Me & My girls

I love these girls so much! We laugh & cry a lot together. God has truly blessed me with some amazing children!
We are headed to LA for the afternoon to welcome home another little girl from China!

Big bed

Hannah looks so little sleeping in her big bed!

Son of Man

"Though there's no one there to guide you 

No one to take your hand

But with faith and understanding 

You will journey from boy to man " 

Tonight as I work on homework I had some old music on spotify playing. The ever classic Veggie Rocks album. If you're unfamiliar with what I'm talking about, check it out here: Veggie Rocks On Spotify. It's a great rock album of Veggie Tale songs from when I grew up as a kid. But as I think I'm rocking out in my own little world, my mom adds a status to her Facebook..

Well, it looks like my rock show extends past my bedroom door. Anyway, the post grew to 20-something comments between friends, and as it did, I thought back to the day when Disney's Tarzan came out. I was a hyper six year old with an addiction to anything X-Games related (same summer Tony Hawk landed the first 900 on a skateboard nine days after Tarzan was in theaters). As a kid, I was addicted to Tarzan. He was my hero of the Jungle. I wanted to surf trees like he did (tried and failed..), and even back then the music of Tarzan really got to me. It was this edgy, wild sound that I really thought was awesome, and little did I know at the time that a future favorite artist of mine did the soundtrack. Mom bought the soundtrack and after playing, and replaying the disc, I LOVED the song Son Of Man. It was "my" song. 

But now that I'm older, and can really understand the lyrics, it really has a lot of depth to my life. Especially the part of the song with "there's no one there to guide you, no one to take your hand". The past say, five to six months I've really realized that. I'm going from this: 

To this: 

It's crazy to think about a concept like this, but everyone grows up. I think it hits me a little hard (or so I think) because I'm such a big Disney fan, and a kid at heart. So seeing this on film as a favorite story of mine really resonates with me. I'm not a kid anymore. I don't have anyone holding my hand, and I need to take a vine and start to swing out to my own branch of the jungle now. Breaking that down to normal terms, I have to pay bills and taxes, I have my own responsibilities. I have a wonderful girlfriend who will someday be my wife. I have college and my future job. It's all so crazy and mind bending to think about, but at the same time, there's this calming peace to it all that makes me feel like it'll all be ok. In time things will transfer from being young Tarzan to adult Tarzan. It's just tough to transition at times. But it will work out. It always does. 

Chapter Books

When Jacob & Emily were little I would read books to them every night! I loved it when they got to the age that we are able to read chapter books! I saved all of their books and now it is Hannah's turn! She looks forward to reading & snuggle time every night!

Heart break

It breaks my heart thinking that women actually do this to babies!! I can't fathom how they could terminate a life! After having two births and feeling that miracle of God moving inside you is indescribable!
Then there are countries that force women to terminate a life unwillingly! They want a baby so badly but are not allowed to, I thank God everyday that Hannah's biological mother protected her and nurtured her until birth! Our baby could have been one of these lives that could have been terminated! Thank you God for protecting her & her mother!

Priceless

Emily got a great shot of my dad holding Hannah! Dad was in our driveway & Hannah ran over to him. Dad is feeling better, he has his good days and then he has his bad days. Well today was a good day! He doesn't pick Hannah up very much because he is so afraid he is going to drop her! Well today he felt good enough to hold her. Thank you Emily for getting it on camera! This picture is priceless to me!

Chopsticks

I think I have two funny girls. They decided to eat their spaghetti with chop sticks!

Big girl bed

Hannah got a new bed last night!! She is in a big girl bed!

First French Braid

I was able to french braid Hannah's hair this morning! I have been waiting for the day to do this!!

San Diego

Dad had a convention in San Diego with MBNA over the weekend. As I get older, it seems like less and less of an opportunity to do what we used to do as a family, and that's going as a group to these conventions. You see, when I was little we got to fly around the country once a year and go to a location the annual convention would be at. So as a family, we've been to Birmingham Alabama, Savannah Georgia, Memphis Tennessee, and so on. This year it was just a quick drive down the 5 to San Diego. I was on the fence about going because of school and work, but I ended up getting to go, and we had quite a fun weekend just relaxing while dad was in workshops and meetings. We barely left hotel property the entire time, and I must say, it was amazing to just not stress about the day to day stuff.

 How cool is it when your hotel has their own seals?

Mom was toying with her camera alot. She's getting really good!

 Shells on the beach hurt.

 View from the room.

 Jake's turn to get artsy!

 ....no comment.