Last few weeks in pics

(Above) We had kids camp at our church and I helped in Mebira's class. She LOVED it and is still singing the songs. I haven't mentioned anything about her singing yet. She is perfectly in tune when she sings, and has the sweetest little voice. She sings quite a bit and it's always a joy to hear.
(Above) Here is a picture of Mebira and her cousin, Ethan, at kids camp. They both loved the games. She can run like the wind and had so much fun running around that it was hard to stop her! :-)
(Above) It took her a while to get into it, but she eventually did the actions while singing. The was generally a move or two behind, but it was so cute to see. I am not sure yet if she has the "African Dancing Gene"...so far she looks about as co-ordinated as G&E! :-)
(Above) We took the kids to a huge playground and splashpark. They had so much fun!
(Above) She loved the splash park. She has no fear of water and loves to have it splash all over her body, head and face. It was so fun to watch her excitement.
(Above) This was my first attempt at cornrows. I braided the top and left the back loose. I'm not an expert by any means, and I'll probably look back at this picture one day and think it wasn't so good, but for my first attempt I was pretty proud. :-) Check out her colouring - she does such a good job!
(Above) Her latest obsession is baby dolls. She holds them and plays with them all day. She brings them in the car with her, too, and last week at church she asked if she could take one into church. Since she still sits with us in the service I thought it would be fine and would help keep her quiet. Well, when she got into church, she used her scarf (this is a dress I bought her on our first trip to Ethiopia) and tied the baby up behind her back and walked around like that all morning. It was ADORABLE!
(Above) I'm surprised it took that long, but it took almost two months for her to braid her sisters' hair. She did such a cute job and works so quickly but she did give them each only 6 braids before she moved onto another activity.
(Above) One of the highlights of the last few weeks was getting together with family who were in town for the funeral. We had such a nice time with Arvid's aunts one night, and with the extended family the next. Here is a picture of Arvid with his cousins. Over the years they are not just family members but friends as well...although I confess I sometimes am still intimidated by how good looking they all are! :-) Arvid is in the middle (obviously) and his sister Lynelle is on the way right.
(Above) Before the funeral we decided to take some family pictures since we were all dressed up. It is hard to get 5 people to smile at the same time, but these are the best ones. Mebira doesn't seem to want to smile for the camera much...from what I understand, this is normal for children from Ethiopia. It's not like she's had 5 years of training and posing. I did show her the pictures, though...how everyone was smiling in the 15 pictures we took and she looked so serious. She thought it was funny...so maybe next time around she'll smile. :-)
(Above) A sad day, but has made me realize how much I treasure Arvid and what an amazing husband and best friend I have.
(Above) We kind of got a smile from her...this is her fake smile, I guess and only came out when we offered a candy bribe. :-)
(Above) Aren't my girls cute? They are my GEMs! (Grace, Elizabeth and Mebira)
(Above) After the funeral we drove to Red Deer and got a hotel with a pool and waterslide. The internment was the next day, about 2.5 hours away and this was a nice way to break up the trip and have some fun on such a sad day. We went out for supper, went swimming that night and the next morning before the internment, and had some good times with the kids. One of my favourite moments was at night when the kids all piled into our bed and we lay there for 5 minutes all snuggled together.
(Above) As I said, Mebira has no fear of the water. Here Arvid was throwing her up in the air and she'd come splashing down hard. E & M are so cute together - they have so much in common and had a blast going down the waterslides and being thrown in the air. G was much more calm on the other end, practicing the swimming. And yes, I'll confess, I watched from the hot tub as I've never felt a pool so cold and didn't make it in past my knees. :-)

OK, that's it for now...thanks for sharing along with us!