are for getting messy
and making funny faces (thank you Yo Gabba for teaching her this!)
and giving high 5's....she says "hey lady, high 5!" when doing this...dolls and any woman who is not mama or granny gets called lady.
and for sharing...and also grabbing this Hello Kitty shirt out of her closet, I think she wears it every other day lately!
I'm going to link this up on Sunday Snapshot so here is some basic info: Nikon D90, 50mm 1.8 lens and various CoffeeShop actions.
The first Pop Ice of the season...and probably her first ones ever
She keeps saying "mama more squeeze its!!"
Always so dainty with her pinky fingers out :)
Along with your first Pop Ice comes your first brain freeze
This is the face of a Pop Ice over-dose
Random cute picture with Pixie after coming down off her "squeeze its" high ♥
I look like a pale, pasty vampire clutching my child and oh my gosh why didn't anyone tell me that my hair was looking that horrific, this is still 1 of my favorite pictures because I never get any of Frances and I together...this morning we took a walk, well it was more of a walk a few steps and then sit on the sidewalk and pick up leaves kind of excursion, and Bob snapped a couple of pics. It was pretty much the best Mother's Day ever...no where to be, the weather was beautiful, we made pizza and strawberry shortcake and we just had a quiet day together as a family.
She gave me a pretty great gift this afternoon when she took an hour and a half nap!! That gave me the time I needed to list some creations in my new Etsy shop
In addition to the skirts I also have some t-shirt dresses listed with more to come :)
I'm trying to get this shop up and running because in less than 2 weeks I will be taking a leave of absence from work with the intention of seeing if we can make things work so I can be a SAHM to Frances. I have all the respect in the world for all of the working moms out there...it is so, so very hard and I just need to see if we can make this work. It's going to be big shift in our lifestyle with our income pretty much cut in half, but I just need to be where my passion is and that is not at my job right now. I will probably do something on a limited or part time basis, you know so we can eat and stuff, but if I can sell enough skirts, dresses & vintage stuff that would be great!!
A certain someone with tiny hands who shall remain nameless stepped on the power adaptor to my laptop one too many times and in their words it ended up "busted". As soon as I stopped laughing at the guy in the blue shirt at Best Buy who told me a new one would be $80, I went on line and found one for $35 and now I am up and running again. Yes there is a computer in my craft room but it doesn't fit in my lap while lying in bed so on-line activities came to a halt for a few days.
Outfit by mama
At the same time Frances came down with a serious case of the sniffles so we have been having lots of couch time and have been using rolls and rolls of tissue. She seems to be doing better now as she is quietly sleeping tonight whereas she had been snoring the past few nights. I do have to share a funny story, I was sewing the other day and she was playing with some crafty stuff and I heard her exclaim "Mama I got a butt!!" of course this made me immediately look up from what I was working on and I was relieved to see that she was holding a button. Sometimes she drops parts of words so she was calling it a butt...priceless :)
As awesome as everything has been going, I do have to admit I have missed having time to make things. I don't know that I will ever scrapbook again, ironic now that someone scrap-worthy is running around the house! A couple of weeks I ago I decided that something has to give and I am forcing myself to stay up later and use that as time to create. It was too easy to come home, get dinner on the table, get Frances to bed and then follow along right behind her. I don't do caffeine (it gives me wicked bad headaches and I was tired of the highs and lows of the energy roller coaster) so the past few months I have been doing this caffeine free so it took a while to get used to the new normal. To ensure I would commit to something, I invested in a serger and have been doing some sewing...skirts, dresses and hairbows so far. I have been having so much fun I have decided to start selling some of my creations so setting up a new Etsy shop has been in the works.
I've been making inventory...
And making tags...
And working with a model who demands to be paid in Dum Dums :)
I hope to have the shop ready to launch by the end of next week!
Someone is finally starting to show interest in books! We have been working on getting her to sit and let us read a book to her for a while now. While we were waiting I built up a huge library of books for her and had plans to read to her every night but that never panned out as she didn't show any interest or have any patience plus she likes to do everything her self so she wasn't keen on the idea of having someone read to her.
A couple of mornings ago she pulled this one off the shelf, brought it to me and actually let me read a story to her! No grabbing, no "mama I do it!", she snuggled up and let me read while she carefully looked over each illustration.
She likes to pretend she is reading to me too...sometimes the book is held upside down and the pages are flipped 6 or 7 at a time but she is getting the idea.
Of course it was a book about one of her favorite things....doggies :) She always likes to have her pillow & blanket with her and now she likes to carry this book everywhere too. Progress.
Other random things going on this last week that I don't want to forget:
I really loved this article that I read a couple of days ago. One of the things I made sure I packed when we went to China was a ginormous zip-loc bag to put the clothes she came to us in. Unlike some kids, she had no problem getting into the hotel room and stripping off her clothes....which was good since she had an accident as soon as we got back to our room. She patiently stood there as quiet as could be and let us strip off layer after layer of clothes. Her clothes were put in the bag but she never showed any interest in them, that is other than using them to entertain herself in the hotel room. She loved dragging that bag around but never wanted to put any of the clothes back on.
She came to us in split pants, itchy wool-like leggings, quilted pants, undershirt, sweater, vest, coat, socks and boots.
Everything she came to us in was well worn and appears to have been used by several children before her except for her socks which were brand new and still had the tag on them, something I didn't notice until we were home.
I also didn't notice the candies tucked into her pockets until we got home as well. I dug through every pocket hoping to find something, I don't know what, but maybe just a piece of the puzzle for her, the only other thing I found was a used tissue and you better believe it is still in the pocket I found it in. Every so often when everyone is asleep I will pull out her China clothes and just opening the bag transports me back to the day we met her. The smell is like nothing else, it is almost a chemical smell but I can't get enough of it if that makes sense. Even just touching them today my hands smell like she did that day. Everything is double bagged to try to keep that smell for as long as possible. When I pulled out her clothes to take these pictures she wanted to try everything on...
Quite the before and after!
She was quick to shed everything back off again except for what she calls her "China Pants"...she has been wearing those all afternoon and I don't know if it a side effect and a little grieving, but she has been a little more emotional this afternoon and lots of snuggles have been needed to soothe her.
I'm willing to bet she will want to sleep in them tonight which is just fine if that is what she needs.
Every year the dandelions come back and take over our yard...this year there seems to be an over-abundance of them but then there is also a little girl who made wishes for hours with them so it turned out there were just enough :)
She's soooooo....
darn cute!!
I'm so glad I went a little shopping crazy while we were waiting to travel...absolutely everything I bought fits or is a little big so she can grow into it, I got some great deals, plus everything in the stores right now is summer stuff & it is still chilly here so I am glad I shopped when I did. Plus it got me through the emotional rollercoaster without losing too much of my mind :) Sweater & skirt are off the Tar-jay clearance rack, Baby-legs leg warmers and boots were a total emotional splurge when we finally got travel approval.
Worth every over priced penny when someone puts them on and proclaims they are her "princess boots!"
It's been 4 months today since we met in Xi'an...
That official first family photo was taken right after we met her. We had some bonding time at the Civil Affairs Office and then we got back in the van and made our way to a tiny room where we quickly had our family picture taken for the adoption decree. Poor little girl looks a little shell-shocked...she's clinging to her Cheerios which she didn't let go of most of the time we were in China. She quickly gave them up once we got home and got comfortable.
She then had her mug shot taken...the sticker on her face in the first picture made it's way onto her jacket.
We are sitting here this morning once again watching the video of her in the CWI in China, she loves to "watch China Mama!" but she is in no way the same little girl in these pictures or in the video...she has grown and blossomed & it's hard to believe we will be celebrating a birthday in a couple of months!. The little girl in the video never cracks a smile and is shy where as our little girl is a social butterfly who is always smiling and laughing...its amazing what a little love can do.
