Thoughts on Mother's Day

So I have been trying to decide what to write about my thoughts on Mother's Day. Do I think Hallmark has made a killing on us honoring Moms this one day a year and we should just spread out the love all year long? Sure I do. Do I realize how incredibly hard and depressing this day can be for some women..absolutely. I grew up in a very rural church where on Mother's Day they would have all the mothers stand to be honored. I learned to hate that tradition as the years went by and I never got to stand. I was 36 when I married and had long stopped attending that church and luckily the bigger churches I started going to realized what a painful tradition that could be. I know now that there were women in my church who had lost children, never been able to conceive or never married who also felt the kick in the gut when others were standing receiving their rose.
After I got married I thought church on Mother's Day would now be better. I could spend time with my own mom and dream of the day it would be a shared event for us. That first Mother's Day I was on my honeymoon. I called home from Spain and wished her a Happy Mother's Day and went on enjoying myself thinking there would be many more to come. Unfortunately my mom passed away very suddenly a couple of months later and so the next two Mother's Days were very painful. If I remember correctly we didn't go to church on either of those years (2003 & 2004) and instead just treated it like any other day. In 2005 we had been logged in to China for a little over 3 months and at that time it meant we were halfway to our referral so we celebrated because I finally felt like a Mom! I knew our daughter had been born and we would hold her very soon.
Last year I celebrated my first Mother's Day with Annslee and it helped erased all the painful and disappointing years before. It truly was a wonderful day as was this year and I am sure all the years to come. Being someone's Mama is the most precious gift and I cherish it. I also have a wonderful Mother-in Law and she treats me as her daughter so I am blessed beyond measure for that. I am sad that my mom never got to meet Annslee because they would have been big buddies!
I do know there are many women who are still waiting for it to be a day to celebrate and I hope that day comes soon for all of you!

Here are some more pics from our weekend together!


On Friday night the three of us went to a Thai restaurant that GiGi told us about. Thai is my favorite food so for a Pre-Mother's Day treat we headed out. Of course there was no children's menu but I didn't want a huge dish for Annslee so I asked about making her a child's portion of noodles but was told they didn't do that. However, once they saw Annslee she came out and said "Oh, she is so cute..I will make her whatever she wants" Hmmm...I think we were just given some preferential treatment and I probably should feel bad about it but hey, I needed some noodles LOL
As you can see she dug right in and was also stealing baby corn off daddy's plate. Our server commented that usually she would rubberband the chopsticks for the little ones but didn't need to for Annslee because she was so good with them. She can pick most things up (corn, rice, noodles) and she is equally skilled with her left or right hand which means you never know whose plate she is headed for next. The funniest thing is sometimes she twirls her noodles around them Italian style ; )

Like I said my mother-in-law is wonderful and she and Annslee had a great time all weekend

Walking the dogs was one of our favorite things to do

When the cousins arrived the bubbles came out!

We can't wait to go back....

Mother's Day

We had a great Mother's Day weekend in Charlotte! Here are a few pics from that morning..I will post more later! Just got home and I am exhausted : )


The Princess awakes with her dog of course!



Here is the reason I get to celebrate Mother's Day!


The three girls ready to go to church


I am the luckiest Mama in the world

Guess who we met?

*Update: Maggie is probably having her baby tonight and swears hubby will post during the birth (ha ha) so go over and send her some love!

We went to the park today and met up with Jack and Amelia. We finally met Baby Jack in person and he is even cuter than his photos showed! They have only been home with him from Vietnam for a couple of weeks and they are doing great. The weather was beautiful and the kids had such a fun time. Jack isn't mobile yet so we only had to keep up with the girls...wow, once he is it really will be fun!

Annslee was very good with Jack and gave him kisses. I don't know if she will be this receptive of her own younger sibling. I hope it is a sign of things to come though.

A group shot of the kids was almost impossible since they didn't want to stay still long enough.

Lions, Tigers and Bears...

Well, actually our zoo doesn't have Lions or Bears but we do have Tigers! Today we headed to the zoo and my animal lover had a great time as usual. Buying a zoo membership last year was a very wise investment. She wanted to see the cows of course..I should tell you that our Zoo is built on an old farm and the house is still there so they have cows, horses, sheep etc... She then wanted the elephants and tigers. Luckily all of them were really close to the fence so we had some good looks at them! The funniest thing is she literally YELLS out the animal sound to each animal as we are near them. I think she thinks it will get them to come even closer...it never works but it is entertaining. Of course since we are outside I can't really say "use your inside voice" so everyone gets to hear it!

It was pretty hot today so we went to the Rain Room. It has large fans on the ceiling and mists of water. Of course I had to practically drag her away. The promise of the snow leopard helped.

And here he is!! When we got to the exhibit they were shooting a commercial so he wasn't out yet as they were still "setting the stage" Annslee was not happy about this but we occupied ourselves with the Red Pandas. She isn't too thrilled with them as they don't look like "real" Pandas. I keep telling her we will go visit Lauren soon and see the real Giant Pandas in Atlanta. When they finally let the leopard out I knew we were in trouble. She was so excited to see him and after a pretty long time I started suggesting we move on. She was not into that idea. Even the lure of brushing the goats didn't help. Finally I had to just pick her up and take her out because there were a lot of other kids trying to get a front row viewing.


THIS is the face I got after removing us from the Snow Leopard : (

Now who wants an unhappy girl at the Zoo on a beautiful day in May...not me! So I started doing our little joke we do with the Barney song "I can see it on your face" You know..when you're angry, when you're sad, when you're happy...works everytime.

When you're ANGRY

When you're SAD (notice she is almost cracking a smile)

When you're HAPPY ...well, by this time she was ready to go do something else so the happy face wasn't her usual big cheesy grin but at least she was a happy girl again!

As we were getting ready to leave we had ice cream...she took my spoon so she had two. Now there's the HAPPY face I was looking for earlier!

*Yes, we did come home and swim in our backyard pool..but I didn't even take my camera out with me. Shocked I know, but Mamarazzi was on a break : )

Non stop girl!

We had a fun time on Sunday going to the Arts Festival at the park. This is an event that always occurs the first weekend in May. Our wedding reception was held at the Parthenon in the park so we usually try to go every year since it was going on the weekend we got married. I remember being concerned about all those white tents at my reception ha ha

Here is Annslee and Daddy with the Parthenon behind them!

They were selling these coconut filled monkeys and of course we had to have one. She thought the "pina colada" tasted like ice cream...yummy.

All the artwork is by local artisans and it is all very unique and pretty pricey. She really liked these backyard water fountains. Of course she liked this one best and it was almost $600 so needless to say, we don't own it

Before we left we had to swing. Here she is telling Daddy to push her HIGH!

When we got home Daddy went to hit some golf balls while we headed to our pool out back.

Then it was time to dry off and have dinner. You might be fooled by this cute smile into thinking she was ok with going inside...not really!



Never fear..we swam again the next day!

Birthdays, Horses and Thomas

We went to a birthday party..yes, a 3 year old party on our anniversary, and the theme was Wild Wild West. Little did we know there would be a real horse there. Annslee was squealing with excitement. She wanted to pet the horse repeatedly and then said she wanted to ride. Well, once she got up there she decided it would be better if Daddy held her hand as they rode around the cul-de-sac.

She had such a great time that she wanted to ride him again. This time she decided to do it all by herself! She loves all animals so much and it is so fun to watch her with them .

Another big hit at the party was Thomas the Train. She rode it several times and then towards the end of the evening Carson was on it. She held her hand out and he kissed it as he rode by. On the next go round they hugged but that was a mistake as hugging derailed the train. No one was hurt so I guess the hug was worth it.

Random cuteness!

Just a few photos that didn't get put up from the last few days. Daddy pressure washed the house while the girls went to feed ducks, swing and play outside. Hardly seems fair huh?

Here she is watching him work. She was mesmerized by it but gladly agreed to go outside and enjoy the day with Mama.

She "walked" her dog, pushed him in the swing and "rode" her scooter!

Daddy worked hard and so he cuddled up on the couch with her for a while.

Creme cheese on a bagel with cinnamon sugar to dip it in...a trick she learned from her cousins.

HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO EVERYONE!!!

Five years ago today

I married a man who is a wonderful husband and now a fantastic father. Things haven't always turned out like we planned but usually that only meant we would be blessed with something so much better than we could have imagined.

Gotcha Clothes Challenge

Donna over at Double Happiness had a photo challenge to dig out your child's gotcha/metcha clothes and see if they still fit. I got them out and was wondering if they would still fit her 18 months later but she was up to the challenge. The size tag in them says 10 and now at least I know that means 3T..they fit her perfectly now! She must have been lost in them a year and a half ago.

Here is all she was wearing. I know the pink outfit was brand new because I later found the tags that had been taken off them in the gift bag the orphange director gave us with the formula, cereal and photo album in it. The little yellow and green Micky Mouse outfit (with the famous split pants) looked worn but I am not sure about that. I love the pink Spider Man shoes : )



Here is our first family photo taken minutes after she was handed to us. As you can see, she was not too thrilled to meet us.


* China 11/14/05





Here she is in November 2006 in her Gotcha clothes. They actually fit better a year later. You can go to our posts from our One Year Family Day anniversary to see more photos from China and last November.

*Home 11/14/06

And here she is tonight! We started out in her room and she kind of participated. Of course she took as many photos of me as I took of her. She is really getting good at centering people in the view finder..but no one wants to see what I look like tonight so I will spare you those shots.

We had to go downstairs and of course she ran to our bedroom. She loves to play on our bed!


It was a little surreal seeing her in these clothes again. It brought back so many memories, so thank you Donna for the great Photo Challenge.

Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun

please shine down on me!! The best $12 I've spent in a long time. I can just sit and relax while she splashes away. Annslee has always been a water girl and the outdoor pool doesn't open until Memorial Day..WHAT?? Well, no problem we will just get our own pool.


I put the water in before her nap so I hoped it would warm up a little in the sun. As you can see she is letting me know it is still cold. I put my foot in there and that was all I could take.
She thought it would be fun to pour water on my feet. I love this pic because she has such a little mischievous look on her face and you can see her little dimple in it. *if you click on it to enlarge you can ; ) Both of the dogs kept coming over to check it out but wouldn't get in with her no matter how hard she begged.
As you can see..the cold water didn't phase her for long..she had a blast!

I can't wait to take her swimming a lot this summer. Last year she was jumping off the side and going under all the time. I hope she continues to enjoy it!

Thinking Blogger...who me???

Ok..so I know Kelly only nominated me because she loves Annslee but that is ok, it gives me the opportunity to direct you to some of the blogs I read. Kelly actually deserves this award because her blog definitely is thought provoking and I know mine is merely a place for me to brag on my daughter..lots of fluff and little content. I know my blog makes no one THINK...except maybe to think "dang, how many pictures does she take??" However, it is my blog so that is what I do and I truly appreciate all my buddies who stop by to take a look. I commented to Kelly about this and she sent the sweetest reply saying "It does better than make me think, it helps me to dream." She reminded me that the wait is so hard and it is nice to see the end result of all that waiting. So if my little blog gives some of you waiting a glimpse of your future and helps you get through it even a little..then I am glad for that.

There are so many I want to nominate and so many I love have already been nominated so I will do my best.

1. Maggie-- She is a wonderful and funny woman who is about to give birth to her first child and wondering if he will look like her or her Chinese husband or more likely..a beautiful combo of both. She has great posts on being pregnant and all the joys and fears that go with that. Her header "Campaigning for Year Round Summer" is what initially caught my eye but once I started reading..I was hooked.

2. Rachel-- She is a mom of two adorable girls from Cambodia and Vietnam. Her husband was adopted from Vietnam as well. I watched her struggle with a very long wait to go get her second daughter and she handled it with grace and humor. She is a great read and I think you will enjoy all her photos as well.

3. New Parent-- This is a family who gives insight into typical toddler behaviors and how they deal with them. I may not always agree but I do enjoy reading for new ideas

4. Karianne--She is mommy to two beautiful children and is such a joy to read. She has a very giving spirit and recently hosted a prom to benefit her son's orphanage in Africa. I am still waiting to see prom pictures!

5. Zhuni--She is a SAHM (reluctantyly by her own admission) to two children. Her writing is thought provoking and funny as she deals with the inlaws who don't realize she can understand when they speak in Cantonese...

6. David & Amy--A couple from Texas anxiously awaiting their daughter from China. I found them on Johnny's blog and have read ever since. They have great insight and are an enjoyable read.

I know that is six and not five....sorry. Once you are nominated you need to go to this link to read all the rules. The main one is that now you must nominate five..and believe me, it is hard to do just five!