Our weekend


A birthday picture for Mama.



At Playhouse Disney, yes she was quite in awe.



And it was dark in there :)


Checking out her program after the show



After having some of Mama's birthday cake, and yes that is cake on her face!









Saturday was a busy day around here. Mama's birthday and Playhouse Disney and Daddy made it home again for the weekend. Couldn't have been any better :)

Julia certainly enjoyed the show, she sat most of the first half in absolute awe just taking it all in. After intermission we couldn't get her to sit back down, she spent the second half leaning on the seat in front of her, it was empty for a good part of the second half and then the little boy that came back was also leaning ahead so we let her get away with that. The second half she did everything the characters told her to do, clap, pat, you name it. She was having fun. After it was all over and we were back in the car we asked her if she had fun. She popped her cup out of her mouth and said "I had fun" took another sip and out came the cup again, "Go see Bradon now?" All about priorities. LOL. So yes we went and saw Bradon. They are too funny together.

Later on it was time for cake and ice cream for Mama's birthday and just an evening spent together having fun. Before bed that night, I had gotten down on the floor with Julia to change her and after a bit she threw herself into my lap, gave me a big hug and said "I love you SO MUCH Mama" Love those spontaneous moments. So all in all it was a great weekend here. Hope all of yours were just as nice.

Having fun





Daddy slipped home this weekend from school. It was very nice to have him be able to do that. This picture is of Julia trying on a new "Dora" outfit, and yes, that's her pink "Dora" backpack from another ensemble that she insists on having fairly frequently, then add Daddy's hat and what a look! LOL. I really did avoid Dora like the plague for as long as possible and it didn't seem to matter, Julia still knew who she was, and now Mama has caved and given in. Dora is currently one of her favorite shows. Though I'm really hoping Ni-Hao Kai-Lan replaces that in her book when it starts on Chinese New Year.:) Or at least gets watched, this is one show I want her to watch! The premise is similar to Dora, but they will be teaching Mandarin Chinese phrases and culture. I hope that it turns out to be as good as we are all hoping it will be. Oh well, in the mean time, she's enjoying Dora.

Speaking of Chinese New Year, it's coming up fast. Feb. 7th this year. We are again this year blessed to be getting together with other adoptive families in the area and celebrating. I think we are doing that Feb 2, so even though it's just Julia and I we'll be going out for Chinese food and meeting the other families. As this will likely be our last chance to do anything with these particular families, we don't want to miss it.

And next Saturday we are going to see Playhouse Disney Live! I can't wait to see Julia's face as she sees Tigger and Pooh, Mickey Mouse and friends, Handy Manny and Little Einsteins. All shows she has enjoyed on a lazy Saturday morning, so to see them come to life?! I'm sure it will be fun for all of us!

As you can see, we have plenty to keep us busy and looking forward to while we wait for Daddy to finish up this month of school. Deployments are sure going to take getting used to again, no doubt about it. But after the first few days, we settled into a pretty good routine, so I'm sure we'll be fine in the long run. One month left, and then when he gets back it's really going to be busy here getting ready to move, house hunting, etc... May is going to come up on us very quickly.

I'll be sure to get pictures these next few weeks of all of our activities! :)

Julia's got a new friend














Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books


I think the smiles say it all. You may remember a time or two our mentioning that Julia loves horses. Well, Grammie and Grampa Hall decided to do something about that. She was supposed to get a rocking horse for Christmas, but because of circumstances out of their control in the form of back orders and the order being cancelled, it didn't quite make it for Christmas morning. However, I don't think Julia minds at all. She is certainly enjoying her new friend and yes dragging him all over the house with her at this point. We'll have to work on that one. So thank you Grammie and Grampa!! She's in love. And though you may hear her on one of the videos saying "Diego's on" (repeatedly I might add) she still didn't get off the horse until I told her we could take him to the family room. Even now while she's taking a break (an hour or more after delivery I might add) she still pops over and gives him a hug or climbs on for a quick ride. She's having no trouble at all getting on and off. To put it more specifically, I've had time to load the pictures/videos and write this blog!! So thanks from a very grateful Mama too!!

the Holidays and more






waiting to get her hair done :)

So pretty, "ready to go Mama?"

A day out at Chuck E Cheese with friends, they stayed on this game for quite some time.

They were having lots of fun!

Trying on some new clothes Christmas Day!

Nope, wouldn't let Mama do my hair yet, but I like this book and the Belle doll that Santa brought!

check out the Dora PJ's couldn't get these ones back off for a little while. Yes, Dora is a big thing right now.

Thanks for the tricycle Papa and Nai-Nai! I really like it and can't wait to take it to the park to try it out!












Well as you can see Julia had a great Christmas! Sorry there are not more pictures, but we were using the new camcorder more, sadly those videos are too big to put on here. I have had some limited success with getting some of the shorter ones on Dropshots. So you can go there and finally see and hear our munchkin! You'll just have to start back in November on the Dropshots page, sorry the date was set wrong on the camcorder, but it'll be right from January on. (I think!) For family, we'll be getting a CD done up of the Christmas video and out to you soon. Julia tore through her presents in about an hour, the only time she slowed down was on the blocks from Uncle Joel and Aunt Kim (thanks guys!!) yep, she still loves blocks and puzzles. Everything else got a quick look and an "ooh and ahh" and she was diving back under the tree for the next present.

After presents Daddy cooked breakfast and we had a day of watching Julia take in all of her new things. It was very nice. She really enjoyed everything and watching some of her new movies, if I remember correctly Aunt Tiny, I believe Cinderella 2 was the first one in the DVD player that day!

For New Year's Eve we went to a friend's house to celebrate, lots of kids for Munchkin Moo to play with, fireworks, noisemakers and a toast at midnight. Julia was very cute telling everyone "Happy New Year!"

All in all we had a wonderful holiday season and hope that you did too! Now it's back to reality, and for us that means packing up and getting prepared for our move this spring. So needless to say we'll be busy here.

December pics, Getting ready for Christmas!






















Starting with the kids Christmas party on Dec 1, it's been a busy, busy month. Julia had her annual picture with Mama and Santa as she still won't go to Santa, though she did give him a good bye hug..so maybe next year. And then it's been Christmas carols, she's quite good at "Jingle Bells" at this point, shopping, shopping and did we mention shopping?? She cried yesterday when we came home because we only went to one store. Think she may have gotten a too little into the shopping. And the boxes that have been showing up here... she gets all excited to open them, until we tell her "not til Christmas"... she'll repeat "not til Christmas!" sigh and walk away... though she did try and peek at some from Aunt Kim and Uncle Joe... guess that wrapping paper was too much of a temptation. So they are back under the tree and I have plans to spend the rest of today wrapping everything else. I think it would have been too much excitement to stand for her to have to look at them all wrapped all month anyways, so this will work. ;) (I hope!)

Guess I better get to it, until Christmas then!

****Florida in May****

Well, it's happened. The Air Force has seen fit to have us move on again. So while I'll admit to being nervous about the fact that Ray will be Red Horse (which for those non-AF translate that into he'll be gone A LOT) we are both still super excited about our new assignment. At least today. I'm sure reality will sink in soon and then the nerves will really hit. lol.

So come May we are heading to Florida. I think what scares me most,is this is the third time since coming back to Active Duty in 2000 that we have gotten the base we wanted.... scary huh?? So I don't know what the Lord has planned for us in Florida, but I trust that it's where we are supposed to be.

After all, South Carolina brought me to Jean and Debra and Scherri, Penny and Tara and Aldersgate where I found some of the truest friends I've ever had the privilege of calling friends, and opened our hearts to adoption and to the children in China. Texas gave us a stable home life for the last 4 years, no deployments and the opportunity to follow up on that seed planted in SC and led us to Julia and more people we are honored to call friends. People that were a tremendous support while we waited for that picture of Julia and to hold her in our arms that first time and bring her home. People we will miss, just as much as we miss those we left behind in SC. So what will FL bring?? Whatever it brings we know God has a plan for us somewhere there. It will be interesting to see what that is.

So wish us luck. In May we're heading east! :)

We've been Elfed!

Courtesy of my brother, guess that means he was thinking of us. Always a good thing;) Julia didn't know quite what to think of it. Check it out here and you decide. LOL.

We've had a busy week and Julia did have a good time at the kids Christmas party last weekend. She even deigned to give Santa a good bye hug, that's the best he was going to get. I still had to go up with her to get her gift and she sat on my lap, not his, but a hug is big progress from last year. I'll try to have those pictures on later this weekend. Not today, but maybe tomorrow. In the meantime here are a few photos from our holiday photo shoot and a couple more from our Thanksgiving trip to Ohio. I have no idea what her and Tyler were doing, but they seem to know and understand each other and at least they were having fun!

Home again, home again jiggety jog


Playing peek a boo with Allie


Julia enjoyed Tyler's rocking horse :)


You would think she knew just what she was doing with the Leapster... not really, but she enjoyed watching it all the same LOL


Julia, Ray and Allie


Riding in the car....












We found that when riding in the car Julia prefers to get completely comfortable... for example: hair down, shoes and socks off, movie on and pass the snacks Mama. lol. That pretty much sums up our trip up to Ohio and back. It seemed to go so much faster on the way up, maybe because we all just wanted to get there and coming back was something we just weren't looking forward to as much. I suppose that must have been it.

We had a great time as always and Julia really had fun with her cousins. Our camera was not working properly after being left in the car the first night there, so we don't have nearly as many pictures as we would normally take, but we did manage to get a few. I can no longer guarantee any ones safety around Julia. Tyler taught her how to wrestle and she was tackling him and taking him down by the end of the week. So watch out. We have tried to impress upon her that it is only okay to play that way with Tyler but she's only 2 so we'll see. The two of them are very hard to say "no" to when their play is accompanied by gales of laughter and squeals. And they are both so darn cute and they each know it too. I think we are all in trouble when it comes to these two. LOL

Julia was equally happy to see Ashley and Allie as evidenced in a few of the pictures. She was watching me load them onto the PC and exclaiming "that's Ashley.. that's Allie"... etc.. I think they all made an impression this year. :)

Now we are back and getting into the full blown Christmas spirit with the squadron kids party kicking things off this Saturday, then our Adult party the following Saturday and somewhere in there we have to finish our Christmas shopping, get things mailed and with luck even manage to decorate the house sometime this week. So we'll be busy around here for a bit. Nothing new about that, it seems we always have a few irons in the fire at the same time. We'll have to see what else we fit in for Ms. Julia this Christmas season. Lots of lights and holiday spirit for sure, and reminding her and us of the reason for the season as well. :)

Trick or Treat













We got home just in time for the Halloween fun! As you can see our princess was dressed as just that a Princess. She was Cinderella for all of you that aren't Disney pros. ;) She just loved putting on her costume. We started with a Halloween party at the squadron the Friday before, she didn't so well there. It was a little dark and scary for her taste. But when we went to the Mall to trick or treat on Halloween night.... she more than made up for it! She got into the whole thing there and had a great time getting candy! She checked her basket frequently to see what they were putting in it that she might like, I think if she had her way she'd like it all! LOL. She even passed the older kids we were trick or treating with, since they were interested in playing around and she was all about the candy!

As always there are more pictures at dropshots from our trip to Maine, and a few more from Halloween along with videos. Hope everyone had a safe and Happy Halloween!

Some random pictures to catch up a little :)



Julia and some of her friends playing with her kitchen that she got for her birthday! She really does like it Nai-nai and Papa!




Playing dress up!



Helping Grammie Hall with her birthday cake! Yes, she has discovered her sweet tooth, we'll have to be careful now!
















We had a wonderful time in Maine, Julia did so good with all of the traveling but we are also very glad to be home and settled back in, at least until our drive to Ohio that we are still seriously considering making later this month for Thanksgiving:) Yes, we just might be gluttons for punishment, but we both do love our families and so want Julia to at least recognize who everyone is and especially play some with her cousins while they are still young enough to play!