Brian and Joelle

8 months old now and her personality is being revealed everyday it seems.  She has an amazing power that is like a drug….cause when she smiles….it causes my stress and problems to disappear.  While she is not my God and my happiness in life is not dependent upon her….she sure does add a heck of a lot of joy to it.  The gift of children is truly amazing and truly life-changing.  At 8 months we’re only scratching the surface I’m sure….but I am in awe of her and especially of the God who made her and entrusted Joelle and I to raise her.  I know there will be tough times ahead….but I absolutely love being dad.

She is so mobile now….crawling all over.  She actually prefers to walk but she can’t balance herself quite yet and gets very frustrated about it….and she’ll let you know it too.  She learned how to wave last week and now has 4 teeth I think…but maybe 6.

Halloween was actually fun this year….we stayed home and passed out candy to the 125+ kids that came to our door.  We put Emmelia in her ladybug costume and paraded her around to some of our neighbors before it got dark… she had fun.  When we came home, I sat with her on our porch swing and she passed out for 45 minutes on dad’s shoulder.  I was in heaven.  To top it off, the sunset was spectacular and the weather was incredible.  Joelle’s mom and dad came over for dinner (Joelle made a yummy beef stew) and my mom and dad plus brother and his family also came over later in the evening.  It is always a treat to have loved-ones together.  I couldn’t believe how many kids came to our house though.  Last year we had about 35….which is why I severlely underestimated the amount of candy this year.  Very few kids had gorey costumes which was refreshing.  A highlight certainly was the adults of the neighborhood who dressed up…although it was probably just another reason to drink.

Get a load of these photos…she is amazing.