To Harrison on your 15 month birthday...

Dearest Harrison,

Oh sweet boy, today we celebrate 15 months of life for you!! Almost 4 months with you at home, but it really does feel like it's been this way forever. You have been the perfect next piece to our Smith Family puzzle. You are the joy of our hearts and the light of our lives!! Your Daddy and I are constantly telling each other how we think you are just THE best baby boy!! We ask each other how in the world any sweet baby could have been more perfect to be our first child. We love you immensely and count you as one of the biggest blessings in our life!!

You spend your days smiling, laughing, babbling, cruising around via crawling and toddling around things while standing up and holding on!! You love to clap, give eskimo kisses and high fives, to be scared, tickled, thrown in the air, and bathed. You are SUCH the cuddler and your mommy could not be more happy about that. You can say Mama, Dada, and Papa. We do not know that you associate those words with the exact thing or person yet, but you are on your way. You babble the sounds GooGoo, NaNa, BaBa, constantly. You love to make sounds and say words and for mommy to repeat them back to you. We can go back and forth for several minutes before you break right into a giggling fit!!

You aren't quite walking. You stand up for long periods of time and you transfer from place to place while standing, but you aren't too interested in the upward and forward motion that walking can provide yet. You have these secret weapons every place you go that keep you from having the initiative to walk. They are the MANY PEOPLE THAT LOVE YOU and want to hold you, carry you, and play with you. Mommy is kind of hoping you can walk in time to go on an Easter egg hunt. I will not be too terribly sad if you can't though because you are my first baby and I'll cherish all of the baby that I can get considering the time that I missed with you while you were waiting on us in Taiwan. There will be plenty of time for you to walk on your own by the time you go to college!! Mommy is of that mindset for sure. I do not feel the need to push you out of being a baby sooner rather than later.

You certainly know who mommy and daddy are. Anytime we leave you, we can expect to be greeted with a big toothy smile and a fast and furious crawl right into our arms. You now wake up each morning and lay your head on mommies shoulder just waiting for me to respond with "awww." You then lean up and look me right in the eyes smiling with great satisfaction only to lean back down and do it over and over again...10-15 times sometimes!! You have also started "checking in" when you play. You will play for a few minutes and then look up at us, crawl over into our laps, and snuggle in. You go back to playing and do it again every few minutes. These are definitely on the list of mommy and daddies favorite things that you do.

Your Daddy and I have spent many hours with you in the rocking chair that we got off of Cr@igslist when preparing your nursery. In fact, I plan to email the nice lady I bought it from today and just let her know exactly how much the deal she gave us in that chair has blessed our time together so far.

You enjoyed swinging on an swingset for the first time this week. We have a small park right down the road from our house. We walked to it and you swung with delight. We thought we had seen you happy, but you were beyond delirious with excitement over the little ride you took in the swing. Your whole body was pumping with joy and you were giggling until you were out of breath. It is definetly the little things that we find the most joy in from day to day!!

You are so very easy going, but you do have your moments of "walking on the wild side." You have started arching your back when mommy puts you in the car seat. Your head rests on the very top of the car seat while your body is curved into a perfect arch, stiff as a board, with your feet on the bottom of your car seat! I have explained to you many times while forcing you into the seat that riding in the car seat is not an option. Car seats have prevented many babies from going to heaven too soon. You also LOVE to get into the doggy water and food bowls. Most times I do catch you as you are on your way to do so and I have noticed that you turn to see if I am looking while you are on your way to do the deed. I will admit, you have also been found with dog food in your mouth and crawling around in a big puddle of water. I think this is about the only thing I have ever "scolded" you for. Daddy was listening in too and shouted from the office..."I don't think it is as effective if you are giggling while getting him in trouble." You were just smiling so big while I was explaining that dog food and dog water are for the puppies and that that is what your sippy cup and highchair are for! I have not figured out the solution to keeping you out of the dog food and water other than to pick it up, but I am thinking on it!! You can probably tell that we are in a season where your wild side is quite manageable.

You see, the joy and the love that you have brought to your mommy and daddy just can not be put into words. We are so excited about what the Lord has in store for you little man. We pray each day that we make choices that will help you grow up to be a God honoring, wisdom seeking, servant hearted gentlemen!

With all the love that I can muster,
The Proudest Mommy Around

Change in the Ethiopian Adoption Process

I heard today that for those who adopt from Ethiopia in the future, TWO trips will be required. This was SUPER disheartening. Brandon and I were almost positive that we would adopt from Ethiopia next. I am not saying that we have changed our minds, but this is something that seriously changes a lot of things about the appeal of the Ethiopian program.

I will say that the MOST appealing thing about the opportunity to adopt from Ethiopia is the fact that Ethiopia has the highest concentration of orphans, therefore the biggest need for adoptive families. The next 2 things that made the program appealing were...

-It is less expensive than almost any other International Program
- You only have to take 1 short trip which is very appealing especially with a child at home now. Not to mention, we do not like the idea of meeting and leaving our child for months before we come again to bring them home.

With the new law, both of these things change. We have our very own testimony of how God provided for every need during Harrison's adoption so we can't really say that money is going to hold us back.

The reason for this new law is that families were arriving in Ethiopia after their newly adopted children were legally theirs and then deciding the children weren't "right" for their families. These families would leave the country without the child/children. Once this happens in Ethiopia, the children are never allowed to be adopted again. So, we see why this is necessary, it is just going to require a little more consideration and prayer on our part before moving forward.

I would love to hear you thoughts on this if you are adopting from Ethiopia, have adopted from there, or plan to!!

Please don't get me wrong, I do think there is great merit in being familiar with your childs birth country and taking 2 trips will definitely add to the familiarity!!

Wordless Wednesday - Pre-Bedtime Sweetness!!

5 Star Chocolate Trifle

{photo compliments of Brandon's cell phone camera ;o)}

I just had to share this recipe!! It got rave reviews when we took it to a family get together a couple of weekends ago!! Not an ounce of low-fatness to be found in it...but it is SOOOO worth the splurge!

Ingredients:
1 (19.8 ounce) package brownie mix
1 (3.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix 1/2 cup water
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 (12 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed 1 (1.5 ounce) bar chocolate candy

Directions:
1. Prepare brownie mix according to package directions and cool completely. Cut into 1 inch squares.
2. In a large bowl, combine pudding mix, water and sweetened condensed milk. Mix until smooth, then fold in 8 ounces whipped topping until no streaks remain.
3. In a trifle bowl or glass serving dish, place half of the brownies, half of the pudding mixture and half of the 12 ounce container of whipped topping. Repeat layers. Shave chocolate onto top layer for garnish. Refrigerate 8 hours before serving.

We put crushed oreos on one half of the top and crushed Butterfinger on the other half of it...wanted to give options!! It was easy peasy and yummy yummy!!

I found the recipe at the AllRecipes site!!

THIS is what weekends are made of...

Outback Eating...
Picture Posing...
Papa snuggling...
Outside Playing...


Cousin Sharing...
Daddy Helping...
Mama Lovin'...

AND this IS what a GREAT weekend is made of here at the Living to Love household!! Family, Friends, Food, Fun, laughter, GREAT weather and most of all JOY & LOVE!!

The BIG Day!!

Harrison started the 2 day preschool program that we were going to start in January today! If you remember, we had to wait a few months (per doctors orders) because of his frequent bouts of respiratory distress and the concern of him catching everything during the biggest "sick season." We have since gotten a handle on his breathing with daily morning/night doses of Pulmacort through the nebulizer.

The only thing that is different with preschool now is that he lost the spot in the class with kids closer to his age. We are looking at this as a plus because he is now the youngest kid in the class rather than one of the oldest!! & this Mommy, Daddy, and baby do not mind a challenge! We think it will do wonders for his development AND we know our boy. Harrison is so go-with-the-flow that we do not see him being overwhelmed by it. All of his play buddies are twice his size and are walking and talking anyhow!! This picture really does show what Harrison thinks of "big kids." He is just in awe of them and somehow finds a way to play with them even without walking and talking just yet!! It is too funny to watch!

I went in with him for about 30-45 minutes this morning. He took off right away crawling, checking out, and pulling up on all of the goodies in the room. A friend of his from church is in the same class so she has her eye on him. She loves Harrison and has a baby doll named Harrison that was even there today! You can see her standing behind Harrison with a naked baby Harrison here... I talked with the teacher explaining that he never cries so if he does...something is the matter!! Sleep, Paci/Blanky & Food are you first resources 4thly, it would be mommy :o) Got my cell right on his diaper bag tag! I will pick him up early today and then we'll try the full day on Thursday. As I was leaving I took a picture of him with one of his teachers, Mrs.Angela! He just smiled so big.
As I was leaving I could hear them singing, Deep & Wide and Clap,Clap,Clap Your Hands!!! It made my heart smile! Just what our boy needs!

Up until this point, we have been making arrangements with my parents and occasionally our good friends to keep Harrison while I work. We are looking at hiring someone (that we know) to come to our house on Monday or Wednesday to watch him and then my Dad will come the other day and watch him at our house! This will keep him on a more consistent schedule. We are wanting to try to smooth things out. Without the option of a childcare we have had to just juggle what we could between my work and his care and it will be good to have more permanent and convenient care for the baby boy! Speaking of my parents...they have really taking a loving to our little guy! My dad calls and checks on him several times a day. Today he is having surgery for a kidney stone and he even called a few minutes before going back to check and see how Harrison's transition to preschool was this morning. Harrison loves his Papa... They also took Harrison to Target and Cracker Barrel by THEMSELVES this weekend and I know it was an adventure but it was so fun. It is great to have SOOOO many people that love our baby boy so much!! There is NEVER a lack of people willing to help out and spend time with Harrison!

There was a time...

when I wrote my OWN nice, long, more profound-ish (like that brand new word?)blog posts to convey the heart of our family, but lately I have put all of my mental energy into finding that work/ministry-family-guilt balance and I must say...we ARE getting there! I agree with and needed this post titled, Hardest Job in the World.

Thankfully, I have been challenged and encouraged to find MORE and MORE kindred spirits in the blog world who are taking the words/thoughts/feelings right out of my mind and putting them to work on their blogs. I have found so many and I am trying to share them as I come upon them!!

I ABSOLUTELY loooove the post I stumbled upon tonight titled Love is an Action Word Amen & Amen!!!!

Also, we have had a lot of well meaning people inquire about how we plan to fund raising more than the typical family of 4!! My first reaction is we serve MORE THAN the TYPICAL God!!! The College card is thrown out there all the time! A blogger recently wrote a blog post titled, I Don't Want My Children to Be Happy that addresses this question. *This is NOT to say that we don't plan to TRY and help our kids with college...it just goes to show you where their and OUR priorities are 1st!*

And lastly, MANY of you have emailed me regarding the fact that you want so badly to adopt, but your husband is not having any part of it. Well, a fellow bloggers husband made a video to address THOSE husbands of yours :o)

So, have you found anything worth sharing in the blog world lately?