Last night Maya started writing out her Christmas wish list. I told her she could put anything on it that she wanted but not to expect to get everything on her list. So far she has only come up with four things she wants.

Maya's list:
1. A dog of my own
2. Hannah Montana movies
3. All the family here for Christmas
4. People in Africa get what they need.

I am truly amazed with this little girl's compassion for others, she is only 8 years old yet she believes she can save all of Africa. Sunday mornings she loves to sit down and watch the infomercials about sponsoring a child in a third world country, or sending money to help pay for cleft lip/palate surgeries for children in third world countries. She always tells me we chould be doing this. I wish I could grant all of her Chirstmas wishes but that is financially impossible. So I think I'll research companies that sponsor children and grant her part of her wish.

Here are some pictures from a recent Girl Scout overnight trip at camp. This is my third year as a one of Maya's Girl Scout leaders. I have enjoyed watching these girls grow up and teaching them new things. At this overnight (our first ever) the girls learned to tie knots. In the picture Maya is demonstrating her ability to tie a square knot. Elias and Hannah came along for fun and also because I couldn't leave them home. This was their first time wearing winter cats, hats and mittens. Shortly after this picture the mittens were shed in order to pick up rocks to throw in the lake. Hannah found some coins in her coat pocket (62 cents) as she was loading it up with rocks. She started yelling "Mom, moneys!" I though this was a pretty good deal considering I bought the coat and matching snow pants this summer at a garage sale for $3. I guess I saved 62 cents!
The rest of the weekend consisted of the girls learning to sew buttons on fabric, cooking two meals and practicing some outdoor sports skills. There was sleeping too, though not as much as we needed.
This coming week is Thanksgiving so I have been thinking of all that I am thankful for. Lately I have been so grateful to Elias and Hannah's father. He made a very hard, painful decision to let his children leave. In my thanks for bringing these children into our lives I grieve for Elias and Hannah's father in all that he has lost and I grieve for Elias and Hannah too, for the father that they have lost. Now that Elias' English comprehension and communication is getting better every day he has started to tell me things about Ethiopia. He refers to his father as "Bopa". As I have started explaining Thanksgiving to him we have looked at pictures of his Ethiopian family as well as his American family and talked about how and why we are thankful for all of them. Hopefully some of this is sinking in and he'll grow up thankful instead of resentful for all of his family.
I am asking all three children to make a list of three things they are thankful for and to draw a picture to go along with it. I'll post the pictures later this week.