Elise's room debut....

I am beyond thrilled about Elise's room:). It is not quite finished, but I wanted to post pictures. I want pink curtains (I don't quite like how the green ones look), we still have to set up a beautiful espresso stained sleigh crib that David's parents gave us for Elise, and there are two "owl" pictures I ordered to hang on the wall above the crib (they are supposed to get here the end of the week), but her owl nursery is nonetheless adorable. I will post final pictures as soon as it is complete.

8 months and counting

Sweet little Elise turned 8 months a few weeks ago. During her seventh month, she started sitting up independently. She usually only gets up once to eat in the middle of the night--hooray!! Elise is a sweet baby and loves to explore, give kisses, and laugh.

Russia Brother

We recently started the process of adopting a little boy (aged 2 or younger) from Russia. Everyone's biggest question is: When will you get him?? Hopefully, we will have him here by Christmas next year!! The first part of any adoption (domestic or international) is a home study and we are hopefully within a month of completing this step. I am going to start a website about our adoption soon and will put a link to that on the blog as soon as the site is up. The Lord has really burdened our hearts about adopting a child and being able to expose him to the love of Christ . . . giving him love and hope here on earth, but much more importantly, hope for eternity with Christ! There is a huge mandate in scripture to care for the poor, orphans, and widows . . . it is incredible how so many people in the church are stepping up and answering this call!

We pray for our baby every day ("Russia brother" as John Harrison calls him). Please join us in praying for our son who is born, but not in our care!! We will be adopting from Primorsky region of Russia specifically from one of the baby houses located within a several hour drive of the city of Vladivostok (which is a major port city on Russia's Pacific side---and a 9 hour flight from Moscow). I found this picture of a baby house in Vladivostok on a blog from a couple who was also adopting from Vladivostok (they were on their second trip to Russia and should be home with their boys by now!). Again, please pray for us and our new son in this process and check back for the website link.

Updates

I absolutely love this owl smocked dress that I got for Elise. She is going to have an owl-themed nursery (hopefully it will be completed in the next week!!!----pictures to follow!)


Elise . . .

started pulling up several weeks ago

got her first tooth around Oct. 24th (I think)

is about to move out of our room and into her own room

turns 8 months old in 6 days!!

loves playing, adores her brother, is as sweet as can be

doesn't sleep too well at night :(

Hope you enjoy the brief update on Elise. My blogging is way too sparse these days! No excuses other than a house to clean, meals to cook, helping David out with a few aspects of his work, two kids to take care of, and a nasty case of the stomach flu that the kids and I had this week. Thankfully we all seem to be on the mend!!

Fall Foliage

John Harrison found an "Elf Buddy" at Christmas Place
Elise and David at the Clingman's Dome lookout point
John Harrison loved the "baby rocks" at the top of Clingman's Dome
John Harrison slammed some cider that Papa gave him.


fun in the double stroller (they were actually much happier than they look in the picture)
A few weeks ago, David's dad went on a trip with us to the Smoky Mountains. The leaves had just peaked and the weather was perfect. We drove through Cade's Cove, hiked to the top of Clingman's dome, went to the aquarium, and went shopping. John Harrison especially liked having his Papa come along on a trip!

Elmo and the Bumble Bee

My mom titled this picture "Elmo is attacked by the bumble bee"---John Harrison's expression is priceless as Elise makes the mistake of picking up part of brother's train.....

I will post more Halloween pics soon....these are just a few my mom took (I haven't uploaded pictures from my camera in several weeks). For Halloween this year, Elise was a bumble bee and John Harrison was Elmo. John Harrison absolutely loves everything Elmo, which is funny because he has never watched Sesame Street. We didn't want the evening of the 31st to be rushed, so we dressed up the kids on Sunday night and took them over to my parents' house and then dressed them up again on Monday night and went over to David's parents' house. We had a lot of fun both nights. David's parents even made a human-sized scarecrow ("Elf Buddy" according to John Harrison), which was a big hit with John Harrison.

John Harrison-isms

This post may be my shortest yet, but John Harrison made such a profound theological statement last night that I can't help but share it . . . Just prior to praying with him before bed last night, John Harrison said, "I love Jesus. Jesus loves me. Jesus eats amees [John Harrison calls all nuts "amees"]. Wake up Jesus." We explained to John Harrison that Jesus never sleeps and is always watching over him even when he is sleeping.
(Just of note, John Harrison recently entered a phase where he loves to tell things to "go night night" and "wake up"--he will put his Fisher Price Little People and Duplo man (both of which he calls "umis"(that is my spelling of a word he says that sounds like "ewmeze") down to bed before he takes naps or goes down for the night. After a nap or when he wakes up in the morning, he runs over to the umis and says in a loud, enthusiastic voice, "Wake up umis!"
Our neighbor has a blow up/inflatable Jack-o-Lantern with a scarecrow on top in his front yard. The blow up is on a timer that appears to come on around 3pm each day and turns off sometime during the night. John Harrison is absolutely enamored with the blow up and has named the Jack-o-Lantern "dada pum pum" (translated: large pumpkin) and the scarecrow "Elf Buddy" (he thinks it is Buddy from the movie Elf). He asks to see "dada pum pum and Elf Buddy" each night before bed and is sad and says, "night night, dada pum pum, night night, Elf Buddy" when the blow up is not inflated. He also asks several times a day to "see dada pum pum and Elf Buddy" and is quite sad when they are laying lifeless on the ground. When we ask John Harrison who we should pray for, he always wants to " pray dada pum pum" and "pray Elf Buddy." When we pray following these requests, we thank Jesus that John Harrison gets so much enjoyment from "dada pum pum and Elf Buddy." We have already picked out several Christmas inflatables that we are going to put in our yard this year. Tacky, yes, but we think that the potential joy of our 2 year old outweighs this downside. We have actually taken John Harrison to look at the inflatables inside Lowe's on two separate occasions---he knows exactly where the elf inflatable is in the store (a real Christmas elf, not a scarecrow elf:).