Arizona sun and fun!

On Thursday Jeff's parents joined us for a vacation to Arizona. We were celebrating lots of events, including Grandpa Morgan's retirement and 70th birthday, and today we will celebrate the marriage of my little sister Raleigh to our new brother in law Shane! What a blessing it is to have both sets of Grandparents with us for over a week!!! We are so excited for this trip. Our flight was delayed by over an hour and a half due to a storm, but the boys did amazingly well, they are quite the pros when it comes to flying! This flight was their third trip on a plane, but for Grandpa Morgan it was his first flight!!!! At the airport we were greeted by Aunt Katie (who is married to Mom's brother Nick), and Mommy's sister Aunt Kamie and our newest cousin Baby Jack! It was our first time to meet Baby Jack, although we already love him and talk about him all the time when we see pictures. It was so fun to meet him in person! We got to reconnect and see all of our Kerger side of the family Thursday night, and we are staying with Uncle Nick and Aunt Katie. They know how much we love police cars so they have all kinds of fun police toys at their house for us to play with, including handcuffs and police glasses! Friday we got a chance to go swimming in a pool! We love Arizona, there are pools everywhere!!! We had so much fun. Ben was pretty nervous, sticking to Mom and Dad most of the time...... Luke on the other hand is fearless when it comes to the water (which is even more scary for Mom and Dad!!!!) He loved it! The higher the better, and Uncle Nick and Daddy are pretty good at throwing high and catching!!
We will update you on more of our fun adventures soon!

Our Three Year Old!!!!

Our precious Luke turned three on Saturday!!! We had somewhat celebrated his day on Friday at the zoo, then when I came home from work on Saturday we had our little family celebration with cupcakes and presents. It is so amazing to watch how much he has grown in just one year! Luke has such a creative little brain that just does not stop. He continues to amaze us with just what a bright little boy he is. (For example when driving, he knows directions better than we do, and if we go a different direction he tells us we are going the wrong way!!! How he can tell that from a backseat car seat we have no idea!!!) He is also so sensitive and always such a helper, he thrives on the big brother role and fits the shoes well. He is also such a ham. He is quick witted and makes us laugh all the time. The other day we were in a restaurant and he asked "what is that?" about our waitress, we explained to him that we say "who is that?" not "what is that" when we are talking about a person. The next time the waitress came up he asked "who is that?" She kindly told him her name was Mandy. He then got a big grin and said "How you doing Mandy??" What a ham!

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Thank you Lord for this precious son, thank you for another year of life for him.

Zoo with Friends

Today we had a chance to join our friends, the Dew family, for a fun day at the zoo. We have tried three times this year to go with this sweet family and each time there was sickness in our families that prevented us from going. Today was a beautiful day to go, but halfway through poor little Natalie was not feeling good, and they had to leave. Here are a few pictures of our day.

Here is a picture of the boys looking at their least favorite animal (for some reason the chimps really scared Luke, maybe because the glass makes them look so close up!)

Here is the boys watching probably one of our most favorite animals (besides the polar bears!!)



Here is Nathan and Ben playing


Luke on an elephant! This morning when I woke him up and asked him if he was ready to go to the zoo, he groggily made an elephant trunk and sound. I gathered that meant he was ready!!


Here is our packed lunch we ate in the car!

More broccoli please???

Today was one of those days, that as a parent you find yourself saying something you never thought you would have to say.....
Yes, today at lunch we had to tell the boys that they needed to finish their PB&J before they could have more broccoli! We do a lot of our shopping at Costco, especially for the fresh produce because we eat it like crazy at our house, our boys love their fruit and veggies. (Mommy and Daddy are very glad for this fact!!)
Here is a clip for proof, we figure we might need to show it to him one day to prove that he loved broccoli! (In the background you can hear Ben asking for more too!)

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Baby Names

My friend Kelly posted an adorable post this week about why she and her husband named their sons what they did. She invited her readers to comment or post on their blogs why they chose their kids names. So, here is our post explaining our choices and inviting you to do the same. Feel free to post a comment or post on your own blog your answer!

Luke Mirtus Morgan

Luke means "bearer of light." It is our prayer that our son, who's background began in so much darkness, would end up being a "bearer of light" for our heavenly Father. In addition, when I was in high school I read a biography about a WWI Ace pilot named Frank Luke (Luke Air Force Base is named for this pilot). I fell in love with the name Luke and decided that my oldest son would one day be named Luke! Thankfully, Jeff loved the name as well.

Mirtus is an Amharic name meaning "One who has been chosen". This is not Luke's original Amharic name. His original name was Estubdink, which means extraordinary, and while we loved this name, in Ethiopia we found out that it actually is a girl's name. So we chose to pick another Ethiopian name as Luke's middle name. We chose Mirtus because we wanted Luke to understand one day that God chose him to be in our family.



Benjamin Mihereteb Morgan

Benjamin means "son of my right hand". Our prayer for our second son is that he will be the "right hand man" of both his earthly and heavenly Father. Mihereteb is Amharic for "God has had mercy on us". This is Ben's original Ethiopian name, which we chose to keep as his middle name since it has such a beautiful meaning. God certainly has had mercy on us, in allowing us to parent this precious son.



No, we do not have names for baby #3 yet!! Can't wait to hear how you chose your kids' names!

Laughs and Smiles

Over the past few weeks it has been so fun to watch language explode for both of the boys, but especially Luke. They both keep me rolling in laughs with their antics and funny sayings. Here are a few examples:

One day, I was having a particularly rough day. I looked over at Luke and he had the cheesiest grin he could muster. I started laughing like crazy and asked what he was doing. His answer (said like a ventriloquist without loosing the smile) "I am a monkey!!!" That only made me laugh even harder, because I don't know why he thought smiling like that made him a monkey! Either way, both boys precious smiles keep me smiling all the time!



Another day I asked:"Luke what is our new baby's name?"
Luke: "Um...baby Morgan?"
Mommy: "Yes, what else?"
Luke: (said with a funny half grin as he mentally goes down the list of all his Bible stories...) "Baby Isaac? Baby Moses? Baby Noah? Baby Jesus!!!!!"
Mommy: "Pretty sure I am not going to have Baby Jesus!"
(Although I must admit I am glad he is learning his Bible stories!!)

The other day we were sitting at a stop sign in our neighborhood, waiting to pull out. The road in front of our division can at times be extremely busy, and it will take forever to pull out, especially if the person in front of you is on their cell phone and not paying attention to breaks in traffic.

From the back seat this is what we heard from Luke: "good grief car, go, go, good grief!!" (Needless to say, your children can humble you so quickly and remind you that your tongue is a pretty heavy weapon!)

Luke has also decided, since he has now watched his Mommy get sick for close to eight weeks straight, that any time he asks to do something and I say no, it must be because "I know....your tummy hurts!" He then usually proceeds to kiss the "boo-boo" that is currently residing there.

Luke is just an insatiable sponge for words. His new favorite saying is, "what is that??" This question, while showing his inquisitive nature, is usually asked at least 700 times a day. Then to follow his big brother, Ben asks the same question another 500 times a day. This is an especially fun game when we are driving in the car, and I am forced to figure out what they are asking about while driving. Both boys can now correctly identify the difference between a jeep, suv, bronco, dump truck, van, ambulance, police car, fire truck, school bus, regular city bus, mail man truck (including Fedex and UPS) motorcycle, bicycle, concrete trucks, tow trucks and taxis. In addition, without even seeing the vehicle, they can identify the difference between fire, police and ambulance based on how the siren sounds. We are just waiting for the day when they learn the question, "why??"

In other news, Ben is finally getting his two year molars in. This is big news because Ben has been teething and drooling since the day we brought him home, so we are excited to move on from this stage at least for a few years until his other teeth start arriving!



Thank you Lord for these precious sons who keep us smiling and laughing!

Soccer, Basketball, Baseball, Tennis....and more

Luke and Ben are all boy that is for sure. They love every sport that we have introduced. They have spent the last week continuing to enjoy their new slide and of course their t-ball set that we shared about in the previous post. Here are a few fun pictures of our week outside. We can't wait to get out our pool soon too!

Here is Ben showing of his muscles....

Play time outside with our slide...


Here is Luke, my little soccer man.....

and Ben learning to shoot some hoops!


This weekend Uncle Tim and Aunt Gretchen were able to stop in for a quick overnight visit on their way home from a trip to Georgia. It was such fun to see them even for a little bit. We missed Kaylin, Ian and Nathan who were home in Virginia with Grandma and Grandpa!

This morning we went to the park and played on our favorite slide and swings.

Then we introduced a new sport....tennis!


Luke and Ben had a blast chasing after all the wild balls we hit as the four of us played tennis.

After all that running, we drank lots and lots of water!

It was a really fun morning. It will be interesting to see what new sports the boys will discover next! I think in June when Daddy is in summer classes, we are going to take swim lessons! I can't wait!