If you have kids, you’ve almost undoubtedly read the children’s book “If You Give a Moose a Muffin.” Spencer loves that book, and we read it a lot in our house.

So I cracked up when I ran across this send-up on Facebook…enjoy “If You Give a Mom a Muffin.”

If you give a mom a muffin, she’ll want a cup of coffee to go with it. She’ll pour herself some. Her three-year-old will spill the coffee. She’ll wipe it up. Wiping the floor, she will find dirty socks. She’ll remember she has to do laundry. When she puts the laundry in the washer, she’ll trip over boots and bump into the freezer. Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper. She will get out a pound of hamburger. She’ll look for her cookbook.

The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail. She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow. She will look for her checkbook. The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two-year-old. She’ll smell something funny. She’ll change the two-year-old. While she is changing the two-year-old the phone will ring. Her five-year-old will answer and hang up. She’ll remember that she wants to phone a friend to come for coffee. Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup. She will pour herself some. And chances are, if she has a cup of coffee, her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

My sweetie will vouch for the fact that this is 100% accurate. Have a great weekend!

Gus Thomson at the Auburn Journal called me on Thursday morning to do a piece on Emma’s US citizenship, and our discussions turned to the work that has resulted in Ethiopia with the Adami Tulu and Ziway Projects.

It’s a great piece that he wrote, and I hope you enjoy it.

For Sierra College trustee Aaron Klein global adoption issues are personal

Colfax resident, wife work to aid, educate orphans in Ethiopia

By Gus Thomson, Journal Staff Writer

AUBURN CA – Through the eyes of Emma Klein, the youngest child there, Thursday’s citizenship ceremony at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building in Sacramento was no big deal.

Plenty of talk by grownups, lots of smiles and people raising their right hands at some point.

For the adults and older children assembled – 138 in total, representing 19 different nationalities – the ceremony was the landmark moment in their lives where they received the official piece of paper showing that they are U.S. citizens.

Emma’s ceremony was the latest chapter in the personal mission Emma’s parents, Colfax couple Aaron and Cacey Klein, have taken on to help in small and large ways to ease the plight of orphans.

Aaron, well-known as a Sierra College board president, and Cacey, a blogger and decorator, have adopted two children over the past four years – a son, Spencer, now 4, in 2007, and Emma, now 2, early last year.

Both U.S. citizens by right of their adoptions, Spencer and Emma now have the official papers the government is increasingly requiring for future international travel. Both children became naturalized citizens the minute they stepped on U.S. soil but the citizenship certificate is an important piece of paper to have, said Sharon Rummery, of the Immigration Department.

“They’re citizens but they don’t have anything to show they are until they receive their certificate,” Rummery said.

Spencer was born South Korea and Emma was an orphan living in Ethiopia. While Spencer was receiving his citizenship certificate, the Kleins were in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, preparing to bring Emma back.

Aaron Klein said that the ceremony is a special one for his family.

“I think adoption has been a huge blessing for us,” Klein said.

Klein’s sister, Dora, is an adopted member of his family, having been born in Rumania. The Kleins decided to start their own adoption process in June 2006 and worked with Sacramento’s Holt International Office.

Holt social worker Lusandra Vincent said that since Emma was adopted, politics have closed adoptions in Ethiopia.

“There are a lot of politics in international adoptions but I think the nation will open again,” Vincent said. “But many other nations are looking for good families for their children.”

While adoptions are now closed in Ethiopia, the Kleins have continued to help that country by assisting the village of Adami Tulu to fund and build new classrooms. The doors opened on one school in January 2010 serving 80 children.

Fund-raising to construct another school should be completed in the coming year, Klein said.

“There will be about 800 kids there in the fall,” Klein said. “They’ll get an education and be fed two meals a day – breakfast and lunch.”

The Kleins visited the south of Ethiopia when they adopted Emma and seeing the poverty and the needs of the people was a life-changing experience, Aaron said.

“There are 163 million orphans in the world,” Klein said. “It’s a huge problem and it’s growing.”

Merry Christmas!

My daughter Emma officially became a United States citizen yesterday, just about two years to the day since my son Spencer did the same.

That means only 16 more years until she starts voting and taking over the world.

Here is Whitney Mountain’s great article in the Sacramento Bee, and I’ll post the equally great piece from Gus Thomson at the Auburn Journal tomorrow.

138 children get citizenship certificates in Sacramento ceremony

By Whitney Mountain

Many signed their names with ease. Some scribbled their names on the line with illegible penmanship, too young to sign in cursive. Others were so young they couldn’t use a pen, needing their parents to sign for them.

But the hands of every child at the immigration services ceremony Thursday afternoon held tight to the symbol of their new nationality: an American flag.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service presented 138 children and young adults with citizenship certificates in a ceremony held at the USCIS Sacramento Field Office, providing children of immigrant citizens and American adoptive parents a milestone and a document proving their citizenship.

“These children’s parents were kind enough to apply for the certificates for them so they will always be able to prove that they are U.S. citizens,” said USCIS spokeswoman Sharon Rummery. “It’s basically the birth certificate of their nationality.”

Rummery said that many of these children may have watched their parents apply and study to become American citizens. So having a ceremony to celebrate their own citizenship is meaningful for them, she said.

“The kids are all freshly scrubbed and the parents are all happy because they’re at the end of the process,” said Rummery. “We try to make it special for the kids, and the moms and dads as well.”

Aaron and Cacey Klein of Colfax celebrated their 2-year-old daughter Emma’s citizenship certification Thursday after adopting her from Ethiopia in 2009.

Their son Spencer, 4, whom the Kleins adopted from South Korea in 2007, received his certificate two years ago.

“It’s a very special thing to be an adoptive parent in a multicultural family; we are first and foremost Americans,” said Aaron Klein, “but as we adopted both of our kids, their cultures meshed together with ours, and that really is the wonder that is America.”

The Kleins missed Spencer’s certification ceremony two years ago because they were called to Ethiopia to get Emma and bring her home. But Klein said that when Spencer received his ornate certificate in the mail, they told him: ” ‘This means that when you grow up, you get to vote and help decide who the president is going to be.’ He thought that was really cool.”

After Thursday’s ceremony, Emma, along with 137 other young people, will be able to do things like vote, apply for Social Security cards, and get their driver’s licenses with ease.

“This is proof of citizenship that they can use their entire lives,” Rummery said.

Klein said the U.S. government is not only allowing these children to prove their citizenship, but also helping these children feel like members of society and part of American culture.

“They often say you can go to China and it doesn’t make you Chinese; you can go to Russia, but it doesn’t make you Russian,” he said. “But when you come to the United States, you really become an American.”

Photo Credit: Hector Amezcua, Sacramento Bee

My sweetheart turns 29 again today. For the second time.

I am a very blessed man to have met her, somehow convinced her to team up on this great adventure called life, and spent the last 11 years side by side.

Don’t tell her I told you this, but she is an amazing friend. She is smart and insightful, and I love to sit and talk to her over a cup of good coffee. (Or bad coffee, for that matter.)

She’s a patient mom to our two kids, who, contrary to the hilarity of our tweets, are still very much kids when they get tired.

And she’s a compassionate advocate for the cause of the fatherless that we both care so much about. She’s even turned her last two birthdays in a row into fundraisers!

I love you, Cacey Nichole Steward Klein. You’re the best. Here’s to another great year in your wonderful life.

I just turned 33 this past week.

If you’re reading this and feeling incredibly guilty about not getting me a birthday gift (ha!), that’s awesome.

Because here’s what I want for my birthday.

Let’s get a huge head start on the next phase of the Adami Tulu Project to build a school for 500 orphans and vulnerable kids in Africa.

You can give $33 in honor of my old age.

Or $29 to make me feel young.

Or $10 to remind me how lucky I’ve been to be married to my sweetheart for the last ten years.

Or $4 to remind me how long I’ve had the awesome privilege to be a dad.

No matter what amount you give, not a dime goes to administrative salaries here in the US. It all gets put to work where it belongs.

We’re on a mission to end the global orphan crisis by keeping families together and giving people the self-sufficiency to pull themselves out of poverty. And you’ll have made a difference.

So thanks in advance.

You’ve made my birthday great.

Click Here to Donate

The horrible, awful rumor is true. I turned 33 today.

It has been interesting to round the bend of 30 and see how things are different. I don’t know what’s magical about your age starting with a “3″ but people stop talking about what a wonder kid you are. You’re supposed to be doing important things. It feels different.

I never made a “30 under 30″ list in a magazine, and I have no idea if I’ll make one of the “40 under 40″ ones, but I do know this. No matter what happens to me from here…

• I have a wife who is my best friend, closest confidante and the most beautiful woman I know.
• I have a son who is smart, talented and growing up to be an incredible young man.
• I have a daughter who is beautiful, engaging and full of spark and energy.
• And I have an extended family that is second to none.

If no more “good” things came my way after today, I’d still be one of the most blessed people on the face of Planet Earth.

I’m going to find a way to put up with the view from my office for this week. We’re blessed to be spending the week with my inlaws in a sprawling beach house over on the California coast.

I didn’t really have time for a vacation, what with the Adami Tulu Project trip coming up in August. So I’m working from here Tuesday through Friday, and I’ll hang out with the family in the evenings.

I’m hoping to catch up on a lot of big projects and do some blogging. Somehow I’ll manage to deal with such a beautiful view.

Today is my last day.

My last day working with a team that I’ve had the privilege to lead for four years.

My last day working for a boss who has challenged, coached and supported me for four years.

My last report for the weekly management team e-mail we all read on Monday. (I won’t be reading this one next week.)

That’s a lot of "lasts" for one day.

At 5:00 today, I technically don’t have any job responsibilities until Tuesday. That feels just a little bit strange, to be honest.

Cacey, the kids and I are taking a long weekend on the coast…to rest up, recharge and get ready for the exciting challenges ahead of us.

No blogging, probably not much tweeting. A lot of reading.

We get back on Monday evening.

I predict that Tuesday will be a day of firsts.

I’ve been on a bit of a blogging hiatus through Christmas and New Year’s. It’s been a hectic few weeks working on some exciting things that I hope to be able to announce soon.

We had a great Christmas and really enjoyed our two kids at such great ages (Spencer is three and a half, and Emma is one and a half). We had our traditional "three Christmases" this year – Christmas Eve with Nana and Papa (Cacey’s parents), Christmas morning at our place, and Christmas Day with Grammie and Pops (my folks).

New Year’s Day marked a year since we landed back on US soil with Emma. It’s just amazing to think she’s already been a part of our family for the majority of her short life. We just can’t imagine life without both of these two adorable kids.

I have some really exciting things to share with you about the Adami Tulu project, and next week’s Sierra College board meeting. I’ll try to write that over the weekend!

Last year we were in Africa,
so we were not on the ball…
this year you get a picture and letter,
Merry Christmas to you all!

We wish you a wonderful holiday season!

Aaron, Cacey, Spencer and Emma Klein