Elise turned 5 about a week and a half ago. We celebrated with a very special weekend. This will probably take more than one post. But here are some of the pics…

Pink pancakes with candles to start the day, June 6.

Here she is posing with some the booty from various family members.

Granny (Scott’s mom) sends a bouquet of daisies every year to Elise.

I took her on a special “date” with mommy for a “manicure & pedicure”. She is so much a princess and loved it!

…Getting her finger nails painted.

…pretty pink nails with blue flowers painted on them.

I just learned about the practice of posting a photo on a personal blog for 365 days straight, to capture life in its “everyday-ness”. I am doubting that I’ll ever be that consistent, but it has inspired me to take more daily pictures and post them.

Although Escher does not yet pull himself to standing yet, he can bear some weight on his legs (something he didn’t do when we first brought him home) and he is so happy about it.

More about Elena moving up to the next level of karate. See how proud she is??

Elise has recently learned to pump herself on the swing. And she has also just recently started chewing gum without swallowing it. Today she told me “Mommy, I can pump and chew gum at the same time! Wanna watch me?!”

This is Escher, scooting himself backward, on the mat at Elise’s gymnastics birthday party (planning to post pictures of that later). Isn’t that the best smile?

Our neighborhood friend Ryan was over for a playdate on Thursday. I’m trying to take more pictures of mundane events to catalogue our pedestrian ways.  And hopefully post more regularly to share our everyday life.

Elena has been taking karate lessons for the about the past year. And today she graduated to the “Black Belt Club” at our Dojo, moving from the white uniform to the red uniform and getting her gold belt. She is so proud of what her hard work has earned her, which is rewarding for me too.

We brought Escher home 3 months ago today. It has been a blissful 3 months (excepting the sleepless nights). He is so sweet and jolly.  He has fit perfectly into our family and his sisters adore him.

He sits! It feels like a big deal to me because he was so floppy when we first brought him home. My head filled with fears that he would maybe never be able to walk, or perhaps even sit up. But he has grown stronger each day. And he first began to sit unaided on Mother’s Day. Now he can sit and play for long periods of time and he’s obviously so happy about it.

A dossier is the ginormous packet of official papers that are notarized, stamped by the county, state and nation, and details just about every aspect of our life. It’s intended to prove that we would make great adoptive parents.  It has taken us about 6 months to get to this point. But on Tuesday our dossier shipped to Ethiopia. Which means in a couple of days we will begin to be considered for a referral from one of our agency’s partner ophanages! We are so excited. Please pray for a swift and providential process.

Look how much Elise changed in a year! These are from her preschool egg hunt - she insisted on wearing the princess crown, with pink fur, to school.

The day before Easter we attended the Kimberly-Clark Family Egg Hunt again (the 24th annual).

That night we hosted a “neighborhood egg hunt” in our backyard for some of our terrific neighbors and friends - we LOVE our neighborhood. The girls dresses were from Macy’s, the day after Christmas ($60 marked down to $12) and Angela bought the same one for Kelsey. Amanda has been one of Elena’s best friends this year in Kindergarten.

Then the Easter bunny came on Easter morning, but we didn’t get a chance to color eggs until that day.

Let me just say, for you readers out there, that I am sorry it has taken me so long to post since the last one about resettling into America. I will just say that it took a lot of time and effort for me to get settled with two kids, as well as begin the adoption process. I’ll hopefully be posting again soon with more information about that. Stay tuned.

Well, it’s been a year and three quarters since I last blogged, so I fully realize that there may not be anyone out there who still reads my blog, and therefore will read this new post. But that’s okay…this is as much for my records as it is for the world at large. Two years ago when I began this blog I posted a lot of pics of Easter 2006 and the girls, then 1 & 3 (really more like ‘almost 2′ and ‘almost 4′). I wasn’t very settled into a good computer routine in any of 2007 so I didn’t do much with e-mail or blogging. But when I sat down to post again and was about to upload Easter 2008, I realized I needed to include Easter 2007 for a full understanding of life around Easter-time for Elena & Elise. So I hope any readers who exist out there will enjoy the progression through ages 2 &4, AND 3 & 5 (now that they are ‘almost 4′ & ‘almost 6′ ).

Easter 2007 - Coloring eggs…

We attended a couple of egg hunts. Elise had an egg hunt at preschool.

Then we attended the Kimberly-Clark sponsored Family Egg Hunt, which was awesome!

Our neighborhood hosted a get-together with a mobile petting zoo, with baby farm animals. The girls loved holding baby bunnies and chicks, and stroking the baby lamb. (The painted bunny on Elise’s cheek is airbrushed from the K-C Egg Hunt party).

And this picture is from Easter morning. The girls got Raggedy Ann & Andy dolls from the Easter Bunny.

Too many photos to include Easter 2008. Please see the next post.

We’ve been here 3 weeks and 3 days. I’ve been moving SSSLLLOOOOWWWW.

We were at my mom’s house for the first 10 days or so. What a daze I was in. So much emotion. So much to process. And my jet lag was prolonged (up at 2 or 3 am, unable to go back to sleep, for the first 6 nights). But what a relief to have my mom cook meals, help with the girls, even do my laundry. And the lush green yard was therapy. The girls LOVE the swings that Mom put up in the backyard and have had fun blowing bubbles and just running around. I sensed myself pulling back from life, shutting down like a newborn that sleeps when there is too much noise and stimulation. Floating in limbo, comfortably numb.

Then we came to Atlanta to work on our house, getting it ready to sell. The first full day I was so emotional. I wasn’t ready to change environments again! Elena suffered too. She had a breakdown over not being able to find her sunglasses. I asked her if she was having a rough day? Yes, sob, sob. Has there been a little too much change for her lately? Yeah. Perhaps I put words in her mouth, but my mother’s sense told me she was feeling it. But now, almost two weeks later, the girls are thriving at Jim & Margo’s house.

And healing has begun for Scott & me too. It started the night of Elise’s 06-06-06 party. Four of our dearest friends in the world stayed up late with us, while we poured out our pain, frustration and doubt. And they listened and prayed for us. What a picture of the paralytic’s friend carrying him to Jesus so he could be healed. The next day we met with a counseling pastor at the church, who also listened, prayed, and reassured us. And the next day we got together with Ray & Teri Sommer. They were missionaries in Budapest before we got there. And they left a year ago with heartache of their own. It was unbelievably refreshing to discuss our experiences with those who walked the same road ahead of us. There have been other, equally encouraging conversations that I haven’t mentioned. Being here in familiar old Alpharetta, with these relationships, has been like living in a cocoon of nurturing.

I miss Budapest. (The other night I thought I saw a shopping bag with “KIKA” written on it and started to shed tears of longing for “home”). But I am glad that we are here right now. The Friday before we left (the day before I miscarried our baby), when the packers put all of our belongings into boxes, I walked from room to room sobbing. I was remembering so many wonderful memories attached with that living space. If I were there now would I not also feel the pain of the loss of this pregnancy more acutely? God’s mercy.

So the Alpharetta house lists for sale this weekend. There was an amazing work team of volunteers from the church who helped clear out the overgrown landscape the first weekend of June. Then my parents stayed in the empty house, sleeping on air mattresses, for a full week, painting, cleaning, repairing. They were awesome. We have also been given contacts through church friends, for getting good deals on painting, carpet, garage doors. All in all the repairs cost half of what we feared. Now we need prayer that the house sells, quickly and for a good price.

Hopefully, I’ll have more to write soon.

Four days ago I joined the ranks of the millions of women who have suffered the loss of a miscarriage. I was thirteen weeks pregnant on Saturday. That night we were out to dinner as a family because the day before all of our belongings had been packed into boxes and there was nothing left to cook with. While I was sitting there I started bleeding. Fortunately my doctor was able to see me an hour later. There was no heartbeat when he searched on the ultrasound. There was no baby to see at all because the baby had died, tissue broken down, perhaps a few weeks earlier. It’s called a “missed miscarriage” I think, because my body didn’t recognize that the baby had died until a couple of weeks later. On Sunday I revisited Telki (the hospital where Elise was born) for a D and C to prevent excessive bleeding or incomplete passing.

Before this personal experience I believe I thought that the fact that miscarriages were common (I’ve heard 1 in 3 pregnancies) would make it less painful. I was wrong. It is still the loss of our baby. And the loss of a dream. And there are still all the awful questions…Why did the baby die? What was wrong that it didn’t continue to grow? Was there anything I did wrong? When did this baby die? Was it a boy or a girl? Will we be able to get pregnant again? Will we ever be able to carry an infant to completion again or will we suffer this kind of loss in the future?

For now I’m really too numb to decide anything about the future. My heart is not yet ready to hope again.

As a post script: Thank you to all of our wonderful friends in Budapest (especially the Cannon family, Coppage family, Nagy Gabi, Julie, Stirlings, Becky, Rebecca, Lippolds, and Tunde) for the love, words of sorrow and comfort, visits, gifts, and assistance to help us get through our last 2 1/2 days before moving. We love you!

….we fly to America! It is surreal at this point. Good days & bad days as the move approaches.  Very encouraging things are happening with our home church in Atlanta - a great friend has taken over organizing volunteers to help us repair our house when we get there (first 2 weeks of June). It is so healing to know that the body of Christ is rallying to our aid.

 But we also have struggled with discouragement in so many other areas. (See scott.friderich.net for more details). Now we really need prayer for faith and provision for all of the other unknowns when we return.

 In the end, I am so glad we came and lived here in Budapest.  Though it can be a wearisome place to exist cross-culturally, it has been exhilirating to live this adventure and grow our family here.

 By the way, we are expecting baby #3 at the end of November!