Baby Shower!

Last Sunday, my sweet friends from church threw a beautiful shower for Tatem and me!

Jenna, Jenny, me, Tracy, Amy, Kimi, Shari, Amber and Renee did a FABULOUS job hostessing the shower for us.  Lindsay and Bethany aren't in this picture, but they did too! I love you girls!

Look at all that yummy food!  I love that they also had a dessert table for this sweets-loving girl!

My niece Adelynn, Kimi, Amber and Summer

Wendy, Amy and Amber

As with any party, the kitchen is the place to be! 

Bethany and me

I think this was one of the first things I opened.  How can you not love a precious baby on a box of diapers?!

Tatem's Aunt Christy, Aunt Beth, Aunt Megan and GranJan 

Beth and Megan are checking out the adorable bag Megan made for Tatem!

Tatem is going to look so-so cute in this!!

Bethany made this gorgeous board for Tatem's room that matches her bedding.  I love it!

I loved the precious cookie favors that Renee made!!  Landrie later figured out where my stash of cookies was and kept bringing them to me, nodding her head and saying, 'nack??  Why, yes, Landrie, I'd LOVE to share a snack with you. :)

Many of us remembered 2 years ago when Brianna went into labor with Landrie DURING my baby shower! We are thankful that didn't happen again, although I think those Braxton Hicks were about 5 minutes apart through the whole thing!  

We are so, so thankful for our sweet church family!!  We are so overwhelmed by the blessing of your friendships!

8 Days of ADOPTION- It's GREAT to say!

Hey!  Welcome back!  We are almost done with the "8 Days of Adoption" series, and that means our baby girl is almost ONE!  Eek!!

Today is the flip side of Wednesday's "Don't Say This" post.  Mark and I have a 7 year old nephew who was adopted when we were still dating.  There was a lot I wanted to ask or say to my future brother and sister - in- law, but I didn't want to say the wrong thing.  These are things that are 100% okay to say to adoptive parents.  As a matter of fact, I LOVE to hear them!

-"Ahhhhhhh!!!" or "EEEEEEKK"" or "I have never been SO EXCITED in my life!!!"  You get the idea.  When we prepared to tell family and friends that we had chosen adoption as the way to grow our family, we were ready for all kinds of weird looks or strange comments.  We LOVED how excited you all were!!

We used this puzzle to share our good news with some of our family and friends.  Can you figure it out??  HINT: My niece's name is Abbie.

-It's perfectly okay to say "Landrie has your eyes!" or "She's great at sports just like her daddy!" You don't need to make up a resemblance, but if you feel the need to say something you can always comment on a personality trait.  I love that when a stranger said something about how much Landrie looked like me and I told her Landrie was adopted she started to argue with me!  She was shocked that an adopted child could resemble her mom!  :)

My sweet friend Angela gave me this onesie before Landrie was born.  It says, "gorgeous (just like my mom)."

-Do act like we are a regular, normal family.  Adoption is not a better way to have kids, it's just another way! We don't elevate adoption when we talk with Landrie, it's just one more special way that God makes families!

-When we first bring the baby (toddler, 7 year old) home, act just like you would if a friend or family member came home from the hospital with a newborn.  Throw a baby shower (or a welcome to the family party for an older child with clothes and toys!) and bring meals.  Some adoptive parents want a shower before they bring the baby home and others would rather wait (or don't have time!).  Just ask.  We didn't have any baby stuff, so we had two showers after we got matched but before we brought Landrie home.  We knew we ran the risk of a bunch of adorable pink stuff and a failed adoption.  That would have been really hard.  

-Ask questions!  If you aren't sure, you can just ask a general question like, "What was the hardest part?" or "How are you adjusting to motherhood?" instead of "How much did it cost?" or "Why didn't your birth mom want to keep her?"  General questions give adoptive parents the chance to talk about this life changing event without asking something they aren't comfortable talking about.  Just like you may (or may not!) have told people the story about your labor experience!

I stressed so much about the "Don't Say" post, so thank you so much for all of you who had sweet things to say about it!  I'm sure many of us who have been through a unique situation (or who live in a unique situation) could write a post just like it.  Hopefully you hear my heart as I say the wrong thing too!!  :)

If you want to check out the rest of the "8 Days of Adoption" posts, just click here!

Shower of Blessings

Whew! Going back to work really cut into my blogging! I'm going to attempt to catch up. :)

On November 14th, Landrie turned 2 months old, and we had our last baby shower. It was so special, because it was with all the friends I grew up with in my church! Most of the hostesses have been in my life since elementary school!

Mrs. Duff, Mrs. Carpenter, Mrs. Watts, Mrs. Coffey, Mrs. Fisher, (me, Landrie and my mom) Mrs. Cox, Mrs. Lynn, and Mrs. Johnson hosted this beautiful shower!

They had a Blessing Tree and everyone wrote notes of blessings for Landrie and put them on the branches. The notes were so sweet! They also passed out Bible verses to everyone that had Landrie's name put in them. It was so precious to hear her name with God's promises. Here's one:

"Thank you for loving Landrie so much that you gave your one and only Son that when Landrie believes in him, she will not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16

Family, Family Everywhere!

This weekend our little family of three headed down to Houston for a weekend full of family!



First, we packed for our first trip with Landrie. It took forever! Here's a shot of her little suitcase. Do you see the entire container of bows? :) On the way home, we could barely fit everything; poor Max just had a tiny spot next to Landrie's carseat. Mark said he thinks we need a bigger car already!!

On Friday Mark, Landrie and I spent time with my parents and Nonny. We all just passed her around and loved on her. They couldn't believe how much she's grown!

Saturday morning we headed over to Mark's grandma's. It's so nice that she lives in Houston now!
Grandma was completely taken with Landrie and thinks she is beautiful!! We missed seeing the rest of Mark's Houston family, but we gave Grandma lots of pictures, so be sure to ask her about them! We can't wait to introduce the rest of you to Landrie too. :)

Saturday afternoon we got Landrie all dressed up in her orange and black cuteness and headed over to Melissa's parent's Annual Chowder Party. I think it's been a tradition for about 40 years! I started going when my brother started dating Melissa, back when I was in elementary school!

Aunt Melissa, Aunt Christy, and Melissa's parents, Granny and Pops loved on Landrie at the Chowder Party.

Cousins Braiden, Brooke and Abbie couldn't get enough of holding the newest addition to the family. Braiden was the master at getting her to smile at him. :) Several times during the party there was a line of people wanting to hold her! She did great being passed around, and didn't even cry! Bennett got a big kick out of kissing her tiny toes!
Mark and my brothers, Eric and Kevin, relaxing at the party. They were all holding her too, but I never got pictures! Knowing my family, I'm sure someone else did!



We headed over to Webb and Tristan's to go trick or treating. Everyone looked so cute in their costumes.
Bennett was sooo excited about his candy!


Adelynn the fairy loves all things girlie and was in heaven when I did her hair and makeup. :)

Abbie's costume was so creative! I still can't believe she's almost 10!

Brooke LOVES Toy Story and made the most adorable Woody ever!!

I asked Anna for her best Hannah Montana pose, and I got a full performance! Lori, I'm sure she'd let you borrow her costume if you'd like... :)

They made it about 2 feet inside the front door before they dumped their candy and started sampling their loot. YUM!
The whirlwind continued on Sunday with a baby shower for Landrie.

It was so good to see Laura again!


My sweet hostesses, Melissa, Gail and Christy, did a fantastic job on the shower!!

Melissa got Landrie these ADORABLE shoes!


This life jacket will be perfect for next summer!

Mark's Granny sent Landrie her first Christmas dress. I love it!

Don't these cookies look good? You can't tell in the picture, but they even had shimmery frosting.

Landrie was passed around the table the whole time. She's such a little snuggler!

In the middle of this weekend, a MIRACLE happened. We were ALL so excited, because I had shared Dave and Bethany's story with my family, and they had been praying too. We were both adopting babies just a few weeks apart. After they took care of Isaac for the 48 hour waiting period, their birth parents decided not sign the paperwork. We've been heartbroken and praying with them as we all waited to see how God would answer our prayers.

On Saturday, their birth parents suddenly changed their minds, signed the papers and chose Dave and Bethany to be Isaac's parents! We drove back into town, dropped Max off at the house, and went straight over to their house to meet this sweet baby. I loved hearing about everything, and I cried and cried!! He's so beautiful!

I am so bummed that I didn't take any pictures last Thursday! I had my shower with all my friends from school. At the last minute, I decided to bring Landrie along. I'm glad I did! I'm not so sure they would have let me in empty handed. :) The shower was scheduled for the Tuesday when we were still in the hospital. We're teachers, so we're good at being flexible, right? :) We had Ruthie's world famous chocolate cake, and Landrie got all kinds of great gifts. She slept through the whole thing!


Our school has GREAT teachers, and it was so good to see everyone again! We started trying to have a baby when I started working there, so many of them have been a great support for me through these years! I'll be heading back for a few weeks of work on Monday, and it's good to know I'll be going back to friendly faces!

My Church Shower!

We LOVE our church, and all of our friends from there! Several other friends and family members also came to celebrate Baby Long, and it was a beautiful shower! This shower was more than 3 weeks ago, but our birth mom went into labor during the shower, so things have been a bit busy since then. I intended to do a post that night, but I was waiting for our daughter to be born! :)

Here are my sweet friends and hostesses. They completely outdid themselves at this AMAZING party! Sunny, Alicia, Bethany, me, Mindy, Tracy, Candy, and (front row) Kimi, Lindsay, Amber, Beth, and Terri

Isn't the table gorgeous?? The cake was a Nothing Bundt cake, and it was heavenly! They know how much I love sweets, so there was this entire table of sweets and more food in the other room. YUM! I love the pacifiers hanging from the chandilier. If this tells you anything about how crazy it was when we were frantically packing for the hospital, when we got to Wichita Falls, I opened our bags and there were these pacifiers with the pink ribbons still attached!!

We had to plan a shower in a hurry! My parents were already coming in town for my niece's birthday that weekend, so it worked out great. I was so glad that my mom could be there!

My friend Bethany had her shower the day before! Check out the flowers in the background. WOW!


So many great friends were there! Here's Nicole, Shari, and Tracy.

The girls were so creative when they came up with the games. This one was the "How Well Do You Know Corrie?" game. Everyone answered questions like "Where exactly did Mark and Corrie meet?" and "What's Corrie's favorite summertime treat?" Some people did so well, they even had to do tie breakers!

I was a bit worried when they blindfolded me, but this game was a fun one too! They placed all kinds of baby objects in my hands, and I had to guess what each one was. This one was the hardest.

Farrah and Jan got us this "My daddy is a hottie!" onesie. Adorable! Guess what one of Mark's favorite gifts was?? :)

These are the tiniest pink shoes I've ever seen! My nieces were very helpful in passing me the gifts. :)

So many of the girls at the shower have been through these years of waiting and have prayed and cried with us through it all. I am so thankful for all of you! At the end of the shower, they prayed for us again, and this time it was a prayer filled with joy and thankfulness!

I am so thankful to all of you sweet friends! Mark and I are so blessed. About those thank you notes...I promise they are coming! It's hard to write with a sweet baby in your arms. :)