Girlie update

Ellee and Johannah are doing great! They love school, their speech therapist Tanis, ice skating, baths, food, church, learning all they can learn, and they love Mandissa. My girls know their favorite music artist on the radio. They hear the opening of one of her songs and they immediately tell Andrew to turn up the radio. This is just amazing to me!!! Ellee is still a daddies girl and Johannah is a mommas girl.

They are happy girls, most of the time, every once in a while we can have a melt down or two ;) They are growing like weeds, we are getting a few months out of their clothing and then we have to buy more because their bellies are showing or they become high waters. Not very many hand me downs from Ellee to Johannah they seem to be growing at the same rate.

Both girls are becoming a little more sassy. It's fun to watch because Johannah does it blatantly and Ellee does a little but you can tell shes more of a poke at it kinda girl and Johannah is a full on squeeze it kinda girl ;)

Right now Johannah has a sinus infection. Please pray she feels better soon.

Going to be taking family pics soon, so y'all will get to see how much they have grown. I was going through old pics tonight and can't believe how much they have grown in the 2 1/2 years we have had them. Will post them as soon as we get them back :)

Until then... :)

Long overdue update

Time for a long overdue update on the girls. I was afraid to look back and see when the last time it was that I blogged. Where do I even start? The girls are doing great! They have been thriving so much, especially in the last few weeks. We decided to keep speech going through the summer, since we have that option here in Montana, and their private speech therapist is awesome! I just love watching them grow, learn, connect different things/people, and so much more.

As most of you know we moved to Montana a little over a year ago for Andrew to be youth pastor. When moving here we knew there were a lot of benefits for the girls here. There is a place here called Eagle Mount and they have done skiing lessons, ice skating lessons, swimming lessons, and in a few weeks they start horseback riding lessons. This place is amazing and is adapted to those with special needs. They also host Saturday nights out once a month where we can take them and they get to play with other kiddos and Andrew and I get to have a date night.

The girls have a few "favorite" people in their lives and they absolutely love to call their names. Some of those people are Randa (Muranda), MiMi, and Amber. What I love about this is they are able to connect faces with names.

They now connect a bath with bubbles. Anytime I say, "Let's go take a bath" they automatically say bubbles. The LOVE bubble baths. They also love to wash themselves, which is great in learning independence, but I still make sure they are washing thoroughly ;)

Their continued favorites are music, and of course food!

On the 28th of this month Ellee will start first grade! On September 3rd Johannah will go back into kindergarten. The girls absolutely love school, and for a few months school was on the naughty word list no one could say it, but now we are counting down until school starts and they are excited. However, they have enjoyed going to work with daddy.

I will try to update more here soon, but I better not do anymore right now or you might go to sleep on me. :)

Psalm 127:3a Children are a heritage from the Lord

2 year gotchversary

Two years ago today we walked out of the orphanage, and through those gates one last time. Today as I look back over the past two years, I see how far the girls have come. The girls have made so many steps forward. This past week alone I have seen so many milestones. Ellee writing her letter p's and saying them as she writes them, along with the letter D. Johannah telling a lady at our church, whom she just absolutely adores, "no you be with me:, plain as day. AMAZING!!! I get to see God physically at work everyday. I'm reminded of that this weekend. I'm reminded that God is still alive and still here, and I just have to look at his blessing in all things. Ellee and Johannah was given to us by God, we have been entrusted with two of God's most precious gifts.

To celebrate our anniversary tonight we had one of the girls favorite meals, we had meatloaf (covered in ketchup just the way they like it) mashed potatoes, green beans,  and deviled eggs. They were so excited!

Now they are being typical kids and have been in bed for just over and hour and a half and fighting sleep. Good thing their on Spring Break.

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported us throughout their adoption, and have stuck by us since being home. We love you all!

2/11/13

So I didn't have a snazzy title for this posts because over the next couple of weeks there will be many 2 year posts so I couldn't just title it 2 years. :)

 2 years ago today Andrew and I were on our way to Ukraine. We were so excited, scared, and relieved after several months of paperwork, setbacks, and ups and downs we were finally headed to meet our daughters. It would still be a few days before we met the girls but once we were in Ukraine we were closer than we had been in months. We were actually on the same continent as them!

2 years later they are sleeping peacefully in their beds :) God is so good!!!

Happy New Year

This was the girl's second New Years celebrated. We went to James and Misty's house to celebrate. Ellee and Johannah absolutely love Muranda, Alex, and Cassie. Every time they see Muranda they sign/say play. They know that she is going to take them to play. All 3 of these girls are awesome and love Ellee and Johannah.

Ellee got a bit over stimulated by about 9:30ish (which is 2 1/2 hours past bed time) and so she had to go lay down. Johannah went strong until well after 12:00 and went to bed and slept until 10:00 a.m. the next morning.

We look forward to what God has in store for the New Year!

Happy New Year from our house to yours!!