BELATED FATHER'S DAY

the 4 most important people in my life! :)


while making b'fast Sunday before church, this is what John and I saw. :)
the 2 of them hanging out and giggling together...VERY rare these days as Elizabeth has found just about ALL of Andrew's buttons and takes much joy in pushing them...and Andrew has had a very short fuse with her lately....so to see them hanging together was definitely photo-worthy!



after church, as is now customary, the whole gang popped over to our place for a BBQ and swim.
Our house is smack dab in between my parents' and my sisters', so it's just convenient to meet up here...but my sisters' pool will be done soon so I have a feeling we'll have some parties over there in the near future too!

if you can blow this pic up, you have to! Jeremiah's expression is hilarious...he looks like he's thinking "this is the craziest family ever..I can't believe I'm sitting here in this dumb floating thingy!"

my brother-in-law taking Joanna for a swim. :)

after swimming and BBQ, we had grandpa open presents.

I snapped the above photo of Joanna and Andrew cuz it's so unusual to see Andrew without Jacklyn! They are only 9months apart and are like peas in a pod...but for some reason, Andrew and JoJo were buddies this afternoon.

Grandpa opening up his gift from the grandkids..a new flag, some n*tter butters and a bag of
sn!ckers. :)


after the gang left, we took the kids back out swimming.

when my dad was cleaning out my grandmother's house, he found his old boogie board and brought it home.....this is what the kids are on!

my little surfers!

these 2 pics crack me up -Becca can talk Andrew into doing most anything for her. :)
here, she has talked Andrew into pulling her around the pool while she's in/on the air mattress.
as he pulled her around, she sang silly songs and had us all laughing so hard!

and when daddy swims with the kids, the girls almost ALWAYS

ask for him to throw them around....so I video'd them on Sunday. :)

CHRISTMAS

Our first Christmas celebration was last weekend in the LA area with John's family. We drove out there Saturday morning, had Christmas on Sunday, and were back in the van driving home on Monday. whew! quite the whirlwind trip, especially since we had just arrived home from my Grandmother's funeral the prior weekend...but it was so good to see John's family again. The kids LOVE their California aunties, cousins and Nana. :)

we all slept in my sister-in-law's office/guest room. They have an "L" shaped sofa that John and I slept on (see the burgundy sheets?) and then they graciously set up a queen air mattress for the kids to sleep on -sausage style! :)

Here are a few pics I took of the kids during the Christmas party.

John's mom got Andrew a camping set. He slept with the canteen and wore that headlamp EVERYWHERE the entire day. He had a big ole red mark on his forehead from it! :)

Becca got a "Sleeping Beauty" dress up outfit-the pic is missing the high heeled pink plastic pumps that goes with the outfit. :)


Miss Elizabeth came down with a really bad cold Sunday afternoon (why we ended up leaving CA earlier than expected), so we skipped church on Christmas Eve and just went over to my parent's for dinner.

Here is Miss E on her 2nd Christmas Eve with us.

Becca was in NO mood to be taking pictures (she had skipped nap that day and was rather unpleasant by 7pm!) -thus the stone face on her. :)

the stockings were hung by the pool table with care. :)

(can you see the outline of the one on the right?)

Christmas morning the kids got their stockings, unwrapped their couple toys here, and then we headed over to my parents' where my sister's gang was awaiting us.

getting cooking utensils

hmmmm...more cooking utensils

it's hard to see in this pic, but Becca's face is one of pure joy as she realizes she is opening her "My Little Mommy" baby doll and accessories. :)

Andrew with his monster truck

at my parents', my sister is trying to get a good pic of the boys..notice Rebecca in on the action.

She was SO excited all week to get to see her new cousins on Christmas!

Jeremiah

you talkin' to me?!

baby in a box!

my parents gave our kids a play kitchen for Christmas (thus, all the kitchen gadgets the kids got from us!)

AND, my sister's kids got one too!

the kitchen comes with a phone..notice Becca and my niece Jackie "talking" to each other. :)

the "littles" playing

Andrew riding his new bike at grandma and grandpa's house.

We had a wonderful Christmas week, minus Elizabeth being sick AND back to having 4-5 nightmares a night. :(

God has done SO much for and with us this year ~ we are eager to see what He will do in 2009. :)

THEY'RE HOME!

are these not the cutest faces EVER?!?

My sister arrived home late last night, and as you might imagine..they are all quite tired!

somehow she found time today to update her blog with several pics -above are just 2 of them.

They are both pretty sick with a variety of ailments including colds, infections, scabies, etc...so it might be awhile before we actually get to meet them. As you might expect -it's killing me!! and of course for attachment reasons I can't just go pick 'em up and hug the stuffin' out of them when I do get to finally meet them. ugh! :)

hopefully I'll have more pics to share of these precious new blessings soon.

WE HAVE NEWS FROM AFRICA!

Proverbs 25:25
Like cold water to a weary soul
is good news from a distant land.

While we were at church this morning, we FINALLY got word from my sister. They are in Ethiopia safely, have met their boys (in ET, you don't get custody of your children until the day of your Embassy appt), and are in love.

Both boys are covered in scabbed over chicken pox :( , the baby has pink eye and his skin rash continues to be terrible.

Both boys are warming up to them, the baby-Jeremiah-more quickly than Josiah (20 months)...but that is good. It's OK that Josiah is taking a bit more time..he's gone thru quite a bit in his short little life....but he is already smiling and giggling, so that is a very good sign.

If you're interested in reading more, you can check out her blog HERE -I just updated it with all the info we received in the brief email. :)

Thank you all for praying for her. I've included more prayer requests on her blog if you're interested in knowing specifics.

I'll hopefully be updating here with our stuff soon...have pics and hopefully some video to share. :)

MEET MY 2 NEW NEPHEWS!!!

Josiah -18 months (look at those eyes!)
Jeremiah -7 months!

Praise God! My sister received news today that her boys passed court and are officially theirs!!!

There is some paperwork to be done in Ethiopia which should take 2-4 weeks...please pray for as quick as possible since my sister is pregnant and time is of the essence if she's going to be able to go pick them up!

If you want to congratulate my sister, or just follow along with them, their blog link is HERE .

just another pic of Josiah -I LOVE this pic of him-look at that pout!

****we have a crazy busy week this week so I might not post much until next week -but just to give you a glimpse of next week -it's our 1 year anniversary of "Elizabeth Day" :) ****

**and I think I'll be hosting a giveaway next week as well** :)

SAY A LITTLE PRAYER

Tomorrow, Friday, my nephews' paperwork goes to court in Ethiopia. Lord willing, everything will go fine and they'll be officially part of our family -and I can show you their WHOLE pictures! :)

here is what my sister posted on her blog:
Please pray that both of our boys pass court on Friday (this step is not as simple as it sounds and there are often glitches with paperwork/power outages/judges not showing up etc.) That will mean they are officially ours and then we just wait for passports and embassy appointments to be able to bring them home! Thank you for asking the Father on our behalf!

If you have a second, would you say a quick prayer for Jeremiah and Josiah? that all would go smoothly with their paperwork?

Thank you!