New Pics!

HAPPY EASTER

Her tee-shirt is custom. She leaves on the Bunny ears and sunglasses too! I swear she is perfect!

This pic is a crack up! It doesn't look like she has any legs and her belly is adorable! Marren is very healthy but she is very small. She will be 8 months in two weeks and she only weighs 14 pounds.

She definitely has an opinion on things. She did NOT want to take a picture. I can't wait until she can tell me what is on her mind! (Everyone else says I will regret it when she can talk back)

I just had to post this! She is soooo cute! Motherhood has been so far beyond my expectations. It's hard to do anything else except play with her!

Marren is a happy baby. We can play all day! She had her first belly laugh a few days ago and it made me cry!

This is one of the few decent pics I have of Marren in her Boppy seat. She hates it! I was told that this was the best chair ever and every baby loves it! Marren is a little gymnast and can roll backwards out of the seat in about 20 seconds! How do you like her expression? :)

Marren loves taking a bath. She helps me dump water in her face, yes on her face! She is a complete ham! I hope everyone likes her mohawk! I can't wait to take her swimming, she loves the water!

Marren Amelia C.

Marren's first referral picture taken at 3 months.

Her second picture taken in January at about 5 months.

My first day with Marren, February 10, 2010. We are on the bed at the Sadula Lodge.

This is one of my favorites... Day 1.

This is before we went to the embassy on day 2. February 11, 2010.

Her first picture with YaYa.

At home with momma. (That still sounds strange by the way) :)

She loves chewing on her owl.

At PaPa and YaYa's house.

With Uncle Jordan

Being tortured with Momma, Nancy and Karen

Mom and me!

This is the only picture, other than the group pic, that was taken at the Mercado. This is what a market looks like. Sheep, goats, cows, donkeys and horses roam freely. It had been raining this particular morning so what looks like fairly stable ground behind us is poop and mud. We had such a great time! I hope we can go back with Marren so she can see it all too!

Here we are at Lake Awassa! This is before we got in the rickety water filled boat! Oh- it may seem like I am dogging it, but I am definitely not. It was super fun and the attitude was like, "so what the boat leaks".

The Lucy museum was pretty cool!

Here we are at the resort. Can't you hear some eerie spooky music being played?

Here we are at the coffee/false banana farm. Mom didn't make it the whole way. The mosquitos were eating her alive!

Marren's nannies

Unlike other kids who are moved here a few weeks before they go home, this was Marren's home since she was 5 days old. The nannies have such love for the kids you could see what an impact they have on all the children. I was concerned about how Marren would attach to me since she spent all of her 6 months in the Enat Alem orphanage but the love and attention the nannies showed her helped her to be the happy and content child she is today. These women are special to me. Even after she was placed in my arms that day, each nanny came up to me and asked to hold her again and hugged her and made her laugh.

The Enat Alem nurse is on the left. Her husband did his post graduate work at OU! (Small world)

This is the over-night nanny. She is in high school and sleeps in the baby room at Enat Alem.

Marren fell asleep in my arms within 5 minutes of her being placed in my arms.

She is dressed differently because she was in charge of the coffee ceremony.

This is Marren's favorite nanny.

It made me cry to see her cry over Marren. She loved her very much. I am happy that I got a picture of her smiling for Marren.

Trees

The Resort: I can't remember the name....

The resort was fairly modern. I am not sure how many people were there. It seemed deserted. The road off the main road to get here was only 3 miles but it took us 25 minutes because the road is not paved and extremely bumpy. I felt like I was some sort of ride. One small mistake and Sammy would have put us in a hole.


This is the driveway leading up to the resort and it is flat.


Activities in Amharic. I personally wouldn't want to go horseback riding. The horses here seem to be primarily for work. They are smaller than the horses I have seen in Oklahoma and very skinny. I didn't see the horses from the resort so I don't know if they were in better shape.


I have never been a self proclaimed arbor lover, but the trees here are so pretty. This is another tree that can't be found in Oklahoma and it is lovely!


This is the beach area. From this view, the water is to the right. Straight on in the background are cliffs. The beach is more rock based than sand based.


This is a close-up of the cliffs. Unlike Lake Awassa, this area is more desolate and the idea that this is a vacation spot seems strange. Of course, you couldn't pay me to get in with the alligators and hippos that Awassa has to offer but this was a scary place to me. I don't mean in an unclean way, just a lonely place. It didn't scream FUN to me.


This picture is a view I took by turning a quarter to the right. The water was clear and warm and brown. It was very mirror-like on the day we were there.


On the way out of the resort mom spotted monkeys! There were two of them but we couldn't get them in the same shot. They did enjoy the wheat thins they were thrown!

Kids at the coffee farm and the farmhouse

The coffee farm proprietor's home up close. It is one large room that has partitions to divide the space into a kitchen area and a sleeping area.


This is a dark picture but you can see how even the wood beams are spaced from one another.


This is a false banana tree. The leaves are very strong and can be used for the foundation of a roof.


These kids loved seeing their pictures on a digital screen. These are the neighborhood kids.


The three taller boys on the right hand side in the back are sons of the the man who owns the land.