Oh Blessed Sunday!

I had a wonderful surprise this morning. I was reading my email and thought I should check out the Canada Adopts Yahoo Group new photos. I knew that one of our mums was back with her little girl and there were supposed to be a couple pictures of her meeting of her daughter.

Imagine my surprise when I get there and find about 40 new pictures from another mum!!! I quickly realized that these were not pictures of her trip - they were pictures of all the individual children in the Transition House where our girls are living!

I almost held my breath, as I whipped through the pictures looking for our girls. It is amusing to find how easily I went past them before realizing I had missed them. It takes time to get to know your own children! *laugh* When I went through the pictures again I saw my little ones in seven different shots!

Our littlest, Gadise, had the biggest, brightest eyes and I almost didn't recognize her! Then upon looking more carefully, I discovered more of her expressive looks. It was so cute to see her beaming face, as she peered from behind two children that were getting their picture taken. It is so clear that our girls have learned how much fun it is to have their picture taken. They just offer the happiest, most sparkling smiles each time they have the opportunity.

It is amazing what you take for granted when you raise a child. You know everything about their expressions, body language etc, without even trying! But when you are getting to know your child through photos you learn to inspect the child's every little feature.

Imagine how in our country we all have different colour hair, eyes, skin tones as we are from many different heritages. But when we look at the little Ethiopian children they are all brown with dark eyes and black hair! *smile* Upon closer inspection you really start to see their little personalities and how different they all are. But it takes time!

When I wrote to the Anna later to thank her for the photos she told me this:

Mesay was always trying to get into the pictures! They seemed quite happy & even sang songs to us.

Later on, when I was sitting here saving my new photos to disc in popped another surprise!!!

This time a video of the girls singing: I love you Jesus. They were adorable!! I could see Mesay singing so loud and clear, and she has only been there a month!! Can you guess how many times I watched that little clip? *laugh*

In all, I got six little tiny video clips. They were wonderful to see. In one, Mesay is sitting beside her little friend, Besukafed. This is neat to see because in the last set of photos that were taken 3 weeks ago, she was frequently sitting with him.

In this little video, the camera zooms in on her friend and as it pans out, she leans into Besukafed, puts her head on his arm and smiles. They are both hamming it up for the camera. It is so sweet to see their little friendships developing.

I scrutinized each 20-26 second clip carefull to see if I could find Gadise, but wouldn't you know it, she was in the *one* spot the camera couldn't see!! I could see the top of her head when the camera was directly behind her and then I could see her sweater in another shot. Oh well! I hope I get to see her in action some time.

These pictures and videos are such precious tastes of our girl's lives! We have a little bit of their life now from March 20, 27, April 18, and 23. For this we are so thankful!!!

Other insightful words we have received about our girls from another friend:

Both of your girls glow! They have a special spark, please be assured of that. :)

All of our clips and photos are being compiled onto a One True Media video montage, and when we pass through court and the girls are officially ours, then we will show you their happy faces!