I want cheese!

"I want cheese!" is what she exclaimed while taking my camera out of the bag earlier today. I took this rare opportunity and said go over there and do something for the camera.

Sandbox Fun

  

Cornrow update

After five days I started redoing the cornrows by splitting them into two. Tiny cornrows took a lot longer to put in! I spread it out over 3 non-consecutive days and they took about 3.5 hours total. Now there are ten smaller cornrows. Most of them have been in a week now and I still might leave them in for a few more days, depending on how much the fuzz bothers me. It's not the two weeks I was hoping for, but it's been a nice break for her hair (a break from styling and from the toddler whose favorite activity is rubbing her head on everything).

This picture was taken after most of the braids had been in 4 or 5 days
already and before daddy made a Liya burrito in the comforter.

Previous cornrows for side by side comparison.

First Cornrows

A few days ago I got brave and finally attempted cornrows on Liya. I have been wanting to try for quite some time now so I decided it was time to just do it. I've previously done two-strand flat twists on her so I think that was a good base for learning how to cornrow. I only did 6 large short cornrows for my first attempt. They aren't perfect, but they look decent enough. Surprisingly I didn't find them all that difficult since they are similar to the flat twists that I've done before. The hardest part for me in any hairstyle is parting the hair. Ugh, I despise it!!! I spend way too much time on that (mostly due to wiggly toddler and partly perfectionist mama/thick curly hair). In all it took 1.5 Sesame Streets (hours). One half hour was spent trying to part the hair and then deciding it might be a good idea to make it simpler the first time around. Next time I hope to make the cornrows half this size so they will be less fuzzy and hopefully last longer. That might be wishful thinking for the toddler who loves to rub her head on everything.

This is what I get when I say smile for the camera. This face also makes an appearance multiple times throughout any given day.

Outtakes

One Year Together

Today we celebrated our one year anniversary of being together as a family! One year has gone by so quickly. I can't believe it's been a whole year since we were in Ethiopia meeting Liya for the first time.



Then



Now



Then

 (and the only family photo we have from our week in Ethiopia)



Now

Readoption Day

Blurry photo with the judge.

Today (ok it was Monday...) Liya's adoption was finalized in the United States. This means she is granted the full legal rights of being our child and is now a US citizen! Her name was also legally changed from Ephrata Travis to Liya Ephrata.

A court appearance during a toddler's naptime is not the greatest idea anyone ever had. I was going to write about how our day went but can't ever seem to get to it so I'll just abbreviate a bit. I will say we had to pry  crackers out of Liya's hands before the judge walked in the room because the sign on the door said "No food or drink allowed in the courtroom, no exceptions!" I'm betting they wished they made exceptions. Envision a toddler running amuck (in a delirious sort of way) in an otherwise tranquil courtroom. Confining her to a seat ends no better than the aforementioned cracker incident. She ended up in the court reporter's booth several times saying some very enthusiastic, mostly unintelligible things to her and threw some nice tantrums when Travis removed her. She's probably on record wailing "Momma!!!" and also saying repeatedly "Hi momma! Hi momma!" when I had to take the stand. When Travis took the stand he had to say he didn't know what I had said. Our attorney then asked the judge if he had any questions about my testimony. He just smiled and said he didn't hear what I had said either.

Travis' Update: I would have to say without a doubt that this the second worst part of the whole adoption process. The first obviously was sitting next to a guy having a 13-hour panic attack on the flight home because he was scared out of his mind to fly. That should give you a sense of just how awful it was trying to manage this hungry and tired toddler.

Waiting for our court appearance with crackers in hand.

Looks innocent enough, right?

Running amuck in the courtroom.

Sitting still for a half a second. Of course that was before court was in session.

New US citizen. Those smiles may have been manufactured.