A weekend spent with friends

We shared an amazing weekend with wonderful friends. When we made the decision to adopt from China, I started looking online for information about Chinese adoption. I found some yahoo support groups that were just for Chinese adoption. I started to meet people online that actually lived in my area and who were in the same stage of the adoption process as us. One of these families was the Olson family. Kim and I became fast friends as were waited for our daughters. We shared hopes and dreams. We started to attend waiting family meeting together. We made friends with other Mom's who were waiting. We registered for our baby showers together. By the time we got the referrals of our daughters we had 5 families in our "group". The Olson family got there referral the month before us. I was so excited for Kim and Gunner and couldn't wait to see little Hannah MingMei's face. She was a beauty. We celebrated with the Olsons and celebrated again when we got our referral of Katie Min Min. We followed each other trips to China and had first playdates together when we got home with our daughters. At the end of 2006 The Olson family moved to Virginia. We were sad because we would miss them but we knew we would remain friends. We shared so much together. Our adoption group as grown to over 10 families and we are lucky enough to get together often. Kim stays in touch with us via our own groups yahoo group. But we don't get to see her very often. I was so excited to plan a weekend get together with Kim and Hannah. Kim and Hannah arrived on Friday afternoon. We went to Sesame Place for a few hours. We met up with some of the families in our group. Then Friday night Mimi watched the girls and we had a much needed girls night out with Kim. Saturday we hit the church carnival to "hop" on some rides as Hannah would say. The girls had a BLAST! Then back to our house for a cookout so our group could come over and spend some time with Kim and Hannah. It was Kim's Birthday so we celebrated with some yummy deserts and we sang to Kim and surprised her and the girls with some magic candles. Since it was so close to Cinco de Mayo we had a "Fiesta" theme. I challenged some of the older kids to a hula contest.....Could they hula while wearing a Mexican Hat and shake maracas? Hannah Whitty and Brady were able to do it!!! I tried but was not as good as the 7 year olds. Sunday morning we said our goodbyes. I would love to make this our "First Annual" Kim and Hannah weekend(Gunner is more then welcome too)!

Sesame Place and St Joe's Carnival

We like to party........

More celebrations and another fun filled weekend. We celebrated Sean O'Brien's First Holy Communion on Saturday night. It was at a beautiful banquet hall and they had a DJ. Katie had a great time dancing with all the kids. She even played a pink saxophone and tried her best to hula hoop. She excitedly announced when they played "Hannah Montana" and "High School Musical". "It's Hannah Tana MOMMY!!!!!!". She also learned the chicken dance and the macerana. She is my little dancing queen! We had a wonderful time. Thank you O'Brien family and Congratulations Sean!

Sunday was Mia Livezey's birthday. Mia was adopted from China the same day as Katie. In fact their were 4 girls at the party that were all adopted from China at the same time. Katie, Mia, Emma, and Grace Ingram. Grace Ingram and Big Sister MacKenzie are Mia's cousins. They were visiting from Georgia and we were so happy to see them again. Katie had a great time playing with her friends. Happy Birthday Mia!!!!!

MacKenzie, CJ, Katie, Mia, and Grace Ingram(Who will be three this month too)

CJ, Katie, and Mia

Maddie, Emma, MacKenzie, CJ, Katie, Mia, and Grace Ingram

"High Wheels and Slip Slops......"

Katie is such a girly girl. She loves to play dress up and she loves her play high heel shoes. She can run in high heels better that I can walk in them. Last week she told me that Madison at school wears her princess dresses to school and she wants to wear her princess dresses too. I got her to just settle on a wearing a crown and her tinkerbell shoes in stead of a full princess get up. The next day she told me "I want to wear my high wheels, Lauren wears her high wheels to school". Too funny she was calling her high heels "high wheels". She also calls her flip flops "slip slops". She will change her outfit 3-4 times a day. Above are a few pictures of a day in the life of Katie Min Min.

Celebrations

Over the last few weeks we had a couple of very special celebrations.

Bailey made her First Holy Communion. She was absolutely beautiful. Katie fell asleep in Church and slept through most of the Communion but had a great time celebrating afterwards at Bailey's Party.

We were lucky enough to also witness Lotus's Christening. She was beautiful in her Christening dress. Katie was very excited about watching "Baby Lotus" get baptized. Katie had a great time at Lotus's party.

Congratulations and God Bless Bailey and Lotus. We were so happy to share in both these special days.

Easter 2008

Katie modeling her dress

Dress I made for Katie for Easter

Some pictures from Easter 2008

I am alittle behind posting pictures from Easter. We had a wonderful Easter. Hope you enjoy the photos.

That Nasty Squirrel

So Dan calls me at work last week to tell me something funny but disturbing that Katie said on the way to school. Dan and Katie were getting into Dan's truck to go to school and when they came out of the house the squirrel was eating the birds food. Katie starts to yell at the squirrel "Stop eating the birdies food Squirrel!". "That Nasty Squirrel!!". Dan gets Katie into the truck and she tells him to "Run the squirrel over with his truck and crush it". This is the disturbing part.

The next day I leave the house with Katie to taker her to daycare. There is the squirrel again eating the birds food. Katie starts again. "That nasty squirrel!". Continues to yell at the squirrel about eating the birdies food. Then I ask her "What did you tell Daddy to do to the squirrel?". She repeats about the truck running squirrel over. I tell her that is not very nice. She tells me "Well the squirrel isn't being nice eating the birdies food". Technically I guess she is right but Wow such violence with her wanting to crush the squirrel with the truck. I tell her that the birdies are being nice and sharing with the squirrel. I don't think she bought it because she continues to having an ongoing problem with the squirrel.

On the way home from school today she was asking about her Cinderella dress. She can't find it. I asked her "Where do you think it is?". She told me "That nasty squirrel took it". LOL.......so if you see a squirrel running around with a Cinderella dress on. That's our squirrel!

Big Girl Bed

Well we promised Katie when she turned 3 that she was going to get a "Big Girl Bed". I wasn't pushing the issue of getting her out of her crib. I figured since she wasn't climbing out of it let's leave well enough alone. But Daddy and Katie kept talking about the "Big Girl Bed" and Katie was getting excited about it. Originally I was going to buy her a bedroom set and move her room and let her pick out what she wanted. I was sure she would want princesses, everything is about princesses. But, since we are not getting her "Baby Sister" for probably another 2 years at least I wasn't ready to move her room. So we just got her a white toddler bed and a little nightstand(which Daddy has not put together yet.....hint hint Daddy). Since I have been sewing alot lately we went to Joann Fabric for her to pick out her blanket and pillow fabric. After looking at all the princess fabric she changed her mind and wanted Care Bears. So we got Care Bear fabric and I made her a blanket and pillow. It's been 2 weeks now and Katie has been sleeping in her big girl bed with no problem. We still have to read our books and rock her a little before bedtime. But, then she gets in her bed and instructs us to leave the light on and the door open and she goes to sleep. Then we sneak in and turn the light out later. She hasn't been waking up at night and it has been great!