Johnson Fammy

The basement in this house that we are renting is unfinished, and in my opinion kinda YUCKY! We do need the space and, so we use it. I like to refer to the space as the play/workout dungeon. Jesse doesn't find me too amusing and insists that it's not that bad.---Trust me. It totally is! The homeowner would LOVE it if we would spend our own money to finish it, and has given us permission to do so.-- That is so not going to happen, but we have been working to make it a little bit less dungeony (<---Charlotte word). We covered Daniel and Baby Sister's play space with those huge colorful playmats in primary colors, and they have a playhouse, Jumpolene, ride on toys, trains and tracks, cars and tracks etc, etc, etc down there. Next we will paint the ugly gray block walls white. Our latest though has been to work on a crafty nook for them. I filled two very large crates with all manner of papers, paints, glitter, crayons, markers, chalk, stickers- you name it! They are set. We got a table and chairs this past week and have slowly been putting the chairs together. Daniel left his cars and tracks as soon as the first chair was finished and grabbed paper and crayons and sat and got busy. Jesse was fastening the seats to the other chairs and I was working out on the EVILliptical. I was watching Daniel and it looked like he was drawing a person. Of course I couldn't be sure because I was watching from across the room. Well he has never drawn a person before. For the past year the only thing Daniel draws are oval doors, and the occasional heart by accident (but he's excited nonetheless each time it happens). Anyhow, I hopped off of the Evil and went over to Daniel. He was putting the finishing touches on a person. He looked up at me "Tha Mama!" I was so honored!!! His first person drawing, and I was the "STAR"- well at least I felt like a star :) He then started another person and exclaimed that he was now drawing "Daniel" and "giving eyes and giving happy face". He continued on to Daddy, and we couldn't believe it Baby Sister! And, with each of us he explained as he drew "giving eyes and a happy face." We think the figure at the bottom of the page might be fluffy, but we are not sure as Daniel has decided that that is top secret info and on a need to know basis- apparently we don't need to know- LOL! Earlier in the evening Jesse had been asking me if I thought that Daniel got it that our family would be growing in the coming months. We have been talking to him about it for months. My answer is yes. I think on some levels he does grasp it if not fully. But WOW! His portrait really blew us away. First, because it's always amazing how he advances so quickly to something new- drawing people this time. Next, because he thought to include Baby Sister in his family portrait!!! He has titled his work of art Johnson Fammy- how cute is that?! The little artist at work, and his masterpiece! Oh, and I took the photo so that the ugly gray wall behind Daniel would be darkened out, so no the play dungeon is not quite as dungeony as it may appear in this photo :) And, no, I didn't defile Daniel's beautiful original art work by putting our names on it. I just added those in photoshop. The original is just as he created it.

On other news we did fianlly get our last adoption document late Monday night. In a flurry we gathered everything up and got it all ready and zoomed off to the post, and sent it off express to the courier. Next stop is to the US Dept of State, the Ethiopian Embassy, back to the adoption agency, and lastly off to Addis Ababa Ethiopia. We are cautiously, but optimistically looking at 4-8 months to be matched with our baby girl and 6-10 months until we travel. - Praying for smooth sailing form here on out...