Two Years Ago Today!!!

It doesn't seem possible that it has been TWO YEARS since we received "the call", telling us about our beautiful daughter, Lu Wei Feng. I remember it well because we were expecting the call and I was lucky enough (a God thing, I'm sure) to be home from work because we had a snow day. I was home on a snow day the following day also, when her pictures and information arrived. It was one of the best days of my life, and I will never forget it. We found out she was from the Jiangxi province, that she had lots of hair, and that she'd be 9 1/2 months old when we met her. The following day we took her picture (put into already home-made frames for each family member) to everyone to introduce her. Every family member was home (what are the odds?) and it was a joyous day for everyone!

From the time we turned in our paperwork to the time we traveled was 10 months for us, and I thought that was a lifetime. People meeting their children in China right now had to wait exactly 2 years to get there, and Scott and I will have to wait who knows how many years before we will be able to meet our 2nd child. But as we learned even before Allison arrived, God's timing is perfect for our lives, and we trust in Him totally!

I don't see a whole lot of Allison in this early picture, but it sits on my bedside table even today- a daily reminder of how much I've been blessed in my life. The "curse" of infertility turned into the greatest blessing I could have ever imagined, and I wouldn't trade the experience now for anything!

If you're in group 209 and you're reading this, please know that we thought of all of you today and wondered how you were remembering this special day. Our girls will forever have such a special bond with one another, and we feel blessed to know each and every one of you and to have shared this experience in our lives with you. God bless!

Laurie

"I need the ottoman to read!"

I heard this statement today when I was in the kitchen and looked out to find that she had moved the ottoman from our big leather chair to her little leather chair. I wondered how Daddy would feel about THAT! :) I love how she even has her little foot kicked up on it.

Story for the day- last night we talked about how Katie was coming over today and how we needed to share our toys. I got into a discussion with her about how important it was to let Katie play with the things she wanted to play with and how she could play with whatever she wanted to as soon as Katie left. After our little talk (my talk, really), I asked Allison if she wanted to pray. I'm used to saying the prayers for her, but now she does them herself (LOVE IT!). She said, "Deeeeeear God, thank you for the wonderful day, and please help me share my toys with Katie." :)

Daddy time is SO FUN!

This week Scott discovered that Allison REALLY likes it when he reads books to her in the voice of her different animals. Tonight she asked him to read The Curious George book in his Elmo voice. It was HYSTERICAL! I sat there thinking, if the people at his work could see him now- he was great, and you can see Allison loved every minute of it! :) He's a GREAT Daddy! He'll have no voice tomorrow, but he's great!

My little "reader"

As most of you reading this know, my little girl is an avid reader. Given the choice she'll pick books over toys, movies, etc. any day of the week. I LOVE this trait in her, but boy, we need some new books. She reads them all, but she does have favorites, so you read the same ones over and over and over again. Her current favorite is Curious George Goes to the Hospital. It is FORTY FOUR pages long- and she'd have you read it to her several times a day if you agreed. We don't agree. We say "Once a day". So the other day she thought, heck, if they won't read it to me I'll just read it to myself.

I've talked before about this child's ability to memorize, but a 44 page book? Yep! We had to help her out on a few lines, and she left out a few sentences, but basically she read the whole thing. Today when I was getting ready, I caught her in her little chair, reading it to herself again. To me this is some kind of freak "talent" that may or may not serve her in any way in the future, but right now it's SO much fun to listen to her. She reads all of her books with the same expressions I use when I read them to her. She even changes voices for characters sometimes. It's a hoot! My fear is that when she actually starts learning to read she'll become frustrated trying to sound out words instead of just "reading" the whole book from memory. We'll see.

The other picture I took is from today- we were heading out to pick up Daddy for our weekly Wednesday lunch. I just thought she looked so cute. I know, I dress her the way I'd like to dress but don't. Kid clothes today are just SO adorable- I can't resist!

Some folks have asked how potty training and the big girl bed are going... potty training is pretty much done, in my book. She's been going on her own without accidents since mid-October. She just wears a diaper at night, and it's 50/50 if she wakes up dry. Until it's 90/10 waking up dry, we'll stick with the diaper. :) The big girl bed is great! Except for the one time she fell out the first night, she's stayed put and we've had no problems at all. She LOVES it and even "pretend sleeps" in there sometimes for fun. :) She knows she can get out to use the bathroom, but she still calls out to us if she needs to go. It must just feel wrong to get out of the bed- my little rule follower (just like Mommy!). The best part about it to me is that you can cuddle really close right before bed- that's nice.

On another positive note, we went to the doctor yesterday to finish up our final "make up" vaccination shots and to get a flu shot. Reading Curious George Goes to the Hospital every day for the last month must have made an impression- she was actually excited to go! She continued to be excited even as we went in the room to get the shots. She just looked at me and grinned. The nurse was super fast, and Allison didn't even flinch. She immediately looked at the nurse and said, "Cookies?" She knows the drill! I was SO proud of her and SO happy that it wasn't like the last 100 times we've gotten shots. She usually screams before we even get in the room, and I have to hold her down while she screams some more, and then I have to hold back my own tears cause I feel so horrible for her. My, this was quite a nice change! :)


Okay- time to go get some housework done while she's sleeping! :) Happy Wednesday, everyone!

A fun weekend with my "buddy" Cooper!

This weekend my niece Jennifer, her husband Zach, and their adorable 14 month old, Cooper came for a visit. I was so excited they could visit because we never get to talk with them all alone- we're always with a bunch of family- so it was a nice change. Even though they are MUCH younger than we are, we're all going through the stages of parenting close together, so we have lots to talk about. On Saturday we took them with us to the annual Parents as Teachers holiday event at our local school. Allison loved all the activities, but I think Cooper could have stayed at the "shoveling snow" area the whole time. :)

Allison was quite jealous of Cooper the entire time, which was a bit exhausting for everyone, I'm sure. If I said, "Oh, Cooper, you are just so adorable!" she'd say, "NO, I'M adorable!!" After awhile I wanted to say, "Not so much right now!", but I didn't. I was nice. :) She's also developing a bit more empathy, though, and that's good. If Cooper cried, Allison had to cry too. That wasn't much fun. She was honestly just so sad for him when he was upset. Normally she lets babies cry and just goes about her way, but not this time. When they left our house today she was in desperate need of mommy alone time, so we played a lot.

The pictures are mainly of us enjoying the Parents as Teachers event (she willingly went to Santa and told him her list!), but it also includes one of Allison at her music lessons. The first week we took her she was very shy, wouldn't participate much, and just looked sullen. We thought, great, we just wrote this big check and she's not even going to like it! But this time she loved every bit of it. She danced, sang, played all the instruments, laughed, etc. YEAH!!

I'll leave this post with a funny story from today. Last week we ate at a restaurant that served waffle-cut fries, and she LOVED them. She wanted nothing to do with Daddy's normal fries-she only wanted to share my special fries. Today we went to the same place for lunch, so I ordered the waffle fries again, and we shared them. Once in the car she said, "I REALLY liked those pancake fries!" :) No one every told me how much my child would crack me up on a daily basis! :)

Really, Daddy lives here!

The picture is from last spring, but I thought it was darling, so I posted it to go along with my stories today. Each day my sweetie says something worthy of writing down, and today I wanted to share it with the masses- or all four of you out there who read my blog. :)

Daddy was all ready to go to work this morning, so he says to Allison, as he does every morning, "Allison, it's time for Daddy to go to work", to which she replied, "Okay, thanks for coming over." After a long pause where we were both trying not to crack up, Scott says, "Uh, I LIVE HERE!!"

Allison is going through a little stage where she says Daddy is mean, but what she's saying is that he's mean because he leaves to go to work. One night Scott tried to explain to her why he has to leave every day. When I later asked her, "Allison, why does Daddy go to work?", she replied, "Because if he didn't, we wouldn't have any money and we'd have to live in the street." I'm sure he gave her a more lengthy and true explanation, but that's what she got out of it. I'm quite sure we wouldn't be in the street- my dad did pay for a nice little education for me, but I do SO value what my husband does every day and am thankful it allows me to spend every day with this little angel of ours. :)

Trying out a new mall

Beth and I decided to take the girls to a new mall today. It's an outlet mall, but it's not typical of what I'm used to seeing in an outlet mall. They have lots for kids to do including a carousel, a train ride, and a huge play area. The pictures make it look like we all had a good time, but really, it wasn't so great today. They say pictures don't lie, but in this case they kinda do. The girls were NOT on their best behavior today- very whiney and just kinda cranky in general. Then I got a splitting headache (I wonder why), so I wasn't in such a good mood most of the time. The good thing is that Beth and I are going through the same issues with our girls (they are just 2 days apart!), so we understand that it won't always be fun-filled- just most of the time. :)

Allison LOVED her first experience on the tea cup (maybe that's what started my headache?) as well as her first little train ride. I didn't get in with her on either one of them- the tea cup was dizzying, and the train was just way too tiny for my comfort. :) She also had fun playing with all the little rides (love her pose in the big car!), and we didn't even pay for them. The girls just climbed all over them- cheap entertainment, huh?

I'm off to bed now to try and get rid of this headache. Wish me luck! :)

Too priceless not to post!

Okay, my kid cracks me up! I just had to share this picture with friends and family. Today she was playing with Daddy and got all dressed up in a "costume", with his help. She came to show me her "costume", then said she had to potty. I immediately thought- grab the camera- this is going to be good! She'll hate me for this when she's 13, but it was just too cute to pass up. Enjoy! :)

And please, scroll down a bit and check out our Thanksgiving weekend pictures! :)

Giving Thanks!

We hope you and your family celebrated a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday together. We invited my parents to visit us for the holiday, and thankfully, they accepted and came to St. Louis to hang out with us for a few days. We had so much fun, and Allison loved having them here.

Highlights included:

Learning a new card game (I complained it was too hard and I didn't understand it; then I won!)
Going out to eat at yummy places
Strolling through historic St. Charles, MO (cold but still fun!)
Listening to Christmas music while putting up the tree (okay, the guys put it up, but I decorated it!)
Watching my dad read to my child
Watching my mom listen to my child read her Snow White
Being cold and needing a coat- finally!
A GREAT Thanksgiving day feast, even though my dish was a failure (I tried something new- big mistake!)
Bringing up all the Christmas decorations from the basement (not the actual step climbing- just seeing it all again!)
Shopping for the family we adopted for Christmas
Napping!
The incredible turkey stew my husband made today with our leftovers- YUM!
Listening to my child tell us what she was thankful for and making the list- of course her sippy made the list too!
Just "being" with family without a lot of plans and stuff to do


As a family we have so much to be thankful for- the list is really endless. But at the heart of the list is our family and our ever growing faith in Jesus and His plan for our life. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Laughter EVERY day!

I keep an ongoing document on Word that is full of funny stories about my child. They may not be funny to anyone else, but they were funny to me, so I wrote them down. My child is 2 1/2 and my document is almost 30 pages long. Either I laugh easily (and I do!) or my child is really funny (which I think she is). I decided to share a few of my recent entries. I hope they will make you laugh and remind you of things your child has said or prepare you for things you might hear in the future. :)

1. After church last week we went out to eat. During a quiet time (these are rare) Allison looks at us and says, "Hey, how was church today?" We were kind of taken aback, and then Scott proceeded to tell her what the sermon was about. :)

2. For months Allison has been using the phrase "You can count on me" in appropriate context. Well, last week in Wal-mart she said it again. Then I said, "You know, Allison, you can count on me too!" She proceeded to reach out from the cart with her fingers and literally COUNT on my shirt. :)

3. Last week we were out shopping and I took her to the bathroom- she said she didn't have to go, but I wanted her to try since we were heading out. While on the potty she said, "I don't have to go, Mommy. My potty is still sleeping in my tummy!" Where do they GET this stuff? Once home, she got on the potty and began to go, saying, "It's awake now! My potty is awake!"

4. Sometimes her choice of words is what makes me laugh. It's not really funny, just funny coming out of a 2 year old. She was eating lunch and I asked, "Do you need more chicken?" to which she replied, "No, I don't. I have plenty of it." Tee Hee!

And in the featured picture- she had just come up to me and said, "I'm having a tea party in the play room- won't you join me?"