Children of God

Please watch this video. What a testimony to all of us being adopted by God. It brought tears to my eyes. We're all loved by our God.

Peek-a-boo

Grace loves to play peek-a-boo. She holds the napkin, or towel, or blanket, or whatever she can get her hands on, in front of her face and waits for you to ask where she is. She can wait a really long time before pulling it down to laugh. Her laugh is contagious!

One Year Later- Better than ever!

Today's Grace's Gotcha Day!! I can't believe that it's been a year. Last year at this time we became a family of 3. Yeah God! Thank you for blessing me with these two precious girls. This is a picture of the first time I held Grace. Can you see the tears of joy on my face and the fear on hers? But God has brought us together and created a family attached to Him and each other.

We started the celebration by going out for pizza. Grace is in love with pizza! It's so funny to watch her. She stuffs it in her face. Look at her grin!

This is what was happening in our house tonight. Abby loves to push the shopping cart and for some reason Grace loves squeezing into it for a ride. It's hilarious to watch the two of them. They're so much fun!

Here's my girl a year later waiting for her butterfly cake and ice cream! Doesn't that smile just warm your heart? God has done good in our lives.

That's right! Pink frosting is the best! It's finger lickin' good!

Hair, Hair, and more hair

I've been on the lookout lately for a hair beader and I can't find one anywhere. So I went ahead and ordered one from amazon. It should be here next week. I'm excited to give it a try. Meanwhile I've been trying different styles on Grace's hair. It's finally long enough to get it to do a few different things. This first one is my favorite. It's a crown twist. I put a head band right behind the twist and it stayed put for the whole day. I'm getting faster at the twists. This one only took me 7 minutes. And she doesn't cry when I do it! That's even better! Here's the view from the top. Isn't it beautiful? I've found that twists don't stay as long, but they're quite easy to put in so at least it's not time consuming.

Tonight after her bath I tried pig tails. I split her hair into four different sections and then twisted each section. Her pig tails looked so cute all twisted together. I'm anxious to see how they turn out in the morning after she's slept on them. Oh, and don't mind the cupboard. She's not supposed to be in them at all, but I was chasing her with the camera in order to get a head shot. The cupboard was closed quickly afterwards. :)

Here's another one from the top. I know it's not the best, but this style was so easy.

What a Performance!!

Last Sunday Abby came home so excited! They had sang her favorite song in Sunday School! Life couldn't get any better. Here she is showing me the motions. The sound is low so you might want to put it up if you want to hear the music with the dance moves. I just love that she loves singing to her Jesus!

Snow day #6 !

I can't believe it! We're on snow day #6 for the year. This is unheard of in school land. But I'm enjoying it :) I got the call early enough that I wasn't completely dressed for the day and I was able to climb back into bed for a few more hours. We had a huge ice/freezing rain/sleet and snow storm last night. It looks nasty outside, although I haven't ventured outside yet.
We've been so lazy this morning. The girls have been playing with toys, watching videos and dancing to music. I worked on Grace's post adoption reports, our taxes and a little grading for school. I might even lay down for a short nap and/or read a book. Ahhh...it's nice to have days to just catch up on life. Abby played with her littlest pet shop stuff this morning and her polly pockets after lunch. She gets the whole thing set up and will play for hours. It's so cute to watch.

Grace's twists from Saturday night looked so cute I decided to try a few more. I put the video in, gave her a sucker, and went to work. I put 4 twists in her hair, pulling it back to half way back her head. It's hard to see in the picture, but they turned out pretty cute. I don't have a beader or beads to put in her hair so right now all she has are a few bands. Does anyone know where I can get a beader/beads here in Holland?

The other big news in our house is that Grace has discovered how to climb out of her crib. I heard a big thud and went running into her room only to discover she had climbed out! I couldn't believe it. I quickly put up the side rail and I'm hopeful that it will deter her enough that she'll forget how she got out. It will be so difficult to get her to take a nap if she knows she can climb out and play. Ahh, the joys of motherhood.

I know.. I know...

I know. I've been lacking in the blogging world. Life here has been crazy with parent teacher conferences at school several nights and then I'm just too tired to tackle the blog. I'm not too tired however to take pictures. So I've uploaded several pictures from the last few days. Enjoy! This was last Sunday. I just love it when the girls love on each other. They're two peas in a pod.

Eating a sundae on a Sunday! Haha!

We headed to school on Friday night for our school Talent Show. It was cute. Grace lasted until the last song before she needed to move.

Abby had so much popcorn and licorice. She was thrilled!

Several students from my class were there and couldn't wait to see the girls and to sit by them. Grace and Abby were instant rockstars.

My friend Krista is on the left. She's Abby's kindergarten teacher. My teaching partner, Misha, is on the right. Don't you just love Abby's smile? She was still eating her licorice.

We had some friends over for dinner tonight and a few lessons on Grace's hair. After pizza, breadsticks, and baths, we tackled the hair. Abby and Levi played in the princess tent while we worked.

Grace and Elaina in the tub. Two brown beauties!

When they were leaving Elaina ran over to Grace and they started hugging each other. It was so adorable. I hope they grow up and continue this great friendship. And don't you just love their hair? I put in a two strand twist at the crown of Grace's head. It turned out pretty good and I'm hopeful that she'll wake up with it still intact. Thanks Beth for showing me the ropes (or should I say twists?) :)