Christmas

Whoo Hoo, a white Christmas.  I'm not sure why that always seems so exciting, but Liberty was thrilled.  On Christmas Eve my camera decided to stop working!  Thankfully I was able to pull some pics off my video camera.  This year we decided to keep things simple and Liberty only got a few presents.  Since she was only getting a few, I chose them very carefully.  Her "big" gift was a child-size cot.  She absolutely loved it!  Since all four of us sleep in the same room, it is quite crowded.  Liberty has been sleeping on a regular sized cot that took up a ton of room.  When Scott saw this on QVC a few weeks before Christmas I knew I had to get is for her!

The sleeping bag snaps to the cot so it doesn't slip off

Emory enjoying Liberty's cot

Another important part of Liberty's gifts were Barbie accessories.  She is very much into her Barbies right now and she needed new clothes as well as more Ken dolls or "Boy Barbies."  In the above picture you can see that Emory is playing with Liberty's new Ken doll or "John" as she has named him.  The pink tux is also new because her Ken doll did not have proper wedding attire :).

The final gift was a set of Lincoln logs.  Liberty loved these so much that after Christmas Scott and I decided to buy her another set.  She now has the Winter Woodland and the Frontier  Junction sets.  My dad got on eBay to see if we could find more and we stumbled on sets that have hundreds of pieces.  That's next on the list!  Soon she will be able to build an entire Lincoln Log city!

Lincoln logs

Emory only got one gift from us to open on Christmas day.  It was a shopping cart/highchair cover.  She really like playing with all of Liberty wrapping paper!  Plus, I was super excited that she was able to sit up by herself to open presents.  What a big girl!

Scott and I usually decide beforehand how many gifts we are going to get one another or at least decide on a price limit.  This year he refused to even hint at how much money he was spending or how many there would be.  He gave me at $50 limit for him and told me he wanted at least 5 gifts.  My gift arrived in the mail a few days before Christmas.  When Scott got home he was so excited that he let me open it immediately.  It was a Kindle!!!!  Needless to say, he broke all the rules this year and I am super excited about it.  I downloaded my first book, "My Life in France by Julia Child, right away.  I won't bother going into details about Scott's gifts because they were significantly less exciting than my Kindle. 

The girls watching Scott open one of his presents.  Liberty was just as excited to watch him open presents as she was about opening hers.

On the Monday after Christmas, my parents and my sister's family came to our house from Texas to do our extended family Christmas. It was a blast for Liberty to get to do the whole present thing all over again.  My parents, of course, overdid it and brought a ton of gifts!

Look at all those presents!

One of Liberty's big gifts from her Nana and Papa was a huge "walking doll."  She comes up to Liberty's shoulder and Liberty has named her Isabella.

Emory and her cousing Hannah (6 weeks)

We have had an absolute blast.  I baked tons and ate way too many sweets.  Even though the holidays are so fun, I am definitely ready to settle back into our routine.  I am also really looking forward to 2010!

G is for Goat

Jesus died for my sins

Wow!  I am a terrible blogger.  It has been several weeks since my last post.  I'm not going to bother catching up on what we have covered the last couple of weeks, I am just going to start back up with this weeks unit wrapup.

This week we studied the letter G, Goats, and farms.  We talked about how pople used to offer animal sacrafices to the Lord for their sins.  We then talked about how Jesus came to die for our sins and now we no longer have to sacrafice animals.  I thought it was a completely fitting lesson coming into the Christmas holiday.  I'm not sure Liberty is grasping the whole concept of sin and Jesus' sacrafice, but I know she is storing these things in her heart.

We did a few fun goat and farm crafts this week.  I must admit that most of these ideas were not mine.  I found a couple of really good websites with fun farm activities.  No need to recreate what someone else has already done so well :).

One of the crafts was an animal mother and their babies book.  Liberty learned what each baby animal was called and then practiced drawing each animal.  It was really fun.  I hate to admit that I didn't know some of the baby animal names and had to look them up!  We also made a goat out of a template and toilet paper roll.  This is super easy and if you have little ones they can participate too.  Both of these websites also have tons of other farm activities for PreK and K. 

I have been really bad about getting to the library that past couple of weeks as well.  I am blaming it on the holidays, although I'm not sure that is a good excuse. Thank God for the internet!  However, we did manage to read two books.  Check them out.


Liberty is also starting to read sentences with short vowel words.  It is so exciting.  She is getting better at recognizing some of the words without having to sound them out!

I hope once we are through the Christmas season, I can get back on track and get more organized!

Liberty's Cheer Performance at Oklahoma Gold

These are the videos from Liberty's Cheer Recital last week.  I'm not completely thrilled about the song her coach chose, but Liberty looks so stinkin cute!  I haven't been thrilled with the gym we are currently at, so in January we are switching to a new gym.  I'm looking for a little more quality in the instruction.  Although, I'm not sure what Liberty will want to compete in when she is old enough, I must admit that I am steering her in the direction of cheer or powertumbling :).

Adoption

I am so behind on blogging.  I am going to try to catch up over the next few days.  First on the list...Scott and I have decided to adopt.  We have been talking about it for years--ever since we found out Lilly had a genetic disease.  We never could commit and then God blessed us with Emory.  Now that we have her, Scott and I both know that we want more children.  The risk of having another sick child has weighed heavily on both of us.  Adoption eliminates the risk and allows us to grow our family.  We haven't decided whether or not we will have anymore biological children.  We both felt God led us to have Emory with some very special words of encouragement and we are open to that possibility again.  Right now we are just really excited about adopting the next member of our family.

The adoption process is very long and involved and given the extreme financial burden it could place on our family, we have decided to adopt through DHS.  The child that we adopt will be in the custody of the state of Oklahoma and all parental rights will have been terminated.  The state doesn't charge anything for adopting these kiddos but as you may know, it is very difficult to get a healthy infant.  Due to our prior experiences and the fact that we have two kids at home, we have opted not to do foster care.  This would probably speed the process up somewhat, but Scott and I both think it would be too difficult for us and for Liberty.  We would really like to get a healthy boy between the ages of 0-18 months and of any race.  This is our dream scenario, but we are obviously open other opportunities as they present themselves.

Before the state will even consider placing a child with us, there is a ton of paperwork and 27 hours of classes we have to attend.  So far, we have mailed the adoption application, background checks, and our Texas Child Abuse/Neglect registry checks.  So, the process is underway.  I hope by this time next year we will be welcoming our new little one.

5 months olds

Wow!  This year has flown by and now Emory is 5 months old.  She is so much fun.  She is officially older than Lilly was when she first got sick.  It is a milestone I have been anxiously waiting for.  Even though she demostrates daily how different she is from her sister, I am always anxious for her to do things that Lilly couldn't do.  So, on to the things that make Emory special and wonderful.

She has recently discovered that if she puts her fingers in her mouth and blows that she can make lots of cute noises and bubbles.  She spends a great deal of the day amusing herself in this way.  She often stick her fingers, or in some cases her hands, so far into her mouth that she gags herself.  However, this doesn't seem to discourage her.

If her hands aren't in her mouth, she is diligently trying to place some other object in there.  As she gets her hands on something, it immediately gets shoved in her mouth.  Her hand/eye coordination is getting better every day.  She can usually grab whatever she is after.  She is still trying to master the art of actually holding onto things.

Emory and Hannah (her cousin)

My favorite accomplishment so far is her new ability to roll over.  I was really discouraged at her four month appointment when she was showing very few signs of wanting to roll over.  Her pediatrician told me to call her if she wasn't rolling over by 5 months because that could be an indication of a gross motor delay.  Needless to say, as 5 months drew closer I started to get a little panicky.  However, just days before the deadline, she managed to roll from her stomach to her back!  I am so proud of her.  Since we have been practicing, I actually managed to catch her rolling over for the first time on video.  (please try to ignore my very loud praises :))

My biggest problem with Emory is that there doesn't seem to be a diaper on the market that can contain her...umm...poo.  Just about every single day she has a major blowout that requires a complete change of clothing.  Unfortunately this often happens in stores and restaurants.  Scott has even began to question my ability to properly put on a diaper and has asked me to visit the website to ensure I am doing is correctly!  I guess I am going to start putting her in size 3 as soon as the 2s run out.

Emory loves Liberty.  She laughs at Liberty more than any other person.  It is so sweet.  They seem to have such a special connection.  I hope it will always be that way.

Just last week Emory got sick for the first time.  Thankfully, it isn't anything major.  It seems like an allergy.  Her has watery eyes, runny nose, and sneezing.  All that remains is a stuffy nose.  She never seems discouraged by the fact that she can't always breathe out of her nose.  She is such a good baby.

More miscellaneous facts...

1. She still loves to sleep with her fuzzy blankie although she is much less fussy about it than last month
2. She still has blue eyes
3. She weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 pounds
4. She has virtually no hair and what little she does have is dark blond
5. She still smiles and laughs more than any other baby I have ever known
6. She has discovered her feet.
7. She is so close to being able to sit unassisted.

She is truly amazing.  Scott and I always talk about how very special she is.  I am so thankful for God's goodness and for His sweet words of encouragement.  We are so so so in love with her!