The Many Faces of Maren

Here is our older son. We adopted him from Ethiopia through CWA in May 2006. He is very dramatic, as you can see, and the other day we decided to put together a bunch of his funny pictures- these are not even close to all of them - there are a lot...OK...I can't for the life of me get the captions to line up next to the pictures...so it will have to be like a game- you try and match the caption to the photo!

Here are some of the very first referral photos we got. He was looking very serious. but then we came across a cute one where he is being playful. This is the maren we now know. Not that he can't be serious in a photo- he especially likes to do that when we ask him to "smile!"




















































Here is when I first met the boys- I was so sleep deprived and we had arrived just 20 minutes earlier. they asked- "when do you want to meet the boys?" Where my husband replied, "As soon as possible!" And I am thinking...hmmmm...shower? Nap? Ok Ok! The boys!!! :)

Here he is playing in the closet at the Guest house...he loved playing in there and also under the bed!


Another early photo of Maren playing at the guest house...the other day he said to me, "Mommy...I love that big house in Addis- where we met." He really liked it there- he loved the people there.






















This was taken on our lovely trip to Sodo...see the post "To Sodo with Love" for more pictures- this was the highlight of our trip and Maren still talks about it- just today he played that he was "Going to Sodo!" with his cars.






Here is Maren's favorite cousin. She went off to college this fall and he talks about "Carolyn College!" He insists she will come to his birthday party...but they live very far away...



Maren and his big sister...the other drama queen in the family.






This is one of my favorites. Its Maren asleep on the stairs. he was taking a nap...woke up...got this far and fell back asleep.













The worlds silliest and messiest eater award goes to.....many of our silly pictures are of chewed food in his mouth...I don't mean to take the shot- but he opens his mouth at the last minute.










One of the clues we had that our little guy was not three years old. His amazing ability to ride a scooter- teaching himself - almost overnight- he is really such a show off on it- can do it one footed for long stretches of sidewalk.



And even playing in the sand becomes a show....
































He loves dressing up...he is mildly obssessed with the idea of Halloween. I got an Elmo costume at a tag sale and we can't get him to take it off.











And this was his first haircut in the U.S. He acted like he had never had one before....














Here he is right after his first haircut...

One of the pictures when we said, "Smile!" this is what he did....

































He had a lot of fun with this thing...

















One of the best pictures- Maren and his favorite human on the planet!!!


Maren got to interview Elmo on TV at the Children's Museum in Rochester NY.



















Eating Thai food is almost as fun as eating Injera!


















Maren loves his CD player...he is on his 2nd one...

















How he re enacted eating his first dorito for mom.





















And of course...the irish dancing wig must be tried on....