Princess Sweeties

 

 

 

 

 

Final shots from our afternoon makeovers. These 3 are so cute together. We all had a lot of fun. I am sure many more princess camps are in my future :)

Dynamic Diva

 

 

Of course S opted for the more "mature" look ;). Such a little diva princess, she is one of a kind. So thankful that I get to be her mommy!!

Beauty Queen

 

As you can see, F loved our afternoon of fun. She is SO beautiful!

Princess Botique

 

 

 

 

The girls suggested that we have our very own home version if the Bibbity Boppity Botique. We made a trip to Party City and the mall for our necessities. Then we were ready for the transforming.

Here is our first princess to graduate from the princess transformation sessions....Ariel.

Beautiful princess was all smiles :)

Buddies

Two peas in a pod :)

Seventeen Years

 

 

 

Tomorrow is our 17th wedding anniversary! To think about everything we have experienced in those short 17 years is really amazing. I am curious to see what the next 17 bring :). It's been a wild ride for sure. And everyone knows how much I love those theme parks!!

Hmmmmm...

Any guess as to what we are contemplating putting between all those chairs?!?

Daddy's Day

 

Today is my dad's 74th birthday!! The girls all made him special birthday cards. And of course my kids don't let a birthday go by without cake-lol. Even though Papa isn't a big cake fan, we compromised with an ice cream cake surprise! Looks like we helped make his day a special one :)

Do I Love Him Yet Article

Wow just read this entire article, and boy did it resignate with me.  I asked that question over and over again for the whole 9 months.  Even though I could really relate to many things in the article, our situation didn't end the same way.  Here is a snippet from the article:

And there was the day, in the grocery store checkout line, when a cashier brightly asked, “Would you like to contribute a dollar for Thanksgiving dinners for the homeless?” and I snarled, with murderous anger, “I…HAVE…GIVEN…ENOUGH.”

Lying awake at night considering, “If I drive all night and check into a motel in Indiana, will anyone ever find me?” also might have signaled that I was having some issues with our son, Jesse, whom we had adopted from Bulgaria three weeks ago.

All night long I thrashed and pummeled my pillow, in the grip of panic and grief and regret.
One morning, I pulled a telephone as far as it would reach from one room to the privacy of another, dialed the number of the adoption agency, and whispered, “I don’t think I can do this. Is it possible to disrupt an adoption?”

“Well, gosh,” chirruped a friendly voice on the other end. “Nobody’s ever asked me that before! Let me find somebody who might know.”

Undone to learn that I was the first, the very first, adoptive mother to even ask such a question, I was incapable of gathering enough voice to reply. I hung up on the woman and doubled over in agony.

“Can you believe I’ve done this to myself?” I cried to a visiting friend, gesturing wildly at the child. Jesse, with his neat brown bangs and dark eyes, was sitting at that moment on the screened porch, trying to learn how to play with blocks. So far that morning, he’d confirmed that the wood blocks were not edible, but he was unsure what he was supposed to do next. I was in too foul a mood to show him.

“Can you remember why you wanted to adopt?” asked my friend, at a loss as to how to help me. The child looked fine to her, cute, even.

“No!” I sobbed. “I can’t. It wasn’t me. I can’t even remember that person. What was she thinking?”

Soccer Champs

Check out this great group of soccer players this season. Our Saturdays are filled with games from 8am-4pm! Makes for long days, but all the kids are really enjoying the sport this year. 3 out of the 4 have scored goals so far, so we are really going to be cheering on C to get his personal goal before the season ends :)

Flower Power

My Office

 

 

Since this blog is simply a keepsake for my kids, I wanted to post some pics if where I spend most of my days. I happen to work for a great company, with a boss that really understands the balancing between home and work. I feel very lucky to have landed my job 18 years ago!

So needless to say, here is where I spend my weekdays... In my office :)

Pretty Princess

Isn't she beautiful?!? Wow, S just makes me smile :)

This little one has earned every little bit of that precious smile. She started with a sweet "wide smile" in life, and has overcome oh so much in her short seven years.

S has now graduated completely out of speech...AMAZING. She started with speech services four days a week at 2.5 years old. We have slowly been tapering off her sessions at school. And now...NO MORE SPEECH!!! I am in awe of her strength and courage. She is definitely one precious miracle.

 

On A Roll

So funny that my last two fortunes have been so very TRUE!

Adorable Alex

My good friend Evelyn arrived home last night from China with her third treasure. Finally a son! I can't wait to meet him finally live and in person. Alex is six years old and seems to be doing great so far.

Pretty sure I freaked her out as she was waiting to travel for Alex, she was with me every step through the disruption. Evelyn is one incredible lady and she is terrific friend. I am SO SO happy for her!!

I bet I sent Evelyn over a hundred pics of little boys over the past couple of years. We both knew she had a son waiting for her. It just took a lot of searching to find him ;). One LESS!!

Sprinkler Fun

 

 

F and E had a blast playing in the toddler playground while we waited on the others to ride some of the bigger rides.  The park was pretty empty, so I had no issues with just stripping them down to let them run.  Good thing it is a country park where redneck behavior is accepted ;)

Full Motion

Crazy Boys

Nana called this thing the "slinger dinger"-lol. Ye, I allowed the boys to go flying round and round, high in the sky on this crazy contraption!!

They loved every minute of course;)