Family Time

Little A has struggled a bit with anxiety lately. I've been trying to find something to help her for a while. She used to use her pacifier, but they all broke and since she's three we aren't buying any new ones. She really likes the fringe on the afghan she sleeps with, and my hair. The tickling feeling seems to calm her down. So, I made her and I matching bracelets.

Little A's has fringe on it, and we both have one of my Grandma's old buttons from her button box. Little A has loved us having matching bracelets. She reminds me to put mine on every morning! It seems to be helping her. I've noticed that she'll get anxious, then feel the fringe on her bracelet, and then get all excited about the bracelet and run up to show whoever we're with.

For Christmas some of our family gifted us some family activities. We needed to go to a class on trans-racial adoption in the nearby city, so we decided to use one of those activities last weekend.

The adoption class was great! We loved the presenters and really learned a lot about the issues in trans-racial adoption, and about racism in general.

To start our weekend off we headed to a farm. Before we went to see the animals we had a picnic lunch. Allan had let Little A pick out some chips for lunch. She was so excited to eat them she could hardly contain herself and wasn't interested in eating anything else. She picked Cheetos. After the picnic we headed over to the farm. Little A loved seeing all of the animals.

The pigs were gone that day, which was a bummer for her and Allan because they like the pigs the best. We saw a lot of sheep, goats, and llamas.

We all really liked the sheep that had the big curly horns.

We saw a lot of different chickens, turkeys, and other birds. There were a lot of horses, cows, and a miniture donkey that scared Little A with its loud braying!

We watched the ducks and geese for a while and then saw a bunch of different bunnies. There were some play houses to play in and a discovery area where the kids can "plant" seeds (everything is a toy), harvest it, bring it to the market, etc. There was also an area that taught about worms. It had tunnels that you could crawl through; Little A thought that was the greatest! We went on a wagon ride, which little A loved.

Then we waited for an hour to ride the ponies. Little A almost died of boredom (it was also past her nap time), but she made it and got to ride a pony! I'm so glad that we waited because she absolutely LOVED it!

She wanted more Cheetos when we got back to the car. She fell asleep eating them, lol!

That evening we went out for Thai for my birthday, and then to get some ice cream. The Thai restaurant we went to was SO good! We went to Dairy Queen for ice cream. I asked little A if she wanted a cone or a blizzard, she said blizzard! I was so proud! I got her a strawberry cheesecake blizzard because she loves strawberries so much, but she ended up eating Allan's Turtle Pecan Cluster and then feeding her blizzard to him.

I really need to remember that she's a chocolate girl when it comes to ice cream. I got S'mores Oreo. Yum!

The next day we headed over to visit SG and her husband, A, and D and J and their daughter L. There is a great park close to where they live that they wanted to take us to. It was so much fun! Little A thought this swing was the best and spent most of the time in it.

She braved some slides and tried the monkey bars as well. Afterward we headed over to SG and A's apartment for dinner. We had a good time catching up with everyone. SG and A have a beautiful apartment! It was so much fun to spend some time with all of them! We're hoping we can do it again soon!

The following week we had cousin R over for the day. K3 and R stayed the night and then R stayed with us while K3 went to work. Little A and R had a blast together! A had a hard time sharing at first, but once I figured out that she just wanted me to acknowledge that something was hers she'd share it really well. I also managed to get them both to nap at the same time, which was an awesome miracle! I pulled the walker out for R; she absolutely loved it. However, little A was extremely jealous that she didn't get to ride in it. Eventually Little A found her car and she rode that around, then she was happy again because they both had something to ride.

We also had our friends little girl over (C). These two had so much fun together! It took about 30 minutes to help Little A understand how to play/share with C, and after that they were great! They headed off to play by themselves several times! Their favorite thing was taking turns pushing each other on the car.

We celebrated my birthday. Allan got me a small portable speaker, a cord to plug my phone into the car, and a new mini SD card for the phone so I can put all of my music on it. He also got me the laundry basket I wanted. (Now I can tuck it away at the side of the washer instead of it being in the middle of the floor! Yay for organization!) Little A picked out some bright red oven mitts for me! She was so excited to give them to me! :)

We had Cookie Grasshopper Pie and Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Mint and Chocolate are pretty much the best thing ever in my opinion. I couldn't find mint chocolate chip ice cream or I would have gotten that too, ha!

I had my first Wizard of Oz rehearsal. We started choreography for Munchkinland. It's looking really cute! It helps that the kids are so adorable! I hope their excitement for it lasts!

While I was gone Little A had a nap on Allan. He really enjoyed that snuggle!

We filmed an adoption video this weekend and sent it in to get edited. Hopefully it will turn out cute! We had a lot of fun with it. We got to have a lot of family play while doing it - picnic, play at the park, watch the ducks at the pond, dig in the garden, family dance, hide-and-go-seek, and playing in the toy room. Little A had a blast, she sure didn't want to leave the park though, she could have stayed there all day!

This morning Allan was doing some stretches for his hip (he is still recovering from his surgery). Little A joined in! She also did this during Stake Conference today, ha!

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.