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One Week Home

We have survived our first week home!  The jet lag plus having two infants made for a challenging week, but thankfully we had lots of help and lots of food.  Here are some highlights from the first week, sorry I am sure more happened but I cannot remember all that much!

  • The first doctor appointments went well.  We came home with NO ear infections and Giardia does not seem to be present.
  • I overheard Matt telling his mom that cloth diapering is just as easy as disposables.  🙂

    Drying some on the line right now
  • The boys are super chatty and giggly.
  • Noah is super close to sitting up.
  • Ezra loves to sing.
  • Noah loves to jump in the jumper. seriously. he jumped over an hour today (video proof of the fun).
  • We have tried rice cereal and sweet potatoes.  Ezra doesn’t like the cereal, but the sweet potatoes are yummy.
  • Matt is amazing with the boys, he was so worried before, but it seems to come natural to him.
  • The animals are all adjusting well, yes even Tank.


The boys in their bumbos.

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twins = busy busy busy

wow twins are a lot of work. I mean it feels like a lot for both of us. Stephanie and I wonder how people with more kids ever do it. triplets? quadruplets? HA no way!!!. These two are a handful as it is. 

We are home and alive, sorry blog updates have been minimal. Catching up on sleep. the boys are all out of whack on their sleeping patterns, but i think we are moving in the right direction. Noah still fights sleep pretty hard. A sound machine and some swing action are helping to cut the sleep fighting efforts down by a bit. 

Grandma and grandpa inskeep have been helping us keep the house in order with dishes, and laundry. As well as staying up late and playing after we feed them. All of our friends and neighbors have been bringing us food, which has been huge!. Thank you all so much. 

Please keep praying for bonding and attachment, as well as our own sanity trying to handle two kids and eventually go back to work and house chores. I hope once we are all comfortable with the new situations, a routine will fall into place. 

Some pics from the park this morning:

 

noah is in blue (because noah had an ark, smooth huh!) and ezra is in green. Yes, those are their official colors. We are trying to color coordinate toys, and things we buy so we know whose item is which. But we still often share. 

 

Official weights:
noah: 15.9 lbs
ezra: 13.5 lbs. 

 

Thats all. I think my computer time is about up as I hear stirring & cooing on the baby monitor.

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driving in ethiopia

driving in ethiopia is pretty rough. Its a contact sport thats for sure. I would say if you combined rugby, with tetris, and then while driving a car.

 

This was a light traffic day. other days were more intense. Too bad there isn’t “smell-o-vision“. You really need to be taking in diesel fumes to really get the full experience. 

driving in addis ababa from matt adams on Vimeo.

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almost home

We are very close to being home home home.Currently sitting in LA waiting for a connevting flight. So please excuse any blackberry typos.

The flight from Addis to Dubai was a pretty rough 4 hours. It left at 7:30 (the peak of the boys no bed time fussiness / screaming). We landed very late and got to the hotel at 2am.

Up at 6am to head from Dubai to LAX. The boys did quite well 13 of the 16 hours. Only cranky /screaming at the same anti bed time.

The female flight attendendants gave the boys lots of attention. They are little flirts and seem to always smile at pretty ladies.

We ended up with the entire bulkhead row to ourselves. 4 seats and 2 bassenettes. It was very nice, and needed. We made a huge mess of the row with all our stuff spread out.

Now its off on a small-ish commuter plane to phoenix. Only a 50 minute flight.

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heading home!

Today we leave Ethiopia for the long trek home.

Some quick hitting notes:

  • the food at our guest house has been amazing!
  • the people here are very warm and friendly
  • the weather is a near perfect 76 degrees
  • the boys are starting to be clingy and are avoiding bed time at all costs.
  • we are a little worried about being THOSE PARENTS on the plane with the fussy screaming kids. (prayers please!!!)
  • I will be glad to see “normal” driving again. They drive super crazy here.
  • ohh yes – we are looking forward to sleeping inour bed!

That’s about it for the moment. If we have time (read no screaming boys, and we have energy left in us) in LAX, we may blog / facebook some quick updates.

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we made it!

We just got a chance to use the internet today (wednesday ETH, Tuesday night USA).

The flight went really well. 16 hours is a really long flight for 2 adults. We’ll see how it goes with the boys. All of our luggage made it!

The boys are super cute, and doing well. The first night was a little rough, as all 4 of us had no idea what to really expect. The second night went much better. We figured out a system that works (for now). Attached is a pic of the 4 of us in the guest house courtyard (excuse the laundry, its not even ours).

Ethiopia is very nice this time of year. Actually cool for us from AZ. Very hilly, and busy, lots of people, cars and traffic.

Well thats it for now. I dont think we will get to use the internet again before we go, so we will see everyone when we are back on tuesday night.

Wish us safe travels!

Matt, Stephanie, Noah & Ezra

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and we are off

I think we have things all set. Spent last night running some last minute errands then went to dinner at Camarones at the chandler fashion mall. Wow it is really some of the best mexican food we have ever had. We both got vegetarian dishes, and really tasty stuff.  We even went and saw Star trek last night. For those that know us, we rarely see movies at the theatre. Not really sure why, just not our thing. 

Got home kind of late, then spent a few hours packing. In bed by midnight. 

4 big suitcases and 2 carry-ons. All under the max sizes and weights (which was the hard part for carry-ons).

The travel plan:
PHX to LAX via commuter.
LAX to Dubai  (stay sunday night)
Dubai to Addis monday morning.  

Please say a prayer for us. We’ll try and post something on the blog if we get access to an internet cafe somewhere.

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My Garden

It has been quite some time since I have mentioned my garden on here.  Poor thing is feeling a little neglected.  It has not been a stellar spring, most of my seeds did not take, but I do have a few things growing.

Cantaloupe and the little tiny plants are a desert mellon similar to watermelon.

Cucumbers!

Pomegranate

An artichoke in bloom, it is a really vivid purple

I also have two tomato plants that I will try to keep alive through the summer, some okra starting to sprout, and peppers.  My fig tree is starting to get fruit, I should have plenty by the time we get back.  I also have a nice rosemary bush.  My basil shockingly did not come up on its own this year, so I just put out some seeds this morning to see if I can still get it to grow.  On a sad note it looks like I have killed another peach tree, I guess me and peaches are just not meant to be.  I will try a citrus next year, if I can make up my mind on what I want to grow.

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My Handsome Guys

We received more pictures of our boys today.  Thanks to Stefany for taking them!  We are so happy and extremely lucky that CHI started allowing traveling families to take pictures for families waiting to travel.  We have been able to see the boys grow and are thankful to everyone who took pictures for us.  You all are a tremendous blessing!

Look who’s not crying!

 

I added the rest of the pics to the photo gallery.

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Busy, Busy

Matt and I have been very busy making sure everything is in order for our trip.  Can you believe we leave this Saturday?  It is coming up quick!  We have been busy getting a few projects done around the house and making sure the business will run smoothly while we are away.  I think we are doing pretty well, our to-do list is getting shorter even with a few glitches thrown in last week.  

So what have we been up to?

Paperwork, I know you think you are done with it but there is always something else.

Laundry, all the boys stuff is washed.  The cloth diapers are ready to go!

Yard work, we didn’t want to have much to do after we return home, so we have been busy making sure the weeds are pulled and the shrubs trimmed.

Matt has also steamed cleaned all the carpets in the bedrooms.  To me this was necessary as our animals seem to barf a lot.  

Making baby food.  This last weekend we made a trip to the farmer’s market so I could by some local, organic produce to make baby food.  I didn’t buy too much as I didn’t want to overwhelm myself the week before we left.  I wish I would have bought more!  It was so easy.

mmmmm sweet potatoes

and peaches!

Both foods I love, so hopefully the boys will love them.  (These are seriously the best peaches I have ever had.  I wish I would have bought more!)  I cooked the sweet potatoes in the solar oven and they were perfect and the peaches didn’t need to be cooked.

We also attempted to put the car-seats in the car last night for the first time.  I think we got it.  We didn’t install them and leave them though because my parents have to use their car to pick us up from the airport (so we all fit)  and the seats will need to be installed in it.

What do we have left?

Packing!

Steam clean the living room carpet.

Some accounting stuff for the business.

Finish adding the boys to the health insurance.  (waiting on a letter)

Clean the house. 

Run a few last errands.

Not too bad if you ask me.  I think it is totally doable.  I have some other things I would like to do before we leave, but they aren’t necessary.

We are both excited and anxious for our trip and cannot wait to meet the boys.  🙂

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7 years

thats how long I have been lucky enough to have such a great wife. Sometimes I still think she is crazy for marrying me. She is pretty much the best wife any man could hope for. 

 

Thanks for an amazing 7 years Stephanie. The next 7 should prove to be even more exciting I am sure!

 

just for fun, a pic from our wedding.