Mother of Three????

Mother's Day was incredibly special with my two (almost three!) precious children and incredible husband. It was made even more special because on Friday our adoption agency let us know that they had a baby girl and asked if we would be interested in traveling to Russia (very quickly!) and meeting her. Since everything we had read indicated that boys were quicker to obtain a referral for, we had originally asked for a baby boy, but we jumped at the opportunity for this precious baby girl. She is younger than Elise by several months and is so adorable! We leave next week for our first of 3 trips, so needless to say, it has been stressful obtaining everything necessary for our trip such as our Russian visas and plane tickets to region that is difficult to get to. If everything goes as expected on the first trip, we hope to have the baby home by Thanksgiving. We should get to spend at least an hour with the baby on five separate days---needless to say, we are thrilled! We told John Harrison about our upcoming trip and his prospective sister and that she might send him home a present. He declared that she had Gordon (from Thomas the Tank Engine) and was going to send that as his present. Of course she has Gordon as a present for him! In fact, "she" ordered it from Amazon and it should be here tomorrow. I plan on having David's parents give John Harrison the present from his new sister while we are gone:). Please pray for us as our journey continues!

Life Overview....

Elise has been sleeping through the night recently---yeah! She is also transitioning to one nap per day. Starting about a month ago, she refused to sleep during her afternoon nap and would instead fuss and cry. I tried to cut out her morning nap, but that didn't go so well and she would get really fussy and not sleep very long in the afternoon. Then, she started refusing to take a morning nap. After some trial and error and helping her work through her 10 am cranky period, which is becoming shorter and shorter, she has been able to stay up until 12:30 or 1 and then usually sleeps for about 2 1/2 hours during the afternoon. I am so excited about her progress! She has cut two premolars over the past few weeks and now has 8 teeth---right on track! Elise has taken a step on several occasions (the first step was on April 7th), but still is not walking. She absolutely loves baths and on several occasions has jumped into the bathtub (clothing and all) while I was giving John Harrison a bath---every time she is nearby when I give John Harrison a bath, she tries her best to get into the tub with him--I usually pull her away, but several times she has managed to get in anyways. John Harrison prefers to take a bath by himself since he doesn't like getting splashed by his sister:). I have started letting her play in an adjacent room (with a baby gate in the doorway between the bathroom and bedroom) while I give John Harrison a bath so she can still see me but can't get in the tub.
John Harrison is talking so well and maturing so much. We have been working a lot on not speaking over or interrupting people while they are talking, joyfully eating the food put in front of him, not arguing or telling us what to do, and of course, ongoing work on not fussing and immediately obeying when asked to do something (or stop doing something). He frequently gets a serious look on his face and tells us what he should and should not do and how he needs to obey, but as with every human (just ask the Apostle Paul!), the struggle for practicing obedience is alive and well in his little heart, which can make challenging days for me....often day after day after day. Over the past four or five months, David and I have also really been focusing on shaping his heart to want to serve Elise and recently, we have also been giving him basic responsibilities around the house (making sure the dog has food and water and setting the table before meals). It is fun to see his excitement and pride in his "work":). He loves reading Bible stories, praying, and talking about Jesus throughout the day. He has a basic grasp of the Gospel and daily, we seek to explain and reinforce how the Bible story for that day ties into the Gospel as a whole and points to Christ. John Harrison loves reading books and I have enjoyed being able to read with him during the time between when Elise goes down for her nap and he goes down for his. John Harrison still really enjoys playing with his train set, but his go to toys are his little Hotwheel/Matchbox style cars and trucks.