Go Tigers!

Many of you may recall that Tim and I are not native South Carolinians. We are originally from the midwest. Tim grew up in Northwest Indiana, and I grew up in Southern Illinois. So to pick a team in South Carolina to root for was difficult. We live in Columbia so you'd think that we'd be University of South Carolina fans. However, we aren't. There is an ongoing rivalry between Clemson and USC. I guess we've decided to be Clemson fans. One of the major deciding factors for me was the team mascots. Clemson has a tiger, USC has a "gamecock" or a chicken as Tim calls it. It's really hard to root for something that you consider a chicken!
This week at Tabitha's daycare, they had theme week. Friday was sports day so we got her a little cheerleading outfit. Mind you, I'm definitely NOT the cheerleader type, I was a band nerd. BUT Tabitha is pretty darned cute as a little cheerleader. Her class by the way, won the spirit week competition. The class that had the most participation through out the week won a $100 worth of toys for their classroom. Yea!




Clemson lost!!!

FFF "Silly Smiles"

This week's favorite foto Friday is "silly smiles". I love Tabitha's smiles and don't really think that they are silly, I think they are beautiful! For the longest time, we wondered if Tabitha ever smiled. We'd receive pictures of her from Guatemala and she was always so serious. Then we received a little video of her with our agency director talking with the foster mother and the foster mother said that Tabitha smiled and laughed all of the time when she was at home but was "shy" when she was around people she didn't know well. She's still the same, except we are no longer the strangers, we're the family! Here are some smiley pictures of Tabitha, hope you enjoy! If you'd like to see more smiling faces, check out Sarah's blog!

FFF "Hope"

"Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope implies a certain amount of despair, wanting, wishing, suffering or perseverance — i.e., believing that a better or positive outcome is possible even when there is some evidence to the contrary."---Wikipedia's definition.
This week the theme for Favorite Friday Foto is "Hope". Hope to me is difficult to put in pictures, but since this is favorite Friday foto, I'll try to come up with one. Really I guess posting any picture of Tabitha would do, because she really is part of my hope...I hope that I'll be able to be alive well into her adulthood, I hope that I'm a good role model for her, I hope that I'll be a good mother. You see she was Tim's and my hope for a child a complete and whole family together. We're older and I had infertility issues.
BUT we too are Tabitha's hope. Hope for a brighter, better future. Her biological mother could not care for her and had those hopes for her and that is why she gave her up for adoption.
But really, what is MY hope? My hope is my faith in Jesus Christ. My assurance of a wonderful eternal life.

The first picture of our "new hope"

FFF "Firsts"

This week we were to go with a theme for ourselves. Oh how hard is this for me!!! I'm not a trend setting person, I'm basically a follower. I like to go with the flow. BUT, I did manage to put together a theme for this Friday. These are "first" moments for Tabitha and us.

First Time I bathed her


First tooth---you'll have to zoom in




First Family Portrait (again)



First Christmas


First Birthday



First Balloon

FFF "Oh Baby"

This week's Favorite Foto Friday theme is "Oh Baby". We are suppose to post the earliest photos of ourselves and our kiddos. I wasn't quite sure if that meant the earliest pictures of us with our kids, or the earliest photo we have of ourself and the earliest photo we have of our kids. SO, I did all of that. Actually there are earlier photos of myself, but my mother has them in a photo album put away somewhere upstairs and I just didn't feel like looking through them all! I'm about 19 months old in this photo--funny that's how old Tabitha is now! The second picture is the first picture that I have of Tabitha. She's about 2 weeks old in that piture. The last picture is the first picture that I have of Tabitha and I together. It was in May 2007, she was just over 4 months old. I remember that day so well---I remember thinking, she's so tiny and beautiful! Hope you have enjoyed these pictures. To see more "oh baby" pictures, check out Sarah's blog!