Here is sweet K's hands decorated with stickers that one of my students gave me to give to her. She LOVES them!
Matt and K sharing a quiet moment with the teddy bear we brought her. 
The finished product of the girls braiding my hair. I LOVED it and left in in all day.We woke up this morning and I felt great! I have had no jet lag and after a good night's sleep I was ready to go. Matt has had a harder time adjusting and he is still getting over being sick from spring break so he was pretty tired. We ate a good breakfast and I had the most delicious Ethiopian tea. Then, we left for Hannah's Hope right after breakfast. A new family came in last night and it was so fun to be able to prep them about how darling their children are. They are adopting boy and girl siblings and we had so much fun spending time with them yesterday and we couldn't wait to watch them meet. When we got to Hannah's Hope we volunteered to take pictures for them and somehow I ended up with the Ipad to do the video! One thing I am not is a videographer and this is one film I didn't want to mess up! It was so fun watching them meet! I was trying so hard not to cry and keep the camera steady. After that, we picked up K and began spending time with her. She was hesitant to warm up to us this morning. We think she was mad at us for leaving her yesterday. After about 30 minutes, she resumed with her cheerful, bubbly self much to our relief. We began with giving her the teddy bear, gave her stickers again, and took out a memory game. The memory game was a big hit and the kids loved playing it. Next we brought out bubbles. Those were another big hit and about an hour later they were gone. We definitely needed to bring more. One of the highlights for me today was that the girls braided my hair!! They gave me cornrows! It was so fun to sit there while they went to work. Except it hurt! They are not shy and not afraid to pull it tight!! K was sooooo funny because at one point I screamed, "OUCH!" and put my hand up to my head and she instantly smacked it down!!!! We were all cracking up!!! The specail mothers were laughing too and they kept telling the girls to be gentle. At least I think that is what they were saying becauese everytime I said ouch the special mothers would yell over to them and they would ease up on me.
Another fun thing to watch was when we brought out the chalk and watched the kids' eyes light up as they drew on a big black gate at Hannah's Hope. They had so much fun drawing and one little girl would copy anything I drew. We also loved watching them write words in Amharic. We had no idea what they were writing, but it was fun guessing! Today we asked K to show us where she sleeps and she proudly took us to her bed and told us where each of the other 13 girls she shares a room with sleep as well. I smiled when I saw the Hello Kitty curtains hanging in the room knowing how much Brooke would approve. Lunch is a very fun time for us because we love watching the kids eat their injera and dora wat (Actually it wasn't dora wat because they are fasting right now for the Easter holiday so they don't eat meat until Sunday, but it was dora something with potatoes) They eat with their fingers, but they are actually very neat about it. And they sure can eat a lot!! After lunch, we spent time with K reading more books and simply singing and cuddling. Then, the dreaded time came for us to have to go. When she begins to sense what is about to happen her eyes go very sad and here comes that trembling lip. We gave her the teddy bear and had her put it on her bed, but then was even worse than yesterday. She started bawling and she was clinging onto me with a death grip. It was awful! The specail mothers were all speaking to her rapidly in Amharic telling her that we would be back tomorrow. It didn't matter. They were trying to pry her off of me which wasn't working and she kept refusing them and was clinging to me. Finally we were able to pry her off which was so awful for all of us. So we left listening to her screaming and crying as we walked away. I don't know how in the world we will ever be able to leave her on Tuesday. That is definitely something we will be praying over. I don't even want to think about it.
Another fun thing to watch was when we brought out the chalk and watched the kids' eyes light up as they drew on a big black gate at Hannah's Hope. They had so much fun drawing and one little girl would copy anything I drew. We also loved watching them write words in Amharic. We had no idea what they were writing, but it was fun guessing! Today we asked K to show us where she sleeps and she proudly took us to her bed and told us where each of the other 13 girls she shares a room with sleep as well. I smiled when I saw the Hello Kitty curtains hanging in the room knowing how much Brooke would approve. Lunch is a very fun time for us because we love watching the kids eat their injera and dora wat (Actually it wasn't dora wat because they are fasting right now for the Easter holiday so they don't eat meat until Sunday, but it was dora something with potatoes) They eat with their fingers, but they are actually very neat about it. And they sure can eat a lot!! After lunch, we spent time with K reading more books and simply singing and cuddling. Then, the dreaded time came for us to have to go. When she begins to sense what is about to happen her eyes go very sad and here comes that trembling lip. We gave her the teddy bear and had her put it on her bed, but then was even worse than yesterday. She started bawling and she was clinging onto me with a death grip. It was awful! The specail mothers were all speaking to her rapidly in Amharic telling her that we would be back tomorrow. It didn't matter. They were trying to pry her off of me which wasn't working and she kept refusing them and was clinging to me. Finally we were able to pry her off which was so awful for all of us. So we left listening to her screaming and crying as we walked away. I don't know how in the world we will ever be able to leave her on Tuesday. That is definitely something we will be praying over. I don't even want to think about it.
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