I haven't posted in a while about Ri and Elizabeth and their progress. Both are doing incredible. Elizabeth is finally beginning to trust that we will come back. She often chooses, on her own, to stay at our house with the kids or Mamaw's or Grandmas. That is huge progress. Ri is now taking one day of preschool by himself and amazingly, Elizabeth asks me everytime if she can stay. Ri would rather I not leave, though. He cries for about 1 minute and then is totally fine. Elizabeth and I spend the 2 1/2 hours having mommy/daughter time. It is kind of nice for all of us.

As for health, they are both doing great. Elizabeth is finally over the chicken pox. It was a very long drawn out time, but we are done. Ri has had a runny nose for a good week, but nothing else. We are so thankful for their health. It amazes me how God has protected them.

As far as learning things, both pick up things very quickly. Ri amazes me at some of the things he is able to learn and understand. I do think he struggles with attention span. He loves books, but he doesn't want to sit all the way through it. If it is lengthy in words at all, he is trying to turn the page or jumps off my lap. He can tell you any letter and it's sound and can even tell you the beginning of many words. But... colors are an issue. So much so that there are times we begin to wonder if he may be color blind or partially color blind. Time will tell. Of all the kids, Ri reminds me most of Jacob.

Elizabeth knows all her colors, leters and sounds. She can often tell you the letter that begins a word, but not as quick as Ri. She is an incredible pretender with an amazing imagination! She reminds me much of Sam when he was 3 years old. I LOVED that stage!!

Ri LOVES meat.. of any kind; though he calls every meat "chicken". He is still a great fan of noodles (as is Elizabeth). They both like carrots and Elizabeth likes corn... but you can pretty much nix any other vegetable. Lately, they have begun to like eating apples and banannas. They both really like fruit, probably because it is so sweet tasting. They have a great fondness for junk and sweets.

They both ADORE their brothers and sisters. They are the highlight of their days. All of the kids play with them and include them. It still amazes me to see each of the older kids light up as soon as they see either one of the little ones. As soon as they walk in the door, they run to each other. The older ones always kneel down to the little ones level and give them hugs and talk directly to them. It warms my heart. We are so blessed.

Well, there is so much more that I could write, hopefully I will take the time and do it soon. But for now, I need to go spend some time with my little guys.


I have begun to work with some of Emily's pictures. It is amazing how you can take hundreds and only be happy with a few. :( Here are some of the results. I am just trying to think of some new ideas for her. Feel free to let me know what doesn't work! I am just playing around and would love to come up with something good for her.
Emily does not like this one. She thinks that the pictures with 2 pictures on it don't look very good. I was just trying things out. I think I kind of like it.
She prefers this one simply because there is no other picture in it.
Again, Emily does not like the one on the left because of the 2 pictures in it. I liked the black and white and the blue eyes, but am not a real fan of the actual picture. I was just playing around to see what it would like and chose this one to play with. You can see we liked the pose of her laying down. It was one of Em's favorite, so I was using it in several pictures to get different ideas. I really likead the colors in the picture to the right. It was a gorgeous evening, so we ran and got the camera to take some shots.
These 2 pictuers are Em's favorite ones. I like the leaf on her shoulder.

This picture seems to be one of her favorites of all the shots we've taken. I did a lot of different things with it, but only posted these 2 for now. She likes the black and white, but is asking me to make the flower pop out with more color. I haven't done that just yet, but will make it more pink.
Finally, I wanted to see what the wallets would look like with scripture on them. I LOVE the picture of Em walking by the pond.