Fun Times Inside and Outside

I must admit that it is not that hard to try and find something that will keep these two little boys entertained. The other day I wanted to make some cookies, and suddenly I had two VERY eager little helpers by my side! I think they had a lot of fun mixing all the ingredients and dropping the cookies onto the pans. Unfortunately...the boys are not big on sweets, so they don't really want to eat the cookies and after watching how they made these cookies, I'm not to eager to eat them either!!


Mesele and Abinet LOVE to play outside. They can entertain themselves with just about anything. Now that the snow was finally gone, I pulled out all their sandbox toys. They couldn't stop smiling and they played in that sand for a couple hours. As much as these boys were intrigued by the snow, now that it's gone and it is starting to warm up, they love playing outside all the more because that's what they did all the time in Ethiopia.

Aren't they just the cutest little boys you ever did see?!?!?

Fun at the Farm

Mesele and Abinet love to go and visit Grandma and Grandpa Klassen at the farm. The love to see the cows, play games inside and go for quad rides with Uncle Keith and Grandpa.

On this particular Sunday, Grandpa had fallen asleep on the couch and when Abinet saw that he was finally awake, he had to go and lay with him right away! So cute!!

I know that boys love getting quad rides, but it is starting to look like Mesele doesn't want to be on the back anymore. He thinks he's ready to drive that thing! I'm sure that time will come soon enough, but for now, he needs to just learn to be a happy little passenger!!
Well, I better go and make some supper for my hungry boys! Oh but.....before I go I have to share a cute little story. If you look at the shirt Abinet is wearing in the first picture, it has the cutest saying that fits him perfectly. It says...
"ALWAYS IN THE MOOD FOR EATING"
For those of you that have seen that boy eat, you will understand why I say that suits him sooooo well.
Have a wonderful day everyone!

Biking for the very first time!

First I must say that I hope putting video on this blog will work! I've never tried it before, so here goes...

This is the first 3 videos that we have of Mesele and his new bike! Yesterday, (which was actually before the snow came!) we showed Mesele his bike and he loved it!

It took a few minutes for him to figure out where to put his feet and that he needed to use both feet to peddle.

In the second video (5 minutes after we started) Mesele is already getting the hang of using both of his feet and that he has full control of steering his new hog!

The third video, (about 10-15 minutes after we started) Mesele is already peddling, steering, balancing and looking for more speed out of this baby!

Too bad we have to wait for the snow to melt before taking the hog out a second time!

Building Our "Snowman Family"

When I went to bed last night, it still looked like Spring. However, this morning it appears that winter is trying to make a comeback! At first I was disappointed, but when Brent bundled up the boys and took them outside I was pretty happy that there was snow on the ground. Mesele and Abinet had so much fun playing in the snow!

Brent pretty much buried Mesele in a pile of snow, then he threw the boys into a pile of snow, and finally we built a snowman with the boys. We were just going to build one, but Mesele kept on rolling more and more snow, so we just kept on building snowmen! Now we have this cute little snow family outside! (Don't they look just like us!!)

Blowing Bubbles!

Mesele and Abinet REALLY enjoy blowing bubbles outside! This is something that Brent and I knew the boys would love because when we first met the boys at the Foster Home, they had their first bubble experience!

They get so excited when they blow a bubble and then they scream and point at it until we look and then they have to chase it and squish it before going back and blowing another one. It's so stinkin' cute!!

Brent decided to try and have some fun of his own. He would blow the foam from the bubbles into the boys faces until they were covered in white foam. These boys just sit there and take it. Well, I guess I could say that Mesele took it a little bit better than Abinet! Oh well, they still had a really good time with all the bubbles!

I am sure the boys are wondering why mommy is CONSTANTLY carrying a camera around, but you just never know when you are going to capture that perfect picture! Well, that's all for now! Have a great day everyone!!

Play DOH!

Well, I had my first play-doh experience with Abinet and Mesele! They had so much fun mixing colors, making spaghetti, and "growing hair." I think this may have been the first time they really got to play with this stuff because everything was a new discovery for them. All I heard all afternoon while they were playing was, "MOMMY....look!" It was pretty cute to watch them have so much fun.

After they had played to a while, it was time to get ready for lunch. Boy oh boy.....did I ever have a mess to clean up!! There was play-doh EVERYWHERE! I think we started out with
about 6 different colors, and by the time we were done, there were only about 4 containers that I was able to fill back up again! The rest of the playdoh was down the stairs, on the floor or stuck somewhere on the boys!

Oh well, They had a good time and that is all that matters!!

One Relaxing Day

On Sunday, our last full day in Ethiopia, some of us decided to spend a relaxing day by the pool at the Sheraton. It was a very strange feeling walking into this hotel because it was like entering a whole new world. We were leaving behind the cows, donkeys, goats, wild dogs, sick, lame and homeless children and a lot of dirt and entering a beautiful paradise. It's hard to believe that this hotel was in Addis. It was HUGE, well taken care of, and all of us got pampered for the day.
All of the kids had a wonderful time playing in the water and enjoying the sunshine. I am not
sure if any of the kids got sunburned, but it was easy to tell that almost all of the parents did! I was burnt from the top of my head right down to my toes and that is not a lie! My feet are almost done peeling and my head is finally finished peeling! I guess I should have put the sun screen on a little bit thicker!

We had so much fun watching the kids all play together, and yet it was a little sad because we knew that pretty soon they would all be seperated and going home with thier new families.
After spending the day at the Sheraton, we all went back to the guest house and thought about starting to pack. Just the thought of packing was tiring, so we decided to go to bed instead!! Before going to bed, we had to get a picture of an Ethiopian sunset. It was so beautiful and Brent and I just enojoyed watching the sun go down. Our time in Addis was coming to a close,

but we were ready to come home to Saskatchewan!

More Memories From Ethiopia

One of the things that I got to do while in Addis was to visit an AIDS orphanage. This was such a hard thing to see. When parents of these children find out that they are HIV+, they are kicked out of the house and left to fend for themselves. This orphanage takes those children in and cares for them. These children are not able to be adopted because of their condition and it was SO sad to see and listen to some of the their stories. We came with gifts for the children and gave them some toys to play with. They were so happy for everything! They all sang songs for us and afterwards, they fed us STRONG coffee and bread. This was an experience that I won't ever forget!
One of the fun tours we went on was to the Hot Springs just outside of the city. It was fun for everyone, except Abinet. He hated the water for the first 1 1/2 hours! Mesele, on the other hand, had no fear of water at all! He would jump in, dunk his head, and try to get away from all adult supervision! It wasn't until the last half hour that Abinet actually started to enjoy himself in the water. YEAH!
There were also LOTS of monkeys around and the boys loved watching them! The would run and scream if a monkey looked at them or started to come towards them. It was so cute to watch!

When we were walking to our taxi, we saw this mommy monkey and her baby. All the kids were so excited and they kept on pointing and laughing. While we were so busy laughing, a money jumped into our car! Mesfin, our driver, had to chase him out! It was pretty funny to watch!
















On our way home from the Hot Springs, our driver pointed out these houses to us. He said that these would more than likely be the type of home our boys lived in. There is nothing around these houses except dirt, and maybe the odd tree. Sometimes you will see a couple houses close together, but they are few and far between. What a change for our boys to go from a house like that to what they live in now!
Well, that's all I have for now. I try to put more on tomorrow!