Wanna see the cutest thing(s)?!?

Here they are...
The Cutest Sisters in the World!
They are so cute together! My Pixie and my Curly top! Callie loves to go to the swingset, lean over the swing, and swing herself back and forth! The other day I look out the back door and see this:
I grabbed the camera and got a couple pictures! Jovie had been pushing Callie for quite some time and Callie was just grinning from ear to ear! Unfortunately, then Lettie saw me taking pictures and pushed Jovie aside so she could get her picture instead. Little stinker! I wanted to get a better picture that showed Callie's happy grin! It was so sweet! Jovie loves to take care of Callie. They have a special little bond! They seem to know what the other one needs!

Here is Jovie & Callie playing t-ball together. Well, actually Callie is interupting Jovie's t-ball "practice"! I thought Jovie would get mad, but instead she let Callie join in and "help". Jovie loves to put the ball on the "t" and hit it off. She takes it very seriously! But she did not mind sister's company!

Ok, last group of super cute pictures!


They were out playing in the sprinkler. Callie goes over to Jovie, looks at her, then hops into the wagon. Instantly Jovie knew exactly what Callie wanted, picked up the handle, and took Callie for a little ride. They speak each other's language!

Mmmmm... Cheap American Chocolate!

We went to Wal-mart the other day and the Hershey candy bars were $.33, so I told all the kids they could pick out 1 candy bar (and YES I was in Wal-mart with ALL 7 kids, by myself... more about that in the future late Father's Day post that details why I am the best wife in the world). Anyway, Nolan & Lettie knew what they wanted, but Salie, Yonas, and Yomane had no clue which they wanted. I tried to show them the pictures, but I knew they had no clue what they tasted like.

So, what is a mom to do? Buy a couple of each type, divide it up, and have a Chocolate tasting dessert! So, now they know what Hershey's Milk Chocolate, Hershey's With Almonds, Almond Joy, Reeces, and Kit Kat now taste like. I do not know what their favorites are. I do know by the handful of Almonds with the Chocolate sucked off them that was given to me that Yomane is not very fond of nuts in his chocolate. And know Salie likes EVERYTHING by the fact that she spent the entire time saying, "I lika dis one! I like dis one!" Which is the cutest thing to hear! ... except... She always goes up to Callie and says "I likea dis one!" which is too cute, until she follows it up with, "Jovie no! No lika Jovie, Lika Callie! Lika dis one!" Basically, Salie likes to baby Callie and Callie LOVES to be babies. Jovie on the other hand scowels at her and walks away at any attempt to baby because in Jovie's head she is 5 years old and how dare you even try to touch her!

But back to the point! It was a lot of fun to enjoy chocolate with them! So, enjoy the pics! And yes, it is the summer, and yes Yonas is wearing a winter hat, and no amount of trying to explain that it was 100 degrees outside (literally) could make him take off the hat for about 3 days.

Way Too Many Pictures of My Family!

Here are 240+ pics if my kids Pre-Ethiopia. If you think I take way too many pics with 4 kids, it is only going to get worse with 7!!!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9AYuWblo2aNJQ

This is me catching up on everything from before the trip! Next I will make a "In Ethiopia" slideshow and then I will do a "Post Ethiopia" slideshow because I have that many pictures! I love digital camera and have a tendency to take a TON of pictures!

Warning: There are a lot of pictures on this slideshow, but they are super cute!
Of course you have to consider the source, I think so because they are of my kids!

I will do some more blog posts soon! There is a lot going on around here!

The Annual Mother's Day Pinata!

I don't know exactly how this ended up as a tradition, except 2 Mothers Days ago when Levi asked Nolan what they should get me for Mother's Day, Nolan said, "I think Mom really would want a Pinata!" I think he wanted the pinata, but the point is, I got one and it was really sweet! We happened to have a Pinata we bought from a yard sale that he filled with candy and a gift, and that was the start of the annual Mother's Day Pinata!

Well, this year for Mother's Day I was in Ethiopia. It bothered Nolan A LOT that he did not give me my Mother's Day Pinata! So, after weeks of Nolan mentioning how sad he was that I never got my Pinata and that he was sure I was disapointed, Levi went out with the kids and suprised me with a Belated Mother's Day Pinata! I was so tickled! I thought that was very sweet! So, we cracked open the Pinata before church! we now have a great place to hang it too, which is a nice plus! Enjoy the pics:

A Really Good Big Sister!

Salie (Selamawit... we call her Salie... said like Sally, but the "a" makes an "ah" sound instead of an "aye" sound) is very good at being a big sister... for the most part! She LOVES the babies... not too much where she smothers them, but she does dote on them and gives them some of the best attention! Callie is her particular favorite... because if you remember, Jovie is a big girl and must be treated accordingly, but Callie LOVES to be the baby!

The other day I hear Callie giggling... She sounded so giddy, so I went to see what was going on and found this:

Is that cute or what?!?!

Then, the other day I see her go into my bathroom and pick up some hair ties and hair clips. She then goes out of the room not saying a word. I go into the playroom and this is what I find:

The thing that amazes me is that Jovie sat through the whole "beauty treatment"! Jovie never lets me keep so much as a hair clip in her hair over 15 seconds. And she hates to sit still. But Salie probably worked on her hair for a good 15-20 minutes. Jovie was happy as long as she was sitting there with her toothpaste and toothbrush "brushing her teeth"!

Here is the results:

Jovie was so proud! We told her she was pretty and she just prances around! Notice the amount of hair bands and hair clips! And notice... she still has her toothbrush!

The Salie disapears upstairs and 5 minutes later Callie comes downstairs with her new do:

With her curly hair she could not be as through as she was with Jovie! But I think she did a good job just the same and Callie thought she was beautiful! She was twirling and high-stepping all over the living room. It was hard to get her to stop showing off to take a picture. That is why they are fuzzy!

And then tonight, Nolan made an attempt to wrestle with her and apparently he jumped on her back, she picked him up and wrapped him around her and just held him there. Then he did it again and picked him up and piggy-backed him and ran him around the downstairs:

This girl is one tough cookie! She is a trip!

We also have decided on Macie as her middle name, so she goes around saying, "I am Selamawit MACIE Jeppson!" She accents the Macie. By the end of the summer we may be calling her Macie, we will see how it goes! I was weeding the flower bed today and she jumped in a joined me and weeded just as much, if not more than me! She is a determined little thing in so many ways and she can be stubborn at times, but what kid is not? And she is a daddy's girl! We have had so much fun getting to know her as our daughter!

SNAKES!!!

So... we have found out that Yonas has "Eagle Eyes"! He seems to be particularly in-tune to snakes. 2 days ago he was in our front yard and started frantically saying, "Dad,Dad"! Our neighbor diagonally across the street from us had a 3 foot black snake trying to get into their garage. Levi was amazed he even saw it!

Then the next day they were at Nolan's t-ball game and Yonas looks up the hill and says, "Dad! Snake!" Levi did not see a thing, so Yonas took him by the hand, led him up a wooded hill to a bush, and sure enough there was a black snake. Yonas picked up a rock perfectly willing to do it in for Levi, but he explained it was harmless and could be left alone!

Then, during the t-ball game, a soccer ball that some kids were playing with hit a kid with 2 loose teeth in the mouth and their teeth fell out. They found one, but no one could find the other. Yonas walks right over, looks down, and picks up the tooth that no one else could find! Haha!

So... with all these snake sitings (which in the last 2 years we have only seen 1, so to get 2, 2 days in a row is amazing)... the kids have had SNAKES on the brain! So, the kids are playing in the back yard and we suddenly hear Salie and Yemane screaming, "SNAKE! DAD! SNAKE!" And I mean to say they were SCREAMING! TERRIFIED SCREAMING!!! And since it seems to be Snake Season, Levi runs out there. I hear the kids squeal even more because apparently Dad picked up the snake. And, can you believe it... Levi brought the snake inside. And here it is:



It is either a rare Pygmy Eyeless Mouthless Dwarf Snake... or it is just the common earth worm!!! I vote for the later! But still tonight when I showed them the picture they insisted it was a snake! It is a trip to see these kids discover new things. Now what are they going to think when we go fishing this summer and we buy and entire container of "Snakes!"

My Backyard Smells Wonderful!

If you ask my my favorite flower, that would be Honeysuckle and Carnations! I am all about good smellin' flowers! I have honeysuckle lotion and a honeysuckle Yankee Candle. Honeysuckle also always reminds me of late spring/ early summer and it reminds me of the softball fields growing up. Whether it was my sisters or me playing, there was always a TON of honeysuckle vines and the smell was always so strong. And I love to pull off the flowers and taste the nectar!

As I walked outside tonight I was overwhelmed by the smell! The honeysuckle is in full bloom and boy does it smell good around my house! And better yet, last year we just had a teeny patch on our hill after we cleared it off and put up a fence. This year, I have honeysuckle spiraling up my fence. Not only does it smell good, but it looks very pretty! I am going to enjoy being outside and smelling the honeysuckle this week!!! I will have to show the kids how to taste the nectar!

My Link Leading Lady Interview!!!

http://www.1079thelink.com/custom/link_lady.cfm?ID=170

That is my interview if you want to hear it! I talked for like 15 min with them, but they shorten it to 4 minutes!!! Haha! But I thought it turned out OK and I got to say some really nice things about how I feel! I feel weird hearing myself on the radio, but I am happy I was able to do it! I am looking forward to the banquet! Free food is always nice!!!

Back to Bloggin'!

So, we are home! I just have been too busy to write! But it is now 6 in the morning, I have been up since 5:30 and I thought I would take this opportunity to blog a few things and post a few pictures!

I am happy to be home! I always thought I wanted to be a world traveler and to see all the different sites in the world. I think I have decided now that spending the rest of my life only vacationing in Florida is now my favorite option. Basically, I seem to pick up any sort of food/water born illness to quickly... it is good to be home where I can drink out of the tap!

The kids are doing great! They really are! They have adjusted remarkably well! We flew in at noon on Saturday and they were so excited about all the new things (the cars, the backyard, their rooms) that they stayed awake and finally crashed around 7pm (which would be 2am their time). And so far they are up around 7 and in bed around 8, so that makes a lot of things a lot easier!

Meals are still really interesting. Yemane and Yonas will eat anything put in front of them but Selamawit if a VERY picky eater and seems to only eat bread if she can help it. So we are working on making her not so picky! We have white bread in the house, but we usually only have wheat... so I think when we switch back over to just wheat she may not be in such a hurry to only eat bread!

They all seem to know the routine really well! We went to church yesterday and that went well! They are used to really long services, so the 1 hour sacrament meeting is not too bad for them! They all seemed to enjoy primary, particularly music time! Yemane broke down crying half way through his class and they brought him to me. Poor thing! I really could not blame him! He does not understand hardly any English and it was probably so overwhelming! When we got him into the van to go home, he fell asleep. So I think being sleepy had a lot to do with it as well!

Yonas is really good with all things sports. He has some great soccar skills and he watched a little bit of Nolan & Lettie's t-ball game, came home, and threw a ball in the air and hit it! Levi was impressed! He has great form and everything!

Selamawit lost a tooth yesterday, it just popped out in the middle of church. It was not in the best shape, so I don't think it took too much to fall out. We did not do the tooth fiary because she would not understand. But it just occured to me as I am typing this that NOLAN will understand, so I may need to put on a facade that the tooth fairy came just so he will not wonder why she did not come!

The main stressful part of having the new kids is the language barrier. For me at least. Today we are going to try to learn the words for certain feelings. I have a worksheet printed out with the basics on it (happy, mad, sad, sick, scared) so hopefully it may help them to be able to communicate their feelings. I am hoping to catch Sesame Street today as well and talk about the letter A. Catching them up for school is going to be hard, but we will do our best and we have the whole summer, so that is good! Yonas seems very anxious to learn, Selamawit... not so much!

Oh, and we were calling Selamawit "Salie", with the a sounding like "ah" instead of "aye". But then we realized it is so close to Callie and they both respond when I say either name. So we may transition her to her middle name, whatever we end up choosing that to be... but I think the most likely choice is going to be "Macie". Selamawit is a mouthful for an American, especially if you try to say it right! We may have to transition Yemane as well, because that is not said how you would think either. But that is something I would do very slowly. But it really does not take kids but so long... heck, all our other kids have about 10 nicknames a piece that they all respond to. Heck, Callie responds just as well to "Wallice"!

So, any ideas for boy names?

Well, I better figure out breakfast before the troops wake up! Here are some pictures! I will make a shutterfly album of Ethiopia pictures soon for you guys to see!

Trying to use a straw for the first time:

Some airport pictures:

At home, with a ton of kids:

Audra from Ethiopia

This is Katie - Audra's sister-in-law. She sent out an update today and asked me to post it here. Enjoy!!!

Hello Family and Friends...

The Internet is slow here, but not too bad! The weird thing is, I am unable to access to Blogspot, so no blogging from me :-(! I am going to have A LOT of catching up to do when I get home!

So, as for an update...

THEY GAVE US OUR KIDS A DAY EARLY!!! They asked us when we got in yesterday if we would like them today and of course we said yes!!! So, this morning was the big day! I was nervous, but I did not dwell on it too much! Then they came! 10 minutes before they came the guy in charge came and that is when the butterflies started! They came in and you could tell they did not know who to go to, who to hug, who they belonged to. When they realized they were with us it was so hard because they did not know a word we were saying. Then... a miracle happened in the form of balloons...

We came with a couple from Charlotte, Leanne and Charlie, and they met their daughter at the same time. He had brough balloons! AND BOY WAS THAT A BLESSING! We went into their lounge area, blew up 4 balloons, and that was it... instant bonding and happiness! They started hitting balloons in the area, we hit them back and forth to them... and that was it... we were family! Hahaha! Who knew balloons would be such a blessing? After playing for over an hour with balloons and wearing ourselves out, we went upstairs and they colored and we went to lunch. They are taught to be quiet during lunch, but we soon broke the ice by stealing their shoes off their feet and switching them under the table. And Charlie was making them giggle by doing silly things with his napkins and Levi was balacing a butter knife on a bottle... simple pleasures!

THEN... Yonas discovered THE CAMERA!!! And there has been no living with him since. He has taken pictures of EVERYTHING, then he sits down and tells us about them in perfect Tigrinyan... and WE HAVE NO CLUE WHAT HE IS SAYING... but we just smile and he seems to feel VERY connected with us! Selamawit is daddy's girl ALREADY!!! As I am typing this she is shooting him with sponge rockets and running away! Then he will hide and when she comes around the corner he will grab her and tickle her. She will NOT let me put anything in her hair! But she did want to wear her new clothes! But a pretty butterfly hairclip... NO WAY!!! Isabella Haragu already has a love of hairbows and pretty things. They just came in and she just got her hair cut and looks really cute!We went to the 11th floor where the kids could look out on all the city! Of course Yonas took a million pictures and LOVED all the construction trucks (there is a ton of construction around us). Well, I better go while I can... but so far so good! I can not wait until I can share some pictures. They are smaller than I thought, so their clothes are going to be huge, and they are featherweights... but all of them are so handsome/pretty! Oh, and on a side note... we got an AMAZING gift! A little teeny wallet type thing with teeny id size photos of family members... with names... and (Christie, you will love this) GENEOLOGY!!! WOW WOW WOW! Oh... and even better... the cell phone numbers for their family! I have found a phone card and I can call them. Apparently Yonas already knows that the number is there... he pulled it out and brought me over to the phone. So, life is good... if you guys know of anyone who would want to read this, please forward it on or cut and paste it into whatever forums or blogs or what not. Maybe I will try to send pics next time... right now they have the headphones and are dancing... hehehe... they are hilarious!

Love you all!Audra & Levi