Pj's and Hairbows!

Who says you can't wear hairbows with pj's?!?Abigail found her hairbow on the table and tried to rub it on her head so I assumed she must want to wear it - so walah!

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and we are well on our way to Christmas. We ventured to the mall this weekend and Abigail oohhh and aahhhed over twinkly lights and balloons. I just wonder what is going through her mind.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

A few thoughts and my "AHhhHa" moment

So, grab a cup of coffee/tea (whichever is your drink), cookie, muffin, cake (whichever is your treat), etc and settle in as this post is a bit lengthy.

I was catching up on blogs this evening and was reading about how one of my dear friends' was reminiscing through the progress her daughter has made in these past 5 months that they have had her and it made me think. Today, Abigail is 14 months old and when I think back just 2 months ago when we were celebrating her 1st birthday with her in China...well let's just say you would hardly recognize the little sweetheart that we have living in our home now.

I was reminded yesterday from a friend of mine just how far Abigail has come in the 10 weeks that she has been a part of our family. From that little girl who would resist physically from being hugged, screaming bloody murder for diaper/clothing changes, refusing to look either hubby or me in the eye during her first few days with us ~ to the little girl who smiles and giggles peeking around the corner at us, can no longer stand to crawl anywhere and insists on walking, lays her head on my chest for a snuggle, waves and says "bye-bye" at the appropriate moment, waves "hi" when greeted. She IS making great progress! She IS finding her family! She IS home!


After her nap today she wanted to look at pictures I have on the wall (totally normal as she is captivated by photos). She kept saying "Nah, Nah" and I couldn't understand what she was meaning so I got up close to the photo and said "Okay Abigail, what are you saying". She pointed to her brother Minie (Noah) and again said "Nah, Nah". I was shocked as I praised her for getting it right and trying to say his name! So I decided to test her a little and asked her where Mommy (MaMa) was? She looked around at the photos and then took her little hand and patted my chest and said "mama"! I screamed (with her in my arms of course), danced, twirled, cheered as it was the first time she associated "mama" with me. Talk about a defining moment ~ total elation. She IS my daughter.

So...now for my "AHhhh HA" moment. We had just finished dinner and I began to clean up the dishes when I had to stop because baby girl was being herself and getting into things. I distracted her and steered her to her toys, returning to my dish duty. Only minutes later she is at the back door playing with the blinds and it hit me! My dinner dishes have not been getting done each night as it is quite the challenge to do anything productive when baby girl is around! So here I stand with my mouth hanging open and my thoughts would go like this, "how dumb can you be. Do you realize you have 4 able bodied family members in your house right now doing who knows what (as they seemed to vanish after dinner) and you are stuck here doing dish and baby duty. NOT!!! Get a clue and get some help.!" So I scoop up baby girl and head to Mynies bedroom where him and Meanie are playing on the computer and I say, "I have 2 choices for you boys. First, you can wash, dry and put away the dinner dishes or Second, you can watch baby girl." I will let you all guess which option they chose. I could not believe I had been so dense all these weeks since I've been home. Don't get me wrong the boys are great at helping out with her when needed and even when not. I suppose I thought it was my job to do so I didn't ask anyone else to take it.

BUT, it's a whole new world now. Need to make lunch ~ "okay boys, you have 2 choices..."

I'm a Starbuck's girl

I couldn't resist! I had the treat of a free Chai Soy Latte from Starbuck's this afternoon which I savored and thoroughly enjoyed to the last drop. Abigail was set on the fact that she should have some (I resisted as I felt like being selfish today), so I obliged with the cup after the fact.

"Don't even think about touching my drink"



"Mmmmm, this is so tasty."



"Good to the last drop"



"Want some??"

Guess what we did today?

Besides breakfast, nap, going for a walk, nap, dinner, bath, bedtime...

Haircuts!!!

Okay, not for Abigail (I did hers about 2wks ago as the back of her hair was beginning to get too long that a mullet was beginning to take shape) but Mommy, Daddy, Meanie and Minie did.

I have been waiting a very long time for this too. It really all started months before we got our referral when I made the decision that it would probably be better to have longer hair when we traveled to China since I didn't really want the hassle of having to style it everyday. And it was good for me that I did since every hotel room I stayed in managed to have a malfunctioning hair dryer - lucky me! And our stylist (a very good friend of our family) had her first baby the end of September so we had to wait for her to recover from that, which takes us to now the middle of November. Hooray.

PD managed to take the clippers to his own hair yesterday as is the ritual upon wrestling season beginning. The funny part about this picture is that Abigail is wearing a hat. She HATES hats, however she will wear a hood on a sweatshirt pulled up! BUT I figured out today that if I put the hat on her first and then pull the hood up, she would leave it alone. So she managed to wear this hat for about 10 minutes after we got back from our walk before she realized it was on.

Well...it's begun again!

Bloody noses, bumps and bruises, sore muscles, cauliflower ear.

These among many other things are a part of our household for the next...4 months ( I caught you there though didn't I?!? You thought I was going to say years huh - well as long as I have boys in the house).

Nope, it's wrestling season for PD and with it came the first wound(of very many), so to speak.

[notice the ear]

It began Monday and will continue until the middle of February! Practice everyday for 2.5 hours with tournaments every weekend beginning next weekend. PD is really excited to share his passion of competing in wrestling matches with his sister this year. I'll let you know how sitting on high school bleachers for 10-12 hours works out with a 1 year old.

Busy Weekend

First a little cleaning

and then a little loving!

Busy weekend indeed. Well, everyday is a busy day with Abigail, but we got to have dinner with Grandma W and Papa as they were in town for haircuts and made arrangements to stop and see us when they were finished.

"My Abigail, how you've grown since I saw you last."

"Okay now let's smile pretty for Mommy."

Daddy and Papa with little miss Princess

An afternoon with Grandma P
(& Grandpa too, unfortunately he didn't make it into any of the pictures)

G-ma and Abigail sharing common interests. Abigail is captivated by nature (leaves, flowers, etc)
"Ooohhh flowers" says Abigail

"Yes look Abigail, you have flowers on your slippers too"

A musician in the making?

I would never for a moment even begin to "stereotype" Abigail that because she was Chinese she would naturally be good at __________ (you fill in the blank), in this case we'll say 'music'. HOWEVER, we have noticed that from the moment we received Abigail into our family, she always responds to music ~ you name it from nursery rhymes to hip hop to jazz. Whenever she hears it she rocks either back and forth to banging her head (literally). She LOVES music.

So TT decided that she should have an opportunity as early as possible. A musician in the making? We'll see!

Gone Swimming

Okay, so most of you know that we were 'cheated' out of being able to take Abigail swimming for her first time while we were in the hotels in China. And I bought the cutest suit for her to wear that unfortunately won't fit her next summer, so I decided that we would do a little "home swimming" in November.

She's no Michael Phelps...YET, but look out!!!

Here she is being busy! She loves to get into the homeschool cabinet and unload all of the notebooks, textbooks and whatever else she finds amusing.

Loving her new rocking chair (this chair that was made by Grandpa P. has been used by many of the grandchildren on my side of the family - including her big brothers PD, TanTan and Ndog)! She is learning what it means to actually sit in it as she prefers to use it as a catalyst to get on top of...oh you name it, coffee table, couch, whatever is appealing at the moment.

A Visit with Friends

Each and every day Abigail has a "first" ~ something she experiences for the very first time. A few days ago we had the pleasure of introducing her to our dear friends from Liptacks and Ladybugs You can see from the photos that she is quite the little social butterfly!!!

On Friday, I was able to have an afternoon alone with Abigail while sharing her with Elise and then on Saturday the boys and I went back to meet the whole family (hubby was under the weather) and what a delightful time we had.



It was such a fun experience for us to be asked so many questions about Abigail, China, food, etc as it gave us a chance to sort of re-live our trip again.



We look forward so much to when they will be the ones sharing about their trip, introducing their new daughter/sister and having the opportunity to re-live their trip again.

Thanks for a great day!

Do you know what happens when Big Brother goes out with his friends???

Little Sister says "SCORE!!!"