2 years ago today

Lily was placed in our arms. At that point she was a frightened little girl who cried whenever we put her down and could walk, but barely. She had never heard a word of English and was scared of anything new.

Here is our post from that day.

Now I look at her and am absolutely amazed at what I see - she is a confident, sweet, funny, outgoing little girl who puts a smile on the face of everyone in a room. She is also VERY strong willed and tough - she knows what she wants and can hold her own with her big brothers. She is a total chatterbox and its often hard for her brothers to get a word in.

Lily - we love you so much. We loved you the minute you were placed in our arms and that love has grown exponentially since that time. I can't imagine our family without you. You bring us so much joy. You are everything we hoped you would be and we feel so blessed to have her you our family. I can't believe it was already two years ago, but I also can't believe you've only been with us two years. We look forward to many more years of celebrating this day that you became a part of our family.

In two short years, Lily has grown from this







To this









What a difference!

Black & White Wednesday

This seems to be about the only thing I can manage to post on my blog - I think b/c its easy since I am doign my project 365 and I can usually use one of those images! I'm playing along with B&W Wednesday again.



Lily loves puddles and loves to jump in them. Yesterday, I had my camera while we went to pick Ben up from school and I manage to catch some great images of her jumping in a small puddle near where we parked. This was my favorite. I converted it to black and white as it made the cars and houses in the background a little less distracting.



Happy Wednesday everyone!

Happy Referral Day!

Two years ago today, we received "the call" and saw Lily's face for the first time. I remember the excitement so clearly. I instantly fell in love, but had so many questions. The strongest feeling was that now that I knew what she looked like, I just couldn't wait to hold my daughter in my arms! Lily is everything I dreamed she would be - sweet, sassy, thoughtful, intelligent, loving, and just so funny. She loves to laugh and to make other people laugh. Everywhere we go (almost) she makes people smile. I will write a more thorough update sometime soon.

I know I have been neglecting this blog terribly. I took on this project 365 and it has been taking up a lot of my time. On top of that, the kids are going to bed just a little bit later and that is taking a lot of my energy! I would like to write an update on all the kids and will try to do that in the next month or so.

Everyone is doing great. We are working on the plans for our new home and the first round was rejected by our city's historical committee. This was a big disappointment, but not unreasonable. We are making some changes and resubmitting for next month.

B&W Wednesday

Last week Dylan let me do a very quick photo shoot in exchange for some kind of bribery. I used my favorite shot for my project 365 (see it here). However, I didn't really do much with any of the others, so I figured I'd try it in black and white.

Here is the original SOOC. I can't get enough of that toothless smile. He has had it for a LONG time - he lost his first top tooth last April and the second in June! Since then he has lost 2 more teeth that have already grown back in!



Here is the conversion.


I like how the b&w brings out the texture of his sweatshirt and the different stitches in the duvet.

Click here to see more great B&Ws.

Black and White Wednesday

I have been lazy about updating my blog lately. What little time I have is spent working on my project 365 pictures. You can check out my project 365 here.

For black and white Wednesday, I am using a picture that I converted to B&W for my project 365. I love Lily's expression in this photo, but in color it just didn't work right. With the B&W conversion, I think it turned into an amazing image - the light hitting her hair and side of her face look almost angelic.

Here is the original image. Kind of blah.


Here is the B&W.


You can check out more fantastic black and whites here.

Black and White Wednesday

I'm joining in on a new thing started by Lisa to work on B&W processing. Each Wednesday (that I remember) I will post a black and white picture (or two). As I'm doing a project 365 (you can see it here), I should be able to manage to keep up with this!

Yesterday, I finally managed to get the kids together in a room with some decent light and take some pictures of them!


I got a similar with all 3 kids, but for some reason it just didn't look good in B&W. Check it out on my Flickr page.

Wordless Wednesday