Happy 2 months at HOME!

Then........................................And Now!



Well today marks the 2 month anniversary of Ella coming HOME! I still can't believe it's only been 2 months-it feels like she has been with us forever!! We can't imagine life without her-that is for sure! Things are definitely better these days than 2 months ago-I honestly wanted to move out of my own home the first 3 weeks! The girls fought like cats and dogs and I was going out of my mind! They now play together and it's the cutest thing I have ever seen! They have tea parties and dance together to the songs on their ABC catepillar-they truly love one another!

And our little Ella has grown so much!! She now says the following words: up, Sophie, Ella, Bally (our dog), mommy, daddy, more, help me, night night, bye bye, hi...and I'm sure a couple more words that I have forgotten. Best of all she has a heart of gold-she has to be the sweetest little girl I have ever met! I know this may sound mean considering I have another little girl at home but Ella defintely has Sophie beat in the the "being sweet" department! Sorry Sophie!

Many people say to us that Ella is blessed to have us....little do they know that we are the ones that are blessed to have her...

We will miss you Grandma Grandma!

On Sunday our wonderful Grandma (Greg's grandma) and Sophie and Ella's Great Grandma (hence the name Grandma Grandma) passed away and went to be with the Lord...she lived an amazing 94 years and will me missed by all...but we know she will be well taken care of in Heaven! :)

We love you Grandma Grandma!!!

Miss Sassy and Miss Chatterbox...

Could not resist these shirts from BabyGap...how appropriate!! :)

What a Difference a Week Makes!!!

Ella is doing AWESOME!!! She actually stopped needing Tylenol the day after bringing her home! She truly is such a strong baby!!! It's kind of funny b/c our little Sophie is having more trouble dealing with her cold than Ella has had dealing with her surgery! We thank everyone again for their continued prayers! Our follow up appt. is a week from Monday-we hope everything continues to go well!!

We can't wait for Ella to be on more than just a soft liquid diet!!! I think we are all waiting for that day! How much yogurt/pudding/babyfood/can one eat???? Since Ella would be distraught if she saw her sister eating "real" food-Sophie is also on the soft diet! However, the other day I was able to sneak Sophie upstairs and feed her some potato chips-she was a very happy girl!!!! :)

Sophie sneaking potato chips upstairs away from sissy! :)

We are Home!

We are Home! We want to thank everybody who kept little Ella in their prayers! Her surgery went longer than expected because the size of her cleft. So a five hour surgery turned into a 7 hour surgery! I have to say though that my little Ella is such a tough cookie! She was in A LOT of pain the first couple days! Luckily they had morphine hooked up to her IV so they could take some of the pain away. By day 3 she was smiling and wanting to play! That's my girl! :) Here are some pics from her time in the hospital. Now we pray that the surgery will remain successful and no holes will appear!

5:00 Friday morning...all packed and ready to go!

Before surgery

Two days after surgery...so puffy!

Our first smile after surgery!!!

Please pray...

Our little Ella will be having her palate surgery tomorrow morning at 8:00...The doctor said it would a 5 hour surgery and she will be in the hospital 4-5 days.

Please keep our little Ella in your prayers!!!!

My first booboo!

Oh poor little Ella...today I put the girls down for their nap around noon which is their normal nap time...well for some reason they did NOT want to go down so needless to say I had to go upstairs to their room several times and tell them to go to sleep. Luckily our little ring leader, Sophie, is still in a crib. If she had the freedom of a toddler bed I could see the two of them tying their blankets together and escaping by scaling down their bedroom window (they are very sneaky together!!)...so anyway...Greg and I are downstairs when we hear a boom and then Ella starting to cry. I run up there and poor little Ella has a cut under her eye. Luckily her partner in crime is very verbal and this is the story I got:

Me: "WHAT happened to Sissy??"


Sophie: "Sissy fall down go boom!"


Me: "What was Sissy doing??"


Sophie: "Sissy bouncing on her bed fall down go boom."


Sophie: "Sissy crying"


Me: "thank you Sophie..."





OH my poor little Ella!!! Despite her injury she can still flash me that million dollar grin!! :)

Pregnancy...

This is my second pregnancy...the first being with Sophie. This pregnancy felt very differently from my pregnancy with Sophie and for that reason I believed it was a boy. I was so confident that the day before the ultrasound I went on Gap.com and bought a lot of baby blue...Besides how could a mother's instinct be wrong??

Well I was a tad bit wrong...we are having a little girl!!! We are thrilled! Three little girls...how could I ever complain or be disappointed!! But that does not mean that others do not act disappointed for me...of course I have to hear, "Oh...it's another girl" I can't help but get irritated, why would anybody be upset with the gender of their child??? Maybe it irritates my inner core b/c in China there are thousands of little girls that are thrown away soley b/c of their gender...It's God's plan and He has blessed us with three little girls...THANK YOU GOD!

And I will end with a cute picture of my little blessings

How cute are we??

Love this picture!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! We had a wonderful Christmas and words could not explain how happy we were that Ella was able to be with us! She had a great time unwrapping all of her gifts and playing with her new toys...the way she ripped through her stocking and gifts you would of thought she has been doing this for years!!! It's hard to believe this was her first Christmas...first of many!! She is the joy of our lives (along with Sophie) and we fall more in love with her everyday!!!

On our way to Christmas Eve service.......................making Christmas cookies!


Christmas Eve with their new jammies!



Family of Four...soon to be five!!! .................Giving Rudolph a kiss!