Nursery Reveal!

When Mark and I finally felt peace about adopting and started the process last January, we both knew our baby would be a little girl. When Brianna chose us, I was SO excited that our little girl was due in just a few weeks! Forget sterilizing bottles, I had to get started on her nursery right away! :)

As most of you know, Landrie arrived just 5 1/2 weeks after we got matched. We managed to get all the furniture, paint it and sew the crib skirt. It wasn't exactly the finished product I hoped for, but with Landrie in our arms, it didn't matter quite so much anymore.

Here's Landrie's finished nursery FINALLY DONE! :)

Her room is not very big, so it's hard to take pictures. Imagine that you are in the center of the room and spinning in a circle to look at everything. If you want to see any of the pictures enlarged, just click on them!

This is the view when you walk in the room. When I first saw these big letters at my friend Mindy's, I knew I had to have one when we had a baby! I made the window valance by covering foam board with batting and this adorable pink and green paisley fabric.

The original plan was to paint stripes in different shades of pink below a chair rail. That never happened, but I still love how it turned out. If our next baby comes as quickly as Landrie did, we may be glad to at least have a neutral color on the walls!

The changing table is Landrie's FAVORITE place to be in the house! She just grins and kicks like crazy the moment you put her on it.

Are you dizzy yet?? :)

I love her "L" hair bow holder. We use it every single day. Really. Even if we are not going anywhere, LG needs her bow!

And now for some close ups...

We are so glad Bennett got his big boy bed while we were waiting to be matched. It's the exact crib I wanted to get! I love how her bedding turned out SO girly!  Have I mentioned how much I love the pink and green paisley fabric??

Have you ever seen such comfy bumpers?? Without Mark's sister Megan, I don't know that I ever would have finished these! The inside is a pink minky fur. I have never felt anything softer! The back panel has her name monogrammed on it (of course!). Unfortunately, this paranoid first time mom removed all the bumpers except the one by her feet. They'll be back in her crib before too long!

I saw these signs online selling for $90, and I LOVED them, but couldn't justify paying that much. Now, I can! It was a labor of love, but it was worth every minute! I matched the colors and used one of my school's overheads to draw the letters of her name.

The edges have little polka dots too!

Can you find all the names?? Two of my sister in laws have monogram machines, so Landrie is constantly decked out by Aunt Beth and Aunt Melissa! I made a little quilt with the fabrics and put that super-soft minky fabric on the back. I hope she loves it when she's older!

I was planning on using her prints from the hospital, but when I dug them out a few weeks ago, it was only her footprints (somehow I thought they did hand prints too) and they were too wide for the frame. Thankfully, her 4 month prints fit just perfectly.

This girl has more clothes and accessories than I could ever dream of! We are so thankful for all of the sweet baby gifts and boxes of hand me downs too. I want to buy her clothes, but there's no room in her closet for anymore 3-6 month stuff! She is so blessed. I know I'll look back on this in a few years and think, "Really, I wanted to have a need to buy her clothes??" :) We use the over the door shoe hanger for her hats, shoes, tights, headbands, and all those other fun girly accessories.

One of the main reasons that I wanted to sew bedding was so I could use the fabric to make pillows, window treatments, blankets and fun stuff like this lamp! I bought this self- adhesive lamp shade at Hobby Lobby. You just peel and stick your fabric to it! I glued the edges down and glued a little trim on the top and bottom.

Is it a little crazy to spend this much time and energy on a room for a baby who is highly entertained by her own toes? Maybe a little bit... but I had to do something with this love pouring out of my heart. I could never do anything so grand that it would show how loved and wanted this sweet baby girl is. Landrie, we love you so much!!!

4 months old!

Yesterday, I told yet another stranger who was inquiring about Landrie's age, "She just turned 4 months old!" that the phrase sounded strangely familiar. I realized she turned 4 months 2 weeks ago. Oops!!

We had her checkup and things look great! It's been a freezing cold winter around here. How do we keep Landrie toasty when she's out and about at the doctor's, church, or friends' houses?

My friend Laura made Landrie this beautiful blanket, and it fits perfectly over her car seat!

Here are her stats:

Height: 24 3/4 inches (50th %)

Weight: 13 lbs. 12 oz. (50th%)

Head: 41 cm (50th %)

She's been in the 50th % since we went to her last sonogram! This girl knows how to stay on track. Just for fun, I looked at the CDC's growth charts to see how tall she will be if she stays at the 50th %... and it shows that she will be 5' 4" to 5' 5". We'll just have to wait and see! (Her feet are really long...)

Here are some of my favorite things about our sweet 4 month old:

-She's found her toes and loves to grab onto them.

-She talks like crazy! Sometimes she "accidentally" says mommy and hi. (We all know it's on purpose!!)

-Landrie blows the sweetest raspberries.

-She spent her first full night in her nursery by herself on the night before she turned 4 months. It was much harder on us than on her!

-She drinks 5 oz. bottles, and now we get to add a little rice cereal to them to help with her spitting up. If you've spent any time with her in person, you know that spitting up is one of her best skills. :) ewwww

-She sleeps a full 11-12 hours each night. Yipee!!!

-Landrie still has a full head of hair, and her bangs reach to the tops of her expressive little eyebrows.

I made a little online scrapbook of the last month. If you didn't get the email and you would like to see it, just let me know!

A Visit with Landrie's birthmom!

After Christmas, Mark had a few days off, and we took a trip to see Landrie's birth mom, Brianna. We saw her when Landrie was about 5 weeks old, so she's grown quite a bit since the last time Brianna saw her!

Brianna with her two sweet girls- Brynn and Landrie!

Landrie totally remembered Brianna and did great with her. By the end of the afternoon, she was sleeping peacefully in Brianna's arms. Awww!

When Brianna first considered adoption, she said she wasn't thinking of having an open adoption, and neither were we! When we met her, all of our fears about having a psycho birth mom flew out the window. :) She is so sweet, and we are thankful that Landrie will get to know her birth mom and will understand firsthand the great love Brianna has for her.

Part 2- Christmas with the Beams

Landrie and I have been having a great time together, and I haven't been posting blogs as much as I'd like to! If I don't write it all down now, I know I'll forget it all too soon!

We had an amazing Christmas with Mark's family. Then we headed to Houston for round 2 of Christmas. The fun times just keep coming!

Nonny knit a beautiful stocking for each of her children and their spouses, her grandchildren and their spouses, and now she's knitting them for her great grandchildren! Landrie's stocking was her 13th great grandchild stocking to make!! We tried to count, and I think she's made well over 40 of them!

I didn't realize how special it would be to see a stocking for our baby hung up on the mantle next to her cousins. I cried when I saw it! As kids we loved these stocking because they are huge and stretchy- which meant lots of toys could fit inside. It's even big enough for our best Christmas gift ever! She looked so stinkin' adorable in it!!

One of Landrie's other great- grandmas, Mimi, had such a great time holding and playing with her! Landrie just grinned and grinned. I am so thankful that all 4 of her great grandmas now live in Texas and will get to watch her grow up. :)

Brookie stood in line (seriously!) to get her turn to love on Landrie. Who wouldn't want to hold her? :) Between grandparents, great grandmas, aunts, uncles, and cousins, you have to call dibs quickly if you're going to get a snuggle or two.

My parents have one of those singing Christmas things, you know, the kind that plays a song and dances? The kids were pressing it so much they couldn't put it down for the picture! Braiden, Bennett, Brooke and Eric (Melissa was getting the presents!)

Bennett was SO excited about his new bike!!


Aunt Melissa took me seriously when I said I wanted a million things monogrammed with our baby's name on it. I LOVE it!!

Mark tried to pose Landrie under the tree with all the gifts. She wasn't too sure about it...


Bennett's birthday isn't long after Christmas, so we celebrated it with a bowling party while we were all together. Isn't he a sweet 4 year old??

Braiden is our oldest nephew, and I can't believe he's almost 12!! He LOVES taking care of Landrie, and she gives him all her best grins!

My super cute honey must have bowled a strike!

Nonny and my mom took care of Landrie. She didn't bowl this time; it's hard to bowl when the ball weighs almost as much as you!

Kevin, Christy and crew, we missed you guys! We are glad we got to celebrate early with you and wish you were with us instead of stuck on an airplane! :)

I hope you had an amazing Christmas with your family too. After feeling this OVERWHELMING love for our only daughter this Christmas, it's even more amazing to me that God would send His only son for us so that we could have a relationship with Him. Wow!

¹⁶"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

John 3:16 NIV

Christmas with the Longs

Our long- awaited "Baby's First Christmas" lived up to all the hype! Landrie got to spend time with countless relatives and got spoiled with more hugs, kisses and toys that I could ever imagine. :) I loved it! There are so many pictures that I'll break it up into 2 posts. The first Christmas we celebrated was with Mark's family.

When these 4 cousins came to stay with us during my last week of work (thank you for watching Landrie, Megan!!!) I knew I'd better come up with some fun Christmas stuff to do! We had icing and candy EVERYWHERE and Colson the candy-holic started eating his house before he even finished decorating it. :)

Cade was such a big help with Landrie. I love this picture because the two of them are staring adoringly at each other. So sweet!!

We headed over to Beth and Rusty's to celebrate Christmas with both of Mark's sisters and their families and Mark's parents.

Before we let the kids open gifts, we wanted to get a group shot of all the cousins with Landrie in it! The kids were waiting to open presents, so we had a little trouble getting a good shot of everyone. I think I took 20 pictures in about a minute! They are too funny!

Christmas gift mania!

There's nothing quite like being a kid at Christmas!

Our first Christmas as a family of three!

Mark and his sweet sisters, Megan and Beth

PonPon loves his little Landrie

Maw Maw kept offering to take Landrie with her! She can't get enough snuggling. :)

We headed to Houston on Christmas Eve through the Texas BLIZZARD. I couldn't believe that it was a white Christmas! We had Christmas dinner with Mark's grandma, 4 aunts, his uncle, lots of cousins, and lots of sweet second cousins too. There were 3 baby girls that were 15 months and under. :)

Haley, Heath, Chad, Grandma and Amy all loved meeting Landrie Grace!

Cari and Kristen, Mark's parents, Landrie, Aunt Do and Mark

There are a lot of red heads on Mark's side, so if she ends up with red hair, she'll fit right in!

Landrie has the sweetest little coo. On Christmas Day, she was with her grandparents and great- grandma and started just cooing away! She had a whole conversation just talking and talking to them. It's so sweet! I'm a little worried about the future parent teacher conferences we may have; this girl LOVES to talk! :) This was our last visit with Mark's parents before they headed back to Florida. She's just talking away!

We had a great time seeing everyone and showing off Landrie! I'm ready to do it all again next year. :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We took our little sweetie to see Santa at Mark's work party. She was only 5 weeks old, so we didn't get a smile, but her eyes were open, and she sure did look cute! Thanks for the adorable dress, Granny! Mark works for a city, so the mayor was at the party too. When she saw Landrie, she snatched her out of my arms and went on and on about how beautiful she was!! Then she headed over to Santa with Landrie and got their picture made together! I guess that whole thing about kissing babies really is true... :)

One morning during the 5 weeks I was back at work, I was getting ready and Mark came in. He told me to look outside, and headed off to get the camera. He knows me well! Growing up in Houston, I still get SO excited about snow! We had just gotten this adorable hat for Landrie, and she was wearing her white fur boots so she was nice and snugly. :) She wasn't so sure about the snow in her face. I'm sure she'll like it much more next year!

This year it was so much fun to decorate for Christmas! Last Christmas we were still waiting on God as to what we should do next and we desperately wanted a baby. Christmas an amazing time to celebrate with our families, but it was also a tough reminder of our empty arms. This year our arms are full and our hearts are overflowing with joy! Mark and I could not be any more in LOVE with Landrie Grace. She already has her daddy wrapped around her little finger. Here he's getting in a little snuggle time and showing her her first Christmas tree. She is mesmerized by all the lights. It's hard to believe that next year she be walking over to it and playing with the ornaments!