First Prayer

We sat down today for lunch and I asked Elias if he would like to pray. Surprisingly, he said yes! (Usually he says no). This was his sweet prayer:



Thank you Jesus for this food.

Thank you for my sandwhich.

Thank you for my new knee.

Thank you for my exercise.

Amen.



What an awesome sound it is to hear my son's prayer to Jesus!

Brown Like Me

Chase and I are hoping to start the adoption process again soon, but really don't have a timeline yet since we're in the process of moving out of state. Regardless, we've started to bring up the idea with Elias. When we ask him if he wants a brother or a sister, he always responds, "No. I want a new Levi." You see, Levi is his best little friend here and Elias just can't imagine having anyone other than Levi as a brother. So, a NEW Levi is what he wants. He must have been thinking about this a bit b/c this is what he told me the other day...

"Mom, I want a new Levi. I want another Levi. A brown Levi. Brown like me."

I was so touched by this on many levels. And it was interesting to me that he has this awareness already of his race. We talk a lot about his pretty brown skin. But the fact that he identified that he specifically wants a brown brother (or a brown Levi) was so sweet to me.

Here a picture of Elias and Levi:

Born to be a Rock Star

Elias loves to sing. He has tons of songs memorized -a product from many, many sleepless nights in the beginning when we sang him all the songs we know, over and over again. As soon as he gets in the car he starts requesting songs from CDs as if I am a DJ. I almost always comply with his requests, even if we hear the same song 10 times in one short car trip. His favorite song is Chris Tomlin's How Great is Our God. I just love that Elias has latched on to this song, because the words really testify to Elias' life and how awesome God is.

So anyway, we captured him on video the other night singing a few of his favorites. Well, it's a cross between singing and shouting. The image is a little dark, but I think you'll be able to hear quite clearly. :-) Oh, and check out his sweet air guitar.

Mopping

The other day Elias was rubbing his eyes for a long time. Finally, Chase asked him what he was doing.

Elias' response: "I'm mopping my eyeballs. "

Video of Elias Walking

Elias is getting an MRI done right now so I'm trying to find things to keep me busy while in the waiting room... I found this video taken about a month ago of Elias walking down the driveway and then putting on his brakes (high squeaky sound) when he stops. I haven't posted any video of him walking in a while so I thought I'd update everyone with how well he is doing!

Best Friend

I just couldn't resist posting about this cute conversation between Elias and Chase....

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Scene: Chase and Elias are in the car and Chase has just finished talking with me on the phone.

Chase: That was Mommy on the phone.

Elias: Yeah. I like Mommy.

Then after thinking a little bit, he adds... "She's my best friend. "
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Ah! My heart is melting...

Ethiopian Buddies

A couple weekends ago we went to a picnic with the Ethiopian community in our area. It was great to meet so many Ethiopian families. Best of all, our other friends who have adopted Ethiopian kiddos the age of Elias came as well. It was our first time for all three families to be together. Our kids' birthdays are all within two weeks of each other so it was fun to see how similar they all are. The kids had a blast playing!