Weekend in Dallas.
We took the opportunity a few weeks ago to head to Dallas and spend the weekend. We had a great time relaxing at the hotel, taking Julia to the Aquarium and had lunch at The Spaghetti Warehouse before heading home. It was a really nice time, but I think we wore Julia out a bit. Mama's girl indeed, she insisted on having the map of the Aquarium the whole time we were in there.

Well, time to get little one settled down for the night. I'll have more tomorrow and you can look at Dropshots for photos as well.

Chinese New Year. Yes, we're really late with these, but we celebrated Chinese New Year Feb 18 with other families in the area that are or have adopted from China. It was so very cool to look around the room and see so many happy families and Chinese faces! I'm so glad that we got to go. I can't publish all the photos as I don't have permission from people, but trust me when I say it was very cool, and of course Julia loved the chance to dress up! :)

Ray helped friends of ours put up a privacy fence last weekend. As you can see they had some added help! No matter what I did, she was determined to be glued to Daddy and HELP! Good thing she's cute!!

I still have more pics to load onto the pc but haven't located my cable for the camera yet. So keep checking!!

Okay, Okay, I know these are very late in being posted. Sorry it's been a bit crazy. I have many more to post later (once I find the cord for the camera!) But these are some Ms. Melissa took a couple of weeks ago with Julia and Bradon getting a little too into the smooches! Ms. Melissa has been kind enough to watch Julia while I go to phsyical therapy twice a week, and as you can see Julia makes herself right at home!!

I promise to have more news and pics posted later this week. :)

GO BUCKS! Yup, Daddy's been working with our little girl trying to turn her into a sports fan. (we'll see) At the moment he's winning. He sang one line of the "Buckeye Medley" (we don't give a dang about the whole state of Michigan) and my child makes a bee-line for the computer, where the song is stored! I kid you not, and she started bouncing to the music once it was turned on, which of course we had to do. So Auntie Alissa and Grampa Stephens these pics are for you! :)

Julia had a Dr's appointment yesterday, been dealing with a cold and she is just not herself, but as this is the first time in months she's been sick, I count us fairly lucky so far. It's just a little trying as she doesn't want anything but Mama most of the time. We did get updated measurements at the Dr's though.....23 lbs and
32 1/2" tall. Daddy took her to the Dr's and I guess she was very good as usual and as long as the Doc did everything to "Tyrone" (her favorite Backyardigan toy) first then she would sit and let the Dr. check her out with no problem. :) She's too funny, and developmentally she's right on target now. Amazing.

She's becoming our little mimic and trying to repeat a lot of what we say. For instance "Go Bucks", "apple", "lao-lao" (grammie Hall) and "nai-nai" (granny Stephens) and pretty much anything we ask her to repeat she'll usually at least try. She can tell you the Sheep says "baa" and the cow says "moo" and the cat says "meow". Now we just need to get her to work on saying it to everyone else and not just us.

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Finally got some new pics and video. We had a little impromptu photo shoot this afternoon, so there are more pics at the dropshots site, http://www.dropshots.com/rgshrs This video Ray took this morning, AFTER we had tried to get her to talk to Grammy and Grampa Hall and Robert and Riley and she refused everyone of them. This is what she does afterwards when there was NO ONE on the phone. Figures huh?? LOL. I know, soon enough I'll be wishing for a time that she wouldn't talk on the phone.

Things here are going well. My back is healing nicely and this week should find us settling back into a new routine again with Daddy going back to work. Wish us luck. As you can see in the videos and pictures Julia is doing wonderful, she now not only walks but runs as well. It's amazing how far she's come these last 7 months, this coming Saturday (Robert's Birthday! Happy Birthday Rob!! WE LOVE YOU!) will be the 7 month anniversary of Julia being put into our arms. It's hard to believe that it's only been 7 months and amazing to look back and see how much this person has changed our lives. We wouldn't have it any other way.

Hope you enjoy the pics and the updates. Drop me a comment at either site anytime and let me know. It's nice to actually hear that someone's still reading once and a while :)

Happy New Year!

Ok, so we're a bit late with that. :) Cut us some slack, we had the Christmas trip to Ohio and getting back just in time for me to catch the bug that started with Allie Christmas Eve, so New Year's Eve I was pretty down for the count. But that's over, and we're all fine (no one else got sick!) and time to catch up.

I've been adding new pics from Christmas to dropshots today, so stop by there and check them out. Most we took, but some Aunt Alexa took and sent as well. We really had a wonderful time in Ohio (despite the illnesses) and it was hard to leave and come back. Julia had so much fun with her cousins and you can really see some differences in how much more settled in she is, between this trip and the trip to Maine we had. She's gotten much more comfortable with other people for one thing. So that made the trip a bit easier. But wow, what a car ride.....lol....no actually she did remarkably well, but by the end of the trip we were ALL ready to get out of the car. Actually I think yesterday was the first day her and I have been back in the car at all since being home. No I guess that's not right, we did go visit Ms. Nikki on the 2nd. Still, shows you how much of a break we needed.

And we can officially say that she is WALKING now. Walking and babbling all the time. It's amazing how much more vocal she's become. Most we still don't understand, but she tries with all her might to get it out! I'm not talking a step or few here and there anymore either, more and more she's determined to stay on her feet. And more and more we see how determined she is to not let her friends get ahead of her. So we'll be keeping up those play dates, just to keep her on her toes! LOL

Julia and her Godfather finally got to meet as well! And what a sweet meeting it was! She showed off for him by walking all over the house, and just showed him what a sweetie she is in general. And as I mentioned she's gotten much better around strangers and pretty much went straight to him and even let him hold her.

So all in all, tons of progress going on here everyday. It's been so nice having Daddy home for awhile too. It's going to be hard next week when he goes back to work. However, for the moment he'll only work til Thursday and then be off for another week and a half to help here at the house while I recover from my upcoming back procedure. That's on the 11th and we should know within a week or so if it was successful. Wish me luck everyone. With it, I'll be in a lot less pain and be able to do that much more with Julia in the coming year. So say a prayer that it goes well:)

We'll keep you posted and of course have lots more updates on Miss Julia in the near future.

Christmas came early at our house.

Since we'll be hitting the road to Ohio tomorrow, we opened our presents here at home today. Ms. Julia certainly got into it!! She's got the art of unwrapping figured out now. lookout!! Thank you Uncle Joe and Aunt Kim, Jeremy, Kelsey and Angie, Grammy and Grampa Hall, Uncle Norman, Robert, Riley, Great Grammy Kinney and Nai-Nai and Papa!! She had a WONDERFUL time, unfortunately we discovered that our camera does NOT have a microphone....GRRR! So while we have video there is sadly no sound. Sorry everyone, but you'll get the idea at least :) Jeremy, Kelsey and Angie the hit of the day was amazingly the old fashion pull toy you sent ;)!!! We had to hide it to get her to move on....LOL....She is truly too, too funny.

It's been a long day, so I'm just going to give you the dropshots link again and you can view pics and soundless video there. (live and learn..) On the upside, the image quality on the video is GREAT! LOL. I give up.

Go to www.dropshots.com/rgshrs Enjoy and really thank you everyone, it was a great day.

SANTA PICS!

Check out http:www.dropshots.com/rgshrs for a few more pics. I'll post one here, but frankly I'm too tired to do them all here and there, and there is easier. :)

Julia didn't do so well with Santa, she wouldn't let go of Mama (again, we tried this a week or so ago too and she didn't do any better) but this Santa stuck around long enough that she did wave "bye-bye" to him, yes "princess wave" and she let him give her bye kiss on the cheek. I guess that's as good as it gets this year. :)

We're gearing up for Christmas here. Finally got the tree up and decorated on Monday, Julia likes to just sit in front of it and stare. We've already got packages under it too for the most part she's left them alone, but Aunt Kim/Uncle Joe one of yours was ripped a little already and she DID notice that right away and wanted to tear into it some more. So I think Christmas day should be pretty interesting. We're leaving here on Dec 21st and heading to Ohio. So we're thinking we'll open some stuff here on the 20th (happy Bday uncle Norman) and then have everything else Christmas day in Ohio. Looking forward to it. Can't wait for Julia to meet the rest of her cousins and everyone else too! :)

OH and before I forget, yes Grammy Hall she has another tooth, FINALLY! It did cut through yesterday, I saw it and Daddy said "yep" he could feel it! So there ya go!! :)

Kylee's birthday present:)

Kylee gave us a call tonight and in her words ended up getting the best birthday present ever...LOL>> We got Julia to tell her "Hi, Ky-ky!"......CLEAR AS ANYTHING!!!! And with very little prompting....she's starting to become a little parrot all of the sudden repeating what we say or at least very much trying to repeat it. So while we don't have any pics of the moment, we just had to share. :)

Happy Birthday Ky! We love you!

YES, Aunt Sandra! Just to show you, we are teaching this kid to WALK!! LOL She's finally getting out there and stepping out on her own. You wouldn't believe what did the trick....we bought her a pair of sneakers at Kohls the other night that light up. Well, I put them on her yesterday and she stood by the couch for a moment, stamped her right foot 3 or 4 times to watch the lights, then checked the left foot to make sure it did the same thing. Then I took her and stood her in the middle of the room and backed a few steps away from her (3 or 4 steps) and SHE DID IT!! She walked to me!!! And to several other things throughout the day, a couple of times without even being coached. She was so proud of herself!!! So yes, for awhile I think she'll still drop to crawl often to be quicker, she has discovered that she indeed can walk!!! We are so very proud of each of her accomplishments and give her full credit for all the progress she has made since being brought home in July.

The furcoat, well okay, Mama just couldn't pass it up, and if you had seen her when we tried it on in the store, you wouldn't have passed it up either. I know I've said it before, but this girl really does like to dress up! She insisted on holding her panda for the picture. That part was completely unplanned! And yes it was cold enough to need it here in Texas this week as evidenced by the previous post!! Plus we're sure she'll get some use out of it in Ohio for Christmas...it's getting closer. Hard to believe how close really.

Happy Holidays everyone and God Bless!!

BED HEAD! Yep, the longer her hair gets the worse her bed head is in the morning, or after a nap. LOL. I know she won't thank me for this picture later on, but I couldn't resist. And yes we really are getting SNOW today! Still a little hard to take after being in the 70's yesterday. Ridiculous. The picture doesn't show how bad it's blowing too though. So we haven't even been able to go out and see what she thinks of it yet. And somehow I doubt it will stick around very long, especially since it's not the sticking kind of snow.

Thank you Aunt Tiny for the package. You sure know our girly girl, she not only loves opening and playing with tissue paper, but she loves clothes. No joke, she really does. She's really checking out the sparkling shoes too. :) We love you!!

And lastly but certainly not least, hanging out in Daddy's office for a lunch break earlier this week. We try to do this at least once a week, it brightens both their days. She's almost asleep on the floor so before she's out totally I'd best end this and get her laid down for a nap.

It is definitely looking a lot like Christmas this week. Feels almost like home, and I'm not so sure about that! LOL

Julia's Baptism, despite all of the nerves, mostly Mama's, Julia's Baptism couldn't have gone much better. It was a beautiful ceremony, a little different than we were used to as we part of the Mass right from the beginning and had to sit in the front row. Then were called up for the rest of the ceremony, Julia did just fine with the Father until he tipped her backwards to pour the water on her head. But as soon as he was done and she was back with Mama and Daddy she settled back in just fine and was asleep by the end of the Mass. The Father ended with Blessings for the Mother, Father and then the Congregation. It was so much more than we could have asked for and a very special day for Julia, though she of course wasn't sure why. But the rest of us sure did.

We missed you all, but understand with our distance that you were there in spirit. Miss Melissa made it and brought Lane, so she took most of the pictures, then we went to her house and hung out for a little bit afterwards to relax. Before going out to a late lunch and just enjoying our last day with Debra. Hope you enjoy the pictures. The man up front was Mr. Torrez, he stood in as proxy for Julia's Godfather who was unable to make it back from California. We missed you Donny but understand. Enjoy the slide show and be sure to keep checking Dropshots as that really is the easiest place for us to upload pictures to. So we'll be using it often. :)

Blessings to each of you on this very special day.

Just trying one more slide show, this one is a mixture of pictures since Julia's been home and I thought it was neat to place them all together to really show how much she's grown and changed. As I mentioned before we are truly blessed and we see it more everyday. I know now why I'm here and as trite as it may sound, it's simply to be her "mama" and see that she gets to be whatever it is she's meant to be. Not that there is anything "simple" in that, as any Mom can tell you, but I hope and pray that I can do my best by her.

Cool Slideshows

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Videos at last. :) Thanks to Debra we have a few videos for you. We've been having a great visit and hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. This video is a bit dark, but thought it would give a little idea of what we have been talking about with Julia "dancing" to her cube. So I posted it anyways. Hope you enjoy. The other is a better quality and we'll have many more pictures to share soon. So check back again often. We have more slide shows and photos to come just as soon as we have a few more minutes and get things loaded up. Julia and Debra are having a wonderful visit! And Julia has just had so many milestones this past few weeks. Her vocabulary is suddenly really expanding, sometimes she will say something (and we swear today she said "debra" when she saw her in the store) and we are blown away because we're sure it sounds like real words now. She just astonishes us all the time. This week has been real progress with going from the crib to the toddler bed. That seems to have done the trick and she has slept all night in her own bed ever since, no more tears! We are so glad that it seems to have helped calm her and gotten her used to her room again. And not really planning on doing at the same time, but last Saturday we found a "sippy cup" that she liked and actually used, we never gave the bottle back and she's never asked for it! What perfect timing I guess she was ready. We know we are so blessed for it to have been that easy! But then we count our blessings everytime we look at her. Ask Debra she just keeps us laughing all the time. And the hugs and kisses couldn't be sweeter. Well, if I'm going to get more loaded up, I'd better finish this up. Enjoy the pics and videos and let us know what you think. To see more videos, you can go to http://www.dropshots.com/rgshrs



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Food Obsessed????

Possibly...and this was AFTER she had her dinner. This is how she is every time we have food, of any kind. At least she's not picky. Definitely time to move to the dining room table I think. and yes, Daddy shared..lol. We do give her table food at times like this and other places, but can't really give her own plate yet as she will try to put it all in at once and with still only 4 teeth, yes still, we're still being careful. But she loves to try new foods!

Had some friends over last Saturday night...and yes they managed to have every single toy out of the toy box and managed to fit three of themselves into at a time...they did also clean up before they left. LOL. I'll give them that. What I didn't get a picture of was Gavin kissing Julia while they were watching veggie tales! Guess she got his attention after all, I just KNEW she was going to go after the older ones!! It was just on the cheek and Melissa and I had quite the laugh over it, but what I'm not sure Melissa knows is that before they left apparently Bradon was trying to chase Julia down for a hug and kiss as well. Ray saw that one! Brotherly competition ??? Who knows?? We do have three more years here with them and I know they are going to see lots of each other.

Loving Lacey, Playing Dress up and so much more. :)

Hugging on Lacey has become a morning and nap time ritual anytime Julia awakes and finds herself in our bed the VERY FIRST thing she does is looks to the foot of the bed for Lacey. As this is pretty much the only time Lacey will let her touch her. I think it's because the dog is too comfortable and knows she'll get kicked out of bed if she's not nice. But whatever the reason this is when Julia gets to give the old mutt some hugs.

The red dress pictures were just us having some fun or trying to. Julia was having lots of fun with her teddy bear in a matching outfit. She loves to give her stuffed animals hugs and kisses and it's so nice now that she gives some of those kisses to Mama and Daddy too. And she gives some of the best hugs ever, but we might be a little biased.

The Tinkerbell costume one more time. These were from halloween night, trick-or-treating at the mall. She didn't quite get it at first but by about half way around the mall she was very curious as to what was going in that bucket. It was very cute.

CLIMBING!! My little monkey might not be ready to walk on her own just yet, but she has no trouble at all with climbing and she's quick and quiet about it. Last week I turned from the computer to see her on the sofa table and I got these shots, the one of her standing in front of the table is after she got down, she turned and slid down like it was nothing. Yep, no fear...great...but at least she knows enough to turn around to get down. Guess that's something.

Just look at how comfortable she's getting with that push walker! Tonight she stood up several times from a sitting position on the floor without holding onto anything! So yes she's getting stronger and braver. No fear of heights, but hesitant about letting go to walk yet. The dr. didn't seem too concerned by that after we told her everything else she does and that she was after all in a different environment for the first 10 months of her life. She did say that if she's not walking in the next couple of months to let her know and we'd see about some therapy, but I really believe she's very close to stepping out there on her own.

So all in all things are going well in Julia's little world. Well too her it's a very big world now I'm sure, but she's doing pretty good and even managed to get rid of the cold she had for a week. Now if a few more teeth would just come through and stop giving her problems we'd be all set. That and recovering from her shots last Friday. They gave her 4 poor kid....we felt so bad but she took it pretty well. Though I think if she'd had a hand free she would've slugged the tech with the needles! If looks could kill he'd have been in trouble for sure. But again she only cried when they actually stuck her (though a bit more than the last set) and stopped by the time we were back in the waiting room. Her left thigh still looks pretty sore though:( She should only need her Hep A shots now before she can go to Preschool or Daycare here in Texas but as we're not putting her in that setting till next year we'll wait a few more months before subjecting her to that.