Catching Up: Part 3…

Saturday was a busy, fun-filled day in Tupelo again!  We headed over to swim, eat and celebrate Myla and George’s birthdays.  The both have July birthdays, so it is fun to celebrate them together with family. 

When we got to Aunt Be and Uncle Doc’s house, Selah immediately took to Uncle Doc.  She went right up to him, held her arms up and stayed in his lap for a long time.  This is so rare!  She rarely goes to anybody!  I told Uncle Doc he must be something special!

After swimming practically all day, we finally took a minute to celebrate the birthdays!  Here is George and Myla’s yummy cake!

Myla was so excited about her cake!

Here are the birthday buddies!

Sis Sis and Michael took it all in from the porch

Singing “Happy Birthday” and blowing out their candles

George waiting for his piece of cake…

…can you tell he really enjoyed it!

After cake and ice cream, it was time to open presents.  Myla has really gotten into the movie “Annie” lately. I loved this movie growing up, so it is funny to see her enjoying something that I used to enjoy so much!

Aunt Be gave Myla this “wedding dress” to play dress up in.  Myla loved it!

After opening presents we came inside to cool off!  It was HOT outside!  Myla and Chelsea snuggled for a little while.

Then I got a hug from my sweet girl!

Olivia and Rich

This picture is so funny to me.  George is puckered up ready to give Selah a kiss, and she doesn’t look the least bit interested!

Selah found a good place to snuggle on Pey Pey.  She LOVES Peyton!  He is one of the few people she will willingly go to.

It was quite comical trying to get a picture of the 4 kids together.  This was the best one I got…3 out of 4 smiling.  I am going to do a separate post with all of the outtakes from this photo session!

Olivia, me and Chelsea

Michael gives me a hard time because I always want to take “posed” pictures with my family.  Am I the only one that likes to do this??

Olivia, me, Chelsea and Peyton

+ Rich & Michael

The madness of trying to get a picture with all 4 kids continued as we tried to get them to pose with Sis Sis. As you can tell, Selah was not interested!

But what she was interested in was George’s training potty. Go figure!

After we left my family, we went to visit our dear friends, Chad and Lenora, and their children.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take ONE picture with them.  I was so disappointed when I realized I didn’t take any, but we don’t need picture evidence to know that we had a great time with them, as always!!

We went to church Sunday morning to hear Chad preach, then headed home.  As you can tell, the girls were WORN out from their busy weekend!  After we got home and ate lunch, we all slept for almost 3 hours. Myla slept almost 4 hours!!  We went to eat Subway for supper, then headed back home to basically go back to bed!

After we gave the girls a bath, I put aloe on Myla because she got a little blistered on Saturday.  I ended up putting some on Michael’s back, and Selah decided she needed to help me!

After Selah went to bed, we let Myla try on her wedding dress.  She was IN LOVE and twirled and danced!

As I said, twirling and…

…twirling!

Catching Up: Part 2…

Friday night we went to Batesville to see my stepmom, Macy and Maggie. They came down for the weekend, but since we were going to Tupelo on Saturday, we had to go see them on Friday night.  It was a quick visit, but fun!  Selah was in rare form!  She was loving being at Granny and Papa’s house!

Myla and Maggie

The girls danced around the room and had so much fun!

Selah loved sharing a peach with Aunt Maggie!

Selah gave love to Granny

And she kept going over to Papa and leaning back on his legs and looking up at him. So sweet!

Catching Up: Part 1…

We were so excited last week to get to spend time with our cousins that live in Colorado.  We don’t get to see them nearly enough, so we always enjoy the time we are together.  Olivia, Rich and George were in Tupelo for a few days, so we went over on Thursday and Saturday to see them.  This post is from Thursday.  I didn’t take a ton of pictures, unfortunately.  If you could see about a 30 second snippet of Selah in action, you would understand why.  She NEVER stops…EVER.  She has no fear of the water, so if we were outside, I had to be one step ahead of her or she would literally walk RIGHT into the water.  This does not help my picture taking ability!

When we got to Aunt Be’s house, Selah loved playing on the piano!

Can’t you tell she was proud of herself?

We filled up a little baby pool for Selah to play in.  She enjoyed it, but couldn’t understand why she couldn’t be in the big pool!  She doesn’t want to be held in the pool and will scream bloody murder if you try to put floaties on her or put her in an swim ring, so it makes swimming interesting with her, for sure!

Myla was having so much fun in the pool!  This is her “I don’t have time to stop and smile at the camera…just get it over with” smile!

My cousins, Chelsea and Olivia.  Olivia is the one that lives in CO.  She and her husband, Rich, have one little boy, George, who is almost 3, and they are expecting another little one in October.

Selah finally let my mom put her in a raft.  She enjoyed it for about 45 seconds, then she was on to the next thing!

Mom and Aunt Be

Sweet George eating lunch

Selah is always happy to eat!

Popsicle time for the big kids!

And, you know Selah had to have hers too!

George gave Selah lots of kisses before we left to go home!

New Baby, Old Friends, Thumbsucking & Adoption Update…

Last weekend, Michael, Myla, and I headed to Jackson to meet the newest member of our family, baby Luke!  He decided to make his appearance a little earlier than anticipated, being born 3 weeks early!  But, he is GREAT, and I think Mary Jennifer and Spencer are adjusting to life with a new baby!  He is so adorable, and I loved getting to hold him!

Me and Luke

Myla, Michael and Luke.  Myla wouldn’t hold him although she had talked all week about getting to hold him when we went to Jackson!  Oh, well!

The three of us with Luke.  Selah stayed with my mom and Frank for this trip!

Isn’t he precious!!

After we visited with Luke for a while, we headed over to our friends’, the White’s, house.  Two of our other couple friends, the Burchfields and the Fortenberrys, came over for dinner.  We had so much fun visiting and letting the kids play!  Here were all of the big kids eating supper!

The girls loved playing in Abby’s room!

Ellyn, Abby, Ellen Claire and Myla

Baby Emily gave her Daddy, Brian, a present!

Sweet Ellen Claire!

While we were there, Dr. Susan looked at Myla’s teeth.  If you live in Jackson, Susan is a pediatric dentist there and she is wonderful!

Trying to get a group shot of all of the kids.  Hysterical!

Before she left, Dr. Susan gave Myla a little talk about sucking her thumb.  She told her that it was time to stop doing it!

So, when we got home, we took Dr. Susan’s advice and took the steps to help Myla stop sucking her thumb.  We painted some yucky smelling/tasting stuff called Mavala Stop on her thumbnail. The first night was a little rough.  She didn’t fall asleep for several hours, and she woke up several times in the night crying after she had put her thumb in her mouth without thinking and it tasted bad.  But, last night (the 2nd night), she did great!  She went to sleep much faster, slept all night without waking up, and even slept late this morning!  I am so proud of her!

Now, on the adoption front….today I am mailing off to get our LAST piece of paperwork for our dossier.  It is a letter that we must get from the government that basically says we can bring an orphan back into the country.  It can take up to 4 months to come back, but we are hoping it doesn’t take that long!  Once we get that back, we will submit our dossier, then we will “officially” begin waiting!!! 

Feeling a Little Reminiscent..

 

This morning for some reason I was feeling a little reminiscent and sentimental.  I started thinking about a song that Michael and I had sung at our wedding, and I really wanted to listen to it.  There was only 1 video of it on youtube!  I wish that I could put the video from our wedding on here since two of my very favorite people, Melissa Jackson and Steven Smith, were singing it, but since we got married before the digital age, that’s not really possible!!  Anyway, I just love the words to this song, and it is the exact way I feel about my husband…I see Jesus in him every day.  My favorite line of the song is, “And I trust you with my love because you’re His.  I see Him….I see Him in you.”  I am so blessed and thankful to have a Godly husband.  If you haven’t heard it before, I hope you enjoy it!!

This is not the original artist, but I really like his version!!