Maggie: can we please get a pet? I am so tired of all the humans in this family.

Tonight I was reading "I Love You Forever" to Ike. Shep was looking on and kept teasing me, "you're gonna cry...you're gonna cry." I got thru the whole book without crying - HA - but when it got to the part where he goes to his mom's house and picks her up and begins to rock her, guess which 9 year old tough guy BURST INTO AN UGLY CRY?? HA!!

At swim. Bethie really loved her teacher, then had a sub for 2 weeks. First week, we just had to leave. Skipped last week. Now we are here and teacher is back and she is freaking out. Sobbing. The move has messed her up so much. Change has always meant loss to her. Hurting my heart. :(

Shep: Mom, was I circosated when I was a baby?
Me: {Blank look}
Shep: You know, my nuts cut and stuff.
Me: {awkward pause, wondering how on earth this would have come into conversation among third graders} {me, breathing a sigh of relief}
Me: Oh, you've been reading your Bible, huh?
Shep: Yes! Moses was circosated when he was NINETY!
Me: Yeah. You were one day old. Better.
Shep: Way better.

As I rolled on top of Walker Dollahon and he groaned:
Me: Just think how hard it would be to move my body if you killed me.
Walker: Yeah, the ego alone.

Email from Mimi:

I enjoyed myself, too! Bethie is really easy to bond with - she has such an open personality! Heaps of praise for you and Walker ~ in a different home and with a different set of parents, I am certain she would not have adapted so well so rapidly! Having those little fingers touch my face lightly each morning after Eva Rose lifted her from the crib was the sweetest thing. I would always ask, "Did you have a good sleep?" and she would nod and beam at me.

Walker's mom has been staying with us a couple of days, helping to watch Bethie while I pack. The concensus: "She seems better adjusted than, you know, most of the other grandkids" and "I think she is upping the Dollahon IQ pool." #Bethieforthewin

Walker: Shep, you may not say "Don't be a homo". That is rude and disrespectful and unacceptable.
Shep and Eva Rose: He said "Don't be a hobo."
Walker: Oh. Well. Um. Don't say that either.
Shep and Eva Rose: What's a homo?
Walker: Just...don't say either one of them.

Every day this little girl blossoms before my eyes. Every single day she's funnier, sweeter, smarter, sillier than the day before. I knew she would change but - wow. It's simply overwhelming.

Merry Lynn Guy How do you feel you have blossomed and changed in the same amount of time Missy?

May 3, 2013 at 8:27pm · Like

Missy Hooks Dollahon Merry Lynn Guy Hm. I dunno. I'll have to think on that one. I think the most amazing thing to me is what a privilege it is to witness how powerful love is. All we're doing is LOVING her. That's all. There is zero magic to it. It's just awe-inspiring how much it has enabled her to become her full, brilliant self. It makes me understand how much we change and grow and blossom and transform thru the love of Christ. And how much more I am enabled to continue to transform, because the love and power of Christ is so much more than the love that we have for Bethie.

I want to glow like Bethie is glowing. I want that love to shine through me like it is shining through her.

May 3, 2013 at 8:44pm · Like · 5

Joy Primm Love this pic! First time I've seen her face lit up like that. So beautiful and wonderful to hear.

May 3, 2013 at 8:52pm · Unlike · 1

Missy Hooks Dollahon She just giggled all day long today. One twelve hour long giggle.

20 year old checkout girl at HEB: "When I get older, I don't even want to have kids, I just want to adopt a baby girl from Africa...and name her Beyonce. And she will be fierce."

Bethie riding the Zilker Park choo choo. She is an official Austinite now!

Me: (talking about how irresitable I was to Walker) "Guys like girls who are funny." Eva Rose: "Something tells me I'm gonna have a LOT of guys like me."

I remember when ike was born thinking 'It must be nice to have 5 people dote on you and tell you how adorable you are from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed.' 

Now Bethie has SIX people giving her the same treatment. 

Well, okay, 5 and a half. Ike's still not 100% smitten.

Getting Maggie's hair cut and the hairdresser asked (nicely) if Bethie was adopted. Maggie answered, 'Of course she's adopted! Do you think a brown baby came out of my mommy's tummy? What are you, kwazy?'

A friend came over today when Bethie's hair was VERY NAPPY and she only had a diaper on. I am resolved to have the first white trash black baby.

Maggie, reading out the car window: Mommy, what does a body shop sell?

new house

gameroom upstairs



girls rooms on left, boys on right

boys room on the left, guest room on the right

boys' room - it's HUGE



 

one of the girls' rooms -

Jack-n-jill girls' bathroom

other girls' room - little window in closet

 Grandma room :)

 

 

 Family room

kitchen - huge breakfast bar

white appliances :(

 

pantry is almost as big as old house





study, to right as you enter

(they had the mother in law in here)

 

dining room (on left as you enter)

 laundry room

guest bath

 

 my closet