Just got around to uploading these pictures :)  Easter weather was FAB-U-LOUS here!  Unfortunately I did not get pics of our family together at church on Sunday morning all dressed up :(  When we picked Carter up from his class he had somehow smashed his face into a table playing speed stackers and was bleeding from his mouth and nose :(.
Sifan had a wonderful first Easter. She is so cute trying to figure out all of our holidays.  She kept saying Easter is going to bring me _______ (insert favorite Barbie toy or movie).  She had a great time hunting for eggs at Grandma and Grandpa's house (2 times). 

To be completely honest my lack of posting has been largely due to the overwhelming jumble of thoughts and emotions that would make the airy and light posts seem unauthentic.  I have been very very open about ALL of the steps of our adoption journeys until what seemed like the end of Sifan's adoption.  So much has gone on behind the scenes that I cannot share on this blog, things that involve other families, our daughters' backgrounds, agencies' behaviors past and present, and ethics in Ethiopian adoption.  I am very conflicted as I am a wear your emotions on your sleeve type of girl who will talk about anything. However, the circumstances that have arisen in the last year have brought up a lot of issues and thoughts that could only be written as a rough draft....things that I am constantly researching and revising and may never be ready to put out for a final print.  Adoption doesn't seem to lend it self to a period...end of story as I first thought it would.  Child home, child adjusted is not the end of the story.  Adoption is so complex. Children grow up into teenagers who question and adults who contemplate.  I can only imagine that the questions and concerns I have now will only be the tip of the iceberg of the issues my daughters will bring up when they are old enough to think about and understand the complexities of adoption and their background. I will try to keep this blog as "real" as I can but I am sure that I will likely be erring on the side of superficial at least in cyberspace ;)

This weekend we will officially take our house off of the market.  To be completely honest we are happy with this decision.  We have had a few very interested parties but everyone lacked the credit needed to purchase and we were not comfortable becoming landlords.  So we are staying put for awhile.  I am glad we went through the process though, mainly we have made so many wonderful improvements that we LOVE our house.  Improvements that I don't think we would have invested in if we were not trying to sell.  Even just decluttering and reorganizing our home has made a significant difference in the amount of space we have.  Our only qualms are 1) the bathroom issue (1 bathroom to 6 people) 2) the crazy circles I drive around town to drop and pick the kids up from school (about 1 h 45m a day in the van) .  Both of these are inconveniences and not impossibilities.     The GREAT news is that the combination of paying off our car with out tax return and deciding to not take on a larger mortgage payment in its place has made it possible for me to be a full time stay at home mom!!!  This had never been possible before as I have always worked 1-3 part time jobs to help make ends meet.  Torrey will finally complete his 9 year bachelor's degree in 3 weeks and we have decided to put all of our extra spinning plates down and hang our extra hats up for awhile to just regain some balance in our lives.  We want to refocus on our children and try to make up for lost time while they are still young.  Our focus has been on work, ministry, school, adoption, our home, etc for so long that our children have never really experienced the old fashioned family dinner.  And they are missing out on the joy of having their parents boty home on a regular basis. We have been tag team parenting for a long time that the children are always surprised to have both of us in the room at the same time.  (Sifan especially will question which one of us is leaving when she sees us together at home :( )
Staying where we are may not afford us much privacy or time in the bathroom but it will give us more time to regain some of the quality family time we have missed by being so "busy".

Today we had our first Easter Celebration. 

A little egg hunting between rain drops
Daddy and his girls

 Sweet baby Carter
And some new "headbands" from Grandma and Grandpa.

This blog came up in conversation during the family get together today.   I forget that people read this blog sometimes.

Today we finished Sifan's adoption announcements!  Sifan picked out special pink tulip paper to print the announcements on.    We are so glad we waited to make these because all of the information is correct now that we have finalized the spelling of her name and have her actual birthday!
Sifan has been home 9 months now :)

In hair news: We are working on perfecting our flat iron skills now that Wuby's hair is getting longer.  She sits so very still for the 2 hour process because she so badly wants her hair straight so she can comb through it all day.  This was our first semi-successful attempt
(and a little flat iron in the front for Sifan to make her happy.).

Back in January Carter's photography and visual art submissions for the a PTA art program advanced to the state level for grades K-2nd.  We just recieved word that his photography submission placed in the top 3 for the state!!!  We are so proud of him!!  The theme was "Beauty is...."

This is a picture of the hooks where he hangs his coat at school.  His artist statement was, "This is my class, this is where I belong. (beauty is belonging)"
Here are a few others that Carter took that I LOVE:

His perspective is very interesting to me.   Maybe all Kindergarteners see the world this way?  I just love the way he captures it in the camera.
  Since I am on the brag endlessly about my kid post, I wanted to add this one.

This is a school project he did in January:
It says, "If I were President I would.....make healthy food for free.  Make sad kids have a house."
When I asked him about it he said it is about the kids in Ethiopia.  He wants to get them healthy food to eat for those that are hungry and give the children on the streets of Ethiopia a home.
Did I say I LOVE this kid?

When we are out and about it never fails (I mean NEVER) that someone asks me how old the girls are.  They continue to be an almost indiscernable 1 inch difference in height and weigh the exact same.  They seriously look like fraternal twins....well identical twins to people who have had little contact with black children (seriously I have had this...a guy at Walgreens thought I was surprised to find out I was pregnant with identical twins)  Anyhow, the girls are always happy to chime in that they are 5 and 4 1/2 (emphasis on the 1/2).  So, inevitibly the next question is how far apart are they.  To which I answer 6 months.  Then most people (the ones that can do math in their head or know anything about biology) ask so are they biological sisters?, or are they cousins?, or what came today the simple "Are they sisters?".  Usually I just say yes and walk away as cofusion spreads across their face.  Today though as I was rounding hour 3 of waiting for our van repair with no quick exit in site I mispoke.  When the lady asked "Are they sisters?" I forgot the little ears around me.  I said, "they are not biological sisters but they are sisters."  To which Wuby had a very cofused look and said in a loud voice, "but mom, we ARE sisters!!!"  I tried to explain that I meant that she and Sifan had different Ethiopian mommies, but the term biological sister was lost on her 5 year old understanding.  I realized then that I needed to further change my approach to questions from strangers.  These questions have mulitplied exponentially since Sifan has come home.  The girls are IMPOSSIBLE to miss.  If you are not overtaken by their cuteness (I swear I am not looking through mom colored glasses ;) ) then they will try their darndest to engage you in a conversation.  Like I said, you cannot miss them, they will not let it happen.  This openness that the girls have with strangers seems to loosen strangers tongues, and they ask whatever is on their mind.  Usually I don't mind at all....as I am often the Queen of TMI without embarrasement.  I will answer those questions that are sometimes prefaced by "I know this might be an ignorant question" and the questions that are down right ignorant and really shouldn't be asked.  I alwasy answer with a smile and often take the time to educate a bit about adoption, the process, the function of my ovaries, Ethiopia, etc.   I realized today though that maybe I need to hold my tougue a bit until I relearn how to better answer some questions because above all MY CHILDREN'S feelings and ideas about themselves and their family are MUCH more important than my furthering a stranger's education about adoption or just scratching that itch of curiosity strangers may have. 
T & I and talked it out and decided that we would say that the girls are about a year apart so that the uncomfortalbe question of, are they sisters doesn't come up as much and that our answer will always be Yes, they are sisters, no need for explanation of biology.  Often this will suffice if I am by myself with the girls because it isn't a huge leap to think that they are my biological children....often it makes me laugh even when I try to discern what people are thinking when I take the boys and girls out together without T.  But the new philosophy is, let them wonder. 

Sifan and Carter like to refer to themselves as "two year twins" since they share a birthday and are exactly 2 years apart in age.  I couldn't resist this photo op after Carter lost his front tooth last night :)
(Sifan had her front tooth removed when she came home from Ethiopia...in case you are just tuning in...read about it here and here).

This morning as I was making my tea headed out the door to take the boys to school I heard all 4 of the kids shreiking in terror.  Now it is normal to hear at least one scream every morning as the kids beat each other get loaded into the van, but it is very rare for them all to be screaming at the same time.  As I went to check on them I was run down by a herd of Ehrman children yelling that a cat was in the van.  A little background...we have no real pets (we do have an old beta fish that plays dead all day but he is hardly a pet...more decoration than anything).  All of the kids are to varying degree frightened of animals of all kinds especially dogs and cats.  Wubitu is the worst.  If there is a dog or cat in the house she will not let her feet touch the ground and screams anytime the animal comes her way.  Sifan is also scared but wants to learn to like pets (she talks nonstop about how she held my mom's cat like a baby one time).  Noah and Carter are also very very nervous around pets.  So a cat in the van was a shock for sure.  Apparently someone had left the van door open and the stray made himself at home for the night.  The kids said that when they were all buckled in waiting for me to get my tea ready to go the cat jumps out at them causing a loud mass exodus.  When I got out there I opened all of the doors to the van and waited.  Called "here kitty, kitty" and nothing happened.  We were already running late and i didn't want my face scratched off if I found the scared cat under my seat so I coaxed the kids back into the van thinking that the cat for sure escaped during the commotion.  They were all nervous the entire trip that the black cat might come back.  We dropped the boys and headed back home with no incident, other than Sifan insisting that we should keep it because it must not have a home and we could be its home :)  The girl's tumbling class was canceled so we didn't have to use the van again until we picked the boys up.  We were running late because I woke up from my nap late.  so I hurried the girls to the van and jumped in.  I thought this commercial on the radio was so weird because it had this cute meowing sound.  Then it hit me...the cat was still in the van.  I thought I had smelled a hint of dirty cat in the air when I got in.  I stopped at the corner and opened my door and waited.  A minute or so later a big black cat jumped out of the van from under my van seat!!!  I tried to remain calm not pee my pants as to not further enforce the girls' fear of animals.  Drove like a wild woman the rest of the way to pick the boys up, and picked up trash from the passenger side at stop lights.  Then I found grabbed the receipt I had been looking for and to my disgust it was covered in cat pooooo!!!!   AAAAAA!!!  Since I disturbed the turd feces it made the entire van stink to high heaven.  Thankfully I was so late to pick the boys up that none of the staff came close enough to the van to smell it.  The boys smelled it instantly and we all had to pull our shirts over our noses all the way home to keep from gagging.  This solidified in the kids' minds that they do not want any pets. Luckily for me the majority of the mess was on a USPS flat rate mailing box I wasn't using so I could just throw it in the trash.  However, how do I explain to the store that the receipt I need was pooped on by a cat that doesn't belong to me who decided to make its home in my van.....???