Random September Pics

My sister, Jayne, graciously offered to take some family pics for us after church one day. Here are a few of the favorites.

I just love this one- one of Care's many faces.

Carrie loves to "hold him?"

Si started using his jumperoo this month!

Lots of bike rides this month.

And book reading...

And naked sand box play.

...Okay, not always naked. :-)

This is what happens when you serve chocolate jello to our children...

Our sweet smiling Si...

Group shot!

We got hit with the croup this month. Lydia first, then Care, then Si. :-( It made for a couple long weeks with lots of humidifier use, late night car rides to clear the inflammation in the kids'  throats and even more sleep deprivation than usual. But thankfully we are croup-free!

Lydia got to hang out in our bed when she wasn't feeling well.

Getting some late night snuggles.

Lydia sporting her new Ugandan outfit!

Just a sweet pic of Si.

Care and Daddy.

The crew hanging out.

Nothing like a bow tie to fancy up a bunny shirt. :-)

Off to October!

Warriors!

Three friends and I decided to run a Warrior Dash. It was a super-fun 5K with many muddy and wet obstacles along the way! 

Go Jodi!

Just jumping over some fire...

Here we are climbing up one of the last walls.

Here we are sliding into the massive mud pond.

Here we are after sliding into the mud. We thought the race was done...but then were told we had a final obstacle to go...crawling under barbed wire through mud.

We did it!

WARRIOR! (Although we deemed ourselves warriors before the race even started simply because we are MOMS!!!)

Wahoo! Carrie's Two!!

September 24 marked Carrie's second birthday! We celebrated with both sides of the family and had a great time.

 Below Carrie is all ready for her birthday celebration!

Lydia had fun slaying Uncle Ben while wearing some of the new dress-up clothes!

Carrie playing with her new blocks!

Grandpa O playing play dough with Lyddi while Care built towers in the other room.

Carrie reading her card from Lyddi.

We got Carrie 3 gifts. She opened one right away, and then chose not to open the other two, as you can see. :-)

After a while she just got up and walked away with her opened gift, and her un-opened gift. She ended up opening it the next afternoon. :-)

Pretty excited about her new puzzle from Grandma!

Helpful Blake displaying the puzzle.

Our sweetie is 2! It's still hard to believe, although if you ask her she has a different answer to what age she is now...

Happy Birthday Care! We love and delight in you each day! You have such a beautiful sharing spirit and we adore your little smirks and smiles. 

Homecoming!

We got to go to the airport and welcome home Isabelle and Isaiah, the kids' new cousins as well as my sister, Mari, her husband, Justin and my mom, who had flown over to Uganda to help with the kids for a few weeks. They were in Uganda for a month finalizing the adoption, and VERY thankful to be back home! 

We praise God for their safe travels and arrival and we are very grateful to have the twins, Mari, Justin and my mom home. The twins are 1 week older than Carrie so it will be fun watching them become fast friends and playmates.

First Haircut!

Carrie had her first hair cut! We went to this great little place that specializes in children's haircuts- as you can tell from the decor. She did great...once she had a sucker in her mouth. :-)

Her stylist, Carmen, was wonderful and did a great job!

While we were there Lyddi got her second haircut. :-)

Ta da!

Mommy Daughter Date!

This month we started our Daddy/daughter, Mommy/daughter dates. It's so fun to spend one-on-one time with each child and connect in a different way. So far the girls have each had a date with Zach and me at Russ' for dinner- fun times!

Big smiles from Lyddi. :-)