Hannah and Daddy

This morning, Keith did not have to go to work. Hannah is not used to sleeping in, though, so after she woke up, we put her in bed with us. It worked, and she went back to sleep - on Daddy's pillow!

Snow Day!

Well, it snowed today. Not a lot, but I thought that it would be nice to get Hannah out to play in the snow for the first time. It took a little convincing to get her into her snowsuit. Now, who would have thought that getting dressed would be this traumatic?!



At first, Hannah was pretty aprehensive about the white stuff. Walking felt weird, and it kept sticking to her boots. When she finally touched it and it stuck to her glove, she could not wipe it off fast enough!

After a few minutes, she was all smiles!

Christmas Eve

We went to the Christmas Eve Service at our church this evening. We envisioned coming home and waiting up for Santa, setting out cookies, opening our Christmas Eve gift...and look what happened!!

The princess fell asleep! I guess there will be one less little girl waiting up tonight to see if Santa really does come down the chimney!

Happy Birthday, David!!

Today our blessed older son turned 16! Now, mind you, I am not near old enough to have a 16 year old, but , well, OK, so I guess I am...but I'm not telling!



Hannah wanted to help him open his presents. She liked the paper...hopefully she will get an idea as to what it to come with all of those colorful packages under the tree!

Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for this year. Of course, there are the big things that happened this year: Hannah getting to come home was definately the biggest! But there are also the small things in life that we often overlook: the smell of freshly washed laundry, a cool breeze on a summer's day, the sound of laughter coming from the ones we love, a child's hug, the smile of a friend. God, we are thankful for all of these and many more!

We went on a retreat with our church for Thanksgiving. The German hotel cooked us a turkey dinner based on recipes provided by the ladies in the church. It was quite a meal,and Hannah obviously enjoyed the pumpkin pie!

She's full, or at least I think she is!

After dinner, a bath, and jammies, there was obviouosly a little photo shoot that I was not privvy to. With 2 older brothers and 2 of their friends staying with us on the retreat, i may never know who took these pictures, but I will include some of the better ones.

I hope that you all are as blessed as we are!

18 months old!

Hannah is 18 months old! Doesn't time just fly by? It seems that just last week we were celebrating her birthday, and now we are halfway through to her next one. We had family photos take today for Christmas. It was a good thing, because I didn't take any others to celebrate this momentous occasion!



Here are some things Hannah can do and say:

Hannah says please (peas), thank you (dat you), bye, Momma, Daddy, David (day-id), Bubba, Hannah (na-nuh), dog, cat, go, what's that?, hello (lo-lo), hi, more, shoes, socks, eyes, nose, mouth, belly button, foot, toe, ear, bite, book, ball, bracelet (bray), write, A, B, 1, 2, 3, 5, mine, soft, no, yes, hot, cold, banana (na-na), milk, drink, baby, diaper, poo-poo, all done, up, down, bed, night-night, bath, ow!, pray (pay), and Amen (men).
She pats the chair beside her to indicate she wants you to sit down.
She can jump (not much air, but she tries).
She knows the difference between hitting and soft touches.
She loves lotion, and brings us the bottle, saying "more"
She likes to try on clothes.
She loves girly shoes! (Yeah!!)
She loves to sit and read books but, she wants to hold them.
Sometimes she is nice to her babies, and gives them kisses and hugs.
Sometimes she is mean to her babies and throws them in the floor. Ouch!!
She can run.
She feeds herself with a fork and spoon.
She can get her own diaper and put the used one in the trash.
She wants to pet the cat (but he still doesn't like it).
She usually answers "no" to anything and everything.
She gets into and out of her chair without help.
She likes to climb!!
She gives "five".
She tries to open the doors with a key (fortunately she can't quite reach, yet).
She can take off her own shoes and socks.
She likes to say prayers at meals. She folds her hands and squeezes her eyes shut real tight and says "pay". Sometimes she does it after every bite!
She is OK with being alone for a few minutes, and occasionally puts herself down at nap time.
When we try to take something from her, she hides it behind her back or throws it across the room.
She likes to write, and says "a" when she is writing.
She loves to give kisses and hugs!
She has a crush on David's best friend, Chris. When he is around, no one else can hold her!
She holds her finger up in front of her face and says "No, no!".
She likes to get the video game remotes and pretend that she is playing, too.
She gets Keith's computer mouse and imitates him, too.
She loves to brush her teeth - and uses adult toothpaste (recommended here because the water has no flouride).

Hannah's First Haircut

Before!

After!

Like that lollipop bribe?

Boo!!

No trick-or-treating, but we do like to dress up a little for Halloween. Here is Hannah in all of her glory!!

Family pictures

For our home study update, we needed to send in some family pictures. Since Keith has been gone, we haven't had time to go get any protraits taken, so we went to a scneic area close to home and set up the tripod and the camera. After about a thousand attempts (kidding) we did at least come up with a couple of good ones.

Hannah is such a happy girl!! I love this smile!

A New Trick

Here is Hannah's most recent trick! She can climb up on to her chair, then on to the table in about 5 seconds! Woo! That girl is FAST!

Good thing she was sucking on the wrong end!!

Trying to make a quick getaway!

First day in Oklahoma!

We slept a fair amount last night, but jet lag has us a little tired anyway. We decided to take it a little easy today, but we did have to make a trip to K-Mart to buy diapers and some other necessities...of course once we were there, Grandmama and PaPa had to make sure that Hannah had her first carousel ride.


After all of that hard work running errands, we needed some lunch. Off to the Cherokee restaurant for some Oklahoma grub! Good stuff!!

We Made It!!

Let's just say that flying with a baby by yourself is not fun...

We made it to Oklahoma, and then to my dad's house after travelling for almost 24 hours. Most of the time, Hannah did awesome. There were a few moments, though, where she thought that we should be DONE!!

Hannah is now a citizen of the United States. We made it through immigration in Philidelphia without a hitch. There are no pictures because they do not allow cameras in the immigration or customs areas.

15 months old!!

Hannah has been a busy girl this summer, and she has learned a lot of new things. Now that she is 15 months old, she has all kinds of interests...

She has gotten off of the bottle and only drinks from a cup. However, she loves these little water bottles. We have to watch her, because she is a notorious drink-stealer. Fortunately this one was actually hers, but at this going away picnic, I think that she took at least one drink from everyone's!
Hannah loves to feed herself, and has even started to use a fork and spoon...but not on Cheerios, of course!
Here she is today, drawing a picture for Daddy, or was that tearing up the paper? Anyways, whatever it was must have been quite a workout, cause she fell asleep holding her pencil at the table!

Here are some new things about Hannah:
She can run - not too fast, but she can run.
She can scribble on paper.
She can say "book".
She nods her head when you tell her to say "Thank you."
She points at stuff and asks "whazzat?", then listens to your answer.
She mooches anything you are eating by saying "piece", "bite", "more", or "eat".
She only drinks from a cup, and can drink from one without a lid, but not without making a mess!
She points to objects and says "dis" or "dat".
She can almost get herself onto the couch, and can get herself down without help.
She can pet the dogs nicely.
She can almost pet the cat nicely, but he reminds her that he still doesn't really like it!
She can call David "Day-id".
She calls Jeremiah "Juh", "Bubba", or "Day"
She kisses her Daddy's picture and says "Dadda".
Hannah LOVES spaghetti, and feeds it to herself with a fork or spoon (Quite a messy endevour!)
She still likes her milk warm.
Hannah gives hugs and kisses without being prompted.
She even kisses with a closed mouth!
She sometimes kisses the dogs.
She can call the dogs by making kissy noises.
She can send the dogs away by pushing them and saying "No!"
Hannah loves balls and says "ball" every time she sees something round...did you know that eggs were balls??
She can kick a ball.
She can make a big mess very quickly!
She will melt your heart.

Happy Birthday, Jeremiah!!

Jeremiah's birthday was on Sunday, but we waited until tonight to have his birthday party. He had his friends Ricky, Christian, and Curt over for a sleepover, then tomorrow, they are all going swimming at the indoor pool.

He has really had a great time, and was even able to open his presents...with Hannah's help, of course!

Two firsts today!

Hannah had two firsts today. One of them was good, and the other, well, not so good. First t he good news. Hannah learned how to use a pen at church last week. She has discovered through the influence of the other kids that you can take the pen from the back of the chair in front of you and scribble on the offering envelopes. I have raised a Hedon!

Anyway, to give her a more appropraite outlet for her artistic talents, I bought her some crayons and a coloring book. Here is her first attempt at coloring!

While taking these pictures, though, I noticed another first. Hannah has her first owie since coming home with us! Take a look at her middle finger!. Now, you would think that she would have cried or something to indicate to me that she had scraped her finger...but, alas, no. I was left to discover this after the fact and wonder just how and where she got such a thing. Poor Hannah!

New Pictures

I took the kids to have their photos taken. I really like how these have turned out. My only wish was that Keith could have been her and we could have done the entire family...

My three kids...what a cute buch of kiddos!

David...quite a handsome fellow, if I do say so myself!

Jeremiah...does the cuteness never stop?

Hannah...a perfect picture!

Just the boys.

BBQ!!

Our neighbors had a BBQ and invited us over. Hannah loves to play outside with the other kids!

She is walking really well, now. She enjoyed a game or two of "You can't catch me!"

Later, she took a turn at driving. She was having a lot of fun, then suddenly she slipped beneath the car and disappeared. After that, we had to take away her driver's license!

David's back!

David came home from Summer Leadership School today. Hannah and I went to his celebratory dinner. Did David rush to give me a big hug because he had missed me so much? NO WAY! It was his baby sister who got all the loving! Oh well, second fiddle to Hannah is not all that bad...I guess. I mean, she is awful cute, after all!

Seriously, David had a great time and his flight even got Top Flight! It was such an honor for him.

Bye-Bye, Daddy!

Daddy had to go away today. It was very sad for all of us, but Hannah had no idea that Daddy was leaving or what that will mean in her little life. He will be gone for a while and he couldn't tell us where he was going. We will miss him a bunch! It was very hard for him to go since we have only had Hannah for such a short time.

We can't wait until you get to come home again, Daddy!!

Looks Who's Walking!

Hannah has started to walk! It actually started on the 19th, with just a step or two. Now she is up to about 10-15 steps at a time! She is still not real steady on her feet, and prefers to crawl if she is trying to get somewhere fast (usually some place that she knows that she is not supposed to be).

Hannah got a box!

Papa sent some money with instructions to get the boys something! Well they got a something all right...a Nintendo Wii!! Hannah was just about as excited with her new gift...the box that the Wii was shipped in!

Another of her favorite toys is...anything that she can wear as a bracelet! She LOVES to put her bracelets on an wears them all day.

Here is another picture of her from Keith's promotion on the 14th of June. What a cutie! I think this was the only time she managed to get on the floor. Everyone took a turn holding her!

Ah yah yah!

Hannah has some new words and some new tricks!

Here are some new things Hannah can say and do:
She can say I love you, "Ah yah yah!"
She can crawl very fast!
She can blow kisses.
She can stand up without holding on.
She can get to a standing position from the floor without touching anything.
She can cruise around the furniture quickly.
She can drink from a sippy cup.
She can put herself to sleep at nap time.
She can wave "Hi" and say it, too.
She waves bye-bye with both hands, and sometimes they actually face you!
She can say "Stop!"
She can shake her head "no" when she doesn't want something.
She can climb out of her high chair.
She can say "Yes" and nod her head.
She points to objects and says "Dat."
She can put on a bracelet.
She can bring you a toy, and take it back.
She can come to you when you call her.
She can say both "dog" and "cat".
She can say "Bad dog!" I wonder where she heard that?
She can pick up her toys and put them in a bin.
She can say "laloolaloolaloolaloo" over and over again (Daddy taught her this one!).
She can blow big raspberries.
She can still pitch a big fit!

Hannah standing up all by herself!

(It requires intense concentration; she just learned this trick today!)

Playing with her Little People Farm.

Every day she still amazes me. What a blessing God has given to us.

Happy Birthday Hannah!!

Happy birthday, Hannah! Today, we had a birthday party for Hannah. It was a small event. But we actually started the celebrating yesterday when we went out to our favorite Chinese restaurant in her honor. Our waiter was actually from China (Shanghai), and was pleased to let us butcher his language just a bit at dinner. You could tell Hannah was a little intrigued when he spoke Mandarin to her.

Today, we went to church, and Hannah stayed in the church nursery without us for the first time. She loves hanging out with the other babies, and with all the activity, she didn't even miss us too much. But, since she didn't bother with a nap, we felt it best to go straight home. After dinner, we let her open presents first. She received a book, some clothes, and a very noisy popcorn popper. She mostly liked the wrapping paper and the bows! She was quite a pro at tearing paper, though, and did not need much encouragement to open the gifts. Now keeping the paper out of her mouth was a whole different story!

After presents, we had cake. We were all prepared for Hannah to get majorly messy. However, she put her fingers in the cake, and started to fuss. She wasn't sure what to do with the pink sticky stuff. I tried to help her with a bite from a fork, but she didn't like that much either. She gagged and spit out the cake. Yuck! After that, she sat and held the fork, but didn't want to try and eat another bite. Try as we did, she wouldn't have anything else to do with that lovely piece of cake in front of her.

That was all the mess that she made. Jeremiah ended up eating her cake for her...it was a real hardship for him, you know.