Our Weekend

Well...there isn't much rest for a family of 6! After knowing Silas is adjusting well, we decided to take a trip to the tree farm to get our Christmas Tree. It was great! The kids had fun and it was nice to do something as a complete family.

Below the pictures all really out of order...but too bad!!! I'm a busy women and no fixing it...sorry!

Go Bears!

Enjoying the outdoors while we can!

More outside fun!

Si's first stroller ride

Brian bought each of the kids traditional Ethiopian wear. Below Eli and Grace are showing their's off. Eli decided that the headband was a great accessory!

Introducing...

Silas Tariku Hensley

Si is doing very well. We've been home as a family for 3 days now and have been loving every second of it. Brian and I are dividing and conquering with the kiddos, and trying to give them all of the attention in the world...and equally. Its been fun!

Brian is still very tired, and falling asleep pretty early. Si is on a routine already. He has been sleeping through each night, despite the 9 hour time difference from Ethiopia.

Grace and Eli were proud to wear their "Big Brother"/"Big Sister" shirts to school today. They were also each armed with a picture of them holding our little man.

Si has already joined us in our Christmas Tree shopping and decorating the house for the holiday. We have so much to be thankful for. He also had a doctor's appointment this morning that went quite well!

Through the eyes of Silas

As we approach the week before our son comes forever home, we dream about finally having him in our arms, finally hearing his laugh, finally snuggling him and kissing him, finally staring into his eyes, and finally physically watching over him and protecting him. After much dreaming, it has become quickly apparent to us that these are OUR dreams...OUR thoughts...OUR ideas of joy and comfort. He is not dreaming and preparing for this day like we are.

What about our son? What about his thoughts? What about his comforts? He hasn’t learned to know God’s plan like we have learned over the past months. He hasn’t had months to prepare for us. He is not dreaming about us.

He is a small 8 month old baby; and in his small life he will have suffered two losses by the time we are physically joined as family. He will have suffered the loss of his birth mother; the woman, whom he smelled, touched, heard, and saw even before his birth and for many days after. He lost her. He lost that comfort. In the time between his birth mommy and us, he will have lived in a loving, transitional home ;as well as learning a new “comfort” from his many friends there and his special mothers. In the three months there, he will have begun to capture their faces, their smells, the sounds of the home, the chatter of the other babies, and the songs of praise and lullabies the special mother’s give him.

Sure...we’ve sent pictures of ourselves and special packages with our scents. But, he hasn’t been staring at them for months and processing what is about to happen on “Gotcha Day”...the day we ourselves have been dreaming of. On November 22^nd, he will feel comfort as he awakes to his normal routine. He will smile. He will feel secure. He will not know that his world is about to be “rocked” and that he will suffer yet another loss. So, as we celebrate the joining of our family, we also are very aware that he may not share in the joy at first. As his parents, we need to be sensitive and aware of learning him and what his feelings about us actually are. We will need to grieve with him as he suffers the loss, and we will need to comfort him as best we can. We will need to be his constant...and his sole constant for time to come. We will need to be his new voice of praise and lullaby, his new smell to get accustomed to, his new skin to touch, his new providers to feed him and to answer his every cry.

We pray that we can provide him with everything he needs and wants; and we pray we can make him feel secure. We pray God will allow him to accept us and trust in knowing that WE ARE HIS CONSTANT.

What to Expect when you’re expecting from Ethiopia

We are thrilled to have such wonderful families and friends. We are excited to know how many our friends and families love us, and all of our children. We thank you all for the prayers and support and excitement for newest journey of bringing our little man forever home.

Many of you probably wonder what life will be like for us, and what to expect once we are home. We wonder the same things, and trust that our year of training will help us prepare and provide the best we can.

Immediately upon arrival, our son will have bonded with his daddy. He will have lived life outside the walls of Hannah’s Hope. He will have had the experience of sleeping with his daddy, being bathed by his daddy, being fed by his daddy, and being sung to by his daddy. He will have experienced new adventures, such as a car ride, a plane ride, and many other new things. Upon arrival to the states, he will have waited in long lines (welcome to America buddy!), he will have smelled new smells (again welcome to the U.S. little man..ha), heard many different languages, and will have seen many new things. Once the plane ride is over, he will be greeted by very sappy, emotional a woman (a.k.a. MOMMY) who is well known for going overboard with kisses and hugs for her children. He will again be in for yet another learning experience. He will need to learn his mommy and mommy will need to learn him.

He will need time to heal from his losses and his healing will begin when he is introduced to our home, his brothers and sisters, his puppy, and his parents. The healing process will be a long road, and we want to do what is best for him...and at times may not seem to be the best for everyone else.

All children require time to bond. Birthing our older three gave them “womb” time to bond, as well as provided them with immediate security as we held them directly after birth. We were not strangers to them. They had 9 months to learn us and hear us.

There are many similarities between birthing a child and bringing a child home through adoption, but there are also differences. A new baby home needs a quiet place. A place that is calm and quiet, with minimal stimulus. This is the same for adoption. It is recommended that a new baby limit multiple visitors for the first several days; again, this is the same for babies through birth and adoption. Excitement surrounds the coming home of the baby and everyone wants to meet him or her. This too is the same for both.

With all of the joy surrounding the homecoming of our son, it is sometimes easy to overlook how his entrance into our family will be different than that of a child from birth. First, he will hardly know even his own mommy and daddy. We are strange looking to him, talk completely different, smell funny, and his home will be completely different than his other home “physically” looked. He will need to adjust to our lifestyle and our home. His new routines will also be very awkward to him, as he is used to a nine hour time difference. With all this being said, his heart may be breaking to have his old “normal” back. We need to calmly transition him to his new “normal”.

We’ve had several conferences with our local agency and our international agency counseling us about how to best transition our baby home. Most things are typical to all parent-child bonding relationships, and we hope those of you with children find the following list interesting, as it will remind you much of your initial days of bonding with your babies.

To help him understand exactly who we are to him, we will:

· Be the ones to solely feed, change, and rock him for awhile

· Call him both his new name; Silas (first name) and birth name Tariku (middle name) for awhile in order for him to transition from only being called Tariku until meeting us.

· Limit events outside of the home, and base what we do on his stage of attachment with us and what we feel is best for him.

· Often wear him in an infant carrier or hold him in public and at home.

· Bathe with him for skin-to-skin contact.

· Massage him and sing to him.

· Rock him frequently with song.

· Have him sleep in our room either with us or next to us in a crib to promote skin-to-skin contact and an immediate response to his needs.

· Respond immediately to his cries, and not let him “cry it out”

· Mimic nursing him as we feed him, complete with demanding eye contact, position of holding him, and switching him from side to side. (We were told this will stimulate both sides of his brain.)

· May limit visitors so not to over stimulate and confuse him.

· Will ask that you visit when you are healthy, as his immune system will be in for changes due to emotional changes for him, as well as his geographical changes.

We are humbled and thankful as we reflect on how awesome you have all been for us during this journey! We appreciate and love you all.

Let Grace's Birthday Week Begin...

Birthdays at our house typically are not "days". One day turns into a week full of events. Of course, they and I are perfectly fine with this. Grace's 8th Birthday isn't officially until the 19th, but we started off her week of events with a slumber party with a group of her friends. Grace fell in love with this Hamburger cake and then themed her party around hamburgers! Too funny! Each of the girls ordered a happy meal and celebrated the remainder of the night with facials, manicures, dancing, judging Eli's hip-hop dancing, and much more. Girls will be girls! They all did great!

We had fun playing pin the tail on the donkey and Brian rejoiced after his attempts as you can see.

On Saturday, we had a special day at Nana's to celebrate and early Thanksgiving, as well as birthday wishes for Grace!

More birthday celebrations to come...Wednesday with our family at home, Thursday at school, and Friday at Grandma's!

We love you Gracie!!!

Helping Gaga and Papa

A couple of weeks back, we enjoyed the fall weather as we helped Gaga and Papa rake leaves. Of course the kids found time to jump in them!

Papa designed a leave pulling box to gather leaves to the pile. Only our Papa!