Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Katie is a HOOT!

Katie says so many funny and sometimes sassy things. I want to write them down to remember them in years to come.

I can't remember them all at this moment but here are a few things she has said over the last week to make us laugh.

Everytime we get into the car Katie takes her shoes off. Sometimes this drive me crazy because we may be making several stops running errands and we have to put the shoes back on to get out of the car.

Mommy: "Katie, Why do you take your shoes off everytime we get in the car?"
Katie: "My feet need a break Mommy!"

Katie sucks her thumb. I asked the Pediatrician about it at her 3 year old visit and the Pediatrician didn't act like it was an issue. So for the most part we don't say anything about her thumb sucking. Dan said this to her yesterday.

Daddy: "Katie, Big Girls don't suck their thumbs."
Katie "Well this one does."

Tonight I was folding laundry and Katie came up and started to help me...which usually means more work for me. She picked up my bra and put it on my head and said "Look a space helmet!" I got hysterical and said "A space helmet?" and she said "Yes, a cute space helmet".

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What a fun age. She is a HOOT that Katie Min Min!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

And More Georgia........

After the Zoo on Friday we went back to Carolyn's house and headed to the playground across from her house. Mackenzie came home from school and was able to join the other kids for some fun.

My creation

Carolyn took a few pictures of Katie playing with me in the grass. She was laying on me in the grass hugging me. What could be better??

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Same picture just playing around with editing

After the playground we went back to the house to make dinner. The girls played dress up and Mac played Hair Stylist.

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Mac "Highlighting" Katie's Hair

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I captured my daughter in a not so NICE moment. She was pulling Grace's Ariel necklace off her neck. Tears were flowing a few seconds after this picture.

We ended the night with popcorn and a movie
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Friday, September 26, 2008

Our Georgia Trip Continued......

Friday we visited the Atlanta Zoo. We were lucky enough to meet up with another family from our Travel group. I met Susan during our wait for Katie on our GWCA LID yahoo group. Both of our daughter's are from Hubei Province. My family spent 2 weeks with Susan and her family in China. We became fast friends and have stayed in touch via e-mail since our adoptions. This was the first time I saw them since China and I was very excited to see them.

I took so many great photos in Georgia it has been so hard to choose which ones to blog.

My creation



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Grace Ingram and Katie
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I love this picture. They were so funny the little conversations they would have.


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So happy together!


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Hubei Girls.....Kara and Katie



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CJ~What a cutie!

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They are showing off the Panda stamps on there hands.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Our trip to Georgia

It is truly amazing how many wonderful friends I have met through Katie's adoption. During our homestudy class with the social worker, Dan and I met a couple that was also adopting from China. They were also using the same adoption agency as us. They live fairly close to us and we became fast friends. Luck would have it that our paperwork went to China at the same time as theirs and we were in the same travel group. While Karen and Kevin were waiting for their daughter Mia from China, Karen got pregnant and had their daughter Maddie at 26 weeks. Maddie spent several months in the NICU. Kevin and his Mom traveled to China for Mia while Karen stayed home with Maddie. A year ago Karen had a baby boy named CJ. Now Karen and Kevin have a 3yr old(Mia), 2 yr old(Maddie soon to be 3), and 1 yr(CJ's birthday happens to be today). Karen's sister Carolyn was also adopting from China at the same time as us. Carolyn and her husband Kevin already had a daughter from China and were adopting again. Karen and Carolyn were putting their paperwork into the agency at the same time so they would travel together. So we all traveled together and our daughters, Katie, Mia, and Grace Ingram were all adopted the same day but from different provinces.

Karen and I decided to take a road trip to Georgia to visit her sister Carolyn and get the girls and CJ together.

We left my house on Tuesday night and drove halfway to Roanoke, VA. We slept over in Roanoke and then drove the rest of the way to Georgia on Wednesday.

The kids were so excited to see each other and play. We stayed at Carolyn's house and the kids had a ball. It was a big sleepover party for 4 nights.

Wednesday was GiGi's Birthday~this is Mackenzie and Grace Ingram's Grandmom. We celebrated with ice cream cake.

Thursday with went the the Outlets and went shopping.

Here are a few pictures of Wednesday and Thursday. I will continue to blog about our trip this week.
My creation

Pictures left to right: Mackenzie with Gigi, Maddie, CJ, Katie, Grace Ingram, and Mia



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Grace Ingram and Katie were buddies the whole trip


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Girlfriends!!!

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Katie Min Min

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Katie and Grace

My creation
What Beautiful girls! Left to Right: Maddie, Mia, Katie, Grace

Monday, September 22, 2008

Sneak peak from our trip to Georgia

We just got home from Georgia and I am exhausted. I will post all about our trip tomorrow but I couldn't resist posting a photo or two of our trip. We had a fabulous time visiting our friends.

I took 359 pictures so I don't know how I am going to pick which pictures to post because they all came out great!

Monday, September 15, 2008

Leaving for Georgia

We were so busy this past weekend. I didn't even have time to post anything. We had soccer on Saturday morning. Katie was alittle tired this week on the field after partying the night before at Daddy's birthday party. Saturday night we had some friends from our adoption group over to watch the dance recital DVD. The kids had a ball playing together. Sunday we had the American Heart Association walk with my co-workers. I work for a large Cardiology practice. Sunday afternoon, Katie and I spent some time with our friends, Sue, Paige, and Avery. Sunday evening we went to Mom-Mom Maureen's for her birthday. We had a busy weekend. I have so many cute photos but I don't have the time to post them tonight. I am busy packing for our roadtrip to Georgia.

More on Georgia when I get there..........

Friday, September 12, 2008

Happy Birthday Daddy!

We had a great time celebrating Dan's birthday tonight. Katie ran downstairs this morning to tell Dan happy birthday. She wanted to be "first" before me. We had a small gathering of family and friends to celebrate Dan's birthday.

Katie picked out the birthday plates and birthday hats. She picked out the Philadelphia Eagles plates because it is Daddy's favorite team and she picked out Soccer party hats because Daddy is a great coach. We had a fun time being silly with the party hats.

Katie helped me pick out Dan's gifts and wrap them. We got him a wallet, a shirt, and a camera backpack for his new camera and lens. The backpack was the only present that Katie didn't know what it was because I ordered in online and just wrapped the box. As Dan opened his gifts, Katie helped him. Katie handed Dan the first gift from us and announced.."Here's your wallet Daddy!". Well everyone got a kick out of this. She did the same thing for the shirt. Luckily, she didn't know about the backpack or that wouldn't have been a surprise either.

Happy Birthday Dan! I hope you had a great day!

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My creation

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Bake me a cake as fast as you can......

Dan's birthday is tomorrow so Katie and I made a cake for Dan tonight. Katie had a ball. I wish I had a few pictures of her cracking the eggs but I was afraid to pick up the camera. I had to help her because she was whacking the egg on the side of the bowl and then trying to open the egg with one hand....."Like Daddy does when he makes eggs".

I don't have a picture of the finished product yet since the cake was baking while Katie got a bath and was put to bed.

I love the picture of Katie licking the spatula. I always thought that was the best part as a kid. After the cake was in the pan we got to lick the spatula....YUM!



Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Our Little Ballerina

Katie started Dance class this past Monday night. She was an old pro since this is her second year in the pre-school class. She is going on Monday nights this year and her new teacher is Miss Michelle. Katie's friend Jade is joining her in the class this year. Katie and Jade were both so excited and so cute in the class together.

I also started my Dance class on Monday night. Katie goes from 5:45 to 6:45 and then I will take her home and eat something and then I have my tap class from 7:45 to 8:45and then jazz class from 8:45 to 9:45. So, Monday nights are all about Dance in our house.

A few pictures of Katie and Jade......sorry no pictures of me at class ;)

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Sunday, September 7, 2008

Katie's first soccer game

Katie had her first soccer game yesterday. Lucky the rain held off until the game was over. Katie did GREAT. They started with 15 minutes of drill instructions by one of the coaches and then they broke up into teams to play the game. They played 3 on 3 and it was so cute watching the girls. Dan was really great with them as the coach. I think he did a great job.

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Katie soccer


We also went to Brady's Flag Football game. Dan got some great action shots of Brady.

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Later in the day we went to Lotus's 2nd Birthday party. Katie had a great time playing with all of her friends. What a great party! Happy Birthday Lotus!


Saturday, September 6, 2008

So much to blog.....so little time.....

Well summer is over and September is here. We had a busy first week of September. I had so many things that I wanted to blog about this week but so little time. So here it goes......

Tuesday was back to school. Katie is still going to the same daycare she has been going to but her class was changed and she is offically in Pre-School. She also has a new teacher, Miss Jess. Katie had Miss Jess for about 6 months when she was in the 2 year class room but Miss Jess was moved to the one year old class. Katie is excited to be with Miss Jess again. Dan and Katie watched Bailey and Brady get onto the school bus for the first day of school. The bus stop is right at the corner in front of our house. Katie loves watching the kids get on and off the school bus.



Brady, Katie, and Bailey waiting for the school bus.


Wednesday, I picked Katie up from school and Miss Lia said to me "Katie has great taste". I knew she was refering to the COACH purse that Katie took to school. Katie LOVES purses. She takes my old purses out of my closet and stuffs them with all kinds of things. She often takes a purse with her to school. So I laughed and said "Yes she found the purse in my closet". It is the only real COACH purse that I own. Miss Lia said "Well we were trying to figure out if the TIFFANY bracelet inside the purse was real". I said "WHAT??". I looked in the purse and sure enough there was my TIFFANY heart charm bracelet. Katie took it from my jewelry box last week. I was cleaning out my jewelry box and she was digging in when I was trying to reorganize it. She must of took the bracelet. Miss Lia said "We thought you were a real generous Mommy". Katie also had my lip liner, lip gloss, her Barbie cellphone and some fake money in her purse. Too Funny!!!!!


Katie with my COACH purse


Katie and Dan playing "HIPPOS" before dinner



Thursday, I was off my from work. I am off every Thursday but worked alot of Thursdays in the summer to fill in for vacations. Thursday is usually my day with Katie. We do something fun together. In the morning I had the carpets cleaned. The dining room chairs were lined up in the kitchen and Katie put her dolls on the chairs and said she was driving them to school on the school bus. It is amazing what her little mind comes up with. After the carpets were done we went to the Mall. Katie was in her sleeping beauty dress up and insisted on wearing it to the Mall. Katie had so many people make a fuss over her in the Mall because she looked so cute. Katie has so many people make a fuss over her even when she is in regular clothes. I think she is just used to it. Katie said to me when we were walking "That man didn't say I looked pretty". I thought she said "The man said I looked pretty". I said "I know everyone thinks you are so beautiful in your Sleeping Beauty costume. She said "NO, that man DIDN'T say I was pretty!!". I said "Oh Katie you are pretty but not every person we pass is going to tell you that". I think she is so used to everyone making a fuss over her. She is such a HAM.

Katie driving her dolls to school on the "BUS"




We went into the Halloween costume store and Katie was so excited looking at the costumes. Over the pass week Katie has talked about Halloween and what she wants to be for Halloween. First, she wanted to be Ariel as a Mermaid but to be confused with Ariel as a Human. Then she wanted to be PIKACHU(watched this with Bailey and Brady last weekend). Then she wanted to be Princess Fiona from Shrek. So when she picked out the SHARPAY costume from High School Musical, I asked her if she was really sure. She has never seen HSM movie but she knows the girl characters from the movie. Some of the girls in school wear HSM shirts and she sees the stuff in the stores and points it out to me. We also saw HSM on ice. She was insistint on the SHARPAY costume. So I told her if I buy it that is what she is being. So I bought the costume, wig, and glasses. I can't want until Halloween to post a picture of her in the costume because it is HYSTERICAL.


Katie as SHARPAY



They say....."One mans trash is another mans treasure" and that is true. Dan trash picked a YAMAHA keyboard. It didn't have a cord and it needed to be cleaned up a bit. Dan cleaned it up and put batteries in it and it worked. Katie thought it was the greatest thing. She looked like a natural playing it.


Katie with her new keyboard



Friday was picture day at school. I made Katie a headband with a hairbow attached. I thought she looked so cute. Dan took a few pictures of her. Now, looking back at the pictures she looks like I wrapped her up as a present. The bow is a bit BIG. I hope it looks okay in the school picture. Katie will look back at it in 20 years and want to know what her mother was thinking.


Ready for picture day



I also made her bows to match her soccer uniform. I just had to girly up my girly girl alittle bit for the soccer field.

Well that was our week. Later today I will post about our weekend.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Labor Day Weekend 2008

We spent another fabulous weekend at The Rocco's Beach House in Fenwick, Delaware. We started our summer on Memorial Day weekend at the Rocco's beach house and it was a great way to end our summer.



Dan, Katie, Karen, and I arrived late Friday night. Jeff, Bailey, Brady, Two-Pop, and Grandmom were already there waiting for us to arrive. We spent Saturday at the beach relaxing and the kids had a ball in the ocean and playing in the sand. Saturday night, Pat made a WONDERFUL Italian dinner. Karen and I had our friend Ruck from work and his wife Robin over for dinner and Rudy had his friend Bill from work and Bill's friends over for dinner. We had a great time enjoying the evening with good food and good friends.



Sunday we went to The Carousal Hotel in OCM to ice skate....yes, ice skate. They have a small ice skating rink in the hotel. Dan, Jeff, Bailey, Brady, and Katie went skating. Katie didn't like it and didn't last long on the ice. Brady did GREAT. Bailey did good too. Dan was trying to "do tricks" on the ice. He looked like a goof ball and I prayed he didn't fall and break his leg.

Then we had lunch at the Sunset Grille. We stopped at Harborside for the famous "Orange Crushes". When we got back, Jeff and Dan took the kids to the pool. Sunday night we had leftovers and hung out at the house playing games.



We left this morning to head home. Thanks Rudy and Pat aka Two-Pop and Grandmom for another WONDERFUL weekend at The Beach House.

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