I Love You, Mom!!!

Hi everybody, its Emily, Lisa's bestest daughter!!! And all I want to say is that I love my mommy VERY MUCH!!!!! Umm ... I also want to congratulate everyone who has just adopted or is just about to. I will tell you, from my personal opinion, it is worth it!!!!:) Love Emily(:)

"Picnic?"

Emily and KayLi went on another "picnic" today. If you can call it that.

The first picnic was a few weeks ago. It included a picnic basket, packed by Emily, filled with two bags of potato chips, a baggie full of cookies, two bananas and one bottle of water. Niiiice!

Today's picnic included songs, tickling, laughter, and smiles.

It's hard to pack, carry and sneak out of the house with a picnic basket full of junk food when you are on crutches!

Small side note:

Emily's ankle is getting better...slowly. If you look closely you can see some of the bruising but thankfully it is not nearly as painful now. Thank you so much for the kinds words and prayers. Hopefully she'll be off the crutches in a few days :0)

Emily went to a birthday party Saturday...

KayLi and I stayed home.

Emily had a blast on the inflatable slide...

until she decided to see how far down the slide she could jump.

Then she ended up in the ER with a severely sprained ankle.

Now she has to keep it elevated for 48-72 hours.

It's swollen and bruised....very pretty.

I am waiting on her like the princess that she is.

It's been a lot of fun at our house.

Until the Mortin wears off!

A Very Happy Child

It started raining yesterday and hasn't really stopped.

So today Allie picked Emily up from school. You know, so she wouldn't get soaked walking home in the rain.

Then he had some work to do outside and apparently she figured if he could be out in the rain, so could she.

By the time I noticed her she was drenched. Hmmm...scold her or grab the camera?

The camera won. Until I took all the pictures my little heart desired. Then I made her come in, where her little sister scolded her!

A Blessed Easter

Our Easter celebration started on Thursday with a small egg hunt and a few friends at church. Words can't describe what it was like to watch KayLi listen to the Easter story and enjoy this season for the first time. Overwhelming really.

It was so windy that most of the pictures I took had her hair blowing in her face but I love her expression as she told me her eggs were too heavy!

When she found this egg, she didn't want it, "That chicken, not egg." Then she learned it had candy too. Going through all the eggs was such sugary fun!

On Friday, Ryan came home and brought his friend Calem with him. Saturday was wonderfully relaxed. We headed to the park and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

KayLi was so excited to feed the ducks!

It's not easy getting all three of them in one shot, so I was very excited by this one! Still windy...you've gotta love West Texas!

Sweet, sweet sisters.

Emily had as much fun on the play equipment as KayLi did. So Rapunzel-ish?

Age difference aside, these two just enjoy each other!

I never did capture her squealing on the swings, so you'll just have to trust me...she LOVES them!

Umm...let's just say, everyone liked the swings.

This was KayLi's first time to play in a sand box. I know...how have we missed this? She could have stayed there for the rest of the day. I see a sandbox of her own in the future.

"This tickle KayLi toes."

It was well passed midnight when I finally put their baskets together. Shhh...don't tel them I almost forgot to do them.

Emily's excitement to wear her new dress was obvious when she had it on before the guys even woke up! She's growing up...sigh.

Ryan's favorite Easter tradition...sleepy pictures with his basket.

Not even Calem was exempt from this long held tradition...poor guy didn't know what he was getting into coming here for the holiday.

Sometimes egg hunts, candy, and baskets seem like such a fluffy way to celebrate the resurrection and the life it gives. Is there really any way to commemorate and celebrate what Christ has done that wouldn't fall terribly short? I thoroughly enjoyed the wonderfully long, relaxed weekend with friends and family. But more often than not, I felt completely inadequate to express my desire to bring Christ glory.

I am inexpressibly grateful for the sacrifices my Savior has made for me. And I feel so very blessed that He has allowed us to teach this precious little girl about His amazing love for her.

Disneyland!!!!

Ahhh...Disneyland! I just love it! I grew up about twenty minutes from there and we went so often that I will probably never need a map of the place. It makes me sad that we live so far away from it that my kids have never experienced ALL of it. We are always rushing to try and fit it into one day...impossible! We keep saying that someday we are going to go and stay at the Disney Hotel and have a total Disney vacation...someday. In the meantime we are so thankful that we were able to spend at least one day there!

Mad Hatter hats were everywhere and Emily choose this Mickey inspired one instead of ears. When I asked her to smile pretty so I could send a good picture to her dad, this is the grin I got. You gotta love her!

I was certain that KayLi would not want to ride anything but I couldn't have been more wrong! She LOVED the rides! The "Big Cups" was one of her favorites.

It was awesome to spend a week with my brother and his family and they always make Disney so fun! I miss them :0(

Emily wanted to be independent and fly solo on Dumbo.

KayLi LOVED the "Elephants!" I still can't believe how much she loved the rides. She even rode a pretty scary little roller coaster in Toon Town and The Pirates of the Caribbean!

This is the same child who had a MAJOR melt down on a super small carousel in China!

My brother is the photographer in our family (I missed that gene) and he got this great shot of Will! I love his expression and the action of the shot!

The lines at Disney are always long, even on a Monday but we tried to have a little fun.

But some lines were longer than others.

Taylor was such a trooper and stuck it out all day long. We all fell head over heals for this sweet baby!

KayLi couldn't resist Emily's lovely hat!

The lines to see Mickey & Minnie were way more than we could handle, so we were thrilled when Goofy made a random appearance!

KayLi did sooooo much better than I expected. I honestly thought I was going to have to spend some down time in a room on Main Street that is set aside for nursing mothers. She did awesome! I really shouldn't have worried at all. The only thing that freaked her out were the fireworks. Taylor and KayLi had fallen asleep in their strollers, so my mom volunteered to sit with them while we rode a couple faster rides. We thought the fireworks started at ten but they started at 9:30. So they woke both the little ones up and no mommies where there...my poor mom. She ended up with two crying granddaughters and was practically in tears herself when we got to them. KayLi hugged me so tight when I picked her up and said "I happy to see you!" So sweet! She was fine the rest of the evening. The next day, after we slept in way too late, I asked her if she liked Disneyland. She replied "More Disneyland, please." I wish!

One Year Ago...

We saw KayLi's precious face for the very first time. Finally, we had a face to fill the longing God had placed in our hearts.

I really can't believe it's been a year....until I look at how much KayLi has grown and changed and blossomed.

What an awesomely redemptive God we serve!

Small side note...

The white dress KayLi is wearing above, was Emily's flower girl dress from my brothers wedding. Emily wore it one week after turning four. It was a favorite in her dress up box and she had so much fun dressing KayLi in it yesterday!

Disney pictures and a recap of our California trip coming soon...promise :0)

Back in Cali

Our flights here went smoothly, with KayLi only getting a little anxious during our first take off. Once she understood that we would "Go slow" again, all was well. She even did great during our two hour layover in Vegas. Emily was excited to see the strip with all it's huge casinos when we landed and again on take off.

We stayed up ridiculously late catching up with my brother and sister in law. It was so fun to watch KayLi and Will play together. They tackled each other over and over, laughing each time they would fall. No one could believe how much KayLi has grown. Or how "mature" Emily has gotten. I can't figure out when Will turned into a big kid. And the baby, oh the sweetness of her.

Yesterday we tried to sleep in late and get used to the time difference. This will be the first time I have EVER looked forward to daylight savings time. It will put us only an hour out of whack!

Once we all got ready (no small task with four adults, one teenager, two kids and a two month old baby and ONE bathroom) we were off to a small zoo and then the beach for dinner at sunset.

When we got to the zoo it was kind of cool to see that scenes from the movie "Old Dogs" had been filmed there. Only in Cali! It's a small zoo with mostly monkey's, birds and a few mid-sized animals. We had a very nice time following the kids around and watching their excitement over each exhibit. They also had a play ground that the kids loved but I forgot to take any pictures. We'll all swap out pictures later but I think by then you all may be a little tired of pictures of this trip. Maybe, I'll bore you with them anyway :0)

We timed everything perfectly and left the zoo heading for the beach and Ruby's restaurant in plenty of time to get their before sunset and take some beautiful pictures. Or so we thought...

It's important to know that my brother and sister in law have two small cars and we have how many people? So we drove to the zoo and the beach in separate vehicles. Wendy, the baby (that sweet tiny thing I want to inhale), Will (my adorable nephew) and Emily (bless her baby loving heart) were in one vehicle. KayLi, Jay and I were in the other. Wendy had basic directions to the restaurant/beach were were heading towards and was following us...through Orange County traffic.

I know you guessed it...our separate vehicles got seriously separated. No problem right? Wendy has a phone. Nope. Oh well, I'll call Emily's phone. That worked...for about two minutes of very broken service. So with our limited cues as to where each other were we spent the night hour, of very precious daylight, trying to find each other. We were headed towards Ruby's restaurant on the end of the Huntington Beach pier but who would have thought that since we were last there Newport Beach had built four new piers. Three of which now have a Ruby's restaurant on the end.

Praise God for a few crazy miracles because we actually found each other again, right as Jay and I were about to give up and head home...with drive through fast food instead of the long sought after Ruby's. We ended up having a great dinner, at Ruby's woo hoo! Ah but my poor beloved beach pictures will have to wait until next time. We have bounced around a couple ideas of possibly heading back to try again. It's not looking good though. Jay has to work all but one other day while we are hear and we need two experienced California drivers.

So today we will be at the mall. A huge mall if it matters, having fun at the stores we only get to shop at when we are here. Probably spending more money than I would like to. But what the heck...when in Cali...

Thank you all for your prayers for KayLi. She is doing great! No sleep issues, she's not over whelmed, minor jealousy of her cousin and I and no major problems with sharing! She and Allie talked on the phone for a long time this morning and that went well too. So far it seems that I was concerned for no reason. Please keep praying...Disneyland is coming :0)

Sometimes You've Gotta Laugh

Emily's reactions to people, even inconsiderate people, often makes me smile. But when she told me how she responded to an incident at school a couple weeks ago, I couldn't help but laugh. Really laugh! If I hadn't laughed, I would have gotten annoyed and angry. Really angry. It's so much more fun to laugh!

She and a few of her friends were showing each other pictures that they had stored on their phones. Typical junior high girls standing around giggling over each others silly faces and corny poses.

One of her friends had some pictures of her four year old cousin. She showed Emily a picture of her cousin smiling really big with her eyes squinted and said "Look how cute she looks making Chinese Eyes."

Emily quickly pulled up a picture of KayLi, handed it to her friend and said "This is how KayLi does it."