Essie's 2nd birthday

Essie associates birthday's with cake! Every time we talked about her birthday coming up, she would ask to eat some cake. So, Mommy was very proud of her for patiently waiting until her party to actually eat the cake!! One of the girls daddy works with made and decorated the cake for us. She did a GREAT job! After we sang to Essie, I let her take a lick of icing before we cut it. She loved the icing, but wasn't so happy with me when I took it away so it could be served!!




She loved opening presnts this year....though she wasn't too fond of the clothes :) She'd just look at them, toss them aside and move to the next gift..haha!

Uh-oh Mama!

Essie came running into the kitchen the other day yelling, "Mama, I made a mess. Go clean it!" I followed her into the family room to see what the mess was all about....She found daddy's foot powder, pulled the lid off and spilled the entire container on the floor.....

Road Trip!

The day after Christmas, we headed East for a couple of days in PA. Essie did a great job on the ride there. Coming home was another story.....she woke at 1:30 AM our second night there throwing up. After cleaning things up and getting settled back in bed 3 times, we dedided to pack up and leave - at 3:00AM!!! Since mommy doesn't do well with that kind of sick, I drove and Nick tended to Essie! Did I mention we hit a white out while driving along the highest point on Route 80???

It took Essie a couple of days to feel better, but we think it was a reaction to milk. She is intolerant, but can normally have some dairy products and be okay.

We are so thankful we made the trip, though, as our beloved Aunt Essie passed away a few weeks later. We are sad that our little Essie will not get to personally know the wonderful woman after whom we chose to name her, but thankful we were able to see her one last time....

Essie and Daddy with Uncle Warren and Aunt Essie

Essie's (2nd) cousins, Caleb and Noah

Playing with Uncle Warren

Ess with her headphones watching one of her MANY movies as we rode along....

Essie and Daddy with Uncle Frank and Aunt Ev

Essie with her (2nd) cousins Angela and Kaitlin

Christmas....a little late

So begins my quest to catch up on events from the last 2 1/2 months! Essie had a blast with Christmas this year! Of course, this is also the age where she gets attached to one present and couldn't care less about the others!!!

The first pictures are actually from Nana's 60th birthday party a couple weeks before Christmas. We were thankful Santa came to the party, because that meant we didn't have to stand in line at the mall and pay for a picture...haha!! :-)



Santa gave Essie a candy cane so, of course, she loved him right away!

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!!!