Summer Days: Annika

We have a brand new niece named Annika. She is precious and her arrival was anything but ordinary. She was born on July 4th, and became part of our family two days later. Her birth mother selflessly chose to give her up for adoption after the passing of her husband and some other sad personal circumstances. She placed her with the agency and left it up to them to determine who would be the best parents for her. And so my sweet and deserving sister Jill got a precious new baby.
Sounds simple right? With all the horrible adoption stories floating around out there, this one certainly seems to be a miracle. And there is no arguing that it was anything less. However, the several months leading up to this happy ending were the complete opposite. Two different potential adoptions and families that selected Jill and Steven to be their parents, and twice there was a heartbreaking turn of events. My sister shares more details of everything that occurred on her blog  if you are interested. But for me it suffices to say that it was a long spring for our family, and without the little mercy arrival of Annika, we would still be recovering from the drama. I don't usually get churchy on my blog, and those who know me well will attest that it is a rare occurrence that I publicly advertise my beliefs... but this experience helped confirm my faith in an all knowing God above who truly does know us and bless us with the things we need in the season we need them. Miracles can happen in life, I really do believe in that. And our sweet little Annika will always be one of ours. Welcome to the family little lady!

Summer days: July 4th party

We are usually already gone on our Canadian summer holiday during the 4th of July. But this year we decided to travel north a few weeks later, leaving us home the celebrate Independence Day. And so we decided to have a party out in Katy. We rented a jump house, swam in the pool, and ate BBQ with some of our Texas friends. It was a blast, and despite a gross but definitely memorable "poop in the hot-tub" incident, everyone had a fun day. Here are our pictures.

Sweet Benjamin helping Wheelie out in the jump house.

Feeding the fish in the pond

Summer days: Visitors from Amarillo.

Matt's sister Courtney and her family came to Houston for a visit the end of June. They are seriously the busiest/ most efficient vacationers I have ever seen, and can cram a million places and activities into a short week of vacation. It is very impressive, but there is no way to keep up with them... and so other than a trip to the children's museum and the zoo we were content to spend time with them between activities in the mornings or playing in the backyard.

This is Wheeler's new "move" that we call the steam-roller. He lays back on his victim and steam rolls over top of them until they either drop the toy he wants or scream for his mercy. Poor little Daphne was a reoccurring recipient. 

Summer days: Hot hot Houston.

The state of Texas has been in a drought for the past 222 days. Coupled with record setting 100+ degree consecutive days here in Houston, saying that it has been a brutally hot summer is a horrible understatement. Thank goodness for the swimming pool, close-by splash parks, and back yard sprinklers, without which our entire summer at home would have been spent indoors.

We gave Wheels a summer hair cut. As soon as we shaved off all of his hair our sweet baby seemed to transform into a mischevious little troublemaker, and we are convinced the hoodlum haircut is to blame. (Murphy got a summer haircut too!)

Before

After.

I guess the trouble-making started prior to the haircut...

Summer days: Preface.

Get ready for the big blog catch up! The past few months have had so many blog worthy moments that I just can't bring myself to do one big summer mash-up and move on to our current update. It might take a few weeks, but please indulge me as I jump back a few months and recap our extraordinary summer!