Braids & Such

Ava Lou now talks and acts like she's one of the big kids. She insists on dressing herself and doing everything else herself. Our social worker commented on how much everyone in the family raved about Ava. We all just can't get enough of her. She regularly has us in stitches, and seems to know that the her ability to make us all laugh gives her some sort of celebrity status in our home. The other day she passed gas and casually commented, "Excuse my bum." 

And with the braids, oh Lord help us; it's hard not let her get away with anything when she's sporting those braids.

On a more serious note, the author of one of the blogs I follow is over in Ethiopia right now meeting her daughter and going to court to make her officially part of their family. She also had the chance to visit one of the government orphanages there. You may have already followed this link that I posted on my Facebook page: but if not, take the time to read THIS. Take the time to open you eyes and your heart to a world outside of our "American dream". I know doing this in my own life is a journey I've only just begun. 

Making Traditions

My mother was asked to speak to a group of young moms at our church on the topic of Christmas traditions. Whoever had the job of picking someone to talk about this, hit the jackpot when they asked her. My mom is the queen of traditions. Intentional traditions. I could go on and on about the wonderful things she set into motion that have become part of the culture of our family. But I don't think it's about the specifics, I think it's about taking the time to choose your own meaningful traditions and keep them. It builds such solid memories, gives a sense of belonging, and bonds the family in a way that few other things do. And think about it, God was the author of traditions. Many times in His Word, He gave His people traditions to keep to remind them of who they were and who they belonged to.

The tricky part for our family was having traditions translate to the next generation. My family's and Steven's family traditions remain and have become part of my own children's history, and I love that. But I didn't want to fall into having my kids find their family identity only in our extended family's strong traditions. So we've tried to build our own traditions. Even the simple stuff seems to become so meaningful and important our little family.

One of those is our "fireplace meal." We decorate our house for Christmas on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and that night we sit down to have a meal cooked exclusively in the fireplace. When Steven and I were looking for a house this past year, one of the things we wanted was a fireplace; and that specific meal was a huge reason for that. After the meal is finished, we pull the nativity out (the only decoration we've left in the box); and we give each of the kids a few of the pieces from the nativity. Then Steven reads the Christmas story. And when the kid's hear the characters that they have in their hands mentioned in the story, they go up to put it in the nativity. See, I told you it was simple. And yet, my kids seem to think it's the best thing.

Getting the fireplace up and roaring in the new house for the first time. (Ava was hidden on Daddy's lap)...



Fireplace meal...


The obvious dessert for such a meal...


Dad reading the Christmas story (note the iPhone Bible...we're raising 21st century kids here!)...




And our new tradition this year was Mom and Dad saving the cheese portion of the meal for after small people were in bed. Enjoying some toasted cheese, a bottle of vino, and some snuggling- yep, I think we'll definitely keep that tradition.

So, how about you? What's your favorite family tradition?

Baby Sister Beauty

I posted over on my photography blog my baby sister's (not so baby anymore) senior photos. You can head over there by clicking HERE if you're in need of some eye candy or simply want to see the result of us carting suitcases of books out into a field...

Support Us With Coffee

Our home visits are done. *head thrown back shouting "hallelujah"* And honestly, they were so much less intimidating than I expected. The social worker checked our closets and didn't find any skeletons. (We hid them in the attic.... kidding. Kidding.)

When she was doing our family interview, she asked us why we wanted to adopt from Ethiopia. Before Steven or I had the chance to answer, Adriana piped up confidently, "Because we like their food." 

The sick humor side of me wonders what would have happened if I had just looked up at the social worker with a straight face, and said, "Yep, that pretty much sums it up."

And now that the home study is about complete, we're facing the dossier and the holidays. As Steven and I spent time praying over where the $9,000 that needs to accompany the completion of the dossier is coming from, I wondered if I couldn't combine the Christmas shopping season with raising money for the dossier. 

So, as usual, I turned to coffee. 

No really, I did. There's a company called "Just Love Coffee Roasters" that comes along adopters like us to help raise money. They sell sustainable, fair trade coffee in every roast you could want. And you can even join their coffee club to have your coffee sent to your doorstep regularly. They sell also grinders, mugs, and even the popular Chemex coffee maker. Because what do you get the person on your Christmas shopping list who has everything? COFFEE!!

You can go HERE to our profile on the website and simply click the "Shop & Support" button on the left. A portion of anything you purchase after that goes to our adoption fund. It's that easy.

Shopping for Christmas gifts, getting coffee, and supporting an orphan finding her way to a family aching to love her? I don't see a downside here. 

And if you're ever looking for to purchase coffee again, I'll be keeping the link under the "Our Adoption" tab of this blog. Now go get yourself some java!

We Interrupted The Regularly Scheduled Healthy Food...

...for a Sieb family November tradition.

We start with candy corn, homemade Rice Krispie Treats that have been made into a small ball shape, chocolate icing, and Oreos that have had the stuffing removed (yep, nothing remotely healthy here)...


Add in some assembly fun...


And end up with a cute little gobbler.


Or a whole flock of turkeys.

Grandparents and Great Falls

This past weekend we had a visit from Grandpa and Grandma Sieb, who are nothing short of celebrities at our house.


And while they were here, we took a little trip over to Great Falls National Park which has been called the "Niagara of the South". There we spent part of the time oohing-and-aahing over the wonders of God's creation and the rest of the time keeping our kids out of the more shallow water which they seemed bound and determined to fall into.

Home Visits

This next week we'll be embarking on a big step for our adoption. Our home visits will take place; and to be honest, this is the part I'm most nervous about. It's not that I have things to hide, but the idea of someone, coming into my home and evaluating me and my family is a bit nerve-racking. Not a bad thing, just humbling. So I'll give a little update here after all of that; because as long as everything goes well, the social worker's report will complete the home study portion of our adoption process. This is HUGE since it is the most work-intensive part of the adoption paper-chase process. After this is complete, we move on to putting our dossier together for Ethiopia. For those of you who don't know what that word even means, a dossier (pronounced dah-see-ay) is a packet with many notarized papers that gives the country we're adopting from a detailed description and record of Steven and me and our family.

Also, our first adoption fund-raiser, the photo mini-sessions went SO well. I had prayed many times for God's blessing on this; and He blew me away (it's His specialty). It was a perfect day, two days before we were slammed with Hurricane Sandy. Everyone that participate was an absolute delight. I went to bed that night unbelievably exhausted and unbelievably grateful! You can check out a taste of the photos over at my photography blog HERE.

Dressed Up & Sugared Up

I'll lay aside my why-do-we-sugar-our-kids-up-as-soon-as-cold-and-flu-season-hits rant to simply show off some snapshots of my cuties on Halloween.


While Steven took the three oldest out, Ava and I had just as good of a time passing out candy to the "truck or treat-ers". You should have heard her squeal every time the doorbell rang. Then there was the squeal of any middle-school aged girl when Ava answered the door clad in footie pj's and a tutu: "Oh, my gosh, she's so cuuuute."