Saturday, July 30, 2011

Swimming Lessons…

This past week Myla took swimming lessons through the Oxford Park Commission.  Someone evidently donated money to the OPC, and they offered swimming lessons for free!  When my friend told me about it, I was so excited because I really wanted Myla to take lessons this summer.  She was a little hesitant the first day, but she warmed up and ended up loving the lessons.  The only thing she didn’t like was having to go under and get dive sticks off the bottom of the pool.  On Thursday when she got in the water, she was crying uncontrollably.   When I asked her what was wrong, she said she DID NOT want to have to get the sticks off of the bottom.  I told her she didn’t have to.  Once she realized she didn’t have to, she was happy again and continued on!

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The first thing they would do each day was splash water on the kids.

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They also played Ring Around the Rosies and would go under when it said “we all fall down”.  Myla loved this!

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They also kicked off the side a lot. Evidently Myla could do a better job with her tongue stuck out!

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The last thing they did each day was get out and stand on the side and say a little chant…”Alligator, alligator stand real tall.  Alligator, alligator jump off the wall!”  Then they would all jump in!

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All down with lessons.  She is trying not to smile for some reason!

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Posing in the splash pad!

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This was on the last day.  Yes, I was that mom calling out to her over and over trying to get her picture.  HA!

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I would say that Myla’s favorite thing to do, hands down, was jumping off the side.

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She also loved going under!  She won’t stay under long, though. I had to be fast to get this picture!

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I think all in all it was a great experience for her.  I was really thinking that this summer Myla would really learn how to swim for real, but we haven’t been able to spend a great amount of time at the pool because Selah is quite difficult to take to the pool.  Maybe next summer Myla will become a little fish when we can get to the pool more often!

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Daddy got to come to lessons on Thursday and Friday because he took off work.  Myla was so proud to have him there, and she wanted him to watch everything she did!

Friday, July 29, 2011

Random Pictures…

I was looking back through some of my recent pictures, and I found some that don’t really warrant their own post, but I would like to share them.  So, I’ll just combine them into this “Random Picture” post.  Clever title…I know, but it works!

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Several weeks ago we were at a birthday party, and Selah thought the chip bowl doubled as a great hat!

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And speaking of hats, Selah really enjoyed trying some on while we were getting ready for Myla’s birthday party!  Excuse the popsicle stained mouth and dress!

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LOVE her eyes!!!

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Funny girl!

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Week before last, the girls and I met some friends at Cloud 9, a local jump house place.  This picture pretty much summed up the day…organized chaos!  The kids loved it!

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Selah, always ready for an adventure, LOVED all of the bounce houses!

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The big kids loved the air hockey table, and they were pretty good at it, actually!

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After Cloud 9, we went to eat at Firehouse Subs.  When me, Katie and the kids are together, we’re quite a crew!  Our friend, Jennifer, came too with her two kids, and we ran out of highchairs!

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Selah LOVES to rub food in her hair while she eats.  Most days, I have to give her a bath after breakfast, and sometimes after lunch!  It’s a good thing that she is quite fond of baths. She is so silly!

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I guess continuing her love for all things “hat”, she tried out a napkin as one too!

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How about this for a fashion statement??  HA!

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Selah has begun to be infatuated with Myla’s shoes.  She will go get a pair and follow me around grunting ask to me to put them on her!

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She doesn’t even care if they are mismatched and too big!

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Yep, there is never a dull moment around here with this little one!

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This was last Saturday morning.  Myla LOVES to color, but Selah usually butts in and runs her off!  Poor thing.  Selah loves to scribble uncontrollably color on whatever she can find!

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One evening this week, the girls enjoyed a popsicle outside.  It is the perfect treat for a HOT night!!

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Sweaty, but beautiful girl!

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Selah decided the popsicle stick is way overrated!  Why not just take it off and hold the popsicle itself!!

Saturday, July 23, 2011

A Day on the Square…

Next to being the home of Ole Miss, Oxford is probably most “famous” for it’s Square.  I have to be honest, I’m not much of a “Square” person.  I think it is really neat, but I just don’t have the desire to fight for a parking space to shop at over priced stores (most of them are, anyway).  I do love to ride around the Square at Christmastime, and it does give the town a very homey feel AND we do LOVE to go to Holli’s Sweet Tooth And now I do have a new found love for Soulshine Pizza…YUM, so I’m not completely against it!!  Anywho…on Thursday, I decided (after getting the idea from my friend, Katie), to have a “Square Day”.  We first went to a children’s boutique called Belles and Beaus because they were having a 50% off sale, but we had to get out of there in a hurry after Selah pulled almost all of the shoes off of the display and got a kick out of pulling the hairbows off of their hangers!  There’s never a dull moment…

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So, we hopped back in the car and headed to Square Books, Jr.  Can I just take a moment to say that we got SO lucky on parking places.  We found one right in front of each place we visited.  Very rare!!!  The girls love playing at Square Books, Jr.!  They had so much fun playing in the kitchen area.  Selah loved the grocery cart and pushed it all over the store!  Thank goodness she didn’t run into any displays, or people for that matter!

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Here is Myla putting some “sugar” on my cookie.  I guess the fire extinguisher was distributing sugar that day!

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Myla loved playing with this little house that you could unlock doors on.  She really wanted to buy one, but they didn’t have one in stock.  That was probably a good thing!  Maybe she can ask Santa for that!

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My attempts at getting a picture of the girls together were frustrating at best!! Why is it so hard!!!!  I’m not sure what Myla was making that face for!  She was obviously super excited about something!

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Selah loved climbing in and out of the car rocker.  I’m so glad she didn’t fall and hurt herself!!

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After Square Books Jr., we headed to lunch at Soulshine Pizza.  It was SO good!!!!  I thought this picture was funny of both girls drinking from their big cups.  Selah thinks she is something special when she gets to drink out of a straw…she normally ends up soaking wet, too, but she loves it!

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We were a little later than usual eating lunch, and Selah was hungry!  Once her pizza arrived, she did not stop eating until it was ALL gone.  She ate more than I did!

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Myla, who survives on little to no food, really enjoyed her drink as much as her pizza.  She did comment though that the pizza was “really good”!!  She is a pizza connoisseur, you know!

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The effort for the picture together continued…

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Selah was too busy eating to smile!!

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“Excuse me…can I help you with something??”

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Where’s Selah?

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There she is!!

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After Soulshine, we headed to Holli’s.  Myla had gotten a gift certificate to Holli’s for her birthday, so she was anxious to use it!  She first got some ice cream, then she got some candy for herself and Selah.

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Selah enjoyed carrying around her cup of Smarties!

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Selah, of course, was all over the place…including up on the train table!

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After Myla finished her ice cream, she and Selah played for a little while together, then we headed home. 

I have to admit, it was a very fun day!  It was fun to just spend some time together doing something we had never done before!  We will definitely do it again…maybe when it’s a little cooler!!

Before & After…

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One day last week Selah was looking all cute in the morning after I got her dressed…

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…then she had lunch!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Coincidence or Confirmation… “Choosing Ethiopia”… {Part 1}

Last summer, God began to stir mine and Michael’s hearts toward a lot of things.  We prayed and processed and asked Him what He would have for us to do.  It was at this point that God began to clearly speak to us about adding to our family through adoption.  I, without a doubt, believe that if you are earnestly asking the Lord and seeking Him, He will speak to you.  You always hear people ask, “How will I know if God is speaking to me?” or “Will I hear an audible voice?”  Well, I believe that God can audibly speak to you if that is the way He so choses, but I also believe He can speak to you through many things.  Sometimes people will think when things happen to them like this that it is merely a coincidence or happenstance.  I, on the other hand, believe that if we are willing to listen to the Lord, He will speak to us in what others would consider a coincidence.  So, I just wanted to share some of the ways that the Lord spoke to Michael and I  through out journey of adoption, so far.  I know that these “confirmations” were from the Lord and not merely coincidences!!  It is my intent to document these not only so I will remember them, but to encourage those who the Lord may be speaking to without them even realizing it!

When God began to stir our hearts, adoption was in the back of my mind.  Michael and I had not spoken about it yet when my friend, Lenora, told me about a video that I had to watch.  It was the now “famous” Lucy Lane gotcha day video.  I watched it and, of course, cried buckets thinking about the orphan crisis…especially in Ethiopia.  Michael watched it too, and soon we began opening our hearts to adoption.  Coincidence or Confirmation???

Soon after, Michael and I decided that we were for sure going to pursue adoption.  We knew we were called to adopt internationally, but we were not positive about what country we would go through.  I was drawn to Ethiopia from the beginning.  The Lucy Lane video stirred my heart as well as a lot of reading I did about Ethiopia.  Michael was not sure about Ethiopia at first.  He wasn’t against it, but he felt more drawn to Asia, but he assured me he would begin praying about it.

 

Father’s Day was right around this time, and for his gift I got Michael a One Year Bible that was the New Living Translation (we didn’t' have this translation yet).  When He began reading it, he started to notice that most places in the Old Testament where it mentioned Africa or Cush, it was translated to “Ethiopia”.  He was suddenly reading about Ethiopia in the Bible almost every day, and he noted that he never remembered seeing it translated that way before.  Coincidence or Confirmation???

Of course, as the Lord often does, he spoke to both Michael and I through Scripture, sermons and testimonies.  All of a sudden, adoption was everywhere we looked (or heard).  Sunday school lessons would talk about us being adopted into God’s family, the HomeLife magazine that is put out by Lifeway was dedicated to adoption the month after we began praying about adoption, etc.  One Sunday last summer Michael and I took separate cars to church…I can’t remember now the reason for it.  On the way home, Michael was listening to the radio, and he heard a testimony of a foreign man who had come to the US, and while he was here, he accepted Jesus as His Savior, and his life had been transformed.  Now, he was wanting to go back to his home country to tell others about Jesus.  I’ll give you one guess where he was from…yep, Ethiopia.  Coincidence or Confirmation???  We’re beginning to say, “Okay, Lord, we hear you!”

Lastly, last summer, we refinanced our house.  On the day of the closing, Michael went by himself to the attorney’s office to do all of the paperwork.  He was sitting in a conference room by himself waiting for the attorneys to come back in, and he turned around and there was a globe facing him.  He said that staring right back at him was the continent of Africa.  He said it was like it was the only thing on the globe.  It was at this point that we said, “Yes, Lord, we will go to Ethiopia!” 

It’s not that we really HAD to have all of those confirmations from God, but He, in the loving kindness, was generous enough to give them to us.  As a white family, adopting an African baby may seem a little strange to others.  It is not the social norm, but Jesus never conformed to the social norm either.  We don’t want to live in the social norm…we want to live for JESUS!  And if He is asking us to live a life a little out of our comfort zone, then we are ready and willing.  He has, without a doubt, confirmed over and over to us that our baby is in Ethiopia, and we can’t wait to bring that baby home.

God has guided us, protected us, and provided for us during this journey beyond our imagination.  In part 2 of “Coincidence or Confirmation”, I will tell about how my flesh almost made a mess of our journey.  I began to doubt and get worried about things, but once again, the Lord drew me back and lovingly reminded me that He is in control and He has a perfect plan!

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work in us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! “  Eph. 3:20-21

Monday, July 18, 2011

Funny Story…

 

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Myla and I went to Walmart this weekend to pick up a few things.  For her birthday, she had gotten a gift card, so I was going to let her pick out something she wanted.  Well, every time we go to Walmart, Myla always plays with the little princess play phones that are strategically positioned right by the check out stands, and she asks every time if we can buy one.  So, on Saturday, when she told me she wanted to by a phone with her gift card, I assumed she was talking about the princess phone.  We ran around the store for a little bit picking up some things, and we passed the electronic section and all of the cell phones.  When we passed there, we were on our way to the restroom, and after we used the restroom, she said, “Mommy, we need to go back that way because that’s where the phones are.”  I asked her why she needed to look at the phones, and she matter of factly told me that she was going to buy an iPhone with her gift card.  Bless her heart, she had in her mind she was going to get a REAL iPhone!  I tried to explain to her that she didn’t have nearly enough money to get one, and she was so disappointed.  I also assured her that Mommy can’t even have a phone like that right now since it’s not really in our budget, so she would not be getting one before me!!

After her disappointment began to fade a little, she settled for the princess play phone and has pretended since then that it is her iPhone!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Break My Heart…

Can someone please tell me…where has the time gone??

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Myla & Grace - 2009

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Grace & Myla - 2011

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Haley & Myla - 2008

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Haley & Myla – 2011