Lessons I've Learned

It's been a whirlwind the past 6 weeks and this poor little blog has suffered terribly. But I'm happy to say that we survived our cross-country move, and while we are not necessarily settled in yet, it does feel good to have that all behind us. Here are the biggest lessons I've learned:

1. Never, ever agree to your husband packing just his tools and then leaving for his new job while you stay behind to take care of the kid, pack the whole house, negotiate sale contracts on the house, sell the car (and then not have one for a whole week), say goodbye to friends and also continue working in your own job up until the very last week.
2. You should always buy triple the rolls of tape that you think you need.
3. You will absolutely use all the boxes that are piled on your front porch.
4. No matter how much stuff you get rid of, you will still have a million more boxes to pack.
5. Basements are really just black holes for tossing and storing things that you will never, ever use.
6. Going back to the house for one last time to pack just two more boxes will really turn into FIVE more times and FIFTY more boxes.
7. When every item is finally packed and loaded, the truck will drive away and you will silently hope that a fireball from heaven will crash into the trailer and destroy your stuff so that you don't ever have to see it again.
8. I will always offer to help every friend in their moving process and I will stay by their side when they are delirious and crying and walking in circles. (Thank you Jayana!)
9. It's terribly heart breaking to say goodbye to best friends that you love so much.

Twuck-o-Tweeeeeeet!

Candy candy candy. We got a LOT of it tonight. And such a shame that Elias is allergic to chocolate. :-)

Our tradition is to take our two little friends from Somalia along with us for trick-or-treating. This was our fourth year, and maybe the best one yet!

We went to a few of our neighbor's houses where Elias would yell "TWUCK O TWEEEET" multiple times and then as soon as the candy dropped in his bucket he'd say "Let's go to another house!" Then drove to where a group of our friends from church were handing out candy. Along the way the kids were really quiet in the car, so I asked if they were tired. This was Elias' exact response...

Tired? Who's tired? We're not tired. We're HAAAAPPY!

Ha!

Elmo, Mermaid, and Princess Fiona

Sweet Pea Eli and Elmo

New Knee

Chase and Danielle, the Physical Therapist, decided that Elias is finally ready for a knee on his leg. This requires a lot more strength and skill and we've tried it once before a couple months ago for half a day and it just didn't go well. But lately Elias has been asking for a knee on his leg and we've been talking a lot about how it will be hard and he will fall sometimes, but that he is real strong now and we will help him. So he's been really psyched about getting this knee.

He's had the knee now for a couple of days. He's taken some pretty hard falls, but wipes those tears away and keeps on trying!

First Prayer

We sat down today for lunch and I asked Elias if he would like to pray. Surprisingly, he said yes! (Usually he says no). This was his sweet prayer:



Thank you Jesus for this food.

Thank you for my sandwhich.

Thank you for my new knee.

Thank you for my exercise.

Amen.



What an awesome sound it is to hear my son's prayer to Jesus!

Brown Like Me

Chase and I are hoping to start the adoption process again soon, but really don't have a timeline yet since we're in the process of moving out of state. Regardless, we've started to bring up the idea with Elias. When we ask him if he wants a brother or a sister, he always responds, "No. I want a new Levi." You see, Levi is his best little friend here and Elias just can't imagine having anyone other than Levi as a brother. So, a NEW Levi is what he wants. He must have been thinking about this a bit b/c this is what he told me the other day...

"Mom, I want a new Levi. I want another Levi. A brown Levi. Brown like me."

I was so touched by this on many levels. And it was interesting to me that he has this awareness already of his race. We talk a lot about his pretty brown skin. But the fact that he identified that he specifically wants a brown brother (or a brown Levi) was so sweet to me.

Here a picture of Elias and Levi:

Born to be a Rock Star

Elias loves to sing. He has tons of songs memorized -a product from many, many sleepless nights in the beginning when we sang him all the songs we know, over and over again. As soon as he gets in the car he starts requesting songs from CDs as if I am a DJ. I almost always comply with his requests, even if we hear the same song 10 times in one short car trip. His favorite song is Chris Tomlin's How Great is Our God. I just love that Elias has latched on to this song, because the words really testify to Elias' life and how awesome God is.

So anyway, we captured him on video the other night singing a few of his favorites. Well, it's a cross between singing and shouting. The image is a little dark, but I think you'll be able to hear quite clearly. :-) Oh, and check out his sweet air guitar.

Mopping

The other day Elias was rubbing his eyes for a long time. Finally, Chase asked him what he was doing.

Elias' response: "I'm mopping my eyeballs. "