Ramblings~

Last night she wanted to sit at her desk and write while watching a movie. She always prefers an ink pen over crayons or markers. She enjoys coloring but LOVES to just write or draw.

You can tell she was enjoying the movie : )

She was watching "Return to Never*land" and if you have seen it you know that Jane keeps a list of "things she needs" so of course Annslee was doing the same *note, she switched to her left hand ~ she goes back and forth for now*

After the movie it was bathtime. I thought putting bubbles on her head was pretty fun ~not sure she agreed LOL

Poor baby, she doesn't get to play in the tub enough b/c she usually jumps in the shower with one of us


Finding a foot in the bubbles was pretty entertaining : )

Today was her second day of preschool and it was also Donuts with Dad day. What fun on your second day of school!! Daddy even had artwork given to him that she made : )

Miss Independent also has started something new. She will NOT let me go into the stall with her in a bathroom. I peek through the crack in the door as she does everything herself and of course this all takes twice as long as when I help. Today I really cracked up as she kicked her leg up to flush with her foot ~ she came out laughing about it : )

First Day of Preschool *updated*

She had her Tink backpack, her lunch box and her "Mimmie" mouse shirt ~ she was all ready to go! Her speech therapist was able to get us a slot in one of the local preschools for a 3 morning a week Pre K 3 program. It is not the language based preschool we are still hoping she will get into but at least it is an opportunity to get some socialization and interaction with her peers. The big difference is at the lang based one the teachers are all trained in dealing with and teaching children who are behind in speech and they also have a speech therapist who works with them in the classroom. We are still hopeful that she will be able to get in but at this point her receptive skills are so high it seems to be causing a problem with that. Her therapist has diagnosed her with apraxia and that may be the reason she will be allowed in ~ fingers crossed.

As you may know she spent a year in daycare but she has been home with Mama for almost a year now so we weren't sure how this would go. Please note it was about 25 degrees outside but Miss Thing refused her coat!



She was a little apprehensive when we walked in and didn't go straight to the gym like we did the day we visited. She also kept asking "Mama bye??" I told her that yes, today I would go bye bye but only for a little while (it is actually for 4 LONG hours....too much for Mama)


Of course her silliness won out and she was soon laughing and cutting up with me

There were no tears as I left. Actually she ran over and gave a giant hug to a girl she remembered from Monday when we came to visit and they sat down to "read" together. I had to ask her to come kiss me goodbye. Her "buddy" is the oldest child in the class and Annslee is the youngest : ) I think the other little girl may be playing "Mama" with her as she came over and told me "Annslee is fine, you can go now" LOL

My phone has not been ringing and I am anxious to see how her first day went : )

*I just picked her up and she did great! Miss Jennifer said she asked where I was once and she told her I would be back in a little while and she could go play and she ran off back to her game. Apparently she and Jordan (the little girl from this morning) buddied up all day. When I walked into the room they were sitting together coloring and Annslee spotted me and ran, jumped in my arms and kissed me saying "mama!" over and over. You know I loved that! Jordan looked at me and said "Annslee likes me, she really likes me" It was super cute.

Trial Run

Last Saturday night we got a trial run at having two kiddos in the house. We kept our 2.5 year old nephew overnight. He was literally stunned I think that his mom (my sister) left for work and he was stuck with us. He was soooo quiet, which isn't his nature, but he did play with Annslee. She was so excited to have her cousin spend the night and have a playmate. We were so proud of the way she played so nicely, shared and of course expressed her concern as he missed his Mama. I didn't get any great pictures of them together because Gabe was really not in a playful mood.

Since he didn't want to play with me I went to my girl for some fun. Here she is making her best Tri*ton face (Ar*iel's Daddy) when he is angry

And here is Ar*iel when she spots Prince Eric

Oh, and of course Urs*ula ~ the villain!

Here is a last peaceful moment before bedtime. Notice Annslee's sippy ~ I need to get her saying "Mimmy" on video, it is super cute

Bedtime was pretty rough. Gabe cried for Aunt LaLa and Annslee wanted her Mama. Poor Daddy tried to appease both. Hopefully he will be older before we keep him again and a little more ready : )

Please note that my child had on PJs but don't think for a minute they stayed on at bedtime LOL

And the award goes too

ME... Yeah, I was given two bloggy awards last week and I am finally getting around to acknowledging them.

The first one was the blogging with a purpose one. This was given to me by Michelle at Life With Us. Her blog is amazing ~ filled with words of love and gorgeous pictures of her beautiful daughters. She wrote "This amazing woman's love for her daughter leaps of the page and into my life every day and I am so thankful. Lala takes more pictures than I do, and that's no easy feat. Her pictures capture her daughters beautiful spirit. Her blog has the most joyful energy and I am thankful to be a part of that each day. I look forward to being there to see you become a mother again to Malia." What sweet words since my only real purpose with this blog is to show off my beautiful girl : ) It started out as a way to keep our family and friends updated on our family but it has become much more than that. I think one of the greatest things it has done is allowed me to make some great new friends. I have had waiting families tell me that seeing "the dream come true through Annslee" helps them with the wait ~ that makes it worthwhile.

I had to really think about who to give this award to because I love so many of the ones I read. I decided to "go outside the box" and give it to some of the adult adoptees I read. I think they provide a lot of insight into what Annslee may go through later and how they deal with it. They have very interesting articles and perspectives and I always find something useful.

Here are the ones I read :

Second Generation

Harlow's Monkey

Mia's Saving Grace

Heart ,Mind and Seoul

The Stuff I Think About

This award was started by Eric Novak and you can go here to check it out!

The other award I received was from Steffie whose blog a lot of us really love!! She shares her life with her tribe and what fun having a teen and two toddlers can be. She LOVES her family and it shows!



Xandra from Heart of Service created this award to honor those Blogs that are "must reads".
In her own words: "So here's to all the blogs that you've discovered that you can't possibly live without. They make you laugh, cry, think and feel connected every time you read a post. They give you a thrill as you see them loading into your browser and you get an equally satisfying thrill when you see that they have commented on your blog."

I am going to have to just direct you to my blogroll for this one. If you are on there and your blog is in bold on my bloglines, I am coming to check it out. I do love reading my travelmates' blogs in particular and a few others are certain favs (you know who you are) I also enjoy any blogs my fellow Lovebugs (my DTC group for Annslee) have. If you are not on there leave a comment with your blog so I can check you out!!

One that isn't on my blogroll because I can't get it loaded is Colleen so I will give her a shout out here : ) I do love reading about Linlee. We were in the same DTC group waaaay back and have become closer while discussing the speech issues our girls have.

One last thing, she told me NOT to say anything but I have to give Connie a huge thank you for my blog redesign. I love it!!!!

Don't use your hands!!

Guess who is now signed up for Spring Soccer?? Yep, my little athlete is : ) We are currently trying to convince her that you can't use your hands and that is a tough lesson apparently. The other big concern she had today was that her new ball was getting dirty ~ she did not like that!

In a surprising move as she stood at the store and I told her she could have her pick of all the size 3 soccer balls ~ she didn't pick purple. I personally love the green and pink one she chose

Guess I am an official Soccer Mom now ~ time for that minivan!

Thought for the day

"The time may be delayed, the manner may be unexpected, but the answer is sure to come. Not a tear of sacred sorrow, not a breath of holy desire poured out to God will ever be lost; but in God’s own time and way will be wafted back again in clouds of mercy, and fall in showers of blessings on you, and those for whom you pray."

~ Henry Coyle

I found this on someone's blog and I can't remember where or I would credit them with showing it to me : )

I think it sums up what a lot of us are currently feeling with this wait and encourages us to stand strong.

She is only three!

When we were in Charlotte over Christmas Annslee watched intently as her older cousins played their game systems. She seemed fairly interested in what could be sooo exciting. When we got home she unfortunately found this yahtzee game that is very loud and we don't even know where it came from. We were moving an entertainment center and it was behind it. Well, you know what happened next ......




I told her she could only play it in her room so I wouldn't hear it so much. Please understand she has a lot of noisy toys and they don't bother me but this one just emits the same high pitched noise over and over! Oh, and yes she sleeps on a mattress on the floor. Her "big girl" bed is still not refinished : )

*Michelle and Steffie have both given me two different blogger awards and I am working on that post : ) Thanks girls....all the love right back at ya!!

January + 70 Degrees = ZOO

Annslee went back to speech therapy this morning and when we walked out of the school I realized just how nice it was. I looked at her and said "wanna go to the zoo?" I got an enthusiastic cheer and we were off!

The animals were really active today since it wasn't so hot and that brought lots of smiles from my little animal lover. However, the clouded leopards weren't out at all. Here she is looking for them, so sad...... luckily the red pandas were entertaining

Speaking of active animals ~ the African Wild Dogs were actually out today!!! Believe me she was thrilled but I didn't get a good shot of that

When we were walking over to the tigers we spotted someone ~ Amelia and Jack!! ~

Annslee thought a group hug was a good idea : )

After seeing all the animals we all headed to the play area

She and Amelia had a fun time jumping , running, chasing and generally just being silly girls

What a fun day we had and now the princess is happily sleeping

Twins??

Just like a lot of families, when we were waiting for Annslee we requested twins. Well, the other night while we were waiting for Daddy I got a glimpse of this : ) Of course not a real glimpse like Rony and Crazylady but it was still pretty funny!











She was totally cracking me up at how into it she was chatting and making faces with herself ~ silly girl! In case I haven't mentioned this ... three is my favorite age so far!!

So the diagnosis was not correct, uh oh!

Got a call from our doctor yesterday letting us know that even though the "rapid test" was negative her culture came back positive for strep. We headed off to the pharmacy and she is now on antibiotics. I promise you cannot tell she is sick ~ her reaction to strep and mine are totally opposite but I am glad her reaction is what it is : ) I guess I need to call the Jump place (sorry about that) The good news is that Mia was already on antibiotics so she is fine after hanging out with the hugger!


Here is my "sick" girl Wednesday night when we went to catch the last night of lights at a local hotel. I had to include this picture because she is asking for money ~ yeah, look closely at her rubbing those fingers together. She is not shy and will ask pretty much anyone for some coins for the fountain

She enjoyed herself as usual ~ it is hard to see but there was a fountain show going on behind she and daddy in the second one and in the first one there is a waterfall behind her which she thought was pretty cool

Guess we are stuck at home a little longer while we all get better. Oh, and at some point today the hits on this blog will reach the 50,000 mark ~ will it be you?!

Sweetness

Since Mia's mommy is a teacher we knew we had to have a playdate during Christmas break. Our plan was to paint pottery but the place we were going to was closed so we opted for plan B. No, it wasn't the grocery store LOL Mia's mommy had to get some things so we went along though.



Plan B was the Jump place and as usual they went wild!

It was pretty busy with some older kids but they held their own and went down the slide over and over

I know everyone thinks their child is special but Annslee does possess a quality that I am so proud of. I get a little glimpse of God when I see it. She truly is an empathetic child. She cannot stand to see someone sad, sick or hurting. She will run to them and comfort them and if it is a child she will seek out their mom or dad. It is sweet to watch and I sometimes have had to almost drag her away from a crying child when the parent arrives.

Well, Mia hurt her foot on the slide and Annslee was so concerned ~ I think the look on her face says it all. She ran over to sit by her and had Mia's hand between the two of hers and was patting it

Then she would lift Mia's hand and kiss it in an attempt to make it all better. I do love my sweet girl and it seemed to work because Mia was up and running in no time.

SNOW!!

Made you look~ Seriously enlarge the collage and you will see the snowflakes : ) I made my daughter get up and go out there for this??!! I told her to try and catch one on her tongue and I think you can see from the second pic she is saying "What Snow??" The last one really makes me laugh because she was finally so frustrated she just threw her hands out and came inside LOL

Make fun if you want all my Non Southern friends but I have to snap pictures when I can because this may be all we get : ) It was totally worth it for her though because her reward for humoring me was hot chocolate!

Ringing in the New Year

We started off our New Year's Eve going to the pediatrician. I wanted to get a strep test for my little nurse and make sure she was ok. The good news ~ it was negative! They did weigh and measure her and she has gained 1/2 a pound and 1/2 an inch in two months : )

We were shocked to find out Mia was going to the doctor too. They go to different ones but in the same practice. I kept telling Annslee that Mia would be there and she watched out the window for her. I think she was happy to see her!

What are the chances that these two crazy girls would meet up here? Luckily they both are doing well.

When we got home Annslee had a Christmas gift from her Aunt Anne and Cousins Mari and Andrew waiting on her

She and Sasha decided to hang out with Daddy for a while and Annslee got lots of doggy kisses

Finally it was time to do some fireworks! We lit a small one that she enjoyed and then it was on to the sparklers

At first she wasn't to sure about it but we told her to write her name with it. She did and kept saying she was writing "I love Annslee!!"

We are so blessed to ring in the new year with our sweet girl

She went to bed around 9 which is early for her. We did manage to stay up and drink champagne at midnight (watching the replay of the Rocking New Year since we are on CST) and then Mama hit the bed by 12:15 ~ hey, I've been sick!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful ringing in and the new year brings many new little ones into all of our lives (well, those of us waiting for that!)