11/29/09...toaster oven & magnets

This morning I caught L after she had turned on the toaster oven and put magnets in it. Thank God she didn't burn down the house!

11/28/09...sayings...

Instead of saying "ut oh spaghetti-o," L says "ut oh mageteos" or "ut oh bettygoes." It's really funny.

Then when we're leaving Mario's house tonight, L says, "Bye Mario. See ya later." Then she asks me, "we going home?" and I said, "yes." L said, "but I want my Mario."

11/26/09...Thanksgiving...

Psalm 100
A psalm. For giving thanks.

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Saturday, 11/21/09...Adoption training & Grandma babysitting

Today D & I spent the whole day up in Berthoud doing day 2 of our adoption training and D's mom had come down last night so she could spend the day with L. Here are some of the happenings:

• Before bath time, L went crazy, jumping on the bed, burying her head in her stuffed animals and burying herself under the blankets, laughing. Well grandma didn't want to encourage her craziness so she just stood there with her arms crossed. Finally L stood up on the bed and said, "Okay. Ready now."
• Grandma took L on a walk in the jogger up past the lake to the park. When they got there, L took her snack and said, "We'll eat first" and ran up to the picnic tables and said, "Eat lunch first." Then when they got home, L walked through the front door and said, "I'm starving."
• When grandma couldn't figure out how to put the train tracks together, L said, "Grandma's got issues."
• Later, L was laying on the floor and she put her arm over her forehead and said, "I'm mad." Grandma asked, "Why are you mad?" L replied, "I'm mad."
• L ran about half way around the block before announcing, "I'm tired."
• When D was putting L to bed tonight and was saying prayers, he said "thank you for" and L said, "Grandma. Ride in jogger around lake. Fun."
  

11/20/09...things L can do...

• L can rehearse her dance routine in bits like, tip toe with hands & arms above her head, chassé, gallop, and "sledding"
• L can also dance along with her Wiggle*s videos -so cute!
• L has more real conversations -talks a lot more in the last week or so.
• L wants to "help you"
• She's also very stubborn, defiant, and cries easily
• L hugs the L*ittle People baby Jesus and says "love you"
• If I ask her if she can help mommy, she says, "no!"
• L likes to help cook and/or bake. Last night, she got the egg carton out, pulled out the eggs, and helped crack the eggs into the bowl and then whisked the eggs with a fork. Then she moved her stool over to the stove, said it was hot, and helped me poor the bowl into the frying pan. She'll also lay out all the muffin liners into the muffin tin and help stir the batter. She also likes to pretend to cook with her little frying pan and wooden spoon.
  

11/15/09...Dancing to S*per J*nior

A gal on my yahoo group from our adoption agency sent out a link to this Y*uT*be video of the Korean boy band S*perJ*nior. Well I played it for L and she loved it. She started dancing and then ran into the other room to get her microphone and then ran back into the kitchen and starting dancing again with her microphone. It was SO cute! Well she's continued to dance to it and tonight I caught her on video with D. She actually ran all the way upstairs to get her microphone and then came back downstairs. (make sure the volume is on for the video in the lower right hand corner)

11/14/09.."one more, that's it..."

L says things like "one more book, that's it, daddy" when trying to get you to do something for longer.

Sunday, 11/8/09...zoo

Today was free day at the zoo again but winter hours started so this time the zoo didn't open until 10am. We got down there around 9:45am and the doors were already open. Both times before when we'd been to the zoo, we went clockwise around the zoo. This time, I wanted to take a right first since I knew the gorillas were some of L's favorites and we could do the cheetahs, kangaroos, elephants, hippo, rhinos, and bears on the way over to the monkeys and gorillas and then I wouldn't be tired and have my feet hurt by the time we got over there. It was a chilly day, but not as cold as two weeks ago. Dave and I wore hats, gloves, and coats, but L didn't want her hat or coat but we made her wear the gloves (to keep her hands warm and protected from all the germs!).

We had a great time at the zoo. We put the tray down on the stroller and L climbed in and out of the stroller the whole time we were there....out to see an animal and then back in to go on to the next one. It was really cute. After seeing a variety of monkeys, orangutans, and gorillas, we walked by some other animals, including a warthog and some zebras before seeing the $1 hotdogs. I was quite hungry so we stopped and ate lunch. L insisted on having ketchup on her hotdog, but made the strangest faces when she put more than just a tiny amount on her hotdog, yet she still wanted to eat it with the ketchup. Weird girl. After that, I was ready to go home, but we saw the giraffes (an L favorite), the tiger, and two leopards on the way out. We were able to get home in time to put L down for her nap, but she didn't fall asleep until really late so we didn't get up until late.

We had the Merrys over for dinner and had a fun time catching up with them. L had fun showing off for them and dancing in her underwear. Don't ask...she's a character!

Here's some of my favorites:

like my new hat? Nordstroms. :)








she really liked carrying around the map. I even said something about not knowing where something was and she handed me the map!







You can see the rest of the zoo pictures here along with the rest of this week's pictures so far (you can check back later to see if I added more pics).

Orphan Sunday

Today is Orphan Sunday.

It is a day set aside for Christians everywhere to consider the plight of the orphan.

And the role we might play in being Christ's hands and feet to serve and care for orphans worldwide.


From the Orphan Sunday website:

On Orphan Sunday, Christians stand for the orphan. We are a people called to defend the fatherless… to care for the child that has no family… to visit orphans in their distress.

From many sources, one voice. Hundreds of events across America and beyond, all sharing a single goal: that God’s great love for the orphan will find echo in our lives as well.

Each as they are led. Sermons and small groups, concerts and prayer gatherings—each rousing believers with God’s call to care for the orphan… and what we can do in response.

November 8, 2009. Orphan Sunday is your opportunity to rouse church, community and friends to God’s call to care for the orphan.



Please spread the word to your family, your loved ones, your friends about this very special day.

Encourage them to watch the broadcast.

Encourage them to pray about how God might want them to join Him in caring for the orphan.


Go here to view the LIVE broadcast, starting at 4PM CST.

I'll be there... will you?


"Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows what we know, and holds us responsible to act."
~ Proverbs 24:12

ideas for L's Christmas

Hi parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts & uncles, and friends...

By no means does the fact that you got this email imply that you have to get L any gift but I just wanted to error on the side of inclusive rather than exclusive, especially since I'm terrible at these Christmas list things.

Anyhow, I know some people have already asked me for L's Christmas list so I thought I'd better get on that now. I've tried to update her list with a variety of things and prices and I've marked the priority of the item and made comments on the right-hand side of the list so you might want to sort the list by priority. The #1 thing she would REALLY like is the Vtech Kidizoom Plus Digital Camera. Feel free to email amongst yourselves (don't forget to leave me off the email unless you want me to know) who's getting what so there are no duplicates, b/c of course being the cheap woman I am, I don't want anyone to pay more for an item than they have to so don't feel obligated to buy at amazon...besides sometimes it's just easier to buy stuff at a real store.

• Click here to go to her wish list.

• The other thing on her list is money...either earmarked for her savings account or to be used in conjunction with other monetary gifts towards toys or clothes either now or later. Honestly, she already has toys and doesn't need a whole lot right now, so for those who don't care money might be better since we can ration it out over time.
  

She doesn't need any clothes.

We got her a wooden train set and some kitchen pots/pans/utensils for Christmas. She's already opened the train set and loves it (we told her it was for Christmas). I haven't gotten around to washing all the kitchen stuff yet so she's yet to open that. We didn't want her to have to wait extra months to play with stuff that she could be playing with now.

Thanks for reading my long-winded email :)

Love,
E & D

11/5/09: Park & sayings

Today I took L to the park. It was a super dry day and almost down right hot. I think it was like 80F. L enjoyed playing on the playground, riding the frog (which she can now get on and off by herself), going down the slide, through the tunnels and about two seconds on each swing. There were a bunch of leaves on the ground that I tried unsuccessfully to get her to throw or pose in but I did capture a few cute moments.




View from the park...beautiful lake and mountains.


"Oh no..."
















love this one!








"huh?"

At dinner tonight, L said, "bad dog." I was kinda at a loss for where that came from so I asked her, "what do you mean bad dog?" and she replied, "bad dog. woof." This girl is a hoot. I *think* this came from this morning at the park when she approached a large yellow lab on the other side of the fence and I warned her to stay back because it's not safe to get close to dogs we don't know without their owners. The dog let out a big deep "woof" and L took a leap back and ran to bury her head in my legs. Plus, when we were at grammie's last month, grammie kept saying the dogs behind her house were bad b/c they kept barking.

11/5/09: finally some more movement on the adoption list

We're finally moving again...We're officially #19, with one baby being reviewed and one couple on hold above us making us unofficially #17. Yay for movement since we're way behind in where we thought we'd be by now!

11/4/09: H1N1 vaccine & cute L sayings...

This morning L & I went to BSF. She gets so excited to "go to church." After I picked her up at her classroom she ran all the way to the front of the building and back to the restrooms with me trying to catch up. We used the restrooms and then went through McDonalds' drive thru on the way to Nordstroms. I wanted to check out their sale and had to do it quickly since L's nap was in an hour. When I was looking at sunglasses, L took some dark purple Ugg earmuffs and put them on. Then she walked over to the sunglasses' rack, holding my Nordstroms' bag, and said, "pick one out...match my boots." So cute!

We borrowed our friend Elyse's crib tent to go over L's crib and keep her in her crib since we'd been having trouble with her getting in and out of her crib both before and after she was supposed to be sleeping. I'd find her getting a cup of water or standing in her room with her sippy cup or I'd find my books in her crib. It was a very frustrating last few weeks. She's been in the crib tent for 5 days now and we're still having to finesse bedtimes a little so that she's okay with being zipped in but now I don't have to wake up to her scaring me in bed or wondering what she's doing when she's so quiet up there.

Tonight when we were leaving the house, I grabbed my sunglasses and L told me, "Pretty. Match coat." This girl cracks me up.

We got L vaccinated tonight with the H1N1 nasal mist at Boulder County Public Health. She didn't cry at all although she didn't really want the nurse to do the second nostril once she knew what was going on. She buried her head in me but I distracted her with the reward of a sticker when we were done and it was all over in a millisecond. She was very happy with her kitty sticker. I made sure the vaccine she got didn't contain the controversial Thimerosal. I'm just continuing to pray that vaccinating her possibly saved her life and didn't do anything detrimental to her. I would never do anything to harm my baby!! On the way home, she told me, "big hand sanitizer at doctor's office" because we used one of those very large hand sanitizer pumps at public health a couple times since I had to touch a pen and, well, L's two so she had to touch stuff too.


We're borrowing a bunch of hats from L's friend Mya and L's liked running around with them lately. Thanks Mya!




how cute is she?




and with the matching coat? A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E!!!!