A bit of @ brag

Little miss has been working hard on this, all on her own I might add. Of course I showed her initially how to write it but that has been awhile. Since then she seems to randomly think of it on her own and will find a crayon and practice. She has been very determined to get it right and is so proud of herself!! Leaps and bounds here people, I'm telling you sometimes I can barely keep up. :)

Loving her Sense of $tyle

Just some random pictures I thought you might enjoy. I love the Cinderella skirt with the Belle shoes and her purple outfit. She is too funny. Earlier in the day you can see she had on her Cinderella slippers, she insists by the way that they are "slippers" not shoes, I guess because of the whole "glass slipper" thing. She takes her fairy tale information very seriously. Anyway for whatever reason when she found the skirt to put on later, she had to put the Belle shoes on instead. Like I said, too funny. I love the picture of her reading my book, she wants so badly to be able to read. She can now write her name and many other letters so I have a feeling she may get to be an early reader. Goodness knows we have tried to instill the love of reading in her, and it seems to be working. She is such a little sponge right now and wants to learn everything as quickly as she can. I'm often amazed at the vocabulary she spits back out at me.

I wish I could think of some of the funny stuff she has said or done this week, as there is always something, but for some reason I'm a bit brain fried right now. Lack of sleep I suspect. Little Miss was up half the night and poor Daddy had to turn around and go into work this morning. Hopefully tonight is better for all of us. She had quite the day all the way around yesterday.. two time outs for the same offense. Rare, but it does happen when she lets her temper get the best of her. She got mad at me because I came in here to look something up on the PC while talking to Grampa, so to let me know that she wanted my undivided attention she started to hit my chair and desk, asked her to stop, nothing doing, so off to time out we went. She took her time out and when the beeps went off on the timer I asked her if she was done. Yes, apologized and on we went. Relatively simple right? Well later on she got mad at me again because she wanted to get to Daddy, who was unavailable, and proceeded to cross her arms, stomp her foot, and then came and hit my desk again (this time with a card instead of her hand I'd say she learned from that one earlier in the day). Same thing, back to her room for timeout and set the timer.. (in the mean time Daddy is commenting that it's unfair that she will stay in time out for me but not him, interesting huh?) at this point I informed her again that hitting is not going to be tolerated and that every single time she did it she would go in time out, the outcome would not change. This time she nodded repeated it back to me and again said she was sorry. So far so good today. Like I said it's rare that happens and even rarer two separate occurrences in one day. Hopefully it remains rare.

We are very excited today and planning a weekend in Orlando in the near future, where are you ready? We'll get to meet Kim and Jaiden!!! Most of you know Kim and I have been friends and email buddies while we waited to go to China and followed each others blogs along the way. I'm so excited that we will finally get to meet her and Jaiden. We are not going to do Disney that weekend as we think it will be too much for Devyn just arriving here a week or so before we go and then a trip to Maine right after but we are going to go down and maybe check out Seaworld or Busch Gardens and hang out with them for a couple of days! YAY!! So a very busy time coming up for us indeed but all good.

We have a DATE!!!

Well FINALLY! We have a date for Devyn Day! After what seems like forever, she will be joining us in our home on March 6!!!! It's been a heck of a time getting real information and to pin them down on a date but I know it will have all been worth it!

Obviously we are very excited, and yes relieved, to have a date at last. We will still have a ways to go but from that point on she will be with us while we get there.:)

Couldn't resist adding a couple of pictures. Julia was hanging out with Daddy the other day when I snapped this one. And the outfits are something we picked up last weekend out shopping. Couldn't resist the coordinated look. Of course, Julia had to have the dress, and I just thought the other would be so cute on Miss Devyn. Can you tell we are looking forward to sister pictures?

Best reaction to a Valentine

You may remember Julia's best friend back in Texas. Well of course we still keep in touch, did you really think we give up friends just because of a few or few hundred miles?? You should know us better than that. Well his Mama and I still talk and email often, so she knew he was going to be receiving a card in the mail but she didn't tell him what it was. So his reaction was all him. Have I mentioned we miss this little guy?? He's such a sweetheart, can't wait til summer when they'll get to see each other again. His mama informed me that he was saying "I love Julia" all afternoon. They both get these smiles whenever we show them pictures of each other. Don't they just melt your heart?

Tea party and cuteness

Taking pictures of Mama while she's taking pictures of me.

Having a Tea party with Belle and Mama.



Little miss thing has been full of cuteness tonight. She really got going when Daddy asked her if she was ready for a bath. "Can I have a Bubble bath?" to which Daddy replied "not tonight, you had one last night" note- we try not to do the bubbles too often because she has mild skin reactions.. So anyway, he tells her to go get ready, she crosses her arms, stamps her foot and says "But Daddy I'm trying to talk to you!" (Mama is on the sidelines trying not to crack up at this point) Daddy "Julia, you're not making good choices, go get ready and we'll see" well, she pouted for a few seconds then thought better of saying anything else and off she went. Daddy and I continued our conversation.. a few minutes later she's back, ready for her bath, she says "Daddy can I have a back ride?" (a piggy back ride across the house to her bathroom) he tells her "go give Mama loves first" so she does, then she gets on his back, reaches around, kisses HIS cheek and says "Daddy can I have a bubble bath?" Oh MY GOODNESS! By this time, forget it, Mama is totally laughing out loud. Daddy is quickly losing it and says "but if I give her the bubbles she'll know it worked"... oh honey... she already knows that. And yes, she got her bubbles.. Oh MY are we in trouble here.

Then, after the bath, little miss thing comes in here and sets up a Tea party for her, Belle and I. Like I said, "full of cuteness".

No More Pull Ups....

Well we think so anyway! We convinced Julia last night that she would be okay sleeping without a Pull Up on. I think she has been ready for this for awhile but she wasn't sure and neither was Daddy. (he's a bit over cautious;) But we decided it was time to find out. As she is often up in the night anyway, and rarely (like maybe once in the last month or so??!)wakes up wet, I was pretty sure she would be just fine. Just had to do a little convincing to her last night. But she did great! Woke up twice in the night,pretty typical of her, and went to the bathroom and right back to bed. So, we'll see how this goes. As of this morning, she was pretty darn proud of herself and let's face it, I was proud of her too! :)

****It should be Edited to add here that Julia has been daytime trained and in big girl underwear for some months now. The continued use of Pull Ups was for nap time and night time purposes only. Just a security precaution. Mostly I just wanted to be sure that she was really ready, one for the obvious reason of not being keen on changing sheets in the middle of the night and two for her self confidence. Happy to say that a week later she is still doing great!:)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Make a Smilebox greeting

We've been doing crafts and getting ready for Valentine's Day around here. I have been thinking of my brother this week. He's getting married this weekend and we won't be able to be there to celebrate with them. He understands, we understand, but I don't think it means any of us have to like it very much. We're still hoping and planning a trip to Maine in the near future, but for now, my heart is there this week. :)

Things here go on the same. Julia wavers between the sweetest child around and the little monster that just won't quit pushing. The joys of a 3 year old! Most of the time her sweet side wins out. Today she just came running up to me and threw her arms around me for a hug. No reason, just to be sweet. I love hugs like that.

Julia and I watched Enchanted today, we haven't for quite awhile, but she didn't forget she had that Giselle dress. I couldn't resist the opportunity for some pictures.

So, an early Valentine for you all. Love and Hugs!!

Airplanes and beaches

Getting comfy watching an Ariel movie with Daddy, while Mama watched a scary movie on the big TV (rare treat for Mama!)

Very cool!

Never misses a photo op!

Posing with Daddy in front of the plane he used to work on. B-52.


Too cute and a bit too fascinated with the big guns. LOL


I'm told some of these are responsible for keeping me up at night.

Fighter pilot in training??? umm... we'll see.



Fun at the beach with Grammie and Grampa

Looking for sea shells with Grammie.


A little foot print in the sand.



We continued to have a good visit with Grammie and Grampa but they had to go home yesterday. Now it's back to the same ole' same ole'.. well, not quite...we got our home study approval yesterday!!! And all parties involved are making travel plans to bring Devyn home!! We should have a date very, very soon!! So we won't likely be slowing down much around here. ;)

Back to our last weekend with the grandparents, we did some more driving around, took them to the Armament Museum, very cool actually. Fortunately we had a nice day for that. We went from there down to check out some other area beaches. Grampa agrees with me and could quite easily just sit and watch the water, while Grammie and Julia were all about finding sea shells. I do have to tell you though, I know our sand can look like snow, but this one day, it "felt" like snow! I tend to wear crocs nearly year round but I hate how they fill with sand, so I go barefoot on the beach, wishing I'd had my tennis shoes that day!! It was very cold, as a matter of fact, there were people sitting in their beach chairs bundled up in winter coats..I didn't think it was quite that bad, but my feet were very cold. Never seems to phase my daughter though.

I'll be loading more pictures at dropshots, this is just a snap shot of our last weekend with the grandparents.