Here comes the bride....

  This weekend, my friend Marie got married in Imogen, Iowa and I was a bridesmaid. The wedding was beautiful. We had a great time and got to stay with David's Aunt and Uncle who live in Shenandoah.
  Eliza keeps growing and is now getting her second tooth in on the bottom. She has been hilarious lately, always hamming it up and getting into everything she knows she isn't supposed to.
  And finally we have good news on the house. We turned in our notice at the apartment for the end of the month. Meaning, we have to be out of here October 31st and into the new house. Dave has been working extremely hard(along with the help of Adam and many others..thanks guys) to make this happen. We need to remember to take the camera up there so we can post some pictures!

                                  The beautiful church in Imogene

                                                First Dance

                                     Our special gift to the bride

                   Dave danced with Eliza all night...she LOVED it!


                                       On an unrelated note........

                       "I love riding on my car. Thanks Grandma!"

Weekend in Atchison...in pictures

Eliza and I spent the weekend in Atchison, KS with Mom and Dad, to visit Joe, Karissa and Austin for "Family Weekend." (While Dave stayed back to work on the house of course) We had a wonderful time. It is always nice to be able to get the whole family together:) Here are some pics from the weekend. (Sorry Mom and Dad..I guess we didn't take any pictures of you. Whoops) Major bummer: Austin performed in a concert on Friday night and Eliza ended up being taken up on stage by a performer while they were singing a song dedicated to children. And guess what...I didn't have the camera! Uncle Austin and Eliza got to share the stage for the 1st time. Maybe next time I should be more prepared!

                                      Reading with Uncle Joe

                                         Grilling with the guys

                                 Trying to look as smart as Uncle Austin

                                     Having fun with Uncle Austin

                                    Being cute with Aunt Karissa

 

Unrelated picture from today. First, to show Eliza's new battle wound. She hit her head(Left upper eyebrow area)on the speaker while trying to grab an X-box controller. It's her favorite place to go I think mainly because I always tell her no when she heads that way. I felt soo bad! Poor thing. Secondly, she just looks so stinkin cute in the frog P.J.'s Grandma Edmondson bought her!

And away she goes.....

A lot has happened this past week! It's official. Eliza is finally crawling..and getting into EVERYTHING! And..her first tooth is finally coming through.Maybe now the amount of drool POURING out of her mouth will decrease? Haha.

As of Tuesday, Eliza is officially stuck with us...for good; even though she's been ours, in our opinion, since December 23rd. Now the state of Nebraska has made it legal.  I didn't really think it would make me feel any different but it did. It made me step back and remember how blessed we are. As we walked out of that courtroom, I looked at MY beautiful daughter and felt my heart bursting with joy..and a sense of peace and finality. She is ours and nobody can change that. God is good.

So yeah, there's been a lot of changes going on here. And HOPEFULLY more to come by the end of October..like moving into our house. If everything goes according to plan. But then again, it never really works out that way does it? Ha.

                                               A little Bath Time Fun

 

 This is how she watches Baby Einstein. Haha!

BEAUTIFUL BABY GIRL

 

 

                                                   Adoption Day!

One lucky little girl

  Today, we received a package from Christine (Eliza's birth mother) It was full of all kinds of great stuff.(Thought I would include a list of stuff just in case you can't make it all out in the photo:*you can click on the things that are underlined to see pictures of them* 3 large colorful cloth flowers, a flower covered sleeping bag, soft cuddly blanket, a pink rosary, monkey and wiener dog beanie babies, 2 decorative ABC block boxes, a crazy Seasame Street Shake, Giggle and Roll Ball, Penguin Bowling set, a little kid CD player, a picture made by Christine with Eliza's name on it/heart, 3 Baby Einstein DVD's, Dora the Explorer and Diego DVD, and her new favorite toy-a Kick and Play piano.)  Eliza was in heaven. How lucky is she to have a Mom and a Birth-Mom to spoil her rotten!
  It was soo good to finally hear from Christine as we hadn't since January. She is doing GREAT! She wrote us a very nice letter and also wrote a separate letter for Eliza. Hopefully this month we can get up to Omaha and meet up with her:)
 Nothing else too new and exciting here. Eliza is getting ready to crawl. I'm just waiting for her to take off any day now. Then, it will be trouble!

I don't know if she has enough stuff

Just being cute

Again, with the cuteness

"I am soooo big!"

She LOVES story-time!

To the nunnery with you!

We had our first family vacation this past week. We went to Alton, Il to see Sr. Chiara make her first profession. It was a great time! Dave headed back to Lincoln on Tuesday while Eliza and I stuck back with the rest of the family at Karissa's house in Atchison until Saturday when we moved Austin into school at Benedictine. We had some definite family bonding time! I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

                                                     Ready to Go!

                                    Finally Eliza meets her namesake!

                                                The whole Family

                                Blessed with an incredible friendship!

Eliza met a new friend; a little boy who was 1 week younger than her.  She wasn't very interested. She must have been thinking about how much she wants to join the convent:)

She doesn't seem happy about her pre-determined vocation. In our defense it does say "per God's will" beneath. You can't see it because the skirt is covering it.

                     Loving the pool with Grandma and Grandpa

                     We had a wonderful picnic at the lake in Atchison

       We were visited by ducks. I love this picture (courtesy of Joe)


I forgot to have Dave leave the stroller behind, so we picked up a cheap $5 stroller at the thrift store. Karissa said she could recover it, no problem. 3 hours later....Tada! She did a great job. It turned out SOO cute!

                          Future Benedictine student? Gotta love the hat!

Dropping off my baby brother at school. Wow I feel old, and a little bit sad. At least he has 3 wonderful women to worry about him!
 

Videos

A couple new videos. First..the back scoot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9pWfl-LRbc

Second, the new noise Eliza discovered. A little creepy and Exorcist sounding in my opinion, but still hilarious. (She does it the loudest right before the end of the video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnIGiCmCGy0

Life is Good

Sunday was Dave's Birthday. I got him the X-box game he has been wanting (a decision I've regretted since). And Eliza picked out a really cool gift for him too. As you can see, they both really enjoyed it.

                              Eliza's Wonderful pick for Dad

   Dad excitedly explaining the types of construction machines to Eliza

It was truly priceless watching them read this book together. Dave would name the machine and Eliza would look at the picture and laugh and smile. I think they have read it about 10 times already :) Of course, Dave had to point out that the book was titled incorrectly. It's called "Diggers" when apparently only 1 of the machines in the book actually digs. Haha. That's Dave for ya. But I must say, Eliza really knows what she's doing this early on by picking Dad a gift that SHE can enjoy too :)

A couple weeks ago, we went to our first county fair in Wahoo. There was a big (very LONG) parade before the fair. They threw out a lot of candy for the big kids. I wondered how Eliza would like it. But, as you can see, she could care less. She was too concerned about chewing on her book.

I decided to try a Baby Einstein video on YouTube to see what Eliza would think of it . She LOVED it! She laughed and kicked her legs at her favorite parts.  I think that I need to buy her a couple, but for now we'll just wach the free videos.

                                          Enjoying Baby Neptune

On Saturday, we leave for Alton, Illinois to attend Sr. Chiara's (Liz's) first profession. This will be our first FAMILY vacation with Miss Eliza and I cannot wait for Eliza to meet her namesake for the first time! I am sure I will have LOTS of pictures to post after the trip.

House Update: After weeks of battling with the contractor who poured the basement walls(he didn't want to redo them even though they needed it desperately....he decided to pour them in the 70 mph rainstorm) we are finally back on track! Now its just getting the floor done and then FINALLY time for framing. The whole ordeal put us 3 weeks behind schedule! Uhhhh!