"Choo!"

The other day we were driving to dance class. I asked Little A if she wanted to listen to some music (she almost always does), but she said no. So I started singing some show tunes. Sometimes she likes it when I sing, and sometimes she doesn't. She kept telling me to not sing, and I continued to sing anyway. She got really quiet and after a minute shouted "Mom!" I looked back, and she was looking at me with this really mischievous grin on her face plugging her ears, lol! I laughed so hard!

We invited AG (little A's birth mom) down to come to little A's dance class. It was so fun to have her visit. They had a great time in dance class. Later that night they played with glow sticks for a while, which little A loved. AG stayed the night and went to the theatre with us the next morning. Then they had a good play together before it was time to take her home. I'm so glad that we live close enough to do things together!

Little A has been really affectionate lately. Okay, she's always been a pretty affectionate girl, but usually only with Allan and I. Lately she's been giving us a lot more hugs and kisses and has been wanting to put her arms around our shoulders when we're sitting on the couch or the floor. It's really cute because she can't really reach, so she just looks really awkward and uncomfortable. She has also been really adamant that we have family hugs lately. We've really enjoyed all of her loves. She spent the morning with a friend while I was working on choreography with the high school students. When I came back she and her friend, C, sat together on C's little doll bed taking care of their dollies. Little A put her arm around C and gave her a kiss on the top of her head! It was so darling!

She's been copying us a lot, trying to mimic what we say and do. She actually said her name for the first time in a year! She said it once when she was about 14 months old or so and never would say it again. Today she finally said it! She also likes to mimic sneezes, she's get a Kleenex and put it to her nose. Then as she wipes her nose she say "choo!"

She watched Daddy crack an egg while he was making German Pancakes. Allan gave her an egg while he was working on some other ones. She has tried to crack an egg before with no success. This time she was successful and even got the egg opened up, however, it went all over the chair she was standing on rather than into the bowl. :) Allan also took her out to play in the snow; she was absolutely thrilled! She pretty much just ate the snow.

She has grown lately and is 36 inches tall. She is getting so big! She can put on her church shoes and galoshes all by herself! It makes her so pleased when she does it. She is still working on getting her clothes on and off by herself.

Little A is such a sweet little girl. She always claps and cheers for everyone when they sing, dance, play an instrument, etc. The last two weeks in church she clapped and yelled "Yay!" after the musical performance. The first Sunday she did it everyone laughed, and then she cried, and I had to take her out. This week everyone just smiled to themselves.  Allan tried to explain to her that we don't clap and cheer in church but she did not understand. It made her very concerned, and she started crying, so we just let her cheer. We'll keep working on it.

She is really good at taking one piece of the sacrament bread and taking a cup without spilling it. However, as soon as she goes to drink it she spills it all over her self because she tries to do it fast like us, ha!

I was gone the other day for a while working on a dance solo for my cousin. Little A is never very happy when I'm gone somewhere but usually does pretty good. This time though she was so fed up that when Daddy came in to get her after her nap she promptly glared at him and demanded "mom" over and over again.

I invited a bunch of Moms and kids over to play the other day when it was cold and snowy. At about 11 all but two of them went home for lunch and naps. We continued to play for another half hour when little A told us she was hungry. I invited them to stay for lunch. They had a fun time eating together. Afterward A went in her room and lay down in her bed to take a nap. Her friend K climbed into bed with her, I found them lying in bed together. Little A was half asleep, and K was looking annoyed that she was being "made to take a nap" ha! We got them all ready to go, but little A fell asleep before they were even out the door. Having all of her friends over really tired her out.

One of the nursery leaders at church is a man who is over 6 feet tall, huge, and has a really, really deep voice. We were really worried that A would never want to go into nursery if he was there. However, she adores him! When Allan drops little A off at nursery on Sunday she runs straight to him, gives his legs a big hug, and then takes him to play dollies with her. We're so grateful she has such a good connection with someone in the nursery.

We had a family party for K6's husband the other day. Little A was in heaven because there were so many Grandmas. She lead Great Grandma R (who is not actually her Grandma) all around the house, as well as all the other grandmas. She was thrilled with all of the attention and made all the Grandma's so happy!

Hot Chocolate

I threw a baby shower for a friend this weekend. It was so fun to do. Little A had a blast with everyone that came. She kept going over to the table, getting a plate of food, and then bringing it to someone. Then she'd leave only to come back a little later and eat the food on the plate she'd given to them. She did this over and over again, lol!

Our friend brought little A a gift as a thank you. It is the cutest crocheted bassinet and doll. It came with several different outfits, a diaper bag, and bedding - all of which are crocheted. Her mom made it! It's beautiful, and we love it! Little A has played with it all day. I asked her what she wanted to name her new baby, and she said, "Dolly". Ha! We don't have a dolly named dolly yet, so that works.

At church today little A tripped and fell. She hit her forehead and nose pretty hard. Her nose bled a little, and she has some big bruises. Poor thing. We had such a fun night together as a family though. She loves to play "Here we go round the mulberry bush". We played that over and over in the kitchen while dinner was cooking. Then we did some flannel board scripture stories and played with her Noah's ark while we sang the "Follow the Prophet" song. We also wrestled and played peek-a-boo, her favorites! We love to hear her cute giggles! The dress she's wearing in this picture is from her birth cousin. It is SO cute! Little A loves to have snacks at her little table and loves to use her play kitchen plates to have her snack.

It's been really cold this week. We went on a walk and splashed in some puddles one day. When we came in I gave little A her first hot chocolate. As you can see in this picture she is a fan!

Little A is having so much fun in dance class. She's starting to pick up on the movement more and more, and the movement is becoming clearer. 

They did some bar work this week. This is pretty much what little A did. When she wasn't doing this she was turned around facing the opposite direction of everyone else, lol!

We read a general conference talk every Sunday. Little A loves to find the pictures of the prophets and apostles and look at them. She'll jabber at them, laugh hysterically and then give them kisses! Ha!  I pulled one out so I can get it laminated so she can play with it without destroying it.

Little A has started really enjoying being read to again. She went through a phase where she wouldn't sit down to read unless she was completely exhausted, but now she'll stop playing throughout the day and want to read stories. I love it! We've been having a lot of fun reading some of my favorite fairy tales. A's favorite are the books about Biscuit the dog. We read from the children's scriptures every night.

We got our first snow! Little A was devastated when I wouldn't let her go out and play in it because she didn't have snow boots. Daddy took her out later in the day when it had warmed up a bit. She loved it! We went and got her some snow boots and a new coat (she grew out of her cute pea coat) later in the week. Now we're all ready for it to snow again!

We went and got some frozen yogurt when we went shopping. Little A loves waffle cones, but she eats them upside down. So to try and avoid a mess we put only a little strawberry froyo at the bottom and then she chose some toppings: M and M's, swedish fish, gummy worm, and sour gummy worm. She ate the toppings and some of the cone. It was a lot less messy than usual, which was nice! She was so tired when we were finished that she fell asleep as soon as the car started moving. At one point she lost her binky and couldn't figure out how to put it back in. Allan and I were laughing so hard! Don't worry, we did eventually help her, lol!

Family Pictures

Here are some of our family pictures. Taken by the awesome H! Thank you H! We love them!

Happy Halloween!

For Halloween this year we dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood, Granny, and the Woodcutter/Hunter. We threw Allan's costume together as we were going out the door to the trunk-or-treat.

Little A was really excited about going to get candy until she saw all the people, then she got pretty nervous. We got her through the trunk-or-treat pretty well. She actually had a pretty good time there.

Then we headed over to the assisted living center. As soon as we got in the door she said "No!" and refused to budge. I went over to talk to some of the Grandmas hoping that would calm her down a little, but she was not convinced. I carried her through it.

We headed home. Allan had planned on taking her to some of our neighbors, but she was very insistent that I go with her so he stayed to hand out candy. We got about halfway down the sidewalk in front of our house when she suddenly stopped and turned around. She ran back to the house yelling "No! No!" the whole way, with her little red cape blowing in the wind behind her. I really wish I had a video of it!

Someone at the trunk-or-treat gave out little coloring books. Little A sat at the table coloring and eating some of her candy. She also got a little Frankenstein with a parachute (like those parachute soldiers). She and Allan had a lot of fun throwing Frankenstein down the stairs Sunday evening.

We went to an adoption conference the day before Halloween. There was some great information there as always! Allan's brother, A1, and his boss created a networking site for special needs adoptions called Sapphire's Dream. They recently got some good funding. It was fun to see them at the conference! Here is a link to their site - http://www.sapphiresdream.org/

We also visited our family for Aunt SG's bridal shower. While we were shopping for a gift for her I asked Little A what we should get for Aunt SG. She answered, "Doggy! Doggy!" Dogs are one of Aunt SG's favorite things ever so I'm sure that she would have been thrilled if we'd gotten her a dog. However, we just settled on letting Little A pick out a cake mix for her. She picked strawberry. Strawberries are Little A's favorite!

Little A made a ghost at the library story time this week. She loved learning how to make the noise to fly it around. She'll hold it and wave it back and forth saying "ooooo, shooooo". She was also thrilled with the sparkly purple ghost sticker and the cup of Halloween candy!

She had a blast in dance class this week. They had their little Halloween party. She's getting better and better at doing the dance moves. This week she balanced on one foot (while holding my hand, ha) marched, kicked, turned, ran, and did passe jumps.

We took advantage of a warm afternoon and played in the backyard. She discovered that she could crawl under her slide. She thought it was the funniest thing ever!

 

We went to the store to get a few snacks for our trip. I didn't get a basket since we only needed a few small things. Little A found a basket in the back of the store and put our things in it. She carried (drug) the basket through the store. She was so proud! She loves the cashier and enjoyed showing her all the things in her basket. I love that we know all the cashiers, and they are so patient with and interested in Little A.

For family night this Monday we carved a pumpkin, as per tradition. Little A wanted a doggy, so we obliged. She actually stuck her hand in this time and tried to help.

 She thought it was really gross and refused to touch it again, ha!

She enjoyed watching Daddy do it though.

 It turned out pretty cute.

Little A and I went to Parent Teacher Conference this week. Random, I know. I needed to meet with one of the teacher's who is in charge of the high school musical. So, we wandered around talking to people and looking at the book sale while we waited to talk with her. It took a lot longer than we had planned, but it was a good visit, and necessary. It's been a lot of fun to be involved in Theatre and dance again!

Daddy's New Office

Brace yourself. This is a long one.

The adoption conference went really well! There was a lot of great information. The presenters did a great job. I'm hoping to do one again in a year or two, hopefully through an agency or other adoption organization though.

Allan's job duties changed recently. He is still running the short-term mine plan, and is also running the slope stability program. In the future he will be solely running the slope stability program. He moved to a new office, which is a lot bigger. Little A and I got to go and help him move all of his things. A had a blast running to and from the different offices

and carried a lot of the small things for us.

She is such a good little helper.

Allan has liked having more space to move around in. He did slope stability at the last mine we were at, so he was a good fit to do it here. He's sad to leave the short-term planning, but excited for some new challenges.

Allan had to attend a career fair for his company near where his family lives, so we made a trip out of it. We visited little A's cousins, went to the children's center, and spent some time with Grandma and Grandpa. She loves their pool table.

I took her to the park one day while we were there. The last time we went to this park she was so scared of the bridge because it moves a bit when you walk on it. This time she faced her fears and came to love it! She spent most of her time on it jumping up and down. I was really proud of her!

We also had Aunt H take our family pictures (I'll share those in another post) and gave little A her first haircut! Aunt S gave her some bangs. She was so thrilled at how she looked, lol!

 She got caught red handed taking cheese from the cheese bowl right before dinner.

At the children's center that day there was a photographer from the local paper doing a story. He asked if he could take some photos of little A for the story, and we obliged. The poor guy chased her all over that place, and I didn't think he got a single good picture. Every time she saw him she'd run away to another place to play, lol! I recently saw the story and there were some great pictures of her in it!

We had some more good rain storms so we took advantage of the rain and went puddle splashing.

This particular time she was very concerned that the pine cones get to splash too. She'd put them in a puddle and splash, then pick them up and go to another puddle to splash.

One day I was scratching an itch when little A asked me to do something. I told her to wait for a second because I was scratching an itch. Since then she has been obsessed with scratching itches, lol! She'll say "Mom!" and then scratch her itch, my itch, dollies itch, puppies itch, etc. No one gets away without a scratched itch from little A. (Which feels like a tickle.)

Little A has always been a great sleeper. Sometimes when we go to get her from her nap she throws her blanket back over her head and tries to go back to sleep, ha! I can only imagine how this is headed for her teen years.

I started working on the choreography for the high school musical, "Princess Whatsername", and am working on a solo for one of my cousin's dancers. We've been busy but have had a lot of fun too. Little A loves to go with me to the theatre and dance on the stage. She's really getting creative with her dance moves!

Little A started her dance classes again. She actually did the whole dance routine for Allan the other day, and actually got almost all of the moves in there too! I was impressed, and Allan was super proud!

Since all the leaves are falling I took it upon myself to teach little A the joy of crunching leaves beneath your feet. It's been so fun! She LOVES to crunch the leaves with her feet and her hands. We've had a lot of fun walks in the leaves.

Her speech is still moving slowly, but she's saying more and more words every day. She certainly knows how to communicate though! She can always get across what she wants. While she was sick recently she discovered a love for Barney (she calls him "Dardy"). I actually love to let her watch this because when they sing the "I love you" song at the end she always smothers me in hugs and kisses! Yay!

We enjoyed watching General Conference. Little A was engrossed by the singing as usual. We took turns playing with Little A so we could each get something out of the talks.

We've been really enjoying reading them over. Little A also had her first waffles with whipped cream. She was a big fan!

We took some videos of little A recently, and those are her new favorite things. She will watch them over and over! It's so fun to watch her because she responds to them.

For example, in one of the videos she is helping me make no-bake cookies. I ask her if she wants to lick the spoon. In the video she says "no", and while she watches it she always answers "no"! I love it; it's just too funny.

We took a drive up one of the nearby canyons to see some fall leaves. Little A loves to ride in the truck, especially when the window is down and she can feel the wind in her hair. On the way home Allan drove really fast with the windows down, and we listened to her happy squeals and giggles! She loves to watch that video and tell us about the wind in her hair by patting her hair and squealing.

She was very proud of the pumpkin she colored in Nursery.

We went to visit Aunt K5 and Uncle C in their new house. The highlights for little A were chasing the dog around the kitchen island, and playing in the dirt in their backyard. They are in the middle of getting the landscaping in so they had some really nice top soil for her to play in. :) Their house is so beautiful, and we are so happy for them!

While we were down there I went to Witches Night Out with Nana, some of the Aunties, and one of our fabulous friends. It's always such a fun night!

While I was there little A had a fun night with Daddy, both her Uncle C's and her cousin R. She wanted to play in their unfinished basement so Allan obliged. While down there she discovered a helmet. After that every time they went down there she would ask Allan to put it on and then point to it and laugh and laugh. Funny girl.

Little A and I were playing in the basement the other day. She had me wrap up her teddy bear and then brought me her blanket so she could be wrapped up in it like teddy. She was absolutely delighted!

We had a fun impromptu play date with my friend's three girls the other day, and I took the youngest with us to story time another day. Little A had a blast with those sweet girls. I wish we could take them more because they are so fun!

I made an art wall for little A to display all of her amazing art. :) She loves walking by it and looking at her pictures.

We went to the fall festival at the elementary school. There were a lot of games for the kids, a huge raffle, and dinner. Little A played a few of the games, but the lines were so long she lost interest. She mostly loved eating dinner, ha! My girl sure does love food. Like Aunt K5 said, "Most toddlers eat like a bird, but for her it's like it's the best thing that's ever happened to her." Ha! So true!

She was very excited about the candy bracelet she won at one of the games.

We are trying our luck with a small winter garden this year. Little A had a ball playing in the dirt while we dug and planted it.

We also went to a corn maze and pumpkin patch. We only did about 2 minutes of the corn maze before little A had had enough. She loved the play area though, she ran from thing to thing squealing and giggling with delight. She also enjoyed riding in the little wagon down to the pumpkin patch and picking out a pumpkin.

This is A's favorite little nook at the library. She always carries her snack over to this shelf and eats it there while she watches all of the other kids.