Shameless, I know

I just think the girls are so sweet and I want to share them with ya'll. I know that my blog hasn't been much of a place for deep thoughts or profound insights, but right now, my life is full of my family. It is amazing to me to have 2 girls in my house this Christmas. Especially being last Christmas without any. I do have to quickly share that Joy had a visit with her birth grandma last week and during the first part of the visit, her grandma was naming various family members who were interested in adopting Joy. I have to tell you that my heart was beginning to do little twists and turns. Eventually the grandma said something along the lines of, "Because I heard that you don't want her anymore now that you have your baby." Wow! I quickly tried to let her know that nothing could be further from the truth. I told her that we "love this little girl" and that "we think it would be a special gift from the Lord to raise two girls so close together in age since my sister and I are so close together in age." I didn't tell her that when we found out about the possibility of Elle, I called to ensure that adopting Elle wouldn't jeapordize our possibility of adopting Joy. I was so thankful that I was told it wouldn't...I don't know what I would have done if they had said it would. Anyway, by the end of the visit, Joy's grandma said that she thought it would be best if Joy stayed with us. She said it about 3 times. I have to tell you that it certainly filled my heart with hope that we might actually get to be Joy's parents for always. I do realize that the grandma doesn't get to choose where Joy goes, but it is nice to know that she is for us and thinks that Joy is in a good place. In the meantime, we keep trusting God. He knows what is best. His will be done. Okay...now for the pictures.

Joy likes holding Elle and asks to do so often. She was trying to hug Elle, Elle wasn't too happy.
I was baking some brownies with nuts in them and Joy needed something to do, so I gave her a cup of flour to play with. This is the end result.
I thought Elle looked quite cute in this little outfit. It is short sleeved, but I tried the layering approach and think it worked.This isn't THE Christmas picture, but it is a preview of what the picture will be like.
Again, I just thought Elle looked too cute not to take a picture.
This picture shows my first attempt at putting a little pony tail in Joy's hair. She doesn't sit still for long so I don't have time to experiment. But, isn't she cute?!

SNOW

Yesterday morning we woke up to a world of white. Actually...it started before we went to bed and I was up at many various hours during the night so I saw it progressing quite nicely and it looked lovely. Before bed, I prayed that there would be enough snow so that Joy and I could go out and play in it. That was a fun answer to prayer. Joy looked like the marshmallow man all dressed up in her snow suit. She was so cute. I helped her make her first snow angel. I also introduced her to eating snow...she couldn't get enough. She seemed to like the snow and loved being outside. Even though her hands were getting cold, she cried when we came in. Here are a few pictures of the day.

New hobbies and more

The other day I found Joy beginning a new hobbie. She was combing through our book shelves and stumbled upon a book she decided to look into a bit further. Can you see the Biblical Preaching title? Hmmm...wonder what she will grow up to do?!
Here is a picture of Elle's hand in her papa's hand. It's so tiny, but it is starting to get pudgy.
I had to add a couple pictures of the girls and their papa. I love them all so much!


















On another note, we had a bit of a sad incidence here. Our sweet golden retriever bit our Joy. Thankfully it was in the arm. She had a fairly decent puncture wound that they ended up putting 3 loose stitches in. It is healing well and she doesn't seem to be scared of the dog; though he isn't spending much time around her these days. I know he was just being a dog and protecting himself, but oh, how I wish I could reason with him and convince him to never do it again so that he doesn't have to be so isolated. Poor guy. But I need to protect the girls.

Dress up, laundry, and girls

About the middle of the month, I decided to try a few things on little Elle. So here are a couple pictures. This first little outfit is actually preemie size and fits her quite well. She is just getting into newborn sizes, but those are still large.

Here she is in a 0-3 month dress and little newborn shoes. I don't know if you can see how big the shoes are on her, but they are ginormous.
In the meantime, Joy spends time playing in the laundry basket. Oh, so much fun.
She climbed in there all by herself.

Here is a picture of all the girls. It may not be the best posed picture, but it is fun to have us all together.

The girls

I finally decided to take a couple pictures of the girls together. I was pleased with how well the older one did with the younger one. That is until she wanted to find out about her eyes. I didn't include that picture. The other day we went on a couple hour car trip for an eye appointment and the older girld was very excited to be in the back seat with the younger one. She kept pointing and smiling. So, here are a couple sweet pictures.

This one is after her second home bath. She always seems to be so alert after a bath. This time she didn't cry but seemed to enjoy it.
Lately the older one has been doing this to the couch cushions because then she can climb up on her own. She has also been reading a lot lately. I thought this was very cute.

First home bath

Now, I don't have any pictures of the actual bath, I was too busy scrubbing, but I do have a few after shots for you all. She didn't like her bath much and seemed to cry much of the time, but we both survived. She was very alert afterward and had her eyes open more than usual. We are curious to see what color of hair she will have and what color her eyes will be. But I guess we will have to wait it out. She is starting to look a little plump here.

This is a hand towel that I used for drying her off.

All in all, I would say the bath was a success and, Lord willing, we have many more to look forward to.

Halloween

Now, this is a holiday that can be hard to decide what to do with. I realize that there is certainly a group who values this as a religious holiday, yet most think of it has just a fun day to dress up and eat candy. This is the first year that I have had any children for the holiday. So, with the new little one being so, well, little, we just stayed in. But we did a few fun things, one of which I think I may make into a Halloween tradition. We dressed the older girl in an elephant costume and took a few pictures, ran over to the neighbor's house so she could "trick or treat", and then came back here to pass out candy. In between candy passing, we made cookies. The cookies are the part that I am thinking of making a tradition. We made candy corn looking shortbread cookies. I am such a sucker for shortbread! I think that the next time I make them they will look a little more like they are supposed to...but in the meantime, these looked fairly cute and tasted really yummy. Here are some pictures of the cookies as well as the very cute little girl elephant.

They might not be shaped right, but at least they taste right.
The trunk hung down over her face, so I helped hold it up.
A picture with papa. This is how she looked most of the night while helping to pass out candy.

Sorry, no pictures of the littlest one, though I have a little story. I was feeding the baby a bottle when a couple cute little kids knocked on the door, so I set the baby down and gave out candy...the little boy said, "I know you have a baby...she's cute." So the baby got noticed on her first halloween.