Ella - Three Months

Today our little girl turned three months old. She is a delight, and we love seeing how she loves life. Ella readily smiles and has begun to squeal and "talk" often. She seems to have started to know who mom and dad are and has a bit of preference for us. Ella continues to light up when Obie interacts with her. She regularly sleeps through the night about 11.5 hours straight. She has very little motivation to roll over and continues to reveal a very contented personality. 

Ella tries to put her hands in her mouth all the time. She has also began to swipe at toys and things that are placed in front of her. 

We have loved to spend so much time with family in the last month.  One of Kyle's sisters and her family were visiting from Florida this week and Obadiah loved playing with his cousins. We got to spend some time with both of Kyle's sister's families this last week but then had to say goodbye to Serina as she and her family are moving out of state. Then goodbye to Melissa's family as they headed back to Florida. 

Obie really enjoys playing in the pool and he has little fear about jumping into the water. 

We have gotten acclimated back to the weather and pace of life here in AZ but we are looking forward to getting into a house in the next few weeks. 

Ella- Two Months

Our sweet little girl is two months old today. She has done well in adjusting to the time zone and has seemed to have no idea that we have just had a major move. It took us about ten days to get back into our normal sleep schedules. On Monday it will be three weeks since we left Uganda. 

As we are going through all the emotion and adjusting to this big move we are overjoyed to be learning more about this little girl's personality. She like to "talk" with people and will smile very easily. She hates having a dirty diaper and loves her big brother. 

This little boy has noticed our move across the world and likes to talk about things from Uganda. He pretends to call Uncle Lama and has asked about his friend Zion. He is loving the time and attention he is getting from his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. 

Ella seems to be changing everyday. Her sleep is real consistent and she only wakes up once in the night to eat. She LOVES bath time and sometimes she fusses if she has been held too much. 

Thanks for praying for us as we make this transition. Oh how we need the Lord and are so thankful that he is with us. 

Ella: One Month

We are so thankful for this beautiful girl who somehow is already one month old. 

We can already note the differences between her and her brother. There have been a few nights where she has only woken up once to feed! She seems to be pretty easy to please, except between 7 and 9:30 at night. She is weighing 9.5 lbs and has seemed to put herself on her own schedule. 

Obie loves his little sister and Ella seems pretty taken with him. As she is starting to try and smile it seems as though Obie makes her smile the most. 

I do not know what this expression is below, maybe gas, but I thought it was too funny. 

2 Year Interview: Obie

We did this for our own archives of Obie's life, but thought it was too cute, so we had to share it!

Two Years Old!

On Saturday Obie turned two and we celebrated with a small party and some yummy food.  As a kid I remember my mom always making some amazing cakes for my birthday and so I was motivated by these memories to try something fun for Obie. 

The kids had fun running around and playing with balloons. 

The menu was: fried chicken (from KFC) homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, cabbage salad and pineapple. Erin and Trey managed the kids while the rest of the adults enjoyed dinner. 

This handsome boy sure did enjoy the day but the cake might have been his favorite part.  

Hamlet and Zion. 

These people love us well. The Lord has used them in so many ways to remind us of his love and care for us. We are blessed by them and were so glad that we could celebrate Obadiah together before we leave. 

These days Obadiah loves to talk about the trucks he sees on the road or the birds that he sees outside. Anytime he hears an airplane he tries to make the ASL sign for airplane. His favorite books are Amazing Airplanes, Tremendous Tractors and The Jesus Story Book Bible. Obie loves to give Ella kisses and wants to help change her diapers, unless he sees some poop then he gags and has to walk away. I am amazed at his vocabulary and my favorite word he says is "good morning!" which sounds more like "morg-in." When Ella and I come down the stairs most mornings he says: "Morg-in mama, morg-in Ella!" Obie is Kyle's little shadow and adores doing projects or tasks with him. 

We love to see this little boy grow and thank the Lord for him everyday. 

Ella will be four weeks old on Monday and this is our first picture with all four of us! Gosh the problems of the second child are real, there is too much to do than to get pictures of every little thing the second time around. 

Passport Photos

It is hard for me to wrap my head around the fact we are moving in a little over three weeks. I have been putting off thinking about it and talking about it with some of my close friends because frankly I do not want to deal with the sadness of it. So for this post I cam going to continue to put it off and just share with you some funny pictures. 

Since we have to get a passport for Ella to travel we also had to get a picture of her looking straight at the camera with both eyes open which is not easy with a two week old. It took two separate attempts to get the right picture and eventually we got one that I don't think looks anything like her. 

We tried the tactic where Kyle holds her head straight and moves his hands on three when I take the picture. Clearly I jumped the gun. 

Of course Obie wanted to get in on the picture taking. If you point a camera at him this is the face he makes:

I told him to not smile and this is the face we got:

"Just look normal, relax your face"

This is the one we ended up cropping and using for her identifying documents for the next 5 years or so... not the greatest likeness but the embassy approved it! 

One Week

We have enjoyed trying to figure out our new family of four this week. We are beginning to learn about little Ella and how she seems to be pretty laid back. She is eating and sleeping well. Obadiah is great with her and loves to give kisses and "help" with her whenever he can. Ella had some visitors this week although I did not get pictures with all of them.

As promised, a picture of the "Fox toes"