Water fun and more!

We have been blessed with some lovely summer-like weather lately, which prompted this evening of water fun with the hose.

Candace ambushes her siblings at the end of the bridge.

Fishing in a storage bin.

Yesterday the twins had their first softball practice of the season. This is their first time playing any organized team sport and they were pretty excited. They are lucky to have several of their good friends on their team, and Coach Ally is their buddy Ava's mom.

Playing some catch to get started.

Sarah gets some pointers on catching from Mr. Coach Ally.

Candace working on her throwing form with Coach Ally.

Finally, today was track and field day at A-G Elementary. The events were eclectic; featuring traditional favorites such as the 50 meter dash, as well as lesser known pursuits such as the shoe kick; where one flings one's loosened shoe off while delivering a high kick.

Sarah competes in the long jump.


Candace in the timed side to side jump.


Candace and friends wait for the next event.


Candace and Sarah with their hard won ribbons.

Three years ago

Things weren't going all that well at our house. Tom had recently been "let go" from his job. Our adoption seemed to be perpetually stalled in the court process. We were feeling a lot of uncertainty about where we were headed.

One little phone call changed the mood. I saw the name on the caller id and picked up, curious but not expecting anything important from Lisa, our contact at Nightlight Christian. When she said "you passed court"... I just started crying. At that moment, it was an unexpected gift. Our girls were coming home. Thank you, Lisa, for the most perfectly timed phone call of my life.

Candace Selam and Sarah Fikir in spring of 2009.

Spring soccer finale

Much to Thomas' disappointment, the spring soccer season here in Ashland came to a close yesterday. He loves playing so much! Tom found a clinic in a nearby town that is running on Sundays, so he will get five more weeks of formal play in before summer. After that, looks like he'll be waiting for fall.

Thomas got four goals yesterday!

The red team.

Silly version of the red team. :)

Anna's big weekend

For the second year in a row, Anna's birthday fell on Prom weekend. Saturday night was the big dance and after prom extravaganza.

Anna with Mom and Dad before the big event.

Exchanging flowers with date Colby.

Anna and Colby

Anna with besties Kenzie, Abbey and Daryl.

Today we celebrated Anna's 18th birthday. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that she looked like this:

Me with newborn Anna.

Opening presents with the always helpful littles in attendance.

Eighteen candles!

Not one of the cool kids

I wish I had the ability to draw my thoughts out of my brain with a magic wand like they do in Harry Potter. Because I come up with some really insightful prose while I'm laying in bed before I go to sleep. The problem is, then I actually do go to sleep and the thoughts are gone by morning. If I could pull them out and save them somehow, that would be, well, magic.

I'll try to be coherent with just my muggle powers of recall.

So anyway, I was laying there the other night and some thoughts were percolating. The first one revolved around, for lack of a better word, "popularity". Normally, I would say that I quit worrying about popularity a long time ago... like sometime after high school graduation. Which is really good, because although I seem to generally get along with people well, I have never been that girl who is the super cool one to hang with. I had a brush with this in the mid-nineties when I had a good friend who was that girl... but ultimately my coolness faded away with the friendship after we moved to a new city. And honestly, I have been okay with that.

I had an experience recently however, that unsettled me a lot. While working on a project with a group I am involved with, I gradually realized that a member had subtly managed to guide the group into two segments: the preferred members (let's call them "the cool kids") and the not so preferred members (let's call them "the dorks"). I found myself squarely among the dorks, naturally, which didn't really bother me at first. The project kept us very busy with not a lot of extra time for socializing. But as time wore on, I found myself sort of pushed to the margins of conversations and the recipient of some subtly disguised mildly derisive comments. I wasn't alone, but my dork contingent was noticeably smaller than the cool kids contingent... and quite frankly, I'm pretty sure that most of the cool kids didn't even notice that we poor dorks were being marginalized in this way. They were enthralled by the head cool kid. It didn't take very long for me to feel like crap and want to be anywhere but with that group.

I am almost 49 years old, and I was reduced to crying alone because some people didn't like me.

It made me think of all the teenagers and kids who are treated that way everyday... kids who don't have almost fifty years of life experience to deal with their hurt feelings. It's sad. It also makes me wonder why in the world does this still occur at my age? I just don't understand why we can't all be nice to each other. Our whole culture seems to revolve around self-preservation and self-promotion and "telling it like it is"... which is frequently, in my experience, a cheap excuse for saying whatever one wants to whomever one wants without any regard for politeness or the feelings of others.

I don't think I am blameless here, either.

I am going to be making a special effort to watch my words and how I treat people... family, friends, the salesperson who just annoyed the heck out of me, complete strangers... because being kind is worth the effort. That annoying lady at the board committee meeting who just goes on and on and on, dragging out a meeting for what seem to be interminable minutes... maybe this is her passion and she doesn't have anyone else to share it with. Including others is worth the effort. It might be more truthful to say to the kid at the McDonald's counter "Your inability to count change correctly is delaying me by five extra minutes, and I had to wait 10 minutes in this drive-through lane. Don't you have any basic math skills?"... But really, "thank you" while receiving my change is all that is needed. Also, it's a much better example for my children. Maybe I can start a trend and be a cool kid after all.

Because Every Mother Matters... Spring trip

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We spent our first day in Addis, resting and hanging out briefly with some of the skateboard team. The next morning, we made the long drive to Dessie. While in Dessie, we met the wonderful volunteers of Beza, who coordinate our work with the mamas who are sponsored by BEMM. We split into two teams, and visited about 70 mothers and their families in their homes. There were many, many inspiring stories of improved lives through sponsorship... so many of these women just needed a head start and someone to believe in them.

While in Dessie, we took turns staying with Jaime at the safe house. We welcomed our first resident while we were there, an absolutely lovely 13 year old girl. The safe house has been named in her honor. While she is adjusting to life off of the streets, BEMM staffers will be evaluating our mothers in hopes of finding one who will make a wonderful foster mother for this sweet girl.

After a couple days of visiting mamas, we made the trip to Mareya (Mar-yay) to deliver the 4x4 ambulance, affectionately known by the team as the BEMM-mobile. I have never experienced anything more awesome than our arrival into Mareya... hundreds and hundreds of people singing and clapping, cheering and surrounding our vehicles... signs and banners... it was a heartfelt and incredibly moving welcome. We were put "on stage" and greeted as honored guests. The hospitality was generous and amazing. The most incredible highlight of our visit to Mareya was that Susan, our P.A. on this trip, delivered a healthy baby girl with the help of our intrepid leader Steffany and some minimal supervision from the Mareya medical staff. The parents named the baby Steffany. :)

Next, the hike up the mountain to Azga, the home village of our beloved translator and BEMM staffer Eyob. The mountains are beautiful... and steep. Honestly, I wanted to kill myself. I'm glad I didn't though, and got to enjoy one of the most beautiful places on Earth hosted by the most beautiful and loving people on Earth. Also, I ate goat and I liked it.

We returned to Dessie for more mama visits and a day of training and fun for the mothers. My group went to a beautiful area called Boru, which is sort of like a "suburb" of Dessie. It was incredibly beautiful and lush. Two of the mothers had to make the long trip from here to Dessie for the training day, which just proves the dedication of these women... they really want to change their lives. The training day featured medical stations for private HIV consultation, general medical check-ups, a station to write letters to sponsors, a nail salon station for some pampering, testimonials from some of our most successful mothers and lunch and fellowship for all. We were so pleased at how well everything went and the attendance was excellent!

On my last day in Ethiopia, I went with my friend Kim to the tattoo parlor. I got some improvements to my tattoo and Kim got her first one. I don't have good pictures to post, but I'll try to get some for later.

The group was wonderful and many new friendships were made and old ones strengthened. I plan to go next spring as well, and hope to take Emily. I can't stress enough what a worthwhile group BEMM is and how proud I am to be a small part of it.

Happy Easter!

Coloring eggs with Grandma

Posing with bunnies after church

Easter egg hunt!

The spoils of the hunt. Evenly divided, of course.

Miss Sylvia Kittywhiskens in a basket.

Ethiopia bound!

Today I will be aboard an Ethiopian Airlines jet on my way to Addis Ababa with some friends both old and new. We will be working on several projects for Because Every Mother Matters... delivering the 4X4 ambulance to Mareya, bringing chickens to the villagers, visiting with the sponsor moms, providing midwifery training and working on getting the new safe house ready. Plus, I'm sure we'll squeeze in some fun and fellowship.

Tom will be blogging about his stay at home dad experience and also posting updates about our trip on Facebook. See you when I get back!

With spring comes...

...spring soccer! And a very happy little boy. Although he is still in preschool, Thomas was asked to play up a couple of levels, with the second and third graders. I was nervous about it, but after watching his first game, it was the right choice. His skills fit in well with this group, and he still managed to score a goal!

The speediest guy on the field!

All that hard work deserves a relaxing soak!

Arts and sciences

While Candace was basking in her laurels as a celebrated young author, Sarah and Thomas were collecting major awards in the fine arts. The Ashland Junior Women's Club sponsors a fine arts festival, and many of the local children had artwork displayed, as well as artists from around the area. Sarah received a purple ribbon, the highest award, for her drawing of a city street.

Sarah's artwork

Sarah really enjoys painting and drawing, so it was fun for her to receive some recognition for her work. The preschool aged children receive participation ribbons for their efforts... Thomas once again opted for the self-portrait, this time featuring a many-armed version of himself.

Thomas' self-portrait of himself in a parallel dimension.

Today, science got mixed into the excitement as Candace found a fossilized shell somewhere in our yard. She was excited when she thought it was an ordinary shell; she was thrilled that it was an ancient fossil!

The young paleontologist displays her find.

"I miss my cow."

This isn't the house that Thomas was born in, but it looks very much like it. Sometimes when we are in the car, Thomas will tell me stories about things he remembers from Ethiopia. This is becoming more frequent now that he is fairly fluent in English.

Traditional house in southern Ethiopia.

Today he told me a very detailed story about the time that the family cow gave birth. It featured many family members and clearly this event had made a big impression on his young mind. There was a happy ending as the white mama cow and the red baby cow all made it through okay.

Some cows I roomed with in Bora, Ethiopia.

I asked Thomas to repeat the story at dinner, which segued into a discussion about all kinds of things the littles' remember about Ethiopia. After the twins had finished eating and gone off to take a bath, Thomas was left at the table with Tom and I, lots of dinner on his plate because he had spent so much time talking. He was telling us about saying good-bye to family members when his little face bunched up and he began weeping sadly. At first, Tom and I were just shocked... we shouldn't have been, of course, but... this is the first time Thomas has cried at all about losing his home and his family. I picked him up and he just sagged into me, clinging for comfort. Also a first; an embrace that felt real. All three of us just stood there together, our hearts breaking.

After just a few minutes, it was over. We reassured him that it was okay to be sad and he could tell us whenever he felt that way. Tears were dried, and off he went, his normal cheerful self, to find his sisters to play with.

I think we just had a breakthrough here.

One year ago today....

... Tom and I met a very special boy.
Our son, Feyissa Thomas Spears.

A young author

Last Friday, Tom and I were thrilled to celebrate with Candace as she received the Young Authors Award for her class. We are big readers and writers around here, and we try to encourage our children to love the written word as well. There is one student selected from each of the elementary classrooms. It makes us especially proud that Candace's story was chosen since she has only been speaking English for two and a half years.

Daddy and young author Candace

Candace displaying her certificate.

The Young Authors of 2012

And now... drum roll, please...
the award winning writing of Miss Candace Spears:

Short and sweet!