Wednesday, April 29, 2009

sharing...





The only thing cuter than watching Anaya feed herself, is watching her feed her brother! Easton even donned a bib for the occasion~as we know how messy Anaya is! See the photo below...
This is the mess she made of her clothes with a bib on!! (ok so it was Jello~who doesn't make a mess with Jello?) Thank goodness for shout!

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

1 year ago today...


we flew to Guatemala and picked Anaya up out of her crib at Hannah's Hope. What an amazing wonderful day that was. We watched our video today for the first time!! AMAZING! That is all I can say. What an adventure we had and I am so thankful to God for allowing us to experience this beautiful, difficult, wonderful, challenging and oh so worth it journey called international adoption.

Here we are today. We are so blessed to have had Anaya in our home for the past year. She is such a little gift from God. She has turned into a little girl! Gone is the baby we picked up that day. She couldn't crawl! Her new thing now is to take any and every article of clothing she can get her hands on and put it on. While it is annoying when she empties her drawers and leaves a HUGE mess, it is so cute to see her trying so hard to get whatever it is on.
We celebrated today with some Guatemalan foods, chicken pepian served with black beans, corn and tortillas, baked plantains(I used bananas as I couldn't find plantains,) and tres leches cake.
HAPPY GOTCHA DAY Anaya!! We LOVE YOU!!
Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Anaya's 2 year old pictures(a bit early)...














I can not believe she is almost 2 already! Time flies ~ especially when you "miss" the first year!
Speaking of first year, we are coming up on our first year gotcha day! I am planning on trying to make some traditional Guatemalan food~I may cheat, as the recipes I have found call for it all to be made from scratch...I don't have time for all that ~ so we shall see. But either way, we will definitely be celebrating that very special day of FINALLY getting Anaya!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

YAY for Spring!

Ryan took the 3 older boys out fishing Saturday night for a little less than 2 hours and came back with a nice amount of fish. We need a bigger boat so we can all go! I love bobber fishing! I keep trying to talk him into a pontoon boat; but he says they can't be trailered and thinks I'm crazy. Clearly they can be trailered; how else do they get to the water??? Either way, we are not in the market for a new boat ~ we are just thankful we have one!

Jayden caught this big White Crappie. He beat Ryan's record by about 2 inches(since he has been keeping track!)


Anaya loves to be outside, and with the wonderful weather we have had, she's been able to get out a lot! My niece put her on the "big kid" swing and I was nervous that she would fall off, but she was hanging on for dear life and loving it. She even looked like she was pumping to get higher so I let her have at it. Look at that smile! She did great!

I love Spring!!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

tax day...

Batman flying...

Check out his cape...

He saw this when we were shopping and flashed those big blue eyes at me...I couldn't resist, after all they were on clearance. I am not into character clothing, but P.J.'s are the exception!
He got stuck shopping with Anaya and I again while the guys were at soccer practice ~ it turned out good for him! When we went to the car wash he was such a sweet big brother, he got out of his car seat, stood next to Anaya and held her hand (because she hates car washes and was starting to cry!) She held on to him and I so wished I had my camera, it was adorable!

Check out these bathing beauties! They were showing off their big muscles!

Can you believe we had to file an extension this year? I guess we waited a bit too long to get Anaya's social security number and all of the wonderful paperwork that had to be done prior to it! Here we are home for almost 9 months and only a tax deduction is enough incentive to finally get it all done! OOPS!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Easter...

Anaya on her first egg hunt!

Notice my boys in "double camo" they were out turkey scouting with Ryan just prior to the egg hunt!
The whole VZ gang checking out the goods~ nobody found the "grand prize" ($2) it is still hiding in the yard somewhere! The kids had a great time, "Thanks Aunt Lisa and Aunt Sarah!"
On Sunday, we met my parents for lunch and they took the 3 older boys home with them. They are on a "date" today with my mom ~ breakfast and bowling. They always look forward to their dates with Grama! Thanks Mom for taking the time to love on them! We love you!

I was almost in tears as I put my daughter in her first Easter dress, I have longed to do this for years and to finally be able to dress her up was such an awesome feeling. I know it has nothing to do with the Resurrection which is the reason for Easter, but for years I have watched all the little girls all decked out in their new dresses and I longed to have a daughter to dress up. This was an added blessing to a very special day! All of the boys looked handsome as well, and I tried to get a picture of them all together~however this darling daughter of ours had a hissy fit and we gave up! I actually got her dressed again at night to get her picture!
I can't believe that Easter is already done! Last week I finished up my Beth Moore Bible study *Jesus the One and Only*, it is on the life of Christ, and WOW the timing couldn't have been more perfect! I am truly amazed at what my Jesus did for me, there are no words! It has been such a blessing to read it again, I have had goosebumps as I gleaned more and more out of The Word through this study. If you ever get a chance to do this one I would recommend it!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

busy at it...

Easton found this little chair and brought it upstairs. He carried it all around and plopped it down where ever he wanted to sit!

It was a beautiful day today, the kids wanted to eat outside on the porch! We are going to eat outside more often, less mess inside!!

We had a shower last night for little Olivia! She is such a sweet little bundle!
We are kicking ourselves for letting the boys do soccer...what a pain! Practices every night except Tuesday(between the 3 of them!) Oh well, it is a short season, and they are enjoying themselves, but I still don't know how the 2 of us are going to get the 3 of them to their various games and places on Saturdays, Another great adventure!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Were back!

*warning* It's long!

Here are some highlights from our trip.
This is our condo from the beach, I am standing on our balcony, you can barely see me! Funny story... I was here about 7 years ago with my parents, my sister and her family and the 2 older boys, and didn't know it until I got there that I booked the exact same condo!! I thought it looked familiar, but our condo was pink~then when we got there and I stood on the balcony outside our front door, I realized this was the same place we stayed! Different room, but same condo! How weird is that, there are 100's of condo's and we were at that particular one~they just repainted it green, but everything else was the same!!!
We went to Lamberts the "home of the throwed roll" for dinner. They really do throw the hot rolls to you! I was explaining this to Ryan and the boys in the car before we went in, and poor Easton was completely freaked out, he thought they threw them at you~like... to hit you, in reality they throw them to you, but he was thinking he was going to be pelted by rolls and was scared to walk in the door, I had to carry him in and he had his head buried in my neck until we showed him that they weren't going to hit him! Poor kid, he did end up in tears though because the waitresses are funny and walk around telling the kids to sit up and eat their food, or to put their pop down and start eating etc...(nicely, of course)but he did not think that it was funny!
We were a little nervous about getting a one bedroom condo with all of us, but it worked out great. The little boys had the bunk beds in the hall, the bigger boys slept on the pullout couch and the bathroom was big enough for Anaya's playpen to fit in!
This was truly a relaxing vacation, Anaya fell asleep in my arms 2 times! Those of you who know her know that she is perpetual motion and goes non stop, so to have her actually fall asleep in my arms was a nice treat! All that running around on the beach, an no nap(we tried to keep her up so she would sleep good at night...which she did) wore her right out!
The guys spent lots of time fishing in the surf. Ryan caught a HUGE sting Ray!! He snapped the line before I could get a picture, but we did get to see it! He also caught catfish, pinfish, sheepshead and a big red. We ate fish quite a few times, the boys loved it!
The indoor/outdoor pool.
Swimming in the pool!

Ice cream!
Feeding the seagulls!

Playing in the sand.
Playing in the surf! There was a red and purple flag flying the whole time we were there. Luckily my boys were not interested in swimming in the ocean~too many dangerous creatures! We found out it is illegal to swim when there is a red flag, and a purple flag means dangerous marine life is present(Portuguese man-o-war) YIKES! A man drowned in the ocean because of the rip currents right down the beach from us. What a tragic end to a vacation, I can't even imagine!

Strolling along the beach, and looking for seashells.

My idea here was to get a cute beach picture, however after many failed attempts I settled for this one! It is no easy task to get all 5 looking, let alone smiling and sitting still and where I actually want them, not to mention trying to keep the background free of other people. I was asked "are they all yours?" a few times while trying to get the picture, YES so I have 5 kids, whats the big deal?



We drove over to Florida (about 5 minutes away) and watched the Blue Angles practice!! I love watching them, it never ceases to amaze me how they fly those planes so close going so fast, I barley dare to tailgate going 25 mph!
All packed up and ready to go....We all did some fake crying and sobbing that our trip was over!

We promised the boys we would stop a Bass Pro Shop at some point, so we left on Tues. night and found one in Prattsville Al. The boys all got some camo, and a few "necessities" for the upcoming turkey season!

Who knew dandelions would be a welcomed sight! We were so sad to leave all of the lush green and pretty flowers. At least spring is coming, we really look forward to seeing all of God's creation colored with life once again!
Well, that about covers it. We had a great trip and feel truly blessed to have had it! We hit the ground running today with work, school, and soccer practice...back to reality!