Santa or no Santa?

So we still haven't decided how to handle the whole Santa thing with Christmas. I suppose we have another year to decide as Essie recognizes him this year, but doesn't know about the presents and so forth. So, the debate will continue.

I will try to post some Christmas pictures tonight or tomorrow. We are leaving Saturday for a quick trip to visit the PA family. If you think of us, please say a pray for safe, happy travelers.

Have a Merry Christmas!!!!

Funny girl!

Essie has been cracking us up lately!! My favorite is when she's taking a bath - she hates having her hair rinsed. When the water runs down her face, she looks at us and says, "are you okay, are you okay." This means we have to ask her if she's okay. We do, and she says, "I'm fine." HA! The other day, she was playing in the living room and I heard a crash. I went in to see what happened (she had knocked one of her toys off the table) and she looked at me and said, "Are you okay pumpkin?"

She has also learned how to climb in the high chair by herself! It's quite fun to watch, but she makes me so nervous!!

Going to the grocery is quite a treat now! Essie loves to sing - very loudly! - as we go up and down the aisles. Her favorite songs? Jingle Bells and the ABC Song. We ran into a friend of mine a couple weeks ago and she heard Essie from half way across the store!!!

I absolutely love this age!!! It's been hard to restrain myself as Christmas approaches! I know the grandparents will certainly make up for any gifts mommy and daddy don't buy.

The Adoption Process revisited

Well, we are officially waiting for Hoover #2!!! Our current home study expires in January, so we've been working on our update - which, thankfully, is only about half the paperwork of the original. We have a couple minor things left to do. In the meantime, I updated our family profile book and sent it to the agency about 3 weeks ago. The current wait is anywhwere from 9 to 24 months. Although, the wait with Essie was supposed to be 6-12 months, so who knows what to expect this time!! :)

As our agency receives requests from birthmoms, our profile book will be shown. If any unique situations come up, we may receive an email explaining the situation and asking if we'd like to have our profile book shown to the birthmom. We received 2 of these emails Friday evening. One we said yes, the other we are still not sure about. Nothing may come of it, but it's exciting to think it could happen quickly for us again - especially since we'd love about 2 years between kids :-)

I'll keep you posted!!!

Way overdue....

I am really sorry I’ve been so bad with updates this year. Some of it comes from having a very active toddler in the house! But, I’ve also been dealing with some health issues……I started having horrible dizzy spells a few months ago that leave me in bed for hours and drain me of all energy. Most days it was all I could do to stay awake until Essie’s nap time. Then, I’d crawl in bed myself. After a lot of research and appointments with a few different doctors, I’m finally getting things figured out. The spells are an allergic reaction to food. What am I allergic to? The NOT allergic list is shorter  I can no longer eat milk, corn, soy, wheat, yeast or coconut in any form! So, with the elimination of these foods (and some thyroid medication), I feel like a new person!!

Miss Ess has had a busy summer too! While she hasn’t been on any trips, we’ve had a lot of fun around here. She LOVES the city pool. There’s a great kids play area with a small water slide – she zips up the steps and down the slide like a pro! I had to buy her a little life vest with arm floaties because she doesn’t want us to hold her hand in the water; she wants to wander off to watch the older kids play!

We try to take at least one family bike ride each week. Nick pulls Essie in a trailer and we hit the bike path for 10-12 miles. I like that Nick is pulling the extra weight because now I can keep up with him!!! The last couple of times we’ve gone out, Essie has taken a little snooze. While Nick and I would love to ride longer, Ess just can’t sit still that long 

This past week, Essie started counting! She will never say 1; she always starts with 2. And, she makes it all the way to 10! Of course, she refuses to count when we ask her to….we have to listen to her talking while she plays. She hits them all – our favorite to hear is “seben.”

Essie loves to go to the nursery in church each week. In fact, when we walk in she asks to go “play.” Today, she actually cried when we picked her up because she wasn’t done playing! Our church has a number system for each child. If there is a problem, your number will pop up on a screen in the sanctuary so you know to go get your child. A couple of weeks ago, our number popped up. That has never happened before! I went back to her room to see what was wrong…..she was playing with a little boy in the room and he bit her. No one saw it happen, so we don’t know exactly what went down. It was a good one – no broken skin, but she had the imprint from both his top and bottom teeth.

It’s been so much fun to watch her grow and develop over the last few months! She is a very determined little girl and already has a mind of her own! Fortunately, she’s also become a great communicator with a huge vocabulary. When she gets frustrated with something, I’ve taught her to say ‘help’ instead of screaming. I’ve also taught her to say ‘stuck’ when she gets herself into something and can’t get back out.

Enough of my babbling, here are some new pics of our little one! Hardly a day goes by when we don’t’ hear how much she looks like her daddy! In fact, we saw her birth-grandma tonight and even she commented that Ess looks like Nick!!

It's time...

I talked with the owner of our adoption agency the other day. The average wait for a baby is currently 9-24 months. So, Nick and I think it's time to update our profile book and start the wait for #2. We'd like our kids about 2 years apart, so we'll see how it goes!!

I'll try to get some new pictures of Essie posted this week!! I have a really cute video of her, but can't get it to upload. I'll keep trying!!

Fifteen Months!!

Essie had her 15 month check-up yesterday. She weighs 25 pounds and is 31 inches long. The doctor said she is growing well and confirmed my suspicion that we are working on the terrible twos already!!

As much fun as she has been lately, she is becoming quite the handful! In the kitchen, she has learned to open the container with the dog food, grab a handful and feed the dogs throughout the day - not that Fox and Ginger mind. She also scoots the chairs around to climb on them and, if I turn my back for 30 seconds, I will find her sitting in the middle of the kitchen table! And, she has figured out how to open the baby gate we put up to keep her out of the kitchen.....many adults who visit our house can't figure out how to do that.....LOL :-)

Essie is talking all the time. Some of her favorite words are: lawnmower, truck, choo-choo, airplane, birdie, tree, flower, elbow, shoe and cracker. She has a huge vocabulary for her age and tries to repeat everything we say.

We recently bought a bicycle trailer for Essie. She loves it!! Whenever she is in the garage, she heads straight for it and climbs right in! I take her for rides every chance we get...to the grocery, the library, the park. We love to take family bike rides....I really like it when Nick pulls Essie because I can actually keep up with him now!!

A Quick Picture....

So, yes, I have been horrible about updating the blog the last couple of months. I will try to get some new posts going soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share my new favorite picture of Essie. She LOVES to go outside and pick "flowers."

Happy Birthday Essie!!!!

I can't believe our sweet little girl is one today!!

Here's a little flashback to one year ago: The Most Beautiful Baby in the World!

This has been a wild year for us. Just in case anyone out there is contemplating a new baby and a major restaurant renovation at the same time, I don't recommend it! ;-)

Our local library has story time for kids 1 and older every other Wednesday. Today was Essie's first time attending! There were 3 other kids there; she had a great time. We sang songs, played little 'drums,' and made a pretty Valentine with finger paints!






Monday night, we had dinner in Columbus. One of the servers brought Essie a balloon. She has never seen or played with one before, but she LOVES it! She even picked up on the word right away. It comes out "boon." Last night, we were playing with her boon before bed, so I put it on top of her dresser. She spotted it as soon as she woke up this morning, pointed and kept repeating, "boon, boon, boon, boon." It was too cute!!

Swings and Giggles!

One day last week, the temperature was in the 40s. Essie and I took Ginger for a walk to the park down the street so Essie could swing. She has so much fun on the swings - giggling almost the entire time! I captured some of it on video. I make no promises as to the quality of the video! I had a glare from the sun on my screen so I really couldn't see, and was apparently standing too close to the swing because she kicked the camera at one point! :-) Hopefully, the sound came through. I love the her giggles!!

**Edit - so I can't get the video to upload. I'll try again later!!!!

Snow Day!

It's not often that Nick gets a snow day, but today is one of those days! It is so nice to have a little extra family time ~ even though he isn't in the house (he's outside attempting to dig us out!), I love just having him around here! Essie loves it, too!

Every morning when I go into her room, she starts singing about 'da-da.' It's the sweetest sound, always like a song. I only wish 'ma-ma' came out the same way. If she's saying my name, it is part of a whine because she isn't happy about something!

As Nick was cleaning off the walkway to our front door, Essie was watching him, calling his name, the whole time.

First Words!

Essie has been talking up a storm lately. Most of it is just babbling, but some words are coming out. She knows a lot more than she can say. I can ask her where a certain toy is and she will look at it; sometimes she will go get it. She can point to my nose, and touch my hair when I ask her to. The other day, I asked her where Uncle Eric's eye was, and she poked him in it! I thought it was hilarious; he wasn't laughing so much.....

Essie's favorite word today was 'Da-Da.' Of course, Nick loved it! Officially, we have decided her first word is 'yay.' It's the only one she will say consistently....and she is so proud of herself! She always claps as she is saying it! What else is she saying? Ma-Ma, Da-Da, Dog (though she says Dog-Dog), Kitty (comes out 'T'), Hello (only into the phone, though!), and of course, 'NO.' I try really hard not to use that word unless I really have to!! A couple times, she has even said, 'Ma-Maw.'

We can't believe how time has begun to fly....in only 5 weeks our baby will be a year old!!!!!

Delayed Christmas....

We ended up with only a small celebration Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. None of us felt great, so we stayed home and had a few people come to us. Nick's dad and step-mom came over Christmas Eve to stay with Essie so Nick and I could go to church. No matter how sick you feel, there's just something about going to church for Christmas Eve services!! Friday morning, I took Essie to the Dr. since she just couldn't kick the cold. After a few days of antibiotics, she is doing much better. Mommy is recovering a lot more slowly, but I'm getting there!

What else has been going on with Essie? She has another tooth - we have 5 now. I'm a little sad she isn't walking yet. I know, I shouldn't wish for that so quickly. But she is 22 pounds now and getting too heavy to carry everywhere!! She cruises along the furniture like a pro and will take a few steps forward with assistance. Not too much longer! Essie loves to say 'Yay' and clap her hands. She isn't regularly using any words, but she understands quite a few when I talk to her. Over the past couple of weeks, she has gotten so used to me rubbing Vick's baby rub on her that if I get the jar out, she takes her hand and rubs it across her chest. Very cute!!

The Sunday before Christmas, we went to Essie's Great Grandma's house. Essie had fun crawling around on the floor while pushing a box and ripping the tags off other peoples gifts :)


Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Benj came over Christmas night for dinner and to exchange gifts. For some reason, Essie didn't mind having a bow on her head all night....though I can't get her to keep bows in her hair or keep a hat on when we go outside!


It was getting pretty close to naptime here....someone wasn't very happy!


Essie playing with the toy Daddy bought her!


It's a tradition for Daddy to make breakfast on Christmas morning. This year, Essie kept him company in the kitchen!


Our big family celebration was the Sunday after Christmas. Essie was feeling much better then and had fun unwrapping her presents!


Every time we go to the store, we stop in the toy department and play with Elmo. My parents surprised all of us by getting Essie her very own Elmo Live! I think the adults have as much fun playing with it as she does!!


Sunday night, we went to my Aunts house. This was the group we should have had come to us....the back of our van was full when we left!! I love this piano....my grandparents actually bought it for me when I was a toddler. Then, my brother played with it, then my two cousins. My aunt kept it all this time(my youngest cousin is 14), cleaned it up, painted it, and gave it to Essie for Christmas! She loves to play tunes for mommy during the day!


This is probably my favorite of all Essie's gifts. Of course, we didn't get a picture of her seeing it for the first time because my camera battery died! This rocking horse cost $5 at a garage sale! My grandpa did a fabulous job restoring it for Essie for Christmas!!! She doesn't quite have the hang of rocking on it yet, but she will!