Last Christmas Photos

Sharing a cookie with Santa
Santa is reading to Lennah

Mommy, Grandma, and Lennah

Uncle Billy, Daddy, Grandpa, and Lennah

Grandma, Grandpa (aka Big Ba), and Lennah

Mommy, Daddy, and Lennah

Today, I received that last of our Christmas photos we took. Since Lennah had her birthday to take and photos with Santa and her mommy and daddy we had to have two sittings. Here are some cute family photos and Lennah with Santa. I think Santa will be bringing her a whole lot this year to celebrate her first Christmas with her forever family. Enjoy. Oh! In case you haven't noticed I have become a picture junkie with Lennah. I do not want to forget any moments with her.

Happy First Birthday

Are these all my presents

My own personal cake yummy!!!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!!! Today was Lennah's first birthday. It is so hard to believe that our baby girl was one year old today. It was only a mere four months and nine days ago that we were able to hold our precious baby girl in our arms and now she is already one. We had a grand celebration in honor of Lennah's first birthday. Of course momma stayed up late last night cooking for the affair with Grandpa's help because Daddy was at work. Grandma packed the party favors. It was a little chaotic in the house last night but fortunately today everything went off without a hitch. Her party had a cute little princess themed birthday because she truly is our princess. We also had a beautiful cake and great home cooked food. It was also wonderful to have our family and friends gather for this event. We are truly blessed to have this little girl in our lives and to have so many people who love and care about this little girl. Of course being that our angel is growing up mommy and daddy had to pop in the video recordings today of the first day we met and to look back and see how much she has grown is truly amazing. You do not realize that your children change on a day to day basis. It is truly amazing to see how your child develops by a year old.

We also just recently had her first birthday photos done and her individual Christmas portraits so we have some beautiful new photos to share. Well, then again she did not smile in her birthday portraits but she still looked beautiful.

Thanksgiving

Ava and Lennah

Aunt Vicky and Grandma Smothering me with Kisses

What a Face ?

Mommy and Lennah

Daddy and Lennah

Lennah's Christmas Tree

Thanksgiving has came and went and this year we had a lot to be thankful for. Obviously, our greatest thanks is to God for blessing us with a beautiful and intelligent daughter. We were fortunate enough to have two Thanksgiving celebrations, one with Keith's Aunt and Uncle last weekend and one with my family on Thursday. Lennah enjoyed dinner with all her trimmings. I think she especially liked her sweet potatoes. We also had a busy week putting up the Christmas trees and all the decorations. Last year we purchased a new Christmas tree and we decided that our old one would become a childs tree in our family room. So this year we had the excitement of doing our traditional adult tree and Lennah's own personal Christmas tree. Lennah has enjoyed pulling ornanments off the tree so that is a battle we have not won yet. We have also talked to our homestudy agency and when they come out to complete our six month post placement report on Lennah we are also having our homestudy updated. So we can say that our official journey to baby Paulsen#2 will start on January 2, 2008 when that meeting takes place. From there we will go ahead and get our new application into CHI and then start our I-600 A. This weekend we also took Lennah to get her portraits with Santa, family Christmas pics, and her first birthday pictures done. Having to do all three at once was wallet busting but her photos came out beautiful and I cannot wait to have them in about a week and a half. Her first birthday party is this weekend so I will be busy in the kitchen getting all the prep done on Friday. It is hard to believe that she has been with us this long and that her birthday is here already. Well, here are some photos of our Thanksgivings.

Sorry

Sorry about the poll not being up and running yesterday like I thought it was. It should be fully functional now. Please feel free to take our poll and tell us what name you like best. Hopefully, it will help us decide between our three favorites.

P.S. In case you haven't noticed yes we do like the middle initial A. That is because Keith and I both have a middle name with A and we kind of think it could be a cute tradition.

Big Decisions

Well, I guess after much talk I guess we can announce to say that we are going to start proceeding with our second adoption. I had a conversation, with my good adoption friend Jamie, on Friday night and it made me realize that we need to start moving forward with our next adoption. She made me realize, that God will make it happen and the money for it will come. If he leads us we should follow. So I talked to Keith and he is ready, set, go. Adoption has touched our lives dramatically and we really can't wait to expand our family even more. After talking to Jamie, I also realized that God is calling us to Vietnam again. We kept looking into other programs and agencies but none seem to fit like Vietnam and CHI. So we are going to start moving forward to get a homestudy update (luckily ours is not that old so we do not have to start all over). I also talked with our CHI rep today and she said we can officially start moving on some paperwork but we just can't actually apply until January because we have to wait until 6 months from our last adoption. We also have decided to move forward to adopt a little girl again regardless of the wait. I know many may say that is crazy but financially it will give us a bit more time to get all our ducks in a row, I had always wanted a sister (not that I want to give up my brother), plus financially it was be less of a burden because of course we have an over abundance of girl stuff. So we will be starting a new blog after we decide on a name for the next little one. (WE NEED HELP ON THIS SO PLEASE VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE NAME.)

I feel like I missed out on so much because I did not start Lennah's blog until after her referral and I wish I would have the beginning steps more documents. I am not shutting down this blog because this is Lennah's and we need to keep her amazing story going and inform all of our friends, that we have made throughout our adoption journey, on how she is doing. SO PLEASE KEEP READING. In addition, we want each of our children to have something of their own. We hope everything goes as smoothly for this adoption as it did for our last. I know so many families have been upset with some recent problems with some Vietnamese adoptions but I truly feel that CHI is the best agency to be with. We also will be opening up to special needs this time around right from the start. Lennah was a waiting child and she is doing extremely well. Hopefully, this will help ease some of the extended wait times. I will keep everyone posted on how we are coming with this. To help also ease the financial burden I am going to work on cheesecake fundraisers. I used to sell cheesecakes a few years ago for extra income. (It is a special talent to make an awesome cheesecake) Anyway, we are hoping that some fundraising efforts will help us with Baby girl #2.

Well, after all my babbling here are some new pictures of Lennah. Hope everyone enjoys.

Happy 11 month Birthday

Well it has been pretty normal since our last post. Yesterday, we celebrated our first Halloween. Mommy and Daddy took that day off work to have family time and to take our angel trick or treating. She was a hit with the neighborhood since everyone thought she looked adorable in her minnie mouse costume. She was also lucky enough to get some treats that she can eat since some of the neighbors had mini bags of animal crackers.

Since the last post we have done some fun acitivities like going to fall festivals, going to a country western jamboree at church. I think a lot of these activities will be a lot more fun for her when she is a little bigger. It is so funny how I cannot wait for her to grow up for some experiences and at other times we want them to stay so little and cute. Either way, Keith and I enjoy every precious minute with her and we are so thankful that God has blessed us with her.

Not only have we been trying to find time to do family activities she is also learning faster. She now knows how to say cat and points to cats. She can't say it that great but it is definately the word cat.

Today Lennah also turned 11 months old. It is crazy to think that only a month from today is her first birthday. We are excited about out planning her big first birthday party and have decided to do a princess theme. Well that is all to report for now. The holidays are coming so I will be excited to update about her holidays. Enjoy the new photos.

Let's Get a Pumpkin

Feed Us
Lennah searching for a pumpkin

Our little Picasso

Swing Me Daddy

Happy Hayride

FrankenLennah

Yesterday was a great family day. Lennah, Keith, and I went to pick some pumpkins and attend a petting zoo. I was hoping that we would have visited a real pumpkin patch like we had back north but this was close enough to enjoy a fun filled family day. Lennah was a little freaked by all the animals surrounding her but she quickly got over it and enjoyed watching them crowd us for food. She also enjoyed playing on the swings and learning how to paint some mini-pumpkins. She was a real picasso. We even took a hayride which would have been more enjoyable if it was not 80 degrees. The guy at the entrance thought she was so cute that he gave her an extra mini pumpkin. The place where we went even had a baby kangaroo; that is something you do not see every day in Georgia.

Updates

Halloween Portraits
Bad Hair Day
Daddy and Lennah after Church

Can I go out to play?

Mommy and Lennah waiting to have our first post placement

Ba's big 30

Well, posts are few and far between since we have a baby but occassionally you find time to slip away and let everyone know how things are coming along. Well, for starters Lennah is officially walking like crazy. She doesn't want to crawl at all anymore. For the first 2 weeks or so we would count how many steps she took in a row before she plopped down but now she is full blown walking to where we no longer count. For Keith's birthday we had our 3 month post placement report. Everything went exceptionally well and she was so impressed that Lennah is so advanced. I guess that is an exciting way to spend your 30th birthday. We also had some scary news this week. Lennah went for a well check up visit to catch up on shots and it turns out she has a heart murmur. They are really common in babies but to be safe the pediatrician sent us to a cardiologist right away. Well, the type she has will not go away but it is one that very rarely causes problems. We have had some other developmental milestones; Lennah can now blow a kiss and can clap hands. At first she followed us when we were clapping hands now she can do it if we just tell her. I am just more amazed by how smart she is. The doctor said she is doing awesome and that his own daughters could not do the same things at her age. I know I am bragging but you have to be a proud parent when you wait so long for it to happen. We also went to a meeting for adoptive families last friday night with our friends whose little boy is from China. That was the night Lennah gave me a real work out. She had me chasing her all over. Once they start walking they go at 500 miles per hour. Lennah was actually really cute because she kept trying to kiss and hug the other babies. We also had Lennah's Fall pictures done in her Halloween costume. I spent way too much shopping in the Disney store so I thought some Halloween photos would be cute to get at least two uses out of it. That is all for now enjoy our new photos.