Our little "Mowgli". Uncle Paul said she reminded him of Mowgli in this picture. I agree. I love it. She loves her dogs!



Elizabeth just turned 19 months. I can hardly believe it. We have had her with us for 8 1/2 months now. She is such a blessing to our family. I can't imagine our family without her! She is adding words to her vocabulary every week. It really has picked up in the past week. She held the cell phone (her favorite toy) to her ear on the way to the zoo and said "hello" plain as day. I heard a small voice say hello so clearly that I broke out in laughter. I couldn't believe it was her! She has said "hi" often... but never "hello". She also said "Uncle Paul". I showed her a picture of him and she just started saying Uncle Paul. A few minutes later, Uncle Paul called. (You gotta just love how God works!) I told her it was Uncle Paul on the phone and she got on the phone and said Uncle Paul. You should have heard him laugh. He loved it!!! Now you have to understand that Uncle Paul has worked it tail off trying to get her to give him some affection. She is so funny with him. One day she will just cling to me with all she has and the next, she will let him hold her. But usually, she has some reservation. Well... yesterday, we were at Mamaw's house. Uncle Paul came to see us. When he drove up, I told her that Uncle Paul was here. She dropped what she was doing and twirled her head around to see him. When he got out of his car, she litterally sprinted to him with her arms up in the air for him to hold her. It was so funny. She had to run probably 30 feet to get to him. Boy did she make Uncle Pauls day! The rest of the evening she flirted with him, giving him coy little smiles that melt your heart. It was very fun to watch her.

She also said "Mamaw" and "Pa" (for Papaw). She is definitely trying to repeat the things that we say. I expect that in a month or so, she will be repeating everything.

As for the adoption of our little one in El Salvador... we just recieved news of our family coordinator. She seems just as wonderful as Amy was. Her name is Christi. I look forward to working with her throughout the adoption. We have our first homestudy appointment set for the 8th of September. It seems so long from now, but I am reminded that it is God's timing, not mine. I think I will probably have to be reminded of that quite often. :)

Friday, the kids and I all got our TB tests done. We were to go back to the Health Department on Monday to have it read. The boys were going to an OSU practice with Mark Monday night, so I thought I would take all the kids to Columbus for the day and enjoy time together. I totally forgot about having to go get our arms checked for the TB test. I called the Health Department to see if I could just have a doctor read it in Columbus because we would not be home to have it read. They absolutely refused to allow me to do it. They insisted that they would accept noone reading it but the nurse who administered it. Ok... I must admit that I was one very mad woman! Sinfully mad. It took me a few hours to calm down, but by the grace of God, I did. I stopped our day in Columbus, gathered up all the kids and headed back home. Ugh... it's an hour drive...and at the price of gas... UGH!!!! I made it to the Health Department, we were called back, a DIFFERENT nurse checked all of our arms out. It took 5 seconds! Honest! We were done. Then I had to drop Erin off to practice and head back to Columbus for the boys to go to the practice with Mark. What a day!

The bright side is that I have our background checks, ohio fingerprinting done, Elizabeth's re-adoption/birthcertificate in process, our physicals done, marriage certificates, birth certificates, child abuse letters sent, financial information in the process of being prepared, copies of life insurance, car insurance, drivers license, passports done, and INS fingerprinting sent out. ... All before our first homestudy appointment. Yeah!

Please pray for our kids as they end their summer vacation and start back to school. Sam and Emily are really struggling with the thought of being back in school. I think it will be a tough year for both of them.