Home!

We want to apologize for the lapses in posts but don't have our internet really set up here in the new house so have to find spots and moments to communicate.

It has been an amazing, funny, exhausting and simultaneously exhilarating few days. Saturday the kids played out in the driveway (the lawn was muddy and still doesn't have enough grass) while Mark and 2 helpers brought 3 truck loads of more stuff here to the house. But I really felt like we looked like the BEVERLY HILLBILLIES. "Honey look the Clampets have moved in across the street" My friends pulled up with an open pick up with stuff hanging everywhere along with a trailer carrying more stuff (3 times). And there were 6 kids running around in the driveway all day making this otherwise quiet and pristine neighborhood come alive. At one point Matea (who takes over an hour every morning to get dressed looking for anything pink to put on-and changes 6x's a day- she's three almost) was in the driveway with a summer dress (pink), a red polka dot eye patch (for correcting her far sightedness), a striped sweater, bear naked legs and MY SHOES ( i had told her to put shoes on and she couldn't find hers so had mine on), she looked like a bizarre fashion conscious little pinkish pirate. Andrew my son was hitting balls OVER the houses, Jared threw a fit when I made him share the bike with his sister...I physically had to drag him into the house, and the girls were in dresses (it is Feb and was cold on Sat for awhile)pulling out everything from the garage while playing basketball, jumping rope and shouting in Amharic to eachother. Samantha pulls into the driveway keys in hand screaming "I can't believe you won't buy me a $150 dollar dress for prom. You just don't understand what it is like to be a teenager." (I am thinking OH YES I DO GET A JOB and shop at a consignment shop or use one of my dresses). At one point there were toys in every spot of the yard. We haven't met any neighbors yet. On Sunday we all stayed home from church because the kids were seriously over stimulated from their first full week of school AND moving. I was finally able to convince Grace to let me buy her sneakers. She was still playing soccer in her sunday school shoes(and white skirt---the one from GOODWILL) and preferring it. The concept of sneakers on her feminine frame was far too masculine for her. It was only after my Ethiopian friend Yemi came over looking like a model wearing her sneakers that Grace decided it was okay for me to buy some for her. So on sunday we unpacked and then I was ready to go to my girlfriends bridal shower. The plan was for the older girls to join me. I couldn't find make up to wear (hadn't even looked for a week), or jewelry and even had a hard time finding pants to wear (had been in sweats). Somehow I managed to pull something together. I get outside to leave. FIVE LOUD CHILDREN SWARM ME ALL SCREAMING LOUDER THAN THE PLANES TAKING OFF AT RDU. The girls were squealing in delight at the thought of joining me. Andrew my 10 year old busted out crying at the top of his lungs because he wanted to come too. The younger two cried and swarmed because everyone else was. Mark heard the noise which sounded like someone was being tortured and ran outside thinking he would be saving someone (that would be me) only to find that the five kids were all freaking out because I was going to the shower for 2 hours with only 2 kids. So he yells for the others to come in . He totally sounded like VINNIE FROM BROOKLYN...completely NY meets the Clampets in Ethiopia. I look in the distance and finally see a very well dressed couple (our new neighbors who we haven't met yet) waving....We have scratched the wood floors, peed on the carpet and used the beige wall for a coloring book. But somehow last night when I was cleaning up in the kitchen I became very nostalgic. I heard the kids screaming and laughing upstairs and shouting out ELLA....my grandmother's name. The house looks and feels in some ways like my grandmother's household home in Mendota IL and in other ways reminds me of my Grandparent's house in Steward. The noise, the chaos, the smells, even the insanity warms my soul. I wonder if my great grand parents had the same butterflies and worry in moving into their dream home on 806 Indiana Ave in the late 1800's early 1900's. I know they had to have heard their other children screaming out ELLA ELLA to the extremely personable and mischevious ELLA. These kids although not genetically related to my family have the same familial spirit. And I couldn't help but feel that same sweet family spirit embracing me. I have missed it and I guess in some ways am duplicating it in my own family. Unknowingly, the kitchen is set up the same. The railing has the same curve and the echos in the house from the wood we picked out remind me of the family holidays in Mendota or Steward. I am so grateful to God for family and for our home. We are living one day at a time like the Henry Zapf family, Ella and Arthur and their family....and like Grandma and Grandpa Jones and like my parents.....leaning on our faith and counting on God to pull us through and knowing that even though it feels so much like the arms of my aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins around me...it is really HIS arms embracing us....Hallelujah...