Christmas is here!

I finally have my Christmas tree up! My little brother came over last week and helped me put some things on the tree and play with Landry. I got most of the tree decorated that day, but finally finished it tonight. Now, I just need to wrap all the gifts! Is your wrapping paper supposed to match your tree? I have no idea, but mine doesn't...:)


Landry was not too excited about being my little helper.

She would much rather just hang out with Uncle Tyler...and EAT!

All finished!

I LOVE Christmas! My house smells like cinnamon, and that is my favorite scent of the whole year! We are so excited to have a full house this Christmas with two sweet girls celebrating for the first time. I feel totally blessed every time I go to buy a present and think about all those who do not have this season. As gorgeous as I feel my tree, my house, my baby, and my husband are, I am most grateful for my Lord and Savior during this special time of year. I am grateful for the blessings that I know I am not worthy of, prayerful for those who have none, and hopeful that my heart would be open to sharing the many blessings we have with others. Let's all remember what Christmas is all about...a baby more precious than mine that came to save us all from the eternity that we most definitely deserve. :)

Lots of Eating!

We have been eating lots of yummy food at our house lately. Landry has decided that she pretty much doesn't like baby food. She would rather have small chunks of food to eat herself, and that is fine with us! Messy, but fine. :) Here are some pictures of her at dinner the other night...she was eating steamed broccoli, steamed carrots, avacado, and banana.

She is one happy little baby...especially when she has a full belly! Some of her other favorite foods are amaranth (a grain), hard boiled egg yolk, applesauce, sweet potatoes, zucchini, and oranges. I love that she is getting to be such a big girl and such a good eater. Love her to pieces!

A change in OUR plan...

If you follow our blog at all, you probably saw the post about us hosting Ivan, the orphan from Ukraine, for Christmas. We picked Ivan out almost immediately when we decided this is what we wanted to do, and our hearts were completely set on him being a part of our family. Well, God's plan is often different than my own, and things didn't work out for Ivan to come to our home for Christmas. Through Ivan taking his English classes, they found that he had a major fear of flying. He was extremely excited to come visit the U.S., but he did not realize in the beginning that he would have to fly. He has never talked with anyone who has actually flown before, so it was very hard for anyone to ease his fears. Our hearts were broken when we heard the news. We are still hopeful that we will meet Ivan soon...this will not be the end of our connection with him!

With all of that being said, we decided to pick another child to come visit for Christmas. This is Valya, and she is 15 years old. She seems like the sweetest little girl! We have also had a tutor working with her to teach her English, but the orphanage director told us that she keeps getting distracted. The weather is currently nice, and her friends want her to come out and play. :) She sounds pretty social! I think that having Valya here will be a lot of fun...especially because she will be home with Landry and me everyday. We are planning on baking lots of cookies, painting our nails, and lots of girly things! Please pray that our connection is immediate when Valya arrives. Right now the plan is that I will fly to Washington DC to pick her up on December 20.

Isn't she beautiful?

Our baby is getting big!

This week we started putting some of the baby stuff up in the attic because our baby doesn't need them anymore! :( It is making me crazy how big she is getting. We put her in her bouncy seat to see if she still liked it, and it was hilarious. She did NOT want to lay back or bounce. I got some pictures for us to see how much she has grown...



This is Landry in the bouncy seat at 1 month old.

Below are the pictrures of her at 7 months. She is too sweet!

We have been busy...

and sick! I have been so bad about updating the blog lately, but it seems like our lives have been so crazy. Landry had an ear infection, I had a sinus infection, Landry had major stomach issues (vomiting and nasty, nasty diapers) from the antibiotic, and Micah had a cold. Needless to say, we have been really out of sorts for the past week or so.

Through all of this, Landry has stayed pretty happy. She was the entertainment of the waiting room at the doctor's office. She loves other kids so much, and she would find any child that would pay attention to her and just laugh and smile at them. People kept asking, "what are you here for?" and I would say, "we THINK she is sick." :) You sure couldn't tell by the way she was laughing and carrying on. We love her sweet outgoing personality so much!

The doctor said while we were there that he thinks she is the most expressive baby that he has ever seen. You can tell exactly what she is thinking by the faces she makes.

Landry is 7 months old now, and she is crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything. She is one determined little baby. She is also sticking EVERYTHING in her mouth (shoes, diapers, dog toys, lamp cords, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g!). That part makes me a little crazy.

Below are a few sweet pictures from the past week. This little nugget lights up our lives!

Playing in the bathroom floor while I was getting ready.

Crawling. She is really getting fast!

Loving on mommy...

"Kissing" mommy. She has started this all the sudden where she will grab our faces and try giving kisses. Love it!

Our New House!

Our new house is finally started! We are SO excited. We went out today to see the slab that was poured this week, and we took a few sweet pictures of Landry. Micah said his parents have a picture of him when he was about 1 on the slab to the house they live in now, so he was really excited to get these pictures taken.
Progress is being made, and we cannot wait to be out on our land and have some extra room!

Precious Pictures...

We had Landry's 6 month pictures done a few weeks ago by Stephanie Henderson Photography. I think they turned out so sweet! Some are cute, some are funny....hope you enjoy!

Landry makes my life so happy! What in the world did I do before I had her?! :)