DRUM ROLL PLEASE...

SHE IS HOME.

Sunday afternoon, around 1:00 pm, Simenesh Rebekkah walked into our house and stole our hearts. This girls is just...amazing.

Whenever I meet any new person the first thing I notice is their eyes/facial expressions (Yes, I am one of those creepy people who like to make eye contact).

Simenesh has WONDERFUL eyes.

After the eye check, as soon as possible, I assess a person's laugh. And my gracious, this girl can laugh. When she is at a loss for words (or is thinks we are horribly mispronouncing her language) she just covers her face and giggles. Language barrier or no language barrier, I already know I will get along with her just fine. I like her. Yup, I like her quite a bit.

A couple more facts about my lovely new sister;

In case you can't tell, she is GORGEOUS. She is tall (5'3" and growing!). She has the hair I only dream of having.

She is SMART. She speaks two Ethiopian languages fluently. While her English is only minimal right now, love bridges the language gap. She is SO affectionate. She hugs and kisses all of us like every 5 minutes.

She is passionate about her faith. She is a WORSHIPER and she loves to sing (Come on, she HAS to be my sister!!!!).

She isn't used to American food (obviously) and the concept of refrigeration is totally new to her. Milk...butter...juice...she is still a little freaked out by things like that.

She loves pineapple. I think she might be an addict. Chocolate has also found its way onto her favorites list.

She loves soccer! She knows a ton about it, plays phenomenally well, and her favorite team is Manchester United! (if that was the only thing we had in common, that would be enough for me) And she is here just in time to go fanatical over the World Cup with me!!!!!

Her (current) favorite article of clothing is the teal sweater (pictured above) I picked for her at H&M. Although, my 11 year old sister's sparkly gold flip flops come in as a close second.

AND SHE CAN BRAID!!!! She is a braiding beast. Shortly after coming home (having been traveling for 18 hours and never having met her new siblings before) she sat me and my 3 younger sisters down, and cornrowed our hair. All four of us in under an hour. She is fast and furious. And I am euphoric, as I now have my own, personal, in-home cornrow-er!

She did all the way down to the ends of my hair, but I ended up taking the bottoms out because all my layers were sticking out like spikes. But I kept the top in from Sunday up until this morning.

Tia won. Her thick hair held those braids together so well that it is Thursday and they are still in. The rest of us got all fuzzy and quit. Always next time!!!

Yesterday, having conquered all the girls (save for the uncooperative baby), she moved onto my 2 brothers. She finds their longish, white boy hair very funny. They pulled the braids out later (apparently it hurt their sensitive little man heads and the braids were also sticking up off their heads making them looks like 2 little triceratops children), but it was sure funny to watch her torture them.

Then after the boys, she and I box-braided my mom's hair. Also very..amusing...

If you cannot tell, we are all enamoured with her. She is absolutely wonderful. The language barrier is annoying, but that will not stop us.

We love her. She loves us. And that is all that really matters.