Happy Birthday Jesus!

We had a fantastic Happy Birthday Jesus day! Mary Lee is at such a fun age right now. She was anticipating Jesus' birthday. We had talked to her a lot about this day and the significance of it. She knew about the wiseman and the shepherds. She knew about Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. If you ask her who lives in her heart, she sweetly replies, "Jesus." Oh sweet baby girl just melts my heart. She knows too that we will one day live with Jesus in Heaven. I wonder what her little mind thinks Heaven is like...I'm envisioning she sees visions of candy, toys, etc... But oh our Heaven is so much more. If she only knew...as a matter of fact if WE only knew. Descriptions of it cannot do it justice. If we only really knew, the things of this world would be trivial, meaningless. While I love living life on this earth right now, I cannot wait for the day I am singing and dancing with my Savior. I pray that my sweet baby girl will one day know that longing, the longing to spend eternity with her Maker, with her Savior, with her Jesus. Here are a few pictures from our Happy Birthday Jesus day!

The presents...

Playing with her new toys...

Awesome Daddy bundling up and taking Mary Lee out in the rain to ride her new bike...

After all of the present fun, we baked our annual Happy Birthday Jesus cake...

The finished product...

We are so thankful that Daddy was able to be home Christmas morning. Unfortunately, that will not always be the case. We cherish our time together, especially during this first year of residency...it can be tough at times! We hope you made sweet memories with your family celebrating the birth of our Savior!

Visit with Santa

Mary Lee likes the jolly guy from a distance, but she is not so excited to see him up close. This momma likes to have a picture with Santa each year, smile or not. So, we always head to Bass Pro (since it is free). Here are some snapshots from our visit...

About to walk up there

Made it up there

Santa is trying to coax her into his lap for a picture

Kind of unsure of this

And she's definitely not sure now

BUT, Momma got the picture she wanted!

Cooking Fun

Mary Lee has been all about "helping" me lately when I am cooking. Most of the time I let her because it keeps her occupied while I am cooking. She LOVES to "cook for Daddy." Here are some pictures of Mary Lee making Daddy some muffins.

In the spirit of Christmas, we made and decorated some cookies. Mary Lee had fun and loved eating her finished product!

About to get started decorating

Adding some colored icing

And some sprinkles

Who wouldn't want to eat that?!?

This girl sure enjoyed it!

Adoption Journey (Part 1)

Well, here goes my attempt to recall most of the events leading us to adoption. Since our time of dating, Griffin and I always talked about the fact that we both wanted to adopt internationally one day. If I'm being honest, I don't think either of us really said or wanted to do it for all the reasons we do now. I think in our young, naiveness, we thought it would be "fun," "cute," and that we could rescue an orphan. Thankfully, Christ has done a mighty work in our lives since those naive days of dating. We have been blessed beyond measure to be a part of a church who constantly emphasizes caring for orphans both here and around the world. If you look around our church, no family looks the same. We are a multi-cultural church, and for that, I am grateful! After hearing our pastor preach about caring for the orphan through foster care and adoption many times, Griffin and I started talking about the fact that we felt called to one day take that route to grow our family. Caring for the orphan looks different for everyone, but there is no doubt that we are all called to do it. James 1:27 says, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." This is one of many verses that calls you and me to care for the orphan. For some, that might mean adopting, for some it might mean foster care or respite care, for others it might mean giving of your time or finanaces, and for others (and I hope all), it might mean to pray without ceasing. With over 130 million orphans in the world, Griffin and I felt that we could not simply sit and watch others care for the orphan. We knew that we were called to ACT. While we talked about adoption for a while, we knew the timing wasn't right and that the Lord would reveal the right timing. Towards the end of June, we were laying in bed, and Griffin said something like, "So are you ready to adopt?" I'm pretty sure I laughed and then cried. I laughed at the blountness with which he said it, and I cried with joy at the fact that we were going to grow our family through adoption. In the days and weeks following, we prayed and prayed that the Lord would reveal to us the route (foster care, domestic adoption, or international adoption) we would go this time around :-). Through prayer, it became clear that we would domestically adopt. Thus, we began the LONG (to a waiting Mommy, Daddy, and sister) journey to adopt.

Disney on Ice

We took Mary Lee to Disney on Ice last night. We went back and forth over whether or not it would be worth taking her. We didn't know how long she would last having just turned 2. Last minute, we decided to buy cheap tickets. We bought the cheap ones so we wouldn't feel like we wasted a lot of money if she only lasted a few minutes. Being that it was during the "game of the century," there were not a lot of people there, so we went and sat really close. To say Mary Lee loved it is an understatement! She lasted the whole 2 hours without a fuss or whine. To see her little face light up throughout the whole show was worth every dime. We will definitely go again next year!

Before the show

Fake smiling with Daddy before the show

So excited to see Mickey and Minnie the first time they came out!

Soooooooo excited!

Amazed at the lights, characters, etc...

She loved wearing the fish hat that came with her cotton candy

She intensely clapped at every part she was supposed to :-)

Some of Mary Lee's favorite characters...

Chattanooga "Ba-cation"

Mary Lee was very excited about our overnight "ba-cation" to the Chattanooga Choo Choo! She LOVED it! Griffin was off so we took a quick, inexpensive trip. We had fun just hanging as a family!

Pumpkin Patch

Saturday, we headed to Old Baker Farm with friends! If you've never been, this place is great! There is so much to do...hayrides, pumpkin picking, animal petting, swinging, tractor rides, corn maze, etc...It definitely is worth going to. Mary Lee had fun with her friends!

Pondering life's questions

Carefree :-)

Sweet girl

Petting a horse with Daddy

Jumping on hay with some VERY long hair (her bow fell out)

In the pumpkin patch

"I found a good one Mommy!"

Taking a break on Daddy!

Sweet daddies...makes my heart happy!