Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Judah's party?

Judah had a wonderful birthday party this year. It was at the playscape at our church and I could not have been more pleased with everything. Sesame Street was the theme, especially Cookie Monster & Elmo - his favorites. Oh my goodness, there were soooo many pictures to choose from and it takes a while to load them, so I just chose a few. Sorry to all who don't see themselves in these pictures...there are pictures of everyone who was there and precious ones of his little friends, but just not enough time to post them all. There are also a couple of short videos at the bottom too. Thanks Nana for the pictures and Laur-Laur for the videos. Enjoy...



I made these cupcakes myself, and thanks to my mom for helping.






The birthday boy was quite squirmy and would not look at the camera. :-)


Sweet brothers...




He was so cute while we sang to him...


and he really did blow out the candles himself - so big!


Mmmmm....the cupcakes were a hit!






He was a little overwhelmed with all of the presents and wanted to stop and open every single one, but we had to keep moving. He got some wonderful gifts - thank you so much everyone!




I think this is all of the kids that were there minus one or two.


This picture is pretty much par for the course for Judah. "Pants on the ground" is what we call him. These shorts are 12 months and you can see that they won't stay up! Poor guy...I am constantly pulling up his pants! :-)


My beautiful 2 year old baby boy...we love you so much Judah James!


Singing Happy Birthday...

Eating his cupcake...


*Added pictures from his actual birthday (Sunday) below...

Today, we celebrated you, Judah...

You loved your little riding car from mommy & daddy...




And then we went to McDonald's for some playing!


Elijah is such a great big brother to you!


You were counting to 3 before you went down the slide...


And of course we had ICE CREAM! YUM!

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY JUDAH!!!

Today is my precious Judah James 2nd birthday! I cannot believe it has been two years...it seems like yesterday and I remember the day so vividly. It was wild! To read his birth story click here. He had a wonderful birthday party yesterday with his friends and family, and we enjoyed being with him on his actual birthday today. I will post party pictures soon but here are a few of him over the past two years. We love you baby boy - Happy Birthday!!!

Okay, blogger is going to make me go in backwards order with the pictures but that's okay.

2 years old at his party yesterday...


18 months old...


1 year old...


6 months old...


Newborn...


3 weeks before he was born...

Bible Verse

"The Lord is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made."
Psalm 145:13

Either Satan is attacking me or the Lord is testing me right now. Elijah was sick for 5 days starting on Easter (week before last)...4 days after he got better, Judah was sick for 5 days last week...Judah got better yesterday and now Elijah is running a fever AGAIN! Lord, help me! I am so tired of being cooped up with sick children in this house!

Also in the last few weeks, our disposal went out, an air conditioner went out and now we think our stove may be slowly dying. When it rains it pours! I am wondering if patience is what I'm being taught...or maybe it's to have faith that God is in control, even when nothing in my life seems in my control right now. I am about to pull my hair out and just want my babies to be well. Judah's birthday party is this next Saturday and I am just praying we are all healthy and that he doesn't get what Elijah has right now. Oh. my. goodness.

Slow & Steady Wins the Race

Things are slow moving but we are steadily making progress on our adoption. If you'll notice on our adoption timeline, we received our FBI clearances last week and I just emailed in the last of our foreign dossier paperwork to Gladney this morning. So we should be going on the wait list now, right? I wish. :-) There are so many legal things that have to happen with our paperwork before we can officially go on the wait list...and things are moving slow and steady. Here is what our next steps should look like:

Home study completely processed & submitted to CIS

Slow and steady wins the race

CIS sends us a fingerprinting date to have background clearances run through them

Slow and steady wins the race

A few weeks later, CIS issues our approval notice directly to us

Slow and steady wins the race

Now our dossier is complete and can be sent to the Secretary of State to be authenticated

Slow and steady wins the race

Secretary of State sends everything back to us and we get it to Gladney

Slow and steady wins the race

Gladney sends everything to the US Consulate

Slow and steady wins the race

Finally, we are on the wait list!!!!

Slow and steady wins the race

Anything worth doing is not going to be simple and easy. It's going to be hard and require patience & endurance, or it just doesn't mean as much when you finally accomplish what you had set out to accomplish. And every little thing we do brings us closer to our baby girl. All the glory goes to God...He has been so faithful through all of this. Our next hurdle once we are on the wait list is going to be coming up with the rest of the money we will need once we have a referral and need to travel to Ethiopia twice after. We are looking at applying for adoption grants and the rest we will have to leave in God's hands...He is faithful and I know He will provide because He so clearly called us to do this.

We are coming baby girl...as slow and steady as we can.

Easter 2010

Our neighborhood had an Easter egg hunt in the park last Saturday. Judah was not going to dare sit next to the bunny without me there. :-)


They had games...Judah pretty much hacked his egg to death during the "egg roll".


But Elijah won!




Here is how it went down with Judah: Find one egg...


Get the candy out and try to open it, while ignoring everything else going on around you or the fact that there are many, many more eggs you could find with more candy in them...


Then get chocolate all over your mouth and move on.


Elijah was a little more strategic...




and ended up with way too many eggs!


That just cracks me up...


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On Easter Sunday, we headed to Gainesville where Jason helped lead worship at his parents' church; then it was back to Nana & Grangoat's for lunch, naps and an Easter egg hunt. Poor Elijah started running fever that afternoon and just now went back to school today. He had fever for over 4 days. :-(









The best ones we got of both boys together...




Judah with Uncle Brad & Aunt Nova


A little meltdown here...he wanted all of his candy right then! :-)


My beautiful 5 year old blessing...


and my beautiful 1 year old blessing!




Judah loves his Uncle Brad...


and they had fun playing football together!


He also graced us with his wonderful piano skills! :-)


Everyone wanted to wear Elijah's bunny mask...




even Grangoat!


Hope you all had a Happy Easter!