our first girls weekend and a 7 month old

Me and the girls of our family took our very first (hopefully of many) girls weekend away. We flew to Colorado on Friday to spend the weekend with my friend Sara, and meet her new addition and first daughter, Mya. We also got to go to Focus on the Family and hear Angie speak (she's a fellow blogger whose site we frequent). You can find her site on my sidebar-it's Bring the Rain.
It was perfect timing really, the talk. She was there speaking as part of Sanctity of Life month for the chapel time at Focus, which included a performance by Selah (of which Angie's husband is a member). And being as how adoption holds such a special place to both of us (Sara and I), an adoptee and an adoptive parent, it was very very moving to hear about all the impact Focus has had on birthmoms through a program called Option Ultrasound. It's a program where women contemplating abortion are given the opportunity to see an ultrasound of their baby and the report told of the HUGE percentage of women that are impacted to decide to give their baby life instead. Seriously I think I may have found my calling! What an incredible program.
It was a special time to have together, us girls. It was a delight to meet Mya. I can't get over what a perfect match she is for their family. I don't know why I'm so surprised by it though. I mean, it was ordained by a sovereign God whose plan is always perfect, so of course it's a perfect match. My heart swelled at her warming up to us and I can't wait to see her again!
While we were there we shopped (only a little), drank coffee, talked, ate, laughed, and just enjoyed hanging out together in our daily lives....which I so miss being states away. Thanks for having us, we can't wait to see you again soon!
Also while we were there, little Em turned 7 months old! She's sitting, rolling, diving forward from sitting, laughing, loves cheerios and peek-a-boo.
I had to copy the pictures from Sara's blog, so sorry if you read both, they're the same. But I didn't take any pictures while we were there and left that to Sara!

emily's pics

Well, I've been getting some slack from some of my blogging friends who knew that Emily just had some '6 month photos' done and they haven't been shared yet! Silly me!

So here they are! I have to say another thank you to Sara for the tutu that Emily is wearing in some of the photos; she made it for her and I just couldn't resist having her captured in it. She was so funny in it; she kept grabbing it and trying to eat it! Appropriate for six months I guess!

a new adventure

Last weekend we took the kids to try some new outdoor sports.

Jason and the boys tried snowboarding, and Abby tried skiing. Now, I must say, I wasn't sure what to expect. I thought the boys would probably have a good time. I thought Jason would fall alot, which he did, and I thought Abby may chicken out or melt down after the first fall.

My brother (who's an instructor) met us and buddied up with Abby while Jason and the boys took a lesson together.

Well, the boys did have a lot of fun. Ben was very determined to get this down. He would've stayed as long as we'd have let him. He really did very well considering it was his first time, and he was certainly persistant! Matthew had fun too, but thought maybe next time he'd try skiing. And it could have had something to do with the fact that Abby was seemingly a natural! She was such a trooper!

Uncle Todd told her a couple of instructions, like make a slice of pizza to stop, and french fries to go. At the end of the day, the group of them were standing at the top of the hill, and Todd was helping his son Jake with something on his own skiis. Well, Abby just took off right down the hill. There was a bit of alarm at first. (probably a good thing that I heard this second hand later, as I was in the lodge with Emily!) Todd yelled "Abby, pizza. make the pizza." She just kept right on zooming down. Til the bottom where she just popped her little skiis into her pizza slice and stopped. When the rest of them made it down to her, they asked her if she meant to go down or what happenend.? She replied, "yep, I wanted to go fast!" I can't tell you how shocked I was by this! But so proud of her!

We were so excited to have found something that our entire family can do together for a long long time to come. well, as soon as Emily can walk! But I think next time, she'll stay with Grandma so I can have fun too!

6 months

The day after Christmas, Emily turned 6 months old! This is especially encouraging to me, because I always mentally tell myself with the birth of each child that if I can make it til they're 6 months old, I'm golden. Those first 6 months are just so hard! Well, we've made it, and it seriously felt like the blink of an eye.She is a delightful child. Very busy. A little needy; needs to be moved around to new activities often to keep her content, but she's great. She is smiling hugely, laughing if you really work for it, watches the kids' every move, is sitting up and eating babyfood! Here are some recent pictures...

merry CHRISTmas!

Ok, I know, it's really sad that I'm just now posting these pictures from our Christmas, but we really have had a lot going on. We've had quite a lot of time just home together, which has been terrific, but that never fails to fill quickly. 

Because of yucky weather we weren't able to travel for Christmas Eve like normal, but it was nice to be mellow and have the day at home too. We joined friends for dinner before church and then had them over for dessert following. Just what it's all about. Time with loved ones celebrating the birth of our King. Here's some pictures of the kids enjoying the festivities. Since we would normally open gifts from my family Christmas eve, we let the kids go ahead and do that, then Christmas Day we open gifts from us and we stay in our pj's as long as possible and play with all our stuff. Obviously, it was Emily's first Christmas and it was so fun watching her take it all in. She tore the wrapping paper, and then tried to eat it. She really didn't care much about whatever she found inside until we really opened it for her to hold/chew on/etc. good times.