how you can help!

my sister and brother-in-law are in the process of bringing a sweet baby home from the democratic republic of congo. in case you were unaware, the adoption process is an expensive one. a home study can be 1500-2000 dollars and the agency that they are using requires nearly 8000 up front for the dossier (that doesn't include the home study money!). most people don't have that kind of money lying around...well, at least we don't! but that doesn't change the desire God puts on your heart or what He has called you to! that is when fundraising comes in!

here you can read about how exactly you can partner with lara and nathan (and lylah) to bring their baby (her sibling) home from africa.

"religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world" james 1:27

thanks in advance for your help!

11 months!

i'll start by saying, this months photo shoot was the HARDEST yet! it took some serious tag teaming. :)

so exactly 4 weeks from to day, bella joy will be 1. ONE! how is that possible!? today we are celebrating 11 months! i'm sure we will have lots of fun and we are thankful that it will likely include playing outside!

this month has been another one of those amazing-learn-something-new-every-second kind of months. we laugh, A LOT!

at 11 months bella joy:
-loves giving kisses. she gives people kisses. she gives bebe and poppy kisses when we do facetime on the phone. she gives her babies kisses. she gives animals on puzzles kisses. she loves to give kisses.
-says mama and dada (sometimes we are pretty sure she says other things like bye bye, hi, dog) and signs more and water.
-LOVES bread!! we usually make grilled cheese (with veggies snuck in) at least once a day and she gobbles it all up!
-takes steps. crawling is still the preferred method, but if she would realize that walking would get her places faster, i think walking it would be. she takes a few steps and then drops to her knees and crawls the rest of the way.
-sleeps through the night and takes 2 naps a day.
-still has 4 bottles and 3 meals a day. (although today we are going to start substituting some whole milk and work toward milk in sippy cups--right now she just drinks water out of her sippy cups).
-in the afternoon when she hears the garage door open, she gets SO SO SO excited! to say the girl loves her daddy is an understatement.
-can follow simple instructions like "get your paci" or "give baby a kiss".

so now with 2 baby showers for my SIL and coming niece behind us, we are in FULL birthday party planning mode. oh what fun the next month will be!!

i'm not complaining...

...just a minor vent, as i sit in my warm little house in the country with 5 inches of snow on the ground and more falling from the sky. i'm not a snow hater. i do prefer spring and warmer weather, but a snow hater i am not. but here are a few things that i am very very tired of...

-my husband not being able to make it home from work because of snow on our country roads. seriously sick of it.

-people telling people not to be snow haters. one of my facebook friends statuses today made me cringe! it said something along the lines of how much they loved the snow and that snow haters should stop hating because snow lovers don't hate on the warm weather that we get 3/4 of the year. now, maybe we shouldn't complain about the snow, but i'm pretty sure...no, i am POSITIVE that people complain just as much when it is 100 degrees outside. AND if your husband couldn't get home from work, you would be annoyed too!

-people saying that everyone is driving like they are 80..."its just snow!" yeah, that drives me bananas too. go into a ditch just one time with your crying baby girl in the back seat and see if you still drive 60 in the snow! when you have a child in your car, you are going to drive a little differently, no matter what the weather is like!

ok, thats the end of my vent. the snow in my backyard is beautiful! but the snow on the road in front of my house is not so much. sometimes i wish all of our roads where tunnels so that the snow wouldn't get on them. we are definitely looking forward to the warmer weather that is being predicted for the coming weekend.