life is also emotionally exhausting.  We eased into "toddler-hood" (is that a word?) before, starting with a newborn.  Now we are trying to figure out when independence comes from being a growing boy and when it comes from spending much of the first years of your life in an orphanage.  And, then there is a whole new world that opened up in our hearts after we spent time in Ethiopia.  I hear about things like the severe drought in the horn of Africa and fall to my knees in prayer.  

We've been used to little girls here at this house.  Little boys have introduced us again to a whole new way to "play" - and there are two of them ... brothers ... the same age!  The saying "boys will be boys" has been used a few times.  Sometimes its lots of fun ... 

and ... sometimes it's not so fun.

One exciting, exciting, exciting thing that happened at our house is that Isaac got his cast off!  Yeah... now we've started spending time playing at the lake.  The boys love the wuha and are even starting to call it water!  Here's Greta and the boys on the dock and playing in the tube.

Some more English words the boys have started to say are 

Milk

Hot

Eat

Please

and my favorite...

I love you

And their beautiful African accent make each of those words even sweeter.  I wish they would keep that accent forever!

Today, I'm thanking God for the blessings in my life - for my husband and each of my children.  For precious family and friends who have prayed for us, cooked for us, given the boys amazing gifts and just listened to us as we've needed to share our hearts.  The list goes on... when I keep things in perspective life overflows with pure joy.