We Want to Introduce #3..........

We had an ultrasound three weeks ago and everything looks great! We are so excited the Lord has blessed us with another precious gift!

As of tomorrow I am 14 weeks! Praise the Lord!

We do ask for continued prayer for the health of the baby and for me some energy. Just knowing this is our last tri at language school so we will be pushing hard and then just all the extra walking and having two kids and a husband on top of that is pretty exhausting! But with the Lord's strength we can do anything.

I know some people are very nervous of us having the baby overseas and I know that complications can happen at anytime. We are just trusting the Lord and knowing that this child is His!

Isn't this picture wild? You can see all the little fingers and everything. Every time you have an ultrasound they do 4D and 3D for no extra charge. That is definitely different from the states! This ultrasound lasted around 30 minutes on 4D. It was so neat!

We praise you Lord and give you all the glory for this precious gift!

We do ask for you prayers during this time!

Some Love in Little Places........

This is one of the kids favorite things to do. Cooper does have his own "big" pool but he chooses to go in with Avery. Avery just doesn't care. As long as she is in the water she doesn't really notice who is around.....

Well, until Cooper squirts her or pours a cup of water over her head. She just blinks a little bit and then keeps playing. But when Avery splashes Cooper while she is hitting the water he freaks out. Literally, he starts screaming. He doesn't like the water to touch anywhere on his face or head.

They really are starting to enjoy playing together. It is so sweet to see them interacting with each other.

You can never get both of them to smile at you at the same time. So here is Cooper smiling somewhat at the camera.........

......... then Avery smiling at the camera.

I just love seeing them having so much fun and TOGETHER at that!

Easter Fun......

Well Easter was very different this year! Here in Costa Rica they don't celebrate Easter the same. You won't find any baskets or candy or dye for the eggs. They close everything down on Good Friday but that is about it. Cooper was so excited to finally get to use the dye that Nana and Papaw sent him.

Isn't the green one looking pretty? He was so good and patient. He actually wanted them to stay in there for a while. I was very surprised.

This one was one of his favorites! He is such a cutie pie!

Then Sunday for lunch a few couples and us got together and had like a potluck to make it feel a little bit more like home. Knowing we always ate with family on Easter. Also, Lilian's grandparents came to visit and brought some plastic eggs so the kids were able to have an Easter egg hunt. Cooper was so excited and yes that is a purse he is holding. 

Avery loved getting to hold as many eggs as possible.

This is one of the only pictures I could get with her looking at me. Too bad she can't also smile!

Hey look, we both found two eggs each.

Here are the three amigas on the street. Avery, Lilian and Hannah! 

I know it is a little blurry, but hey she is smiling in it.

Alright, remember the girls only having two eggs a piece? Well here is the winner of the egg hunt!!!!!! Cooper really got into it and understand more this year than ever expected. He sure missed all his cousins and uncles to race him to find all the eggs.

Thank you Nana for the easter egg dye and for our cute outfits. We will have to put them back on again for some pictures together though. Now that Avery can walk she sure doesn't stop much for any pictures. She is constantly on the move. But we will try it again!

Hope everyone had a great Easter!

Avery Is Now Introduced!

Alright, I know I am behind on blogging and also doing it a little backwards. Her actual birthday was the day before her party so we let her have a little piece of cake since that is what they do back in the states! They don't do that here so we just had a little celebration her at home on the actual day of her birthday!

She wasn't real sure what to think about the cake at first. The cake here is very different though. Darin doesn't like it at all. He says the icing is fake! 

Cooper tried helping and showing her how she needed to eat it. Cooper doesn't think the cake taste different at all. Cake is cake to him! He loves anything as long as there is sugar in it!

Avery started enjoying a little more and we even got to skype with her Baga (my mom) and her GG (great grandmother/my grandma), so they were so thrilled to watch her. Avery also liked them cheering her on! I was so happy the Lord blessed GG with another year to see Avery's first birthday and pray for many more!

After Cooper gave one bite she was ready for more!

And then again, she loves the praise coming from the computer! She won't know what to think when she actually sees them and sees that they are real people. Not just faces on our computer!

You just got to love that face!

Happy First Birthday Avery!

I know there is no stopping this girl now that she has been introduced to the rest of the family's weakness...........SWEETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Avery!

Avery was just as sad about turning one as I was about her getting older.

Once she realized she was going to school she cheered up some! Just ignore the snot bubble under her nose and it is a cute picture!

Saturday we had her party at McDonald's. There were around 15 kids and even more adults. We had such a good turn out and such a good time.

Avery didn't really care about the party stuff. She just wanted to throw down some french fries. Just like her mommy!

We were so excited that Avery's teacher, Sonia, could come and celebrate with us. She calls herself Avery's Costa Rican grandmother. I think Avery believes she really is. She has to tiptoe out of the class to use the restroom and when Avery notices she starts crying for her. So we pray for Sonia's health everyday so Avery will be happy at school!

I am not sure why I let Darin pick what pictures he wanted to be on here. Thanks Dear!

Avery looked so cute in her little onesie with the #1 on it and her big pink tutu!

This is little Lilian that is in Avery's class and also lives right next to us. These girls get so excited when they see each other. It is so cute! They also were are neighbors in Richmond so they have known each other since August. If we could only take Lilian to Mexico with us!

Avery wasn't very sure what to think about everybody singing to her!

But, brother helped her out and blew the candle out for her.

Cooper picked the Dora theme out for her. It was amazing how McDonald's took care of everything.

Cooper had a great time since some of his friends got to come and join in on the fun as well!

They also did face painting. Didn't they do a great job on Emily!

What a cute couple! Superman with Butterfly!

All the kids loved getting all the candy from the pinata!

You would think Cooper would be pretty tough hitting it, but he gets shy and embarrassed and hardly even taps it. If we were at home he would have been going crazy!

Avery loved feeling her and even gave her a kiss. It was so cute! Darin still hasn't learn how to hold a little girl when she has a skirt on!!!!!!!!!

They didn't stop at face painting, or pinata hitting.......they also made balloons for them.

Of course Cooper had to pick the sword!

We had such a great time. It is just so hard to believe our baby girl is already a year old.

We love you Avery Makena, Happy 1st Birthday!

Avery's 1st Birthday

Our little girl is turning one on March 20th and we thought it would be nice for everyone to look back to see how this beautiful blessing from the Lord has grown over the past year! 

 

We appreciate all your prayers for her and Cooper! 

Happy Birthday Avery! We Love You!

Note: Be sure to hit pause on the other blog music, which can be found down on the left side of the blog.

No more buses please.............

Well we finally made it home after a very interesting trip. We left around noon and got to the border around 7:30. After I accidentally slammed Cooper into the toilet from the bus going back and forth and him peeing who knows where. Then I got sick after he used the bathroom and then come to find out Avery also gets motion sickness. Poor thing got sick twice on the way there. But as we were trying to get through the border the power went out. So it was very dark and the kids were worn out. A lady then came out to announce that since the power was out we would have to wait for the bus to come back around 10 pm and that we could sleep there. I thought this could be interesting. So alright Lord, we really need your help. We all (well the five white people) immediately starting praying and about 40 minutes later the power came back on and we were able to make it through. We finally arrived to our hotel around midnight. The kids were so worn out but really did great. We could feel all the prayers going out for them.

We were in the city so there wasn't much to do with the kiddos. We did got to a "natural pool" which is natural because they are pumping the river water into the pool. When I saw the worm going by I just couldn't get the word "parasite" out of my head! So it was pretty interesting. We did get to eat at T.G.I.Friday's twice though. It was so nice to have REAL hamburgers that are thicker than a piece of paper! It was so different to actually bite into it and have some kind of juice coming out of it. My mouth is watering now!

So we find out while we are there that the bus tickets that we have to get back doesn't really have a station here. That on Sunday we would have to wait on the side of the road at 5am and hope that it stops for us. So we ended up buying yet another ticket with another bus line. That was not as nice as the first bus. The first one had a bathroom, tv and AC. This one had none of those. It also only stopped twice, but thankfully we didn't even have to use the empty bottle for Cooper that we had ready, just in case. Well Avery was doing so good on her motion sickness until the last 20 minutes of the ride and she just couldn't hold it in any longer. Darin tried so hard of getting it all cleaned up. He wiped it and then poured baby powder all over the floor where it hit.

We are back home and glad to be back at school. Well everyone but Cooper. He cried not wanting to go back, that he wanted to go to class with Mommy. Being with us for five days 24/7 was pretty hard on Avery and Cooper. That didn't want that part to end. 

But thank you all for your prayers. We really do appreciate them all so much!