the merriest of times...

I am just going to write.

I have so many thoughts running through my head and feel like I have these "awesome blog thoughts" when the keyboard is not around...

instead I am rocking my baby to sleep as the night terrors keep coming,

 

or watching her little baby face light up as her daddy comes into the room,

listening to her giggle when her doggie licks her hand, 

and feel her pull her best blankie close as she snuggles into my shoulder, 

My heart smiles when I am listening to my big kids read 

or watch them practice their new tricks on the trampoline.

But when I finally get a chance to sit down, without total exhaustion consuming my brain and body, some of those great thoughts have left for good. Oh well...

Today marks 4 months that our lives changed forever...we adopted our sweet and spicy 

Aunna Hope Yanjie

What a doll.

What a privilege.

New things for our girl:

--says bite, bike, peese (please), na-noo (thank you), ni-nite (night night), goo-gel (good girl), and a few other things

I have not had time to post about our last trip {2nd} to Shriners yet. I hope to do that tomorrow.

But our girl is growing and a ton of fun!

In the last month or so all of the grandparents have gotten some baby-love. It's so funny, if she senses that you have visited and are about to leave she will come over and hug your leg.

We started demo on our front and back yard about a week before we decided about Ty. Our overgrown yard was mostly taken over by a HUGE tree in the back. This made it difficult for our big kids to play. We knew that we needed to take out everything that was there and start over to make room for much more play space, especially if you don't have feet it was a particularly frustrating space :) Now with two little one with limb difference we were excited to level out the grass in the front, get rid of the multi-hedge thing we had going on in the front, take out the "way too big tree with exposed roots" in the back, and random little patch of grass in the back to use the space better. We love having people over (which usually means tons of kids too). We are excited to get this yard ready for Lightening Hope and Mr. T, as well as our big kids and yours too!

(See the tree in the background on the left of the left post...

...NO MORE TREE!

Some fun in the leaves at our very own house. We have never had enough leaves to rake together and jump in. It wasn't the biggest pile but fun nonetheless. And guess the best part...the big kids got the idea and raked them up all together! So cute to see them working together.

The big kids all finished school well in early December. Considering we started school at the end of June we were ready for a long Christmas break! It has been a very nice break and I have enjoyed my days of sitting with my big kids during baby's naps (she still struggles with possessiveness of my lap and arms), playing board games, going for walks, watching movies, playing in the mud, doing art projects and a nap here and there.