Happy Easter!

Last Thursday we had some of little A's friends over for a Tea Party. It was so fun and so adorable!

The girls were all so excited. They came dressed in their best tea party attire. :)  Little A was thrilled when I let her wear my pearls and one of my sparkly bracelets! Little A got a bloody lip at one point. She gets so excited at these kinds of things that she doesn't watch where she's going. Poor girl. As usual she ate her little heart out.

Before the tea party little A tried to pour the water into everyone's cups and ended up pouring it on my phone. I got it all cleaned up and asked her to leave the water alone, she dumped it again while I was taking care of the phone, so she got a time out. She was in time out when her friends arrived, lol!

She's really started to get into things more. She's never been a super curious child, and rarely got into things she wasn't supposed to. Now all of a sudden she's decided she's going to branch out. For example, the other day I was in the shower. Usually she plays in my room while I shower. When I got out she wasn't there, and she was being really quiet. I was immediately suspicious! I heard some wrappers and figured she'd gotten into the candy. I was right. She climbed up on her little table, climbed onto the counter, got into the cupboard and pulled the glass candy jar down. Then she proceeded to eat half of the contents of the candy jar! She had to sit in time out the entire time I got ready. I also moved her table away from the counter so she can't climb up anymore. I laughed pretty hard, but it was also scary, she really could have hurt herself.

I made a sock puppet for my primary class to talk about resurrection. Little A loved it! I'm excited that she's starting to get old enough for crafty things!

We also made Grandad a card for his birthday. She was very pleased with how it came out.

After dinner one night Daddy and Little A played Play Doh. He's such a good Daddy!

Allan got this cute picture of her playing with the fridge magnets while I was cleaning up the kitchen. She'll sit there and say "I", "I", "I" over and over again. Every now and then she'll say another letter, but it's usually "I". If you ask her to find a specific letter though she can. There are only a couple that she gets mixed up!

Little A is up to almost 70 words! She's doing a great job, and we are so proud of her! The other night in the bathtub she was playing with her sponge letters and numbers and she picked up R and said "R", and then picked up "A" and said "A".

We had a fun Easter. We went to the Easter Egg hunt. It was right by our house this year. We weren't able to go last year because of my surgery, so we were really excited to go again.

Just like last time she found a spot in the middle of a bunch of eggs and sat down. Then she slowly picked them up and put them into her basket, occasionally inspecting them to see what was inside! She was thrilled with all of the candy, of course!

My visiting teacher, and neighbor, also brought her an Easter basket.

We colored eggs. Little A was big enough to help a little this year. She loved the stickers and the glitter.

 We had a casualty so Daddy and Little A ate it.

The next morning the Easter bunny came. Little A had a blast hunting down all the eggs the Easter Bunny hid. She got more candy, a Little Critter Eater book, and a set of gardening tools. She asked all morning to go outside to dig in the dirt with them!

We did finally make it outside just before lunch time. Little A had a blast digging in the dirt and helping Daddy water the garden. She has her own watering can, but she really wanted to use the big one; she had a bit of trouble with it though, ha!

Our winter garden has taken off. We've loved having fresh lettuce. The carrots aren't ready yet, but we're looking forward to those as well! (Also, Allan is such a handsome stud!)

 It was so nice outside that we decided to have a picnic!

We had planned on having AG down for a visit this week, but instead there was a really, really bad snowstorm, so we couldn't go get her. We also had to cancel Little A's ENT appointment. Bummer. Her ears are looking good though. We finally bought an otoscope so we can see what's going on. Then Little A got sick, and we just kind of laid around until Thursday.

On Thursday we went to Baby Animal Days with AG and her mom. It's always so fun to be with them! Little A loves all of the attention too! We saw baby bears, calfs, lambs, Sheltland ponies, goats, turtles, puppies, bunnies, Bison, and pigs. Little A's favorite were the baby pigs. (She gets that from her daddy.) She kept putting straw over them to "tuck them in", ha! We got caught in the rain and Little A thought that was the best thing ever!

Afterward we went and got some yummy donuts, went to the mall to get some clothes for A, and then ate at a Chinese place in the mall, which was actually really, really good! The Chinese man behind the counter fell in love with Little A and kept saying how beautiful she is. :)

Then we went back to their place so we could chat and play with AG's Dad for a while. AG got a tub of ring pops down so little A could take some home. I told little A to put some in my purse. That girl is too smart for her own good, lol! She dumped the entire contents of the tub into my purse! Ha! She was pretty disappointed when I made her put most of it back.

Little A was pretty excited about her new shoes. The next morning she put on one of each new shoe, ha!

We had a wonderful time watching General Conference this weekend. We are so grateful to the men and women who dedicate so much of their lives to the Lord. I am grateful for the reminder of our Savior's infinite atonement, and God and Christ's deep love for all of us.

Dancing Queen

Allan had his first post-op appointment last week. He is doing great, and continues to heal well and quickly! We're so grateful to have such great doctors.

On our way down to his appointment we stopped and voted.

While we were down in the city we took at trip to the Temple. It was SO nice to go. We missed last month due to illness and Allan's surgery. We're so grateful to Grandma for watching Little A for us while we were at the Temple and the doctor.

On our way home we stopped at the law office where A1 works and had a meeting with our adoption agency. We recently signed up with Forever Bound Adoption. We have really liked it so far. Our profile is: https://www.parentfinder.com/allanandkami/about

Go and take a look! Share it! Thanks!

We had a much needed play date with one of little A's friends, C. They are such good friends, I'm so glad that we live close! They surprised me after lunch when they told me goodbye and ran down the stairs giggling. They then played by themselves down there for a good 20 minutes! I was thrilled to clean up lunch with out them under my feet! I also really enjoyed listening to their giggles! I tried to put them down for a nap later, but they were both too excited about playing with each other. I had to take a phone call while they were supposed to be sleeping. While I was on the phone they took turns shutting each other in little A's room and running out to squeal in delight at me, then running back to switch places. They're too funny!

Little A is getting better and better at dance class. She can get through about half of the class before her attention span is done, and she just runs around aimlessly. She has great jumps, somersaults, relevé walks! Little A's favorite thing to do right now dance-wise is the belly drum! Allan will pound on his belly like a drum, and she will dance to it. She's gotten really animated with it, stomping her feet, clapping her hands, and jumping around!

Another of her new favorites is to pretend she's a puppy and have me scratch behind her ears and rub her belly. My favorite is when she wags her tail, lol! It's the cutest!

Having Allan home for those two weeks after his surgery has been a great blessing for little A. They strengthened their relationship a lot during that time. She's always so happy when Daddy comes home and can play with her.

One night I got some blueberries out for desert after dinner. Little A came running over, climbed up on my lap, and stole my spoon, lol! She had a ball feeding the blueberries to me, and eating some herself too. We were both covered in blueberry by the end lol!

Another of little A's recent favorites is playing super-A. She puts on her cape (you can't really see it in the picture, but it's there), has me put on her red riding hood, and then she saves her dollies as I cheer her on. She likes to take some breaks to read a little in between each rescue, ha!

Little A has recently discovered that if she spins in circles long enough she'll get dizzy and fall over! She thinks it's hilarious! We're pretty silly around here. (Also, look at that cute smashed cheek, ha!)

I sang a solo in church last week. I've never done that before. It went well; I've gotten compliments all week. What a relief, ha! While I was singing Little A stood on the bench and watched me, grinning ear to ear, and telling all the people around her that her Mama was singing, ha! She also clapped and cheered at the end. :)

I'm getting better at braiding!

My Primary class made a deal with me that if they teach the lesson, I bring treats. So we decided that one of them will teach every other week. This was the first Sunday that one of them taught and it went really well! They are all 8 years old. I gave the little girl who taught a lesson plan to follow with some homework for her. She did a really good job and was very prepared. The rest of the class was really reverent and participated well (as per our deal). They definitely earned those cupcakes!

We had a fun family date this week playing in the backyard. We had planned on going to the park, but it was still a little too cold and windy, so we stuck with the backyard where the fence and house block the wind somewhat. We did sidewalk chalk, bubbles, hide and seek, wrestling, eating snow, and a little Frisbee. Little A had a ball. Then we made the cupcakes for my class today, and of course Little A got to eat one! She was a great helper! Allan and I had a fun stay-at-home date later that night too. We played Settler's of Cataan. Allan actually beat me!!!

Sickies

We had a super busy month planned for February. Unfortunately we ended up being a bunch of sickies for most of the month.

Little A started speech therapy. It has gone really well. She said two new words in the first appointment and has said several since. She still doesn't like to say words, she'd rather communicate through gestures, but it's coming along. She says the "D" sound for the beginning of almost all words.

We went visiting teaching and got stuck in the drive-way of the woman we visit teach. The week before we got stuck in my visiting teaching companion's drive-way. From now on when we go to that community we're parking on the road! We did have some fun visits with friends though while we were waiting to be pulled out.


We had Auditions for "The Wizard of OZ". They went really well. We are excited about the cast we have!

I was there the first week of auditions, but the second week I came down with the flu and wasn't able to make it. I pulled myself together for the dance auditions, but otherwise crashed. The Valentine show that I helped put together was that week as well. I was able to make it to the tech night, but missed the actual show, which was a big bummer. I heard it went really well though.

Little A had a check up for her ears. She always loves to climb up in the chair. She has gotten so brave and doesn't mind for her ears to be checked anymore. Her right ear looked great, but her left eardrum is pasted with wax. We're trying to get it to loosen up and come out on it's own; if not then she'll have to have a systematic cleaning. Boo. The Dr. did say that she probably isn't hearing out of that ear very well, so her speech will probably still come slowly.

Allan surprised me on Valentines day with a valentine from him, and one from little A. It was so darling! A was so excited to give hers to me.

He also brought home a flower for little A, and a box of Turtles for me. :) We were so excited that he was able to find Turtles. Our stores don't usually carry them! I was nice and shared one with little A. The next morning she got into them and ate some more, lol! Teach me to leave my chocolate within reach of little hands!

The following week little A came down with the flu. Allan was supposed to have surgery on his hip that week, so we were pretty nervous that he would catch it and not be able to. I took care of Ava as much as possible to keep him away from the sickness, and thankfully he never got it. Some of his coworkers were headed down to the city where he was having his surgery, so they took him down and met his dad somewhere. His mom took him to have his surgery the following morning.

Little A and I stayed home and watched a whole lot of Daniel Tiger and ate a little bit of noodles. Bleh.

We went down and picked him up a couple of days later when we weren't contagious anymore. We are so grateful for our amazing family. It was such a blessing that his family and coworkers were able to take care of that! He's had problems with his hip for 6 years! We're so relieved that he has finally had the help he needs, and it wouldn't have happened if not for some great friends and family.

Poor little A just wanted to play and play while we were sick, but she could only handle it for about 20-30 minutes before she was dead again. We did manage to play kitchen a few times though.

When Allan got home we explained to little A that he had a big owie and couldn't do a lot of things for awhile. She promptly went over and kissed his leg all better! She was very confused as to why it didn't work immediately, so we then had to explain how some owies just need a kiss, and some need extra time. We played with Daddy by bringing the toys over to the couch and setting them on a chair. Favorites were playing sandwiches or barn. Allan discovered a button on her barn that sings "Old MacDonald", and they've had a lot of fun with that!

Since then we've just been taking care of Allan, trying to make sure he heals correctly. He has two machines he has to use frequently throughout the day: an ice machine (in the above photo) and an exercise machine that moves his leg for him.

Little A wanted to have a hoodie like Mama. :)

A's new favorite place to play is underneath her highchair. This day we were having a little snack under there.

This is her new favorite place to hide. :)

The disposal on our kitchen sink fell partly off. There was a ton of water leaking before I found it. My step-dad came over to try to fix it, but we weren't able to get it back on, so we had to call the plumber. Allan was so bummed that he couldn't help.

My mom and step-dad also took little A for a day so I could get our house cleaned up and work on our new adoption profile. It was such a huge relief to have their help! Little A had a great time playing play doh, making necklaces, and playing with cousin P.

Grandpa made Little A an easel for her birthday! We are so excited about it!

Snuggling Daddy while he's on his ice machine. Little A watched the movie "Cars" with Daddy one day. Now she'll go up to him and say "Vroom, vroom?" and move her hands like she's driving a car. It's her way of asking to watch the movie again. Her favorite movie though is Kung Fu Panda; she thinks it's hilarious!

This picture makes us laugh. Little A is a definite Mama's girl, and we've joked before that she is tied to my apron strings. Now there is proof. Ha!

Our friends got little A this adorable dress for her birthday! I love it!

K3 and C came over with a gift for little A. They were sick on her birthday. It was fun to visit with them and their adorable little girl for a while. They gave A a Princess Sophia play set. She has loved it, especially the little treasure box that came with it. She also really enjoyed having her cousin there.

Shots

Today in church Allan got up and bore his testimony. While he was walking back to sit with us little A stood up on the bench, pointed to Allan and shouted, "Mama! Mine!" We sure love our little girl! So glad she knows that we're hers!

She is very interested in being exactly like me right now. I pulled an eyebrow hair off of Allan's face one evening, and she reached up and pulled his eyebrow, lol! When I did the laundry she pushed all the buttons she could because she saw that I pushed buttons too. This was problematic though because some of the buttons she pushed made the dryer do some really weird things. We thought it might be clogged or broken. Allan went out in the cold to check for clogs in the venting (he had to take apart some of our deck to do it), and then when he got back in he discovered the problem with the buttons. Funny girl.

This is the adorable dress that our friends got little A for her birthday! I just love it! 

We started out the month by trying to go visiting teaching. I ended up getting stuck in my companions drive-way. The following week we tried again, and I got stuck in the drive-way of the woman we visit teach!  Our little car is definitely not meant for all of this snow! Next time I'll remember to just park on the road, lol!

Little A has been pretty clingy the last week. I think all of the commotion about her birthday, and getting back into story time and dance classes has overwhelmed her a bit. She has literally been attached to my apron strings, ha! She'll follow me around like this while I make dinner, unless she's helping me with something.

The Relief Society president in our ward made little A a darling purse, and it had some m&ms in it! Little A was thrilled!

Little A has had a fear of public toilets. Last year when we first tried potty training she sat on a really loud automatic toilet at the fair. The flush scared her so bad that she hasn't wanted to sit on a public toilet since. She has finally conquered that fear though! We are so proud of her! She still fears it enough that she'll only go on one if it's an absolute necessity, but at least she'll go now!

I explained to little A that Daddy has an owie on his hip, so he was using a pillow to help it. She then explained that she has an owie too, and had to have her own pillow! :)

We had our first auditions for Wizard of Oz this weekend. I'm excited to work on this show, it's going to be a lot of fun! These women are very talented, I'm excited to learn from them too! I did the sound check for them, they turned on "All that Jazz" and I sang as much of the words as I could remember. That is not a song I should ever sing, lol!

We had a great family date this weekend. We went swimming and then got dinner. Little A picked out her own cookie, and she was so excited about it! She was so nice and gave each of us a piece of it! What a sweet little girl! She really loves to be in the water! At one point she wanted to go get a drink. I told her daddy would take her. She looked at Allan with this really mischievous look and then splashed him with all of her might!

Little A got a shot this week. We went in to the doctor to do a medical report for her for adoption purposes and then realized that she hadn't got one of her shots. So, we just did it right then. She was SO brave! She didn't even cry! While they were preparing I explained what they were going to do and that it would hurt a little. She gasped when they poked her and then looked at them with wide eyes, but that was it! We were so proud of her! I really appreciated that they gave her praise in a way that wasn't overwhelming for her. They repeatedly told her what a good job she did and how brave she was, but they didn't clap and cheer! Then she got 5 stickers, a lollipop and a coupon for a cookie at one of the gas stations in town. We went to get the cookie, and I let little A pick out the one she wanted. She chose a chocolate Smore's cookie. It was enormous! She was very proud of herself and told everyone we saw that day that she had got a shot and a big cookie!

Little A is 3!

At three years old our sweet little A is full of spunk and personality! 

She is 3' 1/4" tall and weighs 30 lbs.

Her favorite game is hide and seek.

Her favorite food is ice cream cones without the ice cream, roasted vegetables, and pasta.

Her favorite place to go is to Nursery at church.

She LOVES to ride in the truck!

She loves to tease, giggle, and have Allan throw her in the air. 

She loves to read stories, especially before nap time and bed time.

January

We celebrated New Year's with my side of the family at Aunt K6's home. Little A made friends with Grandma R, who is Uncle K's Grandma. She had fun playing with play doh until dinner time. She had a blast with her cousins, and then snuggled up and watched Inside Out while we finished our game of Canasta. She was quite the little trooper. We didn't make it to midnight, but we made it to about 10pm! As soon as we put her in the car she passed out.

Our big girl is potty trained! It took her three days to get it, and then she was great! We have the occasional accident at nap time, but otherwise she's accident free and is really good about telling us when she needs to go, and when we're at home she'll sometimes just go on her own. We're so proud of her!

Little A has loved the My Little Pony play doh, and the apron that Grandma and Grandpa H gave her for Christmas. The play doh is so much fun! She loves to have me make her a pony and then smash it, ha! The apron has come in really handy. She loves to help me with dinner.

Little A had her first trip to the dentist. She did SO well! We had talked to her about it before hand, explaining that he would look at her teeth, and she needed to saw "ahhh" and open her mouth big and wide. She was a little nervous at first, but opened up and said "ahh". She also let them paint the fluoride on her teeth. She thought it was pretty cool that they were painting her teeth. To reward her for doing such a great job we took her out for ice cream! She was absolutely thrilled! We even got her a normal sized cone, which she loved! She also loved trying ours, ha!

Little A has discovered ownership of things. She will often grab something of hers and hold it tight and yell "Mine!" It's pretty darling. Our favorite is when she puts us in a head lock and shouts "Mine!" over and over again. Sometimes she'll say "My Mama!" or "My Daddy!" One evening I was reading her stories before bedtime. She put her arm around me (in a head lock) and shouted repeatedly to the characters "Mine!" Each time she yelled mine she would squeeze my head, lol!

We celebrated little A's 3rd birthday! We scheduled a family party for her but had to cancel due to snow. Daddy took her on a date for her birthday. They went out for lunch at a cafe here that we really like. The food took a REALLY long time, but she was very patient. She alternated between coloring, sitting on Allan's lap, saying she needed to go potty only to run away from the toilet, and dancing in an open area.

We still had our own little party. A was REALLY excited about her party this year. She loved all of the attention and excitement about it. She was very excited about presents and ice cream.

We got her some cutting food for her kitchen, some number and letter matching games, Biscuit books, Little Critter books, and some Daniel Tiger figurines and trolley. She was SO thrilled! We have been playing Daniel Tiger and reading Little Critter constantly since then!

Our sweet girl really hates cake and anything that looks like it. I wised up this year and made her an ice cream cone cake, because she loves ice cream cones! She was thrilled with it. She loved trying to blow out the candles too!

She had one ice cream cone and a whole bunch of circus animal cookies that went along with the circus animal ice cream she had. This is the first year she's actually liked what we had for her birthday treat!

We had a re-do for A's party. Her birth family was able to come as well as K6 and cousin P. It was the perfect amount of people for her. She did not let us sing happy birthday to her at this party; it was too overwhelming. She did love eating ice cream cones again and opening her presents. K6 and P got her an adorable Little People Lady and the Tramp set.

Her birth family got her some super cute clothes, a bunch of really fun bath toys (she loves them so much, she doesn't ever want to get out of the bath now!), and a Daniel Tiger game, that we've played every day since, ha! Her favorite thing to play with the Daniel Tiger game is that one of the characters is sick and has to go to see Dr. Anna. Then they have to get soup from Baker Bob, and then go get some "Get Better Music" from Music Man Stan, lol! We play this over, and over, and over!

K3, Uncle C, and baby R were all sick for her party, but they came over when they were feeling better and brought little A an adorable Sophia the First set. She loves tucking Sophia into her bed! Little A also got the most adorable dress from our friends B, S, and C. C and A are besties. We love having play dates with them because they play so well together!

Little A is a huge fan of the Little Critter books. I thought she would like the Biscuit books more because she loves dogs and always chooses to read Biscuit when we're at Grandma and Grandpa H's house, but she loves Little Critter more.

I joined United for Adoption (UFA) as a vice chair. I'm really excited about getting more involved. We had our first meeting via phone conference this month during A's nap time. I'm really looking forward to learning more about the issues surrounding adoption, advocating for ethical adoptions, and education about adoption.

I also am the new secretary for the Theatre Guild where we live. I'm glad that I can be involved in that capacity. Right now I'm helping organize the Valentines show, and working on choreography for "The Wizard of Oz" in July. I love musical theatre and dance so much! It's been fun to be involved in it again!

We've been working on getting little A into speech therapy. We went through the infant/toddler program at first, but before we got anywhere she had aged out of the program. Our options then were private speech therapy, and special needs preschool. We had a meeting with the school and then took her to preschool the following week. Ultimately we didn't feel like that was going to meet her needs. So, we are starting private speech therapy this month. I'm excited to see how it goes, and to finally hear little A's thoughts in full. This experience also made me realize how unready I am to see my girl go to school! It seriously made me SO sad!

I was talking to K6 on the phone one morning. Little A was playing really good with her toys. Toward the end of our conversation I looked over and saw little A sound asleep on her bean bag chair, ha!

The day I took her to preschool I talked to her about it all morning in an attempt to prepare her for it. She was extremely excited about going. I sat her on the couch to put her shoes on when it was time to go and said, "A, it's time to go to school!" She was so excited she started talking to what I thought was one of her stuffed animals saying that she was going to school. I voiced her stuffed animal and asked her what she was going to do at school. She got really wide eyes and then very slowly and exaggeratedly shrugged her shoulders! Ha! She then hopped off the couch, ran to the front door, gave it a big hug and kiss, waved and said "Bye!" And then we were off to school, lol! Her new best friend is the front door. Since then she has loved to play by it, dance by it, etc.

We've gotten a lot of snow. It's really powdery so we haven't been able to build a snowman, but A loves to play in it. We have quite the drift in our backyard against the fence. She slid down the hill and got caught between the snow and fence. She didn't even care, she just lay there and ate snow, lol!

Little A is almost in 4T clothes! We went shopping and got her new socks and panties so we could be prepared. She loved picking them out on her own, and was especially proud of the flower socks she picked. Lately she has been picking different colors of socks to wear each day. This day was yellow and pink. :) The other day she had a yellow and pink on each foot, ha!

Allan went on his first Klondike. The boys had a lot of fun playing games and having snowball fights. They got 6 inches of snow that night! Their tents were really weighed down! Allan is not a fan of camping in the snow, ha!

I gave little A her first wedgie! Poor girl! Her pants were sagging so I reached down to pull them up and got her panties instead! I yanked pretty hard. She gave me quite the look, lol!

While Daddy was gone little A and I had a girls night. We ate caramel popcorn and watched Mulan. She was so excited about the popcorn and movie that she cried all night long until it was finally time to watch it. Ug. She did really love the movie.