10 Simple Things I'm Grateful For....

1. Maren loves pumpkin pie as much as I do. Last year she requested pumpkin pie instead of a birthday cake. Bill hates it; the other kids are indifferent.

2. Glee. My new guilty pleasure. It's campy and totally over the top and I love it.


3. There are finally some movies worth seeing. I'm excited about Invictus and Living in Emergency. (Bill doesn't think I can't handle this one. I'm going to prove him wrong.)


4. My bathroom scale that I remembered to pack this trip. My mom is a phenomenal chef and her language of love is baking. A daily weigh in on a Salt Lake trip is a must.

5. A husband who exercises every day but Sunday. His example convinced me to go running twice this trip (or rather made me feel guilty). I want to be a runner again.

6. My mother in law played Quidler and Skipbo all morning with my girls so I could finish my homework.

7. Hand sanitizer. All the Kellgreens went to Classic Family Fun Center for a night of skating, laser tag and bouncing. Thanks to a big bottle of hand sanitizer no one is sick.

8. Ikea. Some of their Scandinavian inspired accessories remind me of all the Danish things my mom and Grandma used to have. I love Ikea's Lignon Berry Jam too. That reminds me we still need to make Aebleskivers (Danish pancakes).


9. Family talent shows. On Thanksgiving, all the adults sat around in my sister's living room in a turkey stupor while the kids sang primary songs, played the piano and guitar and did strange interpretive dance moves. The talent show gradually devolved into chaos. The kids' antics were more amusing than the show.

10. Grandpa Busath's old typewriter. Annie spent a lot of time last night typing out letters to Hope. When Thomas was young, he liked to pretend Grandpa's office was his cockpit and the typewriter keys were his controls.

11. (This one isn't simple or trivial.) A call from Lois Martino reassuring us our adoption is moving along. Hallelujah.

Extended Family

Today is Thanksgiving and one of the things I am most thankful for is the Kellgreens and Busaths. Annie was baptized on Tuesday in Salt Lake City, and as we were starting the service I turned around and looked behind me. The room was filled with both our families--grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. I suddenly had this gush of love for everyone and I was reminded again how blessed again I am to have two supportive, close-knit, large, amazing families to be there for all the milestones in our lives.

The Kellgreen family (minus one brother in law) at our family reunion in July.

Quyen, our Vietnamese daughter/foreign exchange student, and her twin sister also drove up from BYU to be there. Quyen spoke at Annie’s baptism. She talked about her own baptism and the importance of family. I loved it when she said "The Kellgreens and the Busaths didn’t have to love me but they did." We have had three exchange students now and each one of them was welcomed into both sides of our family like a long time relative. As we get ready to bring Hope home, I know they will fill her up with the same unconditional love and acceptance. I’m so thankful for this.

At the baptism, Bill’s brother Brad and his wife Jonni had everyone write notes for Annie. I’m going to include a few excerpts from some of them.

"You are really nice and you play with me everyday. I like how you sing."
Love Kate (age 5)

"I hope that you will continue to make the right choices and I have complete faith that you will."
Love Cousin Michaela (age 18)

"Thanks for coming all the way to SLC from Monument so we could all see you get baptized."
Love, Aunt Nancy

"I hope you feel Heavenly Father's love for you, because there's a lot!"
Love, Cousin Abi (age 12)

"Always remember you are part of an eternal family that loves you so very much. Here on earth and in heaven."
Love, Aunt Jonni

"When I look at you, you personify everything the Lord would want in an eight year old girl."
Love, Aunt Anna

"When I got baptized I was happy. I hope you are too."
From Nobbin (cousin Nathan age 8)

And from Annie's siblings....

"I love you Annie. And if you need it I will be by your side."
Love, Maren (age 6)

"Though we may fight, you are very special. I'm proud of you."
Love, Ben (age 10)

"Even though you may be pure now, I'm sure you'll sin some time soon. Just don't forget that Heavenly Father will always forgive you."
Love, Thomas (age 13)

New Pictures of Hope Beatrice

I can tell today is going to be a good day because I woke up this morning and found that my friend Shannon emailed these to me:

Thank you Becky and Shannon for sharing our letters and pictures with Hope! We sent her pictures of our house before and after a snow storm to start preparing her for what she'll find when she steps off the airplane. (There are no seasons in Ghana unless you count hot and very hot.)

Oh, I can't wait to hear her laugh again. Doesn't this picture just make you smile?

Hope is enjoying her first visit to the X and probably the biggest plate of food she has ever seen. I'm practically stalking the mailman these days. I'm constantly checking for that coveted letter from USCIS with news about our daughter's visa. It can't come soon enough.

Hope Beatrice Busath

Beatrice was brought to Luckyhill one week before I arrived in July. While Kingsley was processing the adoption of a five year old girl at Luckyhill, he learned she had a sister in a remote part of Ghana. Knowing her future would be very limited, he traveled across Ghana to find her. Beatrice of course was this child. I can't begin to express how grateful I am for Kingsley's compassion and inspiration. Because of him, Beatrice now has a mother who is (impatiently) waiting for her, a father, brothers and sisters who are anxious to meet her and a future that is wide open with opportunity.

Beatrice's story is her own, and I want her to decide who she wants to share it with. I won't write about her history on this blog, but I will say her life was difficult after her parents died. Before I went to Luckyhill, I wrote a 17 page paper on reactive attachment disorder for one of my classes at school. I was determined to be able to recognize the signs of it when I went to Luckyhill. I watched Beatrice very carefully when I was there, but she never showed any any signs of serious trauma.

She was loving, gentle, and very nurturing with the younger children, and she had an optimism that was remarkable. Dan, one of the other teachers who went to Luckyhill, said the first time he met her, she leaned over and told him that she was going to America some day. Beatrice spent a lot of time with me, but she never came right out and asked me to adopt her the way many other children did. Yet after I went home, she very matter of factly told several people that Sister Kara was going to be her mother and she was going to Colorado. How did she know this? Where did this optimism come from?

Beatrice asked if she could have a new American name for her new life. Several weeks ago, I was flipping through a baby name book at the library and read this: Hope - one who has expectations through faith. This is a perfect description of my daughter, and the closest word I can find to describe her amazing spirit and soul. I believe hope is what helped her thrive despite circumstances that would have caused most people to buckle.

My religious belief is a huge part of who I am, but I don't write about it much on this blog. It's hard to put sacred things into words and even harder to throw them out into a public forum. I will say this though. I believe with every part of me that everyone is born with the light of Christ. I believe this light is what draws people to what is right and good and beautiful. And I know it is very strong in Beatrice.

For these reasons, we are naming our daughter Hope Beatrice Busath.

African or African American

Yesterday, Tim Martin (adopting two boys from Luckyhill) and I had a conversation about whether our children will be African or African American. I realize when other people see them on the street, they will be viewed as African American, but in reality, they are Ghanaian and this is their culture:

Impromptu dancing in Cape Coast

African American culture will be as foreign to them as snow and apple pie. Political correctness is annoying me right now because in their case, it isn't very correct. I think I'll just say Beatrice is Ghanaian whenever possible and wait for that perplexed look people will give me when they try to remember where Ghana is on a map.

Any suggestions? I'm curious, Luckyhill families, do you refer to your kids as African or African American?

Blogs and Imperfections

Someone told me today in a joking but sort of serious way that they don’t like me very much because my life is too perfect. Whoa. I didn’t see that coming. She cited my perfect kids, my perfect husband, my perfect life. I feel like I need to emphatically state that if anyone else has that perception, it’s very wrong. I do have a really wonderful husband and I am really blessed with great children, but we also have a list of faults and problems we’re trying to overcome. I like having a blog because it’s a good way to keep a journal and stay in touch with extended family. I don’t like the way blogs tend to put a rosy filter over everyday life, but I don’t know how to get around that. Yes, I write about how smart, talented, athletic and hard working my children are. I want them to feel that way about themselves and live up to these perceptions. Believe me, our family has challenges, but I would never write about them on a public blog or even a private one for that matter. They are personal. So, I apologize if this blog is lop-sided with saccharine-like reports of a blissful life. I don’t mean for it to be.

I should probably post a really awful picture of myself to go along with this post, but I’m not going to because being overly self-conscious is one of my many imperfections.

An October Sunday

I took this picture with a cell phone. Bill and the kids are sitting on Windy Point at the top of Spruce Mountain.

Sunday is my favorite day of the week, and today was an exceptionally good one. Maren, Annie and Ben sang in the Primary program at church (a special sacrament meeting held once a year where the children ages 3 to 12 sing and have short speaking parts). This year’s theme was the family. One of the songs they sang today is stuck in my mind like a broken record, but that’s okay because the message is good. “God gave us families to help us become what he wants us to be. This is how he shares his love, for the family is of God.” I thought of Beatrice through out the entire program and how badly I want her to be a part of our family right now. I had to summon great effort to not cry through every single song. It worked whenever I focused on the kids who were belting out the songs with a Broadway-like gusto. A couple of them were hilarious.

After church, Thomas turned on the grill and made a very good dinner of his choice: teriyaki burgers with grilled pineapple. Yummy. Bill and I took a short nap, and then everyone and Bandit went for a 5.5 mile walk around spruce mountain. Have I said how much I love living in Colorado? Gorgeous hiking trails a few minutes from our house, golden aspen trees and 75 degrees. Now we're off to all pile on our king-size bed and watch the Amazing Race together.