Big brother home for a visit

Big brother Evan came home for a fast visit today. When Olivia got up from her nap she had a surprise. She was so excited. It has been almost a month since she saw Evan he has been so busy away at college. He even watched her while mom did her afternoon bus route and then he was off again back to school.

This is her new wrinkle nose face.

Thanks for coming to see me Evie!!

What did you do all day?

I got this off of Donna's blog and couldn't resist copying it. This is too funny and rings soooo true.

What Do You Do All Day?"
A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog.
Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.
He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened. He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls. As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?"
She again smiled and answered, "You know everyday when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?" "Yes," was his incredulous reply. She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it."

Will potty for Runts....

We have decided to see if Olivia is ready to try the potty chair. Last week I bought her some panties. That was a joke. The smallest they have is 2T which is for weight 27-32 pounds. I was pretty sure they weren't gonna fit a 20 pound butt. So I washed them in hot water and hoped they would shrink some. Then we put them on. She was so excited. She danced around the house and squealed and got sooo excited. 10 minutes later she peed in them. Okay..... that didn't go so well. An hour later the second pair was wet. It was then nap time so back in the diaper she went. Then we were busy until the next day. I pulled out the last clean pair and she said "Noooooo.... and ran away." Maybe the pressure was just too great.

Well, today I thought we would try it again. We got out the cute "Dora" panties. At first she said "Noooo" again, but I encouraged her. She sat on her potty and peed. YEAH!! Sucess. I pulled down a candy jar with runts in it and told her since she went potty she got a piece of candy. Well, her little eyes lit up and that was it. We have now peed 7 times today and pooped once (I think that was an accident while trying to pee) in the potty! She has kept her panties dry all day and only had a diaper on for nap and the two hours I was on my bus route. Everytime she sees the candy jar she decides she has to go again. Hey-whatever works!

Anniversaries and Certificates

Yesterday was our 6 month anniversary of adoption day for Olivia. It was the day that it became official in the eyes of the Chinese Government that Olivia was part of our family forever. The day before (13th) was our Gotcha Day anniversary. They day they placed sweet Olivia in our arms for the first time.

My mom was here visiting this week and was looking at pictures from just 6 short months ago and commenting on how much Livi has changed in the last few months. I can't hardly remember the little girl we brought home. The scared, untrusting little girl whose life was turned totally upside down in a blink of an eye. The little girl who would eat 3 foods, scream if she saw a bathtub and obiediently do whatever you asked because she didn't know she could voice an opinion. NOW- All I see now is the little girl who runs screaming through the house, who yells "NO" at her big sister, who takes things from her little cousin and possesively says "Nini's". The little girl who will now eat 6 foods (LOL), and squeals in excitement at the idea of a bath. If she thinks she has a chance at all of disagreeing with you on anything she will try, like any normal two year old.

Today we also received her new birth certificate. We completed her domestic adoption in June. We did not have to do this since Indiana recognizes all our Chinese paperwork, but Olivia's birth certificate was a Chinese one. If her BC was ever lost or destroyed or if she ever needed to get a current copy (some day if she wanted to adopt internationally for instance) we would need to try to obtain a copy from CHINA! Could you imagine that mess. So, by domestically adopting Livi, we were able to get an Indiana birth certificate for her and Indiana now has all of her records and her adoption is listed as an Indiana adoption. It makes things much easier.

Happy Labor Day

All is well in our household. The two college kids are adjusting well. Both have jobs and seem to like them so far. Evan is working at Durham's (I think that is right). It is a sports store. Funny story here....he is petrified of mice and rats. Yep, big ol' Evan can't stand them. First day at work and he is suppose to go back to the storage room to work on stocking some items. He hears some rustling but doesn't think much of it. Later one of the other girl employees mentions that "Oh, by the way Evan we have a rat the size of a cat back there. We have seen it, but we can't catch it." Evan, who is telling this story to his girlfriend says "I am telling you, if I see this thing I will be screaming like a girl and running from the back room." The funny thing is, he is not lying. There is no such thing as preservation of manhood for Evan if he sees a rat. All is lost. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in that store the day he comes face to face with Mr. Beady Eyes. Heehee.

Katie is working at QDoba's. It is a Mexican food restaruant. It is a cafeteria style place. She said the food is great (we will see how long she likes Mexican food now). She just started Friday so I am not sure yet what her hours are or if she is working in the kitchen or as the cashier.

Last week was her first week of classes. She was fairly unimpressed. Huge classes. Her smallest class was Anthropology with 140 and her largest was Pychology with 420. Huge difference from high school. She loves her pych class though.

Morgan is loving 5th grade. She LOVES her 5th grade teacher Mr. Perkins. She says he is so funny and is making the class very interesting. I love hearing that. To me that is half the battle at this age. She comes home spouting of facts that she has learned.

Livi loves going to her new babysitter too. She gets excited everyday that is it time to go to Grandma Maddie's house. She also graduated from the nursery at church to the 2-3's class so she is in a real sunday school class. She loves that too. She gets to color pictures and sing songs. She loves "cool". The last couple weeks she seems to really have blossomed in her talking. She is trying to say more. She is also dancing and skipping around the house. It was like she made a leap in another stage of toddlerhood. Her imagination play too is unbelievable. She will play with baby dolls, her play kitchen etc. and imitate everything she sees. I can't believe all that she picks up. It is a little scary.

Well, enough babble for now. I have to wonder in the delves of Evan's room to get some dress clothes for him (he has a business class and the Prof. requires that the kids (boys) dress in a shirt and tie for the class) and take them down to school. I am hoping not to get lost in the black hole. I told Livi she could come with me, but I need to put a bell on her first so I don't lose her. HAHA!

Made the News....

Our family made the news......
well for our small local city we did as readers of the week...

http://www.goshennews.com/news/files/2006/8/8-20-2006/news3.html

Check it out.

First Day of School....Back to Work

Yesterday was the first day of school. Morgan is now a fifth grader. It was also my first day back to work. I was ready. I got a new bus this year. YEAH! The day before school started I finally found a babysitter for Olivia too. LOL-nothing like waiting until the last minute to arrange childcare, huh? Funny thing was, I was not even stressed about it. I had some temporary care set up but I must have known that God had it all under control. She will be going just a few houses up the road from us and staying with a couple that are "grandparents" and are going to be babysitting for just a small handful of children. She will only be there 3 hours a day.

Last weekend was my 20th class reunion. UGH! It is hard to believe that I have been out of school longer than I was in school.

This weekend Evan and Katie both leave for college. Evan will only be 50 minutes from home but we leave on Sunday to move Katie about 4 hours from home. I am excited for her but I am really going to miss her. I think she is really starting to get nervous.

After we get back from taking Kate down to IU I got a summons for Jury Duty. Now, I have never had to do jury duty before and I think it would even be interesting to do. BUT, this is a really bad time. Our school had 7 bus drivers quit this summer and they are still 3 drivers short, so this is a bad time for me to have to take off for jury duty. Hopefully I will be able to get out of it. Right now I would rather be driving my bus. They can call me up again in January when I am really sick of all the kids and would like to have some time off. ;)

New Member

While at the fair this year, one of the booths in the commercial building was the Humane Shelter. Morgan loved looking at the pictures of the animals in this booth and fell in love with a dog named Riley. She was a black lab. Well, she started in on mom and dad. Dad caved first (took very little work cause dad loves labs). We ended up at the Humane Shelter filling out an application for Riley and found out someone already had a hold on Riley and a couple days later found out that the family did indeed want Riley. Morgan was heartbroken, but decided she had 3/4 of the battle won because she had gotten mom and dad to agree to begin with so all we had to do was find another dog. We found another older, housebroken, somewhat trained lab in South Bend at another shelter. They said we could come and look at her that day and since we were approved at one shelter we could even take her home that same day if we liked her. End of story...Morgan liked her.... meet Sadie....

Olivia's Dedication

Last Sunday we had Olivia's dedication at church. She would not let our pastor hold her but when it was over she did lean over and give Pastor Chris a big kiss. It was pretty cute.

Bittersweet Day

Today was a very bittersweet day for poor Morgan. It was the day of the auction for her goat. She did very well at the auction and her goat sold for over $300. But later in the day she went to feed him for the last time and he had already been loaded and was gone from the barn. I found her half way between the barn and the camper in tears. She said "I just want to go home NOW! I don't want to be at the fair anymore!" She cried all the way home and was quite heartbroken that she didn't get to say goodbye and that he was actually gone.

Livi hanging out at the auction with grandma. She just wants to leave and go find something to eat!

Livi loves rides...

We let Livi ride some of the rides on Kiddie day. I didn't buy her a all-you-can-ride wrist band because I didn't know if she would like the rides. We have not been able to get her to ride the penny horse at the grocery store yet. So I opted for tickets and figured Morgan could take her on a few and see how she would do. Well, she loved them. She rode the cars, the tea cups (not her favorite), the train and the carousel. The cars were her favorite. She kept signing for more when she was done.


She also had a blast climbing all over the tractor/lawnmower display too. Man it doesn't take much to entertain this kid and this entertainment was free!!

Here she is hanging with cousin Nolan at the fair. He is too little (only 9 months old-and yes he is about the same size as our peanut Livi) to go on rides. Maybe next year Livi can take him. :)

Seal Shows and Goat Shows

One of the highlights of the fair this year is the seal show. We have watched it twice. There are four seals that do a really cute show. After the show you can get your picture taken with them. Morgan and her buddies (the twins Alexis and Kelsey) got to pose with Minnie, Alicia and Zoe. They actually rested their heads on the girls heads and shoulders.

On Monday Morgan showed her goat, Scooter. She got 4th place in the Showmanship class (where they judge her skills as a showperson) but her goat did not do so well in his class and got last place in the market class. (I think we may have entered him in the wrong market class-oops mom and dad's mistake). Her goat though was very tame and walked very well. Last year she showed two girls (one was the mother to Scooter) and they were not very tame-she did not work them enough-and she had a real rough time with them in the ring. Now we just have to get through the auction on Friday. I think it will be a tough day for Morgan. She loves her little goat and won't be too happy to see him go.

Have you been watching America's Got Talent???

.....well Morgan has and there is an 11 year old girl on the show named Taylor Ware that is a yodeler. She taught herself to yodel and she is the National Champion. She is also one AWESOME singer. That girl can belt out a song like none other. They have not even begun to show her singing talent on the America's Got Talent show. Anyway, on to my story. On my way to the very first day of the fair and what do I hear on the radio but the announcement that the one and only Taylor Ware was going to be performing at our fair that very day!!! When I told Morgan you would have thought Garth Brooks was gonna be there (she said Garth who??). We got front row benches to the show and after the show Morgan got an autographed CD and this.....

I AM STILL HERE!!!

Sorry I have not posted for so long. I was gone for three days at Indiana University for orientation for Katie. That was pretty exciting. Evan went to a small college and didn't have an orientation like this. Katie picked a school that has a population of 38,000 kids. That is 4 times bigger than our town than we live in. The campus is beautiful though. She is really excited to be moving down to school in less than a month. I am excited for her too.

After we got home we packed up the camper and moved it out to the fairgrounds. Morgan has a goat that she is showing at the fair. This year after being on the waiting list for 7 years we got a camping spot. That means we have been living at the fair all week. We actually have two more days out there but I came home tonight for more clothes and to regroup. The next several posts will be pictures of our adventures at the fair......Enjoy

Making Progress

We are making progress. Today Ollie had her 3 month check up and has gained 2 pounds! She is up to 20 pounds!! LOL She has also grown one inch so she is now 32 inches. Still our little peanut. I was sure she would have gained more than that, but not so. She is in the 10 percentile on the height chart and not anywhere close to touching any line on the weight chart but the doc is not worried. Said she is just gonna be our little peanut.

She had her third speech session and the therapist said she is making progress. It is hard for me to tell cause I am with her everyday. She does try to say more words but they are just the first sounds of the word and normally only those of us in the family can tell what she is trying to say. The therapist said that is a start and it is great.

We went to the Toledo Zoo this past week. It was a good time with only a little rain. Livi is not as impressed with the animals as I thought she would be. Probably because they are too far away from her. She oohs and aahs for a second and then is ready to move on. I think the fish in the aquarium impressed her the most.

Morgan the engineer

This past week Morgan bought a "kit" at a garage sale. It was a roller coaster that had to be put together. She thought it would be a great project for her and dad to do. Little did she (and dad) know that it had about 5,000 parts and would take about 15 hours to put together. But since this was a long holiday weekend they got started and tonight finished the project. Here she is with her "cool" roller coaster. In the first picture you can just make out the little purple car making its way down the hill towards the loop. Now she wants a job at Cedar Point. LOL!

A true American kid finally!!

Well we can finally call Olivia a true American kid. She finally decided to taste macaroni and cheese and like mama knew she would she loved it!! Now if we could just get her to try pizza.

AHH Picnic

This past weekend Morgan, Olivia and I made the trip south to Kentucky for our adoption agency's annual reunion picnic. It was their 10th anniversary so it was even more special for them. There were over 1300 people there. They catered in food, had free cotton candy, snow cones and popcorn. They also set up several inflatable rides (bouncy rides, slides etc.). My travel group The Lovebugs set up several canopies so that we could all hang out together and visit and see our girls and how much they have changed. It was so neat! I can't believe how much the babies have changed in the last 3 months. Allison our guide from China was also there. It was great to see her again. She gave me a big hug and about knocked me over she was so happy to see me.

Olivia hanging out at the picnic.

Some of the cool rides at the picnic.

Olivia and her buddy Ava.

Ava's mommy and daddy passing out goodies.

Some more of our cuties hanging out at the picnic.

This is Allison our Chinese guide with another friend of mine and her daughter.

Pretties...

Today Olivia got some pretties (earrings). She didn't actually mind the piercings. It was when the lady put the rubber gloves on that she went ballistic. I am pretty sure she thought she was a doctor. She started screaming. Now she walks around pointing out her pretties, mommies pretties and Morgan's pretties (Morgan got her ears double pierced). Now hopefully mommy doesn't get kicked out. Daddy didn't want this. He thinks I should wait until she is old enough to decide for herself. I have always thought little girls are adorable with pierced ears. Well I told him I waited with the first two girls, this time I got it my way. That conversation was a month ago. Hopefully he remembers it. :)



PS: The spots around her eyes are a bug bite and scratch from camping this weekend. The bug bite almost swelled her eye shut.

3 Month Anniversary

WoW! Four posts in three days. It must be a record for me. LOL!

Today is the three month anniversary of the day that they placed Olivia in my arms for the first time. It is really unbelieveable to me. It seems longer to me. It feels like she has been in our family longer than 3 months. Do we get to count the time we were waiting for her???

She has changed so much in the last three months though. I can hardly remember the little girl we brought home. I think she has even changed in her pictures. She seems older. Maybe she has become more self assured and confident or something, but she seemed so lost and helpless in those early pictures. Now I see a little imp.

Today she was a little stinker. Days like today remind me why I may be too old to have young children. It seems like she has a day once and a while when she gets into everything. AND I MEAN EVERYTHING!!! I was busy trying to clean and everytime I turned around she was getting into something that she wasn't suppose to. I think she can tell when I am not focused on her and she does this on purpose. I was ready to scream and pull my hair out. By the time it was bedtime tonight I was exhausted. I had yelled and snapped at her, she got swatted and I even smacked her hand once before the day was over. None of it phased her a bit. Oh, when I swatted her (diapered) butt, she looked up at me and stuck her elbow up and said "Owie" and wanted a kiss. Then ran off laughing. She really knows how to distract me and get my attention on something else. Little stinker!! I think she was growing horns today. UGH! But at bedtime she grabbed my face with both of her hands and gave me a big kiss. Okay, I forgive her and it was all worth it...again.