Happy Birthday, Bella Boo!

We just love our sweet little Bella. She's cuddly, funny, feisty, determined and adorable.
As soon as she sees the older kids (especially Mariah) doing something, she is certain she can do it to. And she's almost always right.

We were incredible blessed to bring Bella home from the hospital when she was 2 days old.
In the car on the way to get her, Joe and I were both completely silent until I finally said, "We may be meeting our little girl today. We also might not be."
Joe just held my hand and said. "I know."
There is no experience in the world like that. It's very strange/exciting/scary.
We walked into the room and the girls birth mom was holding her. A minute later she asked if I wanted to hold her. I know that had to have been very difficult for her and it meant (and means) more to me that I could ever express. It was a moment I will never forget. She handed Bella to me and everyone else in the room just disappeared. I loved her from the first second I knew about her, but holding her for the first time was just like holding a birth child for the first time. Your whole life becomes instantly different.
We still didn't know for 7 more months that we were going to get to adopt her, but I knew the moment I held her that I would love her forever.

I love this gorgeous face. She looks so much like her birth siblings and birth mom.

I love this face. She was smelling the flowers. :)

About a year ago a good friend of mine picked Bella up and said, "You make the perfect baby of the family!"
It's so true. I think about it often. She is our perfect little bookend.

I love you more than words could ever say, Isabella. Happy Birthday.
Love, Mommy

Sedona

Molly and I took Jacob, Noah, Mariah and Bella to Sedona for the day to do photos and hang out in the cooler weather. Joshua had a water day at school to celebrate him reading over 100 hours so given the option between going with me to take photos or going to school to hang out with his friends and play he had no problem staying behind. He and Joe got in some great bonding time after school and all night I heard him and Jacob trying to one-up each other on who had a better day.

Initially when I asked Jacob if he would want to come, he just looked at me with a very confused look and said, "I have math on Monday." (By the way, he has math everyday.) I told him that Dad and  I were fine with him making up the work the next day but he said it really wasn't worth trying to make up all of his school work on Tuesday if he wasn't sick. At the last minute he remembered his teacher mentioning what the lesson was going to be so he asked if he could still come. He also asked if he could bring all of his work with him so that he could get a head start on the things he knew he was going to have to do.

Have I mentioned how much I love this kid?
Have I also mentioned how little he resembles me? 

He was comforting Bella after a fall. He's so sweet and patient with the other kids. They are all so lucky to have him as their big brother.

This is my favorite photo of the whole day. My kids just adore Molly.

How cute is this woman?!

Joe and I were recently talking about how much we love Molly. She been hanging out with us since before Jacob was born and she is a part of so many of our best memories. To say that we love her is an understatement. She's a part of our family. We wouldn't be the same without her.

I heart nerds.

Noah needed to get in on the action too.

Noah was making his, and I'm quoting here, "5 year old face". Molly was trying so hard to do it with him, but every time she looked at him she just started cracking up laughing.
I could kick myself for it being so over exposed, but I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. It was all I could do to hold the camera in the right direction. 

Can you believe our baby is going to be two on Thursday?!
It's so hard for me to wrap my head around.

9 year olds love it when you try to kiss them on camera. Really.

After we got done with photos we played in the river for a few minutes (it was cold!). Then we changed and headed back home. It was a wonderful day and we are already planning a trip back this summer.
With Joshua this time!

*If you were sad for the lack of photos of Bella, don't be. You'll see the rest on Thursday.

The girls birthday party

We celebrated Mariah's 3rd and Bella's 2nd birthdays on Saturday. We went with a farm animal theme, but for some reason I didn't take many pictures. The girls had fun though and tons of family and friends were here to celebrate with us.

This brings our 5 months of birthday parties to an end.
Until next year...

Happy Mother's Day

In honor of Mother's Day I thought I'd be extra sappy.



I love these 5 little people with ever fiber of my being. I am amazed, challenged and humbled by them daily.  I have been asked many times what I would be doing if I wasn't a mother and every time the first thing that comes to my mind is, "I'd be waiting to be a mom". I love it. It's what I want to do and there is no part of me that would rather spend my days doing anything else.
That being said, there are many days that just come and go getting everything taken care of. Don't get me wrong: I am thankful for my kids and my life every day, but every once in a while I have a moment where everything else fades away and I just take it in. It always happens while I'm doing something mundane. I'll be folding laundry and someone will say "Mom..." but I don't hear a word after that. I'm just completely struck the fact that I'm their mom. My heart skips a beat, I stop breathing and  I am completely lost in that knowledge for a moment and all I can see is this sweet tiny (or not so tiny) person who calls me mom. 
Once Jacob and Joshua learned to read I started leaving them notes. Sometimes they're sweet notes, but more often they are "don't forget" notes. But each time when I get to the end and I sign "Love, Mom" I get butterflies in my stomach. I am so blessed to be their mom and I'm so thankful that God gives me these physical reminders to take a moment to acknowledge just how blessed I am and to thank Him for my amazing gifts.


And now onto the most important moms in my life. Mine.


Mom, I love you. Being a mother has made me appreciate you and love you that much more. You're a wonderful "Grammy" and I cherish seeing how much my kids adore you. More than ever before, I appreciate your generosity with your time, your love and your support. You are my own personal cheerleading team and I always know I can count on you.


Gail, You are a fantastic grandma. Our kids are so blessed to have you investing your time, energy and love into them. Aside from that, you raised my amazing husband. He is kind, loving, thoughtful, generous, funny, a hard worker, and a  fantastic father. You get so much credit for those things and you have my unending awe and appreciation for that. I hope I can say as much for my boys when they're grown. Plus, you make amazing lasagna and potato casserole. That alone would have made me love you forever. 


Nellie, It's been such an honor having you as a part of our family over the last few years. You welcomed us with open arms and we love you for it. Your kindness and joy just pour out every time we see you. We're so thankful for you and we look forward to many years of memories to come.


*Special thanks to Laurie, who decided to get a group of moms and kids together to do a Mother's Day shoot for each other. I don't have a ton of pictures of me with my kids so these are very special to me and I'm thankful she thought of it and that she included me. 


Boy, I am one blessed lady.
Thank you, God.

silhouette art

Julie did this adorable silhouette art for a blog friend of hers. I think it's adorable and I wanted one for my little girlies.
I'm in the process of updating their room to make it a little less babyish and a bit more toddlerish and I thought this would be perfect. 

 

I switched out the other photo to add this quote from one of Joe and I's favorite book, The Kite Runner. 

It says,

 For you, a thousand times over. 

I hadn't really noticed the blue tent to the glass when the photos were in the frames and it's bothering me, but I've decided to live with it for a little while to see if I get used to it.

defying science

I hate science. I always have. I'm not good at it and I never have been. In fact (believe me, I'm not proud of this) it's the only subject I ever really worked at. For some strange reason, once I hit high school I was perfectly content to believe that I could get really good grades if I would just apply myself, but science (in my own prideful, ignorant mind) was the only subject I wasn't sure about so I actually tired.
Anyway, back to the point.
I hate science.
So, when my kids came home needing to do science projects I cringed. Jacob wanted to do the thing where you put a nail in 3 types of liquid to see what would happen. I psyched myself up that at the very least I would finally know for sure if Coke could eat through a carburetor in 3 days. I gave Jacob 3 nails and he used Coke, water and vinegar. We let it sit for a month and you know what happened?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Apparently, I messed up by using pre-painted nails.
On the plus side, if Coke can't eat through a thin layer of paint in a month, I think my stomach is fine.
That is, by the way, how I choose what's appropriate for me to consume.
So, we are a week out from the science fair and we have to start over, so we decided to put flowers in colored water to see what would happen. He went with roses, carnations and daisies. Of course, I knew the carnations would change first, but here's the thing: They didn't.

This is a picture of the carnations on day 4.

After 12 hours I looked online to make sure I wasn't crazy and everything I read said they should have changed within a few hours. I went back to make sure we had done everything correctly and I cannot for the life of me figure out where we went wrong. 

Anyway, he's going to school with completely wrong results, and I'm passing the buck on all future science homework to Joe.

Elephant

I took these pictures along with the rest of Mariah's birthday photos but I knew I needed to make a separate post for them. 
These just make my heart happy. 

We gave Mariah this elephant for the Christmas of 2010. She loved it immediately and she is never far from her buddy. 

 

 

 

 
She falls asleep like this all of the time. 

 

 
I know she looks sad in some of these, but I promise she's not. This is her relaxed face. :)

  
I asked her what she was doing while I was taking this and she said, "Looking at the birds". When I asked what her elephant was doing she whispered, "He's sleeping on my back."