January Happenings

I had a car full of boys after school one day.

 Brynn loves speech days because she gets to ride to school with us.

 Blake attended a baseball camp for the day.

 Her last night as a 4 year old.

 Brynn's birthday lunch.

Brynn's Birthday

This year Brynn requested a princess party so that she could wear her Mulan dress.

 As the princesses started arriving, they were taken to the beauty parlor for hair and make-up.

 Next up was the princess photo shoot. 

 A princess parade and then to the living room for presents.  We bought Brynn a silk purse at the silk factory in China while we were there for her adoption.  We put it up with plans to give it to her on her 5th birthday.

Time to sing Happy Birthday! 

Happy Birthday to our beautiful girl!

 Her real birthday was the following weekend.  She awoke to 5 birthday balloons and lunch out with her family plus Gram and Papa. 

She loved being celebrated and we loved celebrating her!!

Our Baby

It's hard to believe that our baby is turning 5 this week.  We had her birthday party on Sunday (pictures coming soon).  Her birthday is coming up this Sunday.   It's a weird phase in life for us to have our youngest child turning 5!  We are so thankful for this beautiful girl that God has blessed our family with. 

As always, her birth mother is heavy on my heart this week.  Only she knows what the days leading up to her birth were like. She was the first to hold her, feed her, kiss her sweet cheeks, and the first to love her. How her arms must ache for her.  I pray that someway, somehow she will know Jesus and choose to have a personal relationship with Him, so that one day in heaven she will be able to wrap her arms around her daughter again.  Until then we will continue to pray for her and we will love her baby with every ounce of our being.

Back to Reality

Christmas break is over and we had to get back to real life again.  Where we have to go to bed on time, wake up early for school, pack lunches, and do homework.

We had to say goodbye to Uncle Josh again... counting down to his return!

 

  We had a surprise volunteer at our school on our first day back from the Christmas break.  Papa surprised us by being our school's Watch Dog for the day. The boys loved it!!

George W.

As part of our staff development/in-service days at the end of our Christmas break, we got to visit the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.  As a staff, we took buses over to the museum, where we spent the morning with George and Laura.

 I was upset that my regular camera was messed up and I had to use my phone camera.  The museum was beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed it!