A Mother's Day Visit with Landrie's Birth Mom!

The weekend before Mother's Day, we were so excited to spend the day with Landrie's birth mom and her daughter, Brynn!

Look at these beautiful girls!  Landrie is way into climbing trees right now, even though she's not that adventurous when she does.  See that death grip on the branch?  :)

This trip we met in Wichita Falls, which is just about 2 hours from our house.  It was a girls day, since Mark was in school all day.  Do you know one thing I never expected?  I knew that through adoption, we would gain a sweet baby, but I had no idea that I would gain a friend in Brianna too!  After a yummy lunch with some great girl talk, we headed out to Brynn's favorite, the Prairie Dog Park!  They have whole prairie dog habitat set up and the girls got a big kick of watching them run around.  Landrie had never seen them before, but was thrilled with those "hairy dogs!"  I guess that name makes sense too!

Then it was off to the playground!  

It was a gorgeous day, so I snapped a few pictures. :)  How cute are they?

Oh, Landrie Grace!  I love you!!

Brynn is six and has gotten SO tall!  She and Landrie have the same lanky frame.  :)  Now Tatem...well, let's just say that she's wearing hand me down clothes a year earlier than Landrie did!

Landrie looks like such a baby next to Brynn!  The girls LOVE each other so much.  I've had a lot of questions lately about how it works when a woman parents some of her children and creates adoption plans for others.  Well, here's one look at it!  We answer the girls' questions openly and honestly, and pray that God will guide our words.  I also try to give Landrie just a little bit of information when she asks, because at age three, she really just can't handle everything yet!  Brianna answers Brynn's questions so beautifully.  The girls know that they are sisters and both grew in Brianna's tummy, and they know that they love each other very much!  For Landrie, that completely covers it for now:)  In parenting, there are SO many big questions that come up.  Like many families, ours just has a unique characteristic that adds some unique questions!

Sweet girls!  I love it that Landrie will have a biological connection as she grows up; it's just one added bonus of open adoptions.  I was combing out her hair in front of the mirror, and I combed her extra-long bangs to the side.  Landrie immediately said, "Look, Mommy! I'm like Brynn!!"  

Love this one!

Oh my!!  Do I really get THREE of these?!  So in love!

What a sweet mommy-daughter one of Brianna and Brynn!

Tatem jumped right in playing with the big girls and played peek-a-boo with me when I tried to take her picture!

And it's a ....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a sonogram to check on our little baby on Thursday, but Mark was out of town!  I was SO thankful to see that little one kick and squirm, and to hear that it looks healthy!  I had the ultrasound office seal up the final picture in an envelope, so that our whole family could find out BOY or GIRL together!!

My friend, Kimi, frosted the cake with the SECRET pink or blue layer inside.  A four of us were in the dark!  We were so excited to have cake for breakfast!

Let's check out our family's votes:

Landrie: "I prayed to God for a sister, so it's going to be a GIRL!"  She's never budged a bit!

Tatem: "GIRL!"  Well, she said this almost every single time, but one time she did say "BOY!"  

Mark: He was convinced up and down that he would have 3 girls!

Me: I had to prepare myself for blue frosting, just in case.  I was SO convinced that we were having a girl that I didn't know if I could handle the shock if we weren't!  This pregnancy is exactly like my pregnancy with Tatem.  My morning sickness appeared and disappeared at the same time, and the 2nd trimester "feeling great" started at 17 weeks with both too!  Plus, I just had a feeling! :)

We all wore PINK to show our votes!  "We CAN'T WAIT!!!!"

"...to YOU!"  Tatem saw the cake and kept saying "happy, happy, happy!"  

So, the girls insisted we sing happy birthday first.  :)

What's it going to be??!?!

IT'S a GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First attempt at a family shot!

Our family of FIVE!!!

Look at all that PINK!!

We are so excited to have a houseful of little GIRLS!!  I can't believe that I'll be 19 weeks tomorrow.  Almost halfway there already!

"Children are a gift from the Lord!"

Psalm 127:3

Picnic Weather!

After preparing for some crazy storms, we were so thankful to only get a little rain!  The day after was nice and cool, so when Landrie asked for a picnic, we jumped right in!

 The girls even had to feed Strawberry Shortcake (on the bIanket) a bite!

Choo Choo!!

Whew!  When Mark signed up for school, we knew we were kissing goodbye Friday nights (school 4-9pm) and Saturdays (school 8am-7pm).  That really cut into our family time!!  We are so glad that that season is over, but while we were in it, we took advantage of every afternoon he got out early and every rare day off!

On this April Saturday we headed to downtown Fort Worth to ride the train!  It's a perfect family day for a beautiful day like this one.  The girls were SO excited as we waited!

The girls love their daddy!

Let's count how many pictures Tatem has her finger in her mouth.  Teething is rough!

 

Look how big Landrie is getting!!

Tatem was all over the place this year!  I was working hard to make sure she didn't jump out.  I guess after being in a car seat, this much freedom was a dream come true!

Last year, she wasn't quite as excited. :)

I think this picture says it all!

Nope, this one's better!!

And just for fun...here's Landrie last year!

Mark and his girlies!  

This Thursday we will hopefully find out if he'll be dad to 3 little girls or if he'll have a son!

Here's the one we used to tell y'all a new baby is on the way!

So thankful for unexpected family days!!

Happy Easter, Y'all!

Gotta play a little  catch up here and post all these sweet Easter pictures!  My mom actually broke her leg and had to have major surgery over Easter weekend, so we were down in Houston with my parents.  Even through all the anesthesia and pain, my mom wanted to be sure the girls had their Easter candy!  :)  Needless to say, things were a bit crazy, and since the girls have no idea which day is actually Easter, we continued the celebration a little longer and had our egg hunt at home. :)

The past year we've really been working with Landrie on teaching her the Bible.  I love it!!  Let me tell you though, the Christmas story is a WHOLE lot easier to explain to a 3 year old than the story of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection!  For now she understands that Jesus died because he loves us SO much, so that we could have a way to be friends with God again.  She also gets that he is ALIVE!

After I got Tatem dressed, I realized that it would be a great time to sneak in a little (belated) 18 month photo session!

Oh, how I love her!!

After a rough start developmentally, we now know the joy of regularly hearing,"She looks absolutely perfect!" when we visit the doctor!  Thank you, Jesus!!  Tatem runs, plays and talks beautifully now. :)  I have a post in the works of everything she's up to. :)  

This cutie pie remembered how things worked from last year and raced straight to her basket.  Landrie was thrilled with what she found!!

Tatem wasn't so sure.  Really, all this is for me??

I love this action shot!  Landrie was off like a rocket, grabbing eggs left and right!!  

Tatem just moseyed around, checking things out!  We finally had to show her that there was CANDY in the eggs!  

Daddy helped her with some of the tricky ones. :)

Landrie's not wasting any time.  The slide is much faster!!

Look at my big girl!!!

And my not-so-little-anymore girl too!

Well, this is the best "together" shot I could get of them.  haha!  No amount of bribing can get these girls to sit and pose anymore!  We'll have to work on that before OCTOBER!!!

And here are my girls just one year ago!  Yes, for all you observant ones, even though they are TWO years apart, Tatem wore Landrie's pink dress from last year this year!  I'm amazed at how much stuff is going straight from Landrie's closet to Tatem's!  

Here's a few of Easter egg dying too.  They were so intrigued!  

(and I wasn't even willing to ruin a bib with that dye!)

So proud with their daddy!!  We were so surprised at how much Landrie likes hard boiled eggs.  She calls them "Daddy's special eggs" since he is the only one I make them for. :)  Like, "Mommy, may I have Daddy's special eggs for lunch??"  Tatem and I were happy to let Landrie and Mark eat them all!

Hard to believe that next Easter we will be celebrating with a 4 year old, a 2 year old and a 6 month old!!