so cute it hurts me.

we got letters from our babies in africa today. i sat at my desk for an hour squealing over how adorable and hilarious these letters are, and then being really, really incredibly sad that i'm not there. because i need to be there. my heart needs to be there. it hurts.

this one's from our rozaa. first of all, we sponsor two girls (soon to be three!) and so the other girl would write the letter and rozaa would sign it. UMNO. so i told her straight up, in my last letter, "listen. write me back before i have to come over there." so she did. they both did. but this is rozaa's. can we dissect this? good. "hi hello how are you" THIS IS MY KID. do i not say that all the time? well, not the how are you part, but HI HELLO? i peed my pants when i saw that (hold on and i'll show you what else she gets from me, besides her great writing skills).
we've got "i'm kissy you kiss xoxox." because yes. this girl kissy me kiss xoxo A LOT. we play games where we kiss each other's cheeks all day long. let me tell you something, not much can compare to to these kids and their hugs and kisses and unending love.
and "you are all the day in my heart." skgoiahsfklgane. LOVE HER.
and "i love you more more more." which she straight up copied out of the letter i wrote her. so now we've got this "who loves who more" game going on. i will win it, i swear to you.
the fact that she calls us mom, excuse me, MUM and dad. i know she's not and will never be my kid, but listen to me. this is my kid. she doesn't call us that to our faces. just in our letters. and is the sweetest thing.
"YOUR BABY SON ROZAA." just please. yet another trait she got from me, her mum, the fact that she's unintentionally hilarious. my favorite is that she crossed out son, then wrote baby, then wrote son again. oh gosh. she's the best thing ever.
"even and larresa" even. hahahahaha. larresaa. hahahahaha. this is actually the closest she's ever come to spelling my name. which is hilarious because she has it on the letter in front of her face when she writes to me. she apparently does not approve of the spelling of my name. from here on out i will spell my name however rozaa says.
except for she got the double a at the end which isn't a real thing in my name but i pretend it is AND THAT'S HOW ROZAA SPELLS HER NAME AND MY NAME. i'm not even kidding you. this kid, is mine.

and now for the big reason we're obviously related::::

 THAT HAIR. #GIRLPROBLEMS. if you know me personally at all, you probably have just seen my hair trauma. it can be epic. that first picture, that's basically how i look when i get up in the morning. when rozaa was running around this day, with her hair all cray, i said to evan, "she obviously gets her hair trouble from me." so that's that. i have this hilarious picture of me after i sanded these metal bars all day and got metal dust in my hair plus it was windy so my hair got all tangly then the sticky sunscreen and bug spray and the sun and the sweat and the dirt. i mean. i look a hot mess. AND, and this last trip (these are from trip #2) i totally got dreads. ON ACCIDENT. and it was horrible. i can't even take care of my hair in america, next time i go to africa i should just shave it all off and not even mess with it. (but then there's that whole, "you go america, you no cut." while they point at my hair. I LOVE MY GIRLS.)

and then this letter from sweet meskerem (i basically remembered her name by thinking 'mascara'). when we got to africa she had just been admitted to the orphanage. she is the sweetest, most loving girl. she has the kindest eyes and such a beautiful face. i've never seen a prettier people than ethiopians. i know i'm slightly biased, but this is real life.

"evan and la||issa" close. so darn close. but she wrote my name with an "r" and not the "||" on the envelop. so i don't know. my name is just a difficult one.
"hello guys?" it's funny without the "?" but with it, it's so great. because she never uses any sort of punctuation besides the question mark. and the fact that she said "hello guys." oh man. i want to know which american is teaching them this and i want to teach them some phrases. you know, throw a couple "that's what she saids" in there....
her hand writing is even pretty. this girl is the real deal.
"how about american?" hahaha
"in america life is good? ethiopia life is good." aw.
"love your sweet love meskerem." sweet love and our baby son.

that's meskerem. i TOLD YOU that she's gorgeous.

and our sweet pea derartu who also wrote me a letter....in amharic. all i can read is "i love you" and that's all that is important.

man. i miss these kids.

ps. you're probably going to want to click the africa link on the bottom and find the videos of my children singing my favorite song in the whole world.  it's the cutest thing you will ever see. no offense to anything cute you've already seen in your lifetime.