Fun Stuff


Julia has been reminding us this week of how funny she is and how much fun a 2 year old can have! And leaving us in stitches the whole time. I'm adding some video of her singing with Steven Curtis Chapman's latest song "Cinderella" Julia and I both love this song. :) And then last night she spent about 10 minutes rolling around inside the pillowcase with the pillow inching across the room and just plain being silly. For more video of both go to Dropshots, well worth checking out I assure you. I must have thought they were cute I'm allowing Julia to show you my cluttered desk top and the family room after a day with Hurricane Julia. Enjoy! :)


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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Moosey's back and more..



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Happily tearing paper


what??


Silly Daddy


Her secret stash!












Nope, not the same moose, but Mama's a good internet searcher! ;) Took a chance and went online and found what I thought was at least a close possibility to our lost Moose (no he never turned up, I seriously think she slipped him into the trash that day while she was helping :( ) so I ordered the one I found online and it's the exact same Moose!! YAY!! Julia was so happy to see him in the box that came in the mail, I'm sure she thinks her original one was just on a trip or something. Needless to say she is keeping a very close eye on this Moosey and has yet to put him down for more than a few minutes at a time. She never did really attach to anything else while he was gone either and would oh so sadly ask for him every night, sometimes only once a night (thank goodness) but every night. I'm so grateful and relieved we were able to replace this one. Oh if only everything were that easy.

I'm sure you noticed the tearing paper pictures above, we are not quite sure what to make of this, but Julia will quite happily and contentedly shred any paper she can get her hands on til it's in the tiniest pieces possible. We caught her the other night with this left over wrapping paper, you can see in the last picture she had been at it for awhile, so yes I knew she was tearing paper, but after a bit I guess I tuned out the tearing noise because I knew it wasn't anything important that had fallen into her hands. Should I be worried about this?? It's just such an odd thing to me but fascinates her for some reason.

You may also notice how big our munchkin looks in the latest pics. I'm going to have to find a new nickname for her I guess. We finally noticed the other day while chatting with another friend that Julia had indeed had another growth spurt. Funny how I'm the last one to notice these things, so we measured her that night. 37 and 3/4 of an inch tall! I knew she had grown but wasn't expecting that much at all! We still have to weigh her but I'm sure she's still around 27lbs or so, I'll be very shocked if she's gained much more than that. But then she shocks me daily. She's starting recognizing shapes now too. We haven't worked a whole lot on that, but I guess between what we have done, Noggin, and her puzzles it's sinking in for her. I love this age!

There are a couple of more videos on Dropshots, one from a night at Chuck E Cheese back in January for Bradon's birthday the other is another one from this weekend with her Moose. :)

Happy Chinese New Year


































I wanted to get these pictures yesterday, but Julia was having none of getting dressed up yesterday. Probably a good thing with all the other things we had to do, I wouldn't have gotten nearly as many pictures. This morning however despite the lack of sleep she woke up happy and couldn't wait to get dressed up. So of course I let her. She's a funny little thing and more independent every day.

The bed pictures are her showing off on her new Princess bedding. Grammie Hall wanted to know what it looked like and we finally got it onto her bed. I think she likes it.;) I know it doesn't match her room right now, but with moving so soon, we are NOT painting again. When we get into our new house, we'll paint that room pink or green or something that goes with this set for her. Debra she likes the Princess rug very much as well and as you can see it goes great with her new bedding. Thanks so much.

I'm still brain-fried with a lack of sleep so I'm going to cut this short, and as yet we still haven't seen Moose anywhere...:(

oh Mr. Moose???!!


Well, it's happened the moose that featured so prominently in the pictures below, has come up missing. I've searched the house high and low and for the life of me, can't find where she put him down yesterday. He came up missing yesterday afternoon, so it was a nap without him, which went better than expected, but was a short nap. That worked out because we had errands to run. I thought sure that when we got home one of us would find him. Nope, nada, nothing. Bed time came around, still no moose. A few tears but not dreadful and off to sleep she went. To toss and turn and wake every hour or so and ask for him. Then at 12:30 she woke and has yet to go back to sleep, it's now almost 3:30, we still can't find moose and we have to try to get some more sleep. Why did he have to be the same color brown as the carpet in this house???!!! I'm sure he'll turn up eventually, I'm just not sure how much sleep we'll get in the mean time. Please pray we find him soon or that she attaches to one of her many other toys soon!!

Some random shots

Julia and Bradon

Doing some artwork

using the glue stick

it's not a wonder I don't get much sleep...












Julia recently spent a couple of hours hanging out with her buddy Bradon... always a good choice as far as she is concerned. We really don't have that much going on, we didn't make it to the area Chinese New Year celebration, Mama's back went out, so there was no driving, let alone getting us both ready and out of the house... :( Oh well, hopefully we'll find a good group when we move and can try again next year or maybe even one of the other festivals later this year.

Julia has this thing with shredding paper, she will tear it up into tiny pieces when given a chance. So this week since she had done that with some white tissue paper, we decided to put it to use and I got the glue stick out and some construction paper and we made a "snow" picture. :) She thought it was cool. I really need to be doing more things like this with her, I'm going to make more of an effort in that department.

As for the sleeping picture... yes, she spends at least part of each night in bed with me, and with Daddy gone she's just been camping out there. It's just easier on my back and as she still has nightmares it's easier on her too. As you can see though she has a tendancy to be all over the bed. I never know when I'll wake up with a foot in my face or her head pushed into my shoulder blades, but most of the time lately she's been better. Maybe she's just been sleeping better, I dont' know anymore.

Oh and Nai-Nai that's her Moose-moose, as you can see it's never far from her. She attached to it when Daddy went to school. Makes it so much fun when she drops him on the brown carpet. lol


Right now we are enjoying the Superbowl,("GO PATRIOTS!") Julia really liked Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the half time show, Papa and Uncle Joel would be proud. ;)


Edited to add... yeah we're pretty bummed at the end of the game...:( oh well. you win some, you lose some.

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














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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!