Luau

Last night we had a Luau at our house with our Bible Study group. Wow, did we have a blast! Brent won the "best dressed" award, while Brett won the "put the most marshmallows in your mouth while saying the Hawaiian state fish--humu humu nuku nuku apa'a" and Jess won the best spam sculpture contest. We celebrated recent birthdays with my favorite birthday rap, too. Can you believe we even figured out we will be studying Ephesians this semester then a marriage topical study? Also, had to put a pic of Elli helping me decorate. She found these flowers on her own, then started singing while making her doll dance...hilarious! Anyways, we had so much fun last night with our fun group of friends! But we miss you, Jeremy and Karen!

Elli with her Buddies

Maggie took some great pics this summer and had to post a few! Elli loves her friends:) How she has grown this summer!

Grace's Farewell Party

Elli's friend, Grace (Griffin and NOrah's cousin), is heading back to Minnesota so we had a farewell princess party for her. Elli and Grace played a lot together, and she will be greatly missed! Bye bye sweet princess!

Our Sweet Boy is Growing Up!

Today we received an update about Vikram! I am teary-eyed as I write this because he is saying "mama" (along with other words)...if he only knew how much his mama wants to hold him now, and how much she loves him! The orphanage said he is doing "very well" and already weighs a whopping 19 lbs (at 9 months)! Thank you Jesus! He is "crawling all over the place" and walking holding onto the rails of his crib. How we want to get on a plane right now and not miss out on any more of these milestones!!

Swimming with Landon

Yesterday we had a very fun day with Landon and Leann swimming at our gym pool. Landon is quite the swimmer and encouraged Elli in her swimming skills as well (she has been taking lessons the last 2 weeks to get over the fear of water). What a great day! Thanks, Leann, for these pics.

Elli's Ergo

Elli has her own Ergo (baby carrier) now. She actually loves to put baby in the carrier in front, like she was carried for so long, and kiss her and walk around and multitask. She is already such a great mommy to her baby. Also, she loves to squat when I take a picture of her...silly!

Colorado!!!!

Can we say, "Fun times with Family?!" To top off our month o' travels, we enjoyed time with family in the mountains. We had a blast hiking, celebrating Mike's b-day, celebrating July 4th, enjoying a children's museum and playing and playing! Elli was in heaven with her older cousins, Bethany and Abby. They spent every moment entertaining her and she had a pasted smile the whole week (not to mention the fun she had with Grandma and Grandpa). By the end of the week, she would wake up saying, "Bethny? Papa? Mama (grandma)?" My favorite time was one night we decided to change the rules for a card game and we had 10 seconds to pick our cards from 4 decks. All of our choices were surprisingly awful, so we laughed and laughed until I almost threw up and others needed Depends. It was one great week!