And A Few More Firsts......

This has been quite a week!  Of course, getting to meet our new babies was HUGE!  But, I had to get on here and post a few pics of a few other "firsts" this week.

Wednesday was Emma's first day of kindergarten!  She has been so excited to be in kindergarten this fall and seems to be growing up so fast lately.  Here are a few shots of her morning:

I don't think Jakey really understands this his sis is going to be gone EVERY morning.  He's actually done great with her gone, but did say to me in the car on the first day in the saddest voice, "Mama, where's Emma?  I miss her."  Oh honey, just break my heart, why don't you.

Finding her own backpack & coat hook with her new teacher, Mrs. O'Connor.

As if going into kindergarten wasn't enough, Em had her first soccer game this weekend. She's had classes at the indoor soccer club this last fall, but now she's on an actual team where they have uniforms and play "real" games.  She'll have a soccer game every Saturday thru mid November.  She and her teammates were so cute learning how to play out on the field - about 90% of the time playing hard and about 10% of the time stopping to check out the occasional grasshopper or discuss whether their jerseys should be tucked in or hanging out.  Emma did a great job - scoring 3 goals during the course of the game.

Kicking it down the field......

Scoring her 1st goal.  Yeah!!

GREAT job girls!!!  So stinkin' cute.

Way to go, Em!

Among all the other really cool firsts this week, I wanted to say thank you to my sweet friend Chelsea (who is training me for a 1/2 marathon coming up in January......my first running ANYTHING in my whole life) and by doing so helped me do a 4 mile run last Saturday morning.  To say I was intimidated about this would be an understatment.  But I finished the 4 miles successfully in 41 minutes.  Chelsea said this was pretty good, so I'm trusting her.  It's sort of embarrasing, but I was so overwhelmed with the fact that I ran the 4 miles, I started crying when I finished.  I've been so out of shape for so long it seems that I thought there is no way I could ever run ONE mile, let alone four.  What a feeling that was to finish the run......a first for me for sure.

This week will be a busy one for us with a few other things starting up as well as all the paperwork, phone calls and appointments to take care of for the twins.  We have 10 business days to officially "accept" their referral - which includes a consultation with an international pediatrician, tele-conference with our agency regarding travel and transition planning, filling out and notorizing various documents and coming up with one last whopper check to seal it all up.  After all that is completed, we are then waiting for an Ethiopian court date......likely to be in early November.  We should get that date sometime in October.  We have burned holes in the 5 pictures of the girls from looking at them so much and can't help but wonder what they are doing or who is holding them or how they are feeling at any particular moment.  I think it about all throughout the day.
  

I've got to go to bed, but I'll end this long post with Jake's bedtime prayer tonight.  "Dear God, Thank you for this day and please take care of my baby sisters and don't let them cry.  And don't let them get up and then fall down and crack their heads open because that would hurt so so bad.  In Jesus' name, Amen."

Sooooo, can you guess what I've been warning Jake NOT to do with his own head?  Uh huh.