Fall Pics!

Only Eli in so many of my pics lately, but those that know me well know how many millions of pics I have of my sweet Baylee Bear! I have to work hard taking lots of pics of Eli so he will have at least half of what I have of Baylee! :) ........not to mention we started out 6 months behind!

Eli is 8 months old today!

What a corker he is! He keeps us smiling and laughing! Wow! What joy he has brought our family!

Pictures at the Pumpkin Patch!

Our little smiley boy would not hardly crack a smile at the Pumpkin Patch! I think he was way too interested in his surroundings. He was taking it all in! I've taken Baylee here since she was 9 months old. This was her 13th year! We will do it with Eli too!

New Pics!

Our little Sooner! Things are going great! We fall more madly in love with this little fellow all the time! I go back to work in 2.5 weeks. I absolutely love teaching, but it will be so hard leaving my little Eli. I found a sweet grandma to watch him though and I will only miss about 5 to 6 waking hours. :) Believe me, I've calculated it!

Daily life back to normal?

I've recently read a few fellow adoptive mom's blogs which have left me thinking. We've been home from Ethiopia over a month now and life has pretty much settled into a new normal. It's actually pretty wonderful! I find myself wondering how exactly we can do that after experiencing so much and feeling so changed on the inside. Is there more God wants us to do? I'm sure the answer to that is a profound "YES"! As Christians, we should constantly be growing and seeking God's will for our lives. I don't know what God has in store for us in the future, but you can bet, He will let us know if we pray unceasingly and be quiet and listen! I have had to so learn the art of being quiet and listening these last several years! I still have major work to do with that task! My devotion recently, hit the nail on the head with our 8 year struggle to expand our family: We don't always understand God's methods. His ways don't always make sense to us, but we have to realize that God sees the big picture. Consider this possibility: you may be ready for what God has for you, but somebody else who is going to be involved is not ready yet. God has to do a work in another person or another situation before your prayer can be answered according to God's will for your life. All the pieces have to come together for it to be God's perfect time. To live your best life now, you must learn to trust God's timing. Let God do it His way. The answer will come, and it will be right on time. Wow! Isn't that so true. I look at Eli and know why I had to wait. He was the one God planned for our family and he wasn't here yet. I wish I could say that we started this process of adoption as selflessly as a lot of our other adoptive parent friends, but the truth is, we didn't. Brian and I just wanted another child that we couldn't have ourselves. We didn't set out to save an orphan, but now that we have seen true orphans with our own eyes, we will forever be changed and always feel the need to support the plight of the orphans, whether it's through another adoption or with financial support. This will be our prayer, for God to tell us what He wants of us. He led us to Ethiopia for Eli, but also to open our eyes to a whole other world that broke our hearts, but gave us hope and purpose. I wish everyone could see what we saw.


Eli is watching Baby Einstein. He loves it! I've discovered he loves Elmo too. Wow! Little early I think, but I had it on and he was fascinated with the talking puppets. I took him to Walmart yesterday and showed him Elmo in the toy section and he fell to pieces! He got so excited!! It was funny. I guess I know what I'm getting him for Christmas!

Eli is so good natured, I can just lay him anywhere and he's fine with it! He just babbled, made funny faces and played with his feet while I worked on laundry!

Always happy!

He loves his swing. He just completely relaxes when he's in it. Notice the relaxed tongue! Usually he falls asleep.

My babies!

Guess who is 7 months old?!

Eli is always making this funny face! We are seeing his personality unfold more and more everyday! He is still happy most all the time and has the biggest smile ever! He loves his sister so much! She is pretty crazy about him too! I will post more pictures soon!

1 month ago today!

I can't believe it's been a whole month since we first held Eli! We are so totally in love with this little guy! He is happy most all the time and very cuddly. He smiles a lot! I find myself reflecting a lot about our trip and everything we experienced in Ethiopia. When we were there, I enjoyed it so much, but I was ready to get my baby home. The grueling flight back was looming over my head and I wanted to get it over with. Once home and recovered however, I found myself longing to be back. I loved Ethiopia, the place, the people. I especially loved the 7 other families we traveled with. They are an amazing group of people and I am definitely blessed having spent time with them. Robel and T, our guides were extremely special people too. They left us inspired. Now I understand why people say they miss it and why adoption is sometimes addicting! We are so thankful to God for choosing us for this miracle called adoption.