Welcome to the family

Happy Birthday to little nine pound, thirteen ounce twenty two inch long Samuel Farrell Strawn, born at 7:30 am in Oklahoma city.

So, for those of you playing the home version of the game, my brother has two sons- Charles Willard "Will" Strawn and Sam Farrell Strawn

Or, as I will be calling them- "Will" "Farrell"

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Evidently I say "shoot!" a lot. I've never considered it a bad word, but...um...it sounds a little funny coming out of the mouth of an 18 month old.

Evidently it is also a very fun word to say.

Shoot.

One Year Ago Tonight...

...we officially became parents. After waiting through multiple disappointing court delays and finding out that our next court date wouldn't be until November 13, we got a surprise email telling us that our adoption case had been approved by the Ethiopian courts. Mihret was officially our daughter forever and ever! After that, everything went incredibly fast. Three weeks later - on November 13 to be exact - we had flown half way around the world and were holding our daughter in our arms for the first time...but that is a reflection for another time.

Clearly thrilled by the court news
(Taken last year (October 29, 2007) by another family who was in Ethiopia to pick up their son)

There is one more step that we need to go through to complete Mihret's adoption. Since we didn't see her before her adoption was completed in Ethiopia, we need to go through the US courts to do an "adoption finalization." We submitted our paperwork to the courts this fall but were still waiting for a court date. Today - on the one year anniversary of Mihret's official adoption - we got a notice in the mail telling us that our assigned US court date is November 12th - almost exactly a year from the day we picked up Mihret from the orphanage in Ethiopia. Pretty amazing!

Piles and piles of pumpkins...now there's something to get excited about!
(Taken a week ago at an LA-style pumpkin patch [i.e. abandoned lot covered with hay, stacked with pumpkins, and featuring a Spider-man bouncy house...ah, autumn in LA...])

Read this book.

There is No Me Without You

Seriously. If not, go to the website.

Lifechanging.

When life imitates art

Our daughter has developed a sense of humor.

She's found that it's hilarious to add words to songs... "Row, Row, Row your Dada", and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star; How I wonder what you Mama" are among her repertoire.

Last night she was giggling herself to tears doing the alphabet song: "A B C D E F Dada, H I J K LMNO Hat..."

You get the idea. Anywho, it reminded me of one of my favorite moments from the Children's Television Workshop (Yeah, I have favorites. What of it? Don't get me started on the man with the tan van...).

Never a dull moment in Duarte.

The Climber

Mihret turned 18 months old today!

To celebrate, she used her big girl skills to show Mama and Dada that she could climb anything and everything she could reach. At one point today, I found her hanging on for dear life as she had managed to get both hands and one foot on a small counter in her bathroom. And you wonder why I seem to have more gray hairs every time you see me...