that's what happens when we wake up with nothing to do

two things have been the topic of conversation around here recently:  finding a time to travel to my grandmother's house for a visit and josh's craving for williamson brothers barbeque.  so when we woke up this past saturday with no schedule, no sessions, no plans - nothing! - we made an impromptu decision to kill two birds with one stone.  we headed to the booming metropolis of eastaboga as well as had a delish all-you-can-eat meal at williamson brothers - just outside of atlanta.

yes, it's true...we drove to georgia for lunch.  we don't ever do stuff like that, and it was such a fun memory (despite my pitiful attempts at a full-fam photo)!!




clearly micah's got a lot to learn about having a photographer momma.  he thought our cute photo op was time for a round of "head, shoulders, knees, and toes"...with the emphasis on head.





some of the damage (josh is a pro at this)...



and the day wouldn't be complete without a picture of my sweet meme...



and my sweet tootles on our way home.

appropriately titled...

we've been home with micah for one week now, and as i sat down to write a quick blurb about our first seven days together as a family of six, i came up with way more blog titles than i did blog content.

in the throws of our giardia infestation, the award for the most appropriately-titled post went to:
welcome to crazyville!  i'm allison, and i'll be your guide today.  but thankfully that title no longer seems fitting as the meds have kicked in, the colons have settled, and peace has been restored to our home.  the new first-week title should now be something along the lines of this:  from crazyville to the place of contentment - it's a beautiful drive.

all in all, bringing micah home this week has ushered in a wonderfully fun and exciting time of transition for our family.  have there been bumps and bruises?  yes, absolutely there have, and i would never want to give an impression otherwise.  adoption is in no way a cakewalk and just because we're past the "getting him home" phase of this journey doesn't mean that we're past any and all tough times.  but my little non-blog-readers of today will be the big and knowledgeable readers of tomorrow, so i always try to ensure that i don't write anything that might be hurtful or difficult for them (adopted or otherwise) as teenagers or adults. 

so with that said, here are a few of the highlights that stand out the most from our first week together:

• giardia is no joke, people.  no joke.  (that's probably a lowlight rather than a highlight)
• micah absolutely knows who his family is - especially his momma.  *grin*  he'll search me out in a room and crawl as fast as his chunky knees can carry him into my arms.  
• his siblings adore him.  they adore him so much, in fact, that we're now having to do additional heart training on turn-taking and sharing.  
• the nights are either fantastic - or they're looong.  he's slept 11-12 hours straight half the nights home, and he's been awake and upset for some two-hour chunks the other half.  
• jet lag was nothing this trip.  apparently not sleeping most of the time you're in a foreign country helps to keep you from ever settling into the different time zone.  
• with the exception of the parasite, micah got an incredibly clean bill of health from the pediatrician.  after the doc's encouraging comments, we're even more thankful to the staff at acacia village for the effort they put into providing a loving, safe, and healthy environment for our children before they come home.
• micah LOVES to swing.
• he's not such a fan of baths.
• the dreaded first experience with a carseat has been a complete non-issue.  thankful for that!
• we've been so greatly loved on by friends and family during this process.  from the amazing aunt bethany and grandpam who split lewis-child duty on BOTH of our ethiopia trips to the constant stream of amazing dinners we've had pouring in each night, we've been well cared for, and we're so, so thankful for the help and support during this transition.

i'm sure there's so much more that i could write about now, but today's daddyday and my four little people are up from their naps, so i'm out.  adios!

daddyday is still alive

i can't believe how long it's been since i did a daddyday post.  as a matter of fact, half of you reading this blog -- that would make three -- probably don't even know what daddyday is.  (you can click here for a brief history.)  i'll be tied up with sessions for a good bit of tomorrow, so i'm not really sure what the plan is for the rest of the lewis crew.  i would imagine it will have lots of "horseback riding"...

...probably some fine literature reading...

...and maybe even some "creative resting".

happy daddyday to you all!

DaddyDay At Its Finest

Izzy's special "say cheese" face has made a reappearance (click to make the photo larger).

If seminary doesn't pan out for Josh, there's always a career as "The Incredible Balloon Man".

DaddyDay's Not Over Yet

As you saw here, the first part of DaddyDay was a bit of a gamble, but I think it really paid off (minus the hiney incident). When it was time to leave the art museum, we didn't want the fun to end. But before we could move on for another fun adventure, we needed to take care of feeding the vultures circling overhead (actually, they were strapped into their car seats, but they were ravenous nonetheless).

Since Josh no longer works in downtown Birmingham, we're a little out of the loop as to what's around there these days. So we ended up heading over to Qdoba, which is where we used to meet Josh for lunch when he was working 12-14 hour days at Enterprise. (The main purpose of our lunch dates back then was so the kids could remember what their Daddy looked like. Of course I'm just kidding...sort of.)

The girls sat quietly (albeit goofy-acting at times) and ate their quesadillas...


...while Jack spent 30 seconds of every four minutes squealing like a school-girl. Because what I didn't mention is that Qdoba is located directly across the street from the UAB emergency room, so ambulances came through every few minutes with the full lights and sirens going. He was nothing short of giddy with excitement!


While we were downtown, we decided to jump on over to the McWane Center for some more fun and learning. No trip to the McWane Center would be complete without stopping by the gigantic "ball maze" just inside the entrance to the museum. Our kids could stay there for hours watching the balls move around inside the intricate contraption.


Some sweet ladies were standing behind me telling me how cute our little ones are. I thanked them and told them we were so proud of them.

Then Jack did this:


That's right, ladies. I said proud.

The kids found lots of fun things to do...


...but it wasn't until we were about to leave that we stumbled upon one of their old favorites....THE WALKING PIANO!


Then it was on to the World's Largest Lite-Brite.


Izzy still had a lot of spunk in her, but Jack started to fade.



But as soon as he saw some kids "playing drums", he perked back up and was ready to play himself. I don't know if he enjoyed it quite as much as he thought he would, though. After all, waving your hand around aimlessly in the air isn't nearly as much fun as actually banging on a drum set (although getting tossed around in Daddy's arms can't be beat)!


After playing the air-drums for awhile, we took it back to the house for naptime. While the littlest two were sleeping, Abby helped me make Josh a cake for Father's Day.


We were doing really well until the spatula handle came off (and left the rest of the spatula inside the cake!)


We fished the spatula out of the cake (and licked it clean, of course!), and then we filled the baby pool up for some pre-dinner splashing fun.


When the nappers woke up, they hopped right in, but the water was a bit colder than Isabel had expected, so she hopped right back out.


Instead, she opted for intermittent waving at Daddy as he mowed the grass and crashing on the deck for a little rest.


DaddyDays are always fun, but as you can see from the truckload of pictures, we had an extra-special DaddyDay this weekend. And the icing on the cake (the figurative one...not the one we made Josh) was...

The whole day only cost us $18 (and that was for a five-person lunch at Qdoba...we had coupons). Man, that makes me happy!! (And so does this picture of Izzy's gorgeous eyes.)


Oh, and I have one more little piece of business to tend to. Good morning Hayley, Hannah, Hillary, and Holly. :-)

We're Either Really Brave...or We've Lost Our Minds

Since this past weekend was Father's Day, I had wrapped up my photography sessions earlier in the week so that I could spend the whole weekend with Josh and the little ones. Before I give you the rundown on our fantastic DaddyDay, here are some of my favorite shots from my most recent session. We've gone to church with this family for years now, and the dad and I play in the worship band together (although, as you can tell from his rocker hair, he's got more musical rock-chops than I could ever hope to have!) I love sitting back and watching this couple because they're really turning their lives over to God and trusting Him to lead them through a lot right now. There's always a smile on their faces!

I first got to photograph these little men back in the fall, but since they had each had birthdays recently, we headed back out for another session to document their new year.


The older of the boys might be a model in the making. I love these shots, and the best part is that I didn't pose a one of them. I just followed him around, and it seemed like he just knew what what to do!


Then look at this little guy...couldn't you just eat him up?!?


But probably my favorite shot of the day is this next one. It may be a bit unconventional for a birthday picture, but my goal in photography is to tell a story...to capture a memory, and I think this photo does just that. As I was watching them sit on the rocks in front of me, I thought to myself that this exact same shot on their next birthday will look drastically different. And in a shot of kids' faces, you often miss some of the little details like this. So out went the faces, and you've just got their sweet little four- and one-year-old legs!


As I looked back on what I just wrote, I realized this post has the potential to be crazy-long, so I'm going to break our DaddyDay post down a little. One of the best parts of the day came first, so I'll start with what I refer to as our possible serious lapse in judgment.

Josh had mentioned a few weeks ago that he would like to take Abby to this certain place. We agreed that she would really enjoy it...but we never did anything about it. So I popped out of bed Saturday morning, dashed downstairs to make our traditional DaddyDay cinnamon rolls, and announced after breakfast that I thought we should all go there.

So where did we take our three children ages four and under?


Several factors went into deciding to brave the art museum with our little ones...not the least of which was this (and it got worse as the day went on):

(Thanks, Anna, for the "here's how hot it is outside today" picture idea)

I took care of some pressing and necessary business as soon as we walked into the museum (getting a photographer's pass), and then we were off. Realistically, we were only planning on staying for 30 or 45 minutes. After all, how long was Izzy really going to ride in her stroller and look at expensive finger-paintings hanging on the walls? But we were pleasantly surprised to find that they had opened up an interactive children's section in the museum that taught all about Native American culture. BINGO!!

Five minutes into the museum trip, and the kids were making their own clay pots...


...learning about the instruments that the Native Americans used to play...


...and taking a hand-carved wooden boat ride!!


We were Mommy and Daddy-of-the-Year! Then it was time to head over to the "grown-up" part of the museum. We reminded the kids of what we had talked about in the car on the way over (quiet voice, no touching, no trying to throw balls at the statues in an effort to play catch...things like that).

For the most part, the little two were wonderful, and they hung in there while we scooted around the museum. And as we expected, Abby was in awe!


If she asked one question, she asked ten-thousand. She wanted to know what each painting was about, who painted it, and why they painted it. I probably could have taken the little ones home for a nap and come back a few hours later to get Abby and Josh.


One of our favorite paintings was the one at the end of the hallway that Abby was walking through in a photo above. Josh and I could remember visiting the museum when we were dating in college and enjoying this incredible painting.


We thought we had lost Abby at one point when she blended right in with some clay pots she was sitting by.


When the little ones started getting antsy, we moved the party outdoors and into the water and sculpture gardens. (I had obviously dressed for the inside portion only...it was miserably hot!)


But the kids cooled off by splashing in the reflective pool (no one in black pants and a maroon coat came running after us, so we assumed it was OK)!


From the somewhat cooler, almost totally shaded water area, we moved over to the sculpture garden (which is located in a barren, gravel-filled sun-absorption pit) to admire the, um, statues?


Jack, in typical all-boy form, was running around like a crazy person outside. When I turned around to see this next shot, I was praying that I was just hallucinating from the heat.

No such luck.

Jack really did do this, and I just happened to have the camera on and ready to grab the shot (and for the record, it was a reflex...I don't claim to have actually chosen to get a photo of this)!


I found myself caught in this no-man's-land of absolutely horrified but wanting to laugh hysterically at the same time. When I looked around and saw that no one else witnessed Jack's indiscretion, I gave in to the laughter. Actually, I really tried not to react because I certainly didn't want to encourage the behavior, but humor won out, and I laughed until I cried!! Josh came over to see what the hooting and hollering was about, and unfortunately, while I was showing him the photo, things got worse.

Much worse.

But we won't go there (and no, I absolutely did not take a picture!)

We had tried to be really strategic as to what areas of the museum we visited. After all, just because it's considered art doesn't mean I want my children to see it. Mental note for next time, skip the sculpture garden!

After the Sculpture Garden Incident of 2009, we moved back inside and had a sweet moment. We've been getting a bit more anxious lately to bring our newest little one home, and with this past weekend being Father's Day, it hit even harder. So we were excited to find an original Ethiopian manuscript in the African art section of the museum. It was from some religious texts dating back to hundreds of years ago.


We'll definitely be visiting the museum again, and hopefully there will be a fourth little munchkin in this picture soon!


More DaddyDay photos to come. And don't forget to enter for the photo giveaway...I'm choosing the winner tomorrow morning!!

DaddyDay Letdown

We had all sorts of fun plans for DaddyDay today. The McWane Center. The park. Maybe a good game of corn-hole (What, you don't know about corn-hole? I'll fill you in on the details another day.)

We didn't quite get to all (or any!) of that, though, because Jack and I spent a good portion of the day at Children's Hospital.

Everything is fine, but he and Abigail had a little run-in in the living room this morning. Jack came up screaming, and he couldn't walk on his right leg. After the tears had stopped, we gave him a few minutes to try to "walk it out", but each time he tried, he just fell over on the floor.

Time to call the doctor.

Needless to say, they brought us in and examined him for a variety of potential conditions, but each test and x-ray for the more serious problems came back negative (no ligament tears or fractures). The diagnosis? A knee sprain and deep tissue bruise. So we're taking it easy for the rest of the weekend (and trying to convince Jack to do the same!) He's such a trooper, and he's been an angel all day long.

When he first got hurt, our whole family huddled around Jack and prayed for his little knee to be OK...and we're so thankful that it is!

I hope your DaddyDay was more fun than ours, and I hope we all have a nice day of rest tomorrow!

The second half of DaddyDay

After a little post-"Couch-Toss" nap, we headed east on I-20 for a couple of family visits. Our first stop was to visit my grandmother, Meme, in Eastaboga.

Imagine Birmingham.

Now take away three of the interstates, 687 of the red lights (just a guess), and every inch of Highway 280. Now add 12 lakes, 34 cows, and countless trees.

That's Eastaboga.

One of my favorite childhood memories was visiting there with my family and spending hours trekking through the woods, strolling around the lakes, and running in the fields. Time seems to slow down a little in Eastaboga, and that's a feeling I love. Josh put it best when we first sat down in Meme's living room. He said, "I always feel like I could take a long nap when I'm here. It's so relaxing."

Meme is special to us for many, many reasons, but one of those reasons is that she's Abigail's namesake. Abigail Eleanor Lewis is named in honor of Meme. (As a side note, my dad and Abby were talking about this fact over lunch last week, and Abby said "Oh, so Meme's real name is Meme Eleanor Lewis?" Too cute!!)

Here's one of my favorite shots from our visit to Meme's. This photo tells so much about the passage of time...

Goodbye Eastaboga! (I've kind of fallen in love with sunset shots)

Our next stop was in Oxford for dinner with Josh's sister (Rebekah), her husband (Kevin), and their sweet baby girl (Ayda). I did Ayda's newborn pictures in December:

And even though I've seen her since our session, I was still surprised at how much bigger she's gotten. Rebekah says the little girl loves to eat!

Rebekah lived with us for a while when I was pregnant with Abby, and she was over at our house a lot after she was born. The running joke is that Abby looks like she belongs to Rebekah much more than does me. Whenever we were out together, people would always compliment Rebekah on her beautiful daughter! Now Ayda obviously doesn't look a thing like Rebekah, so she could pass for my daughter just as easily as Rebekah's (if not more so). So we did a little switch-a-roo at the restaurant. Whose daughter is whose? :-)

This really does look more accurate, doesn't it?!?

Now for the ride home...remember how I mentioned in the "Izzy Facts" that Izzy is the most flexible child I've ever seen? This is how she rode home that night:

I don't know if the picture does this any justice, but her legs are literally in a straight line out to each side. And she's not even batting an eyelash! I told Josh that if she didn't have shoulders to get in the way, I'm pretty sure she could clap her feet behind her back!!