Happy Third Tiziversary to our sweet little Tizita Desta

Three years ago today, on September 12, 2008, this is the face that greeted us as she stepped off an airplane in the Appleton airport. This little lady had just completed the longest trip of her life, all the way from Ethiopia to Wisconsin, USA. She had been on different airplanes for many, many hours and yet she was bright eyed and busy tailed that first time we saw her. We had been in love with her from the first time we saw her picture and knew her name, but now we had a real smile, real eyes, real hands to hold, real arms to hug us. It was a magical moment, one which I will never forget. On September 12, 2009, I decided we needed to celebrate the Van Auken Family's Tiziversary commemorating the day they brought our first grandchild home.

This is the beautful dress that Courtney and Paul had brought home from Ethiopia for Tizita and she wore it for the first time on her first Tizitversary. She looked just like a little Ethiopian Princess.

Since she liked Curious George so much, I used him as the theme for our first Tiziversary.

On September 12, 2010, we celebrated our second Tiziversary with a dinner at the Ethiopian Cottage in Milwaukee. This outfit was another one that Courtney and Paul had brought back from Ethiopia and this was the first time Tiz wore it.

This year she was in love with pandas ever since seeing the pandas at the zoo in Washington D.C. so pandas became the theme of our second Tiziversary.

This brings us to the celebration of our third Tiziversary. John and I began the day with a fun trip to the zoo. I will cover that trip in my next post. Taking Tiz to the zoo has become a yearly tradition for John and I. This year it just happened to fall on her Tiziversary weekend.

After the zoo, Courtney, Paul, and Gigi met us and we again ate dinner at the Ethiopian Cottage. It was a yummy wonderful meal.

In true Ethiopian tradition we shared a common plate with many Ethiopian dishes and injera.

Tiz and I share a moment. Unfortunately John was not able to join us due to a flat tire after the zoo. We felt it best that he head home and tend to that tire. We missed him, but we did have a great day with the three of us at the zoo.

Gigi and Tiz share some coffee after we were able to experience a traditional coffee ceremony at the restaurant. She is wearing another dress brought back from Ethiopia.

On Sunday, we continued our celebration with church and a Princess party

This was the year of the Princesses, so the cupcakes and decorations were all about Princesses.

And there in the midst of it all, was our very own little Ethiopian Princess! Happy Tiziversary Sweet Tizita! We love you more than you will ever know.

Note to Little Nathnael: Remembering the happy, happy day that your sister walked off of that plane and into our lives makes us so much more anxious to meet you. We are already in love with you, but cannot wait to see your real eyes, real smile, real hands, and to give you a big hug!

We Knew Everything Would be All Right

Ten years ago today, terrorists attacked America in the most horrific way we could ever imagine. We must never forget that awful day and all the unsung heroes who selflessly gave their lives.





We will always remember where we were that fateful morning and how we all dealt with the news of such an attack.





Today, I don't want to dwell on the event itself. The media will take care of that for us. I want to share a book with you that was written by a classroom of first graders in Kennett, Missouri. The message is one of hope and that is what I want to dwell on today. I was teaching a classroom of Preschoolers at the time, much, much too young to understand any of the tragedy of that day, but I can relate to this book written by young children.





It is titled, "September 12th, we knew everything would be all right."


"On September 11, 2001, many bad things happened.


September 12 was a new day. We knew everything would be all right.


because...


The sun came up and the birds started to sing again.


We came to school the same way.


We knew everything would be all right when we saw our teacher smiling at the door.


We said the pledge like always.


We sang the National Anthem very loudly.


Our teacher sat and read us lots of good books.


We had recess again.


We knew everything would be all right because we had homework.


2 + 2 still added up to 4.


Our thought for the day became "America United."


We saw lots of flags.


Red, white, and blue suddenly became everyone's favorite colors.


On television we heard our President tell us everything would be all right.


On September 12, our parents still tucked us in our warm, safe beds.


Our parents talked to us about the bad things that had happened the day before.


We knew we would be all right because our parents still loved us.


We knew everything would be all right because the stars and moon came out and America went to sleep.


And the next morning the sun came up again.


Not the end."





So, today, ten years later, I will be remembering heroes, but at the same time thanking God that on September 12, the sun came up and we knew everything would be all right.

Smiles

These smiles are brought to you free of charge from my Preschoolers at St. John's.

The first two days were a great success. Of course, I miss having Tizita in my class, but she needed to be in her own class this year. My kids are loving the new bigger classroom and so am I! We are off to a great year.

Note to Nathnael: When you get home, you will be able to come to my Preschool class, too. I am looking forward to being your teacher just like I was your sister's teacher. We will have lots of fun together!

Happy Birthday Gramps

I want to remember my Grandpa, Erwin Kohlhoff today on his birthday. Thanks for all the sweet memories, Grandpa! I know you are celebrating in a big way up in heaven today.
I am so thankful that my girls got to meet and spend some good times with my grandpa. He was such a hard working, gentle man. His final wish was to be carried out of his house, the house he lived in all his married life. He got that wish, he was carried out to an ambulance and died in the hospital. God granted him that final wish. The more I see people in nursing homes, the more I realize how blessed he was.
So, today I will remember the quiet times that grandpa and I shared fishing together, I will remember how he let me help him clean those fish in his big old sink in the basement, I will remember helping him plant in the hot beds and the gardens, I will remember him sledding down the hills with me, I will say thank you, God for such great memories.

Happy Birthday Grandpa! See you soon.

Another Labor Day weekend put to rest

Our Labor Day weekend is winding down. It has been a fun weekend. We started with Friday night movies at home while enjoying some BBQ pork sandwiches that I made myself. They were yummy if I must say so myself.





On Saturday we went to Pam Wilke's wedding. It was a nice wedding, just rather odd to see her married again with her daughters and grandchildren standing up for her. I am happy that she met Doug, she deserves some happiness after losing Bob to cancer. I am so thankful that Pam and I have reconnected after all these years. I think God brought us back together so I could be her sounding board about another guy that she had met and almost married prior to meeting Doug. We had fun at the wedding reception visiting with lots of friends from our church. On Sunday after church we visited John's mom and dad at the care center where both of them live now. We did not know what to expect when we got there. MaryAnn had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was only given months to live. (See my prior posts to read more on this)


We weren't sure how she would be feeling about this news or how her medications would be affecting her, but we were so pleasantly surprised to find her in great spirits with her sense of humor intact. We laughed with her about many things. It was a good visit.

Courtney sent her a hand crocheted hat and she proudly modeled it for us. Her comment was, "Yep, not sure if I will look better gray or bald!" She has always been a bottle blonde until now.

After our visit, we rewarded ourselves with a shopping trip to Toys R Us. We are on the hunt for boys toys and clothes. It is so much fun to see what is out there for little boys after shopping for sweet Tizita for these past three years. Now we can add trucks to the princesses and dinosaurs to the Barbie dolls. We found some cute T-shirts on the clearance rack and

these fun trucks and cars. I remember how buying things for Tizita just seemed to make the wait go faster, so that is my theory this time around, too.

We enjoyed hamburgers on the grill on Sunday night, took a long walk on Labor Day morning, and John washed three cars in the afternoon. He has not washed cars as often this summer as he is used to, so it was good for him to be able to spend an entire afternoon washing, polishing, shining, and waxing the cars. He used the car wash gift set he received for Father's Day from the kids which made the task easier.

Tonight we will finish up our summer with brats which have been soaking in beer all afternoon. Great way to finish up our summer.

Tomorrow I go back to school. I am as ready as I can be at this point. Hoping for few criers.

Note to Nathnael: Grandpa and I are having so much fun shopping for clothes and toys for you. We found you some cars and trucks that we think you will enjoy. I see that you are holding a red car in your picture. We did find a red car for you, hopefully it will remind you of the one you are holding. Stay healthy and happy. We will see you soon!

Two weddings, seven years apart, same outfits

First of all, if you haven't read my previous pst about Time, please do so, because it is much deeper than this post! Our friend, Pam Wilke got married this past Saturday. Her first husband, our friend, Bob died about three years ago after a long battle with brain cancer. Pam deserves a break and since meeting Doug she has been happier than I remember her being in years. We are so happy for her and Doug.
Anyway, I found this black dress in the deep bowels of my closet, (HA, I like how that sounded) and I sent my girls a picture of me in it to ask their fashion opinion on if it was still in style. Both of them said, "Yes, simple black dress always in style," so I wore it.
I apologize for the quality of the picture, my 82 year old mom took it and she couldn't get the hang of not moving the camera, but you get the idea.

Well, here we are, seven years earlier at Sarah and Chad's wedding. Yep, that was July 2004 and we wore the same outfits! How crazy is that? I however wore some different shoes, although I still have these black slides. I wore some higher black sandals from T.J. and Lisa's wedding which took place over five years ago. We think John's pants are new ones, too and he just informed me that his underwear, socks, belt, and shoes are different, too.

And, this folks is our little contribution to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Time is all so relative

Time, it is a funny thing.
Sometimes it just flies by and sometimes it drags on and on.
Some days take forever and yet some years go by much too fast.

John's mom has been diagnosed with cancer, very aggressive cancer and has been given six to nine months to live even with chemo. Six to nine months to plan for your death, to say good-bye to all your loved ones, to get your affairs in order. Those six to nine months will go quickly for her and for all of us as we dread the end of a precious life.

Courtney, Paul, and Tizita got their referral for their little boy. The wait for Nathnael is about six to nine months. The same amount of time they would wait if Courtney were physically pregnant. We all want our little guy to come home to our waiting arms as quickly as possible. Those six to nine months will seem to drag by as we wait for such an anticipated, happy event.

See the irony here, do we wish for those months to go quickly so we can say "hello" to our precious Nathnael or do we wish for those months to drag out so we don't have to say "good-bye" to a sweet mom.

Only God knows the outcome of these scenarios. Maybe he will choose to heal John's mom, maybe he will choose to bring Nathnael home earlier than anticipated. In the meantime, we wait and we pray for patience, healing, comfort, faith, and courage. We also pray that God would grant John's mom a chance to meet her only great grandson before He calls her home. "

Note to our sweet Nathnael: We hope that you will get to meet your mamaw, but if not, we will have lots of stories to share with you and you will know how much she loved you and wanted to meet you. In the meantime, stay healthy and happy. We will see you soon.