hmmmm

We were in the riding in the car this evening and I heard Karianne and Angie playing in the back with a stuffed monkey and calling it a "stupid" monkey. I've never heard them use that word before and I didn't like the sound of it. So Brent and I tried to explain to them that "stupid" isn't really a nice word and we really should try not to use it. Brent told them to say "silly monkey" or something like that. They started playing again and I heard Karianne, say, "you monkey, s-" and she caught herself and then said, "bibbity bobbity boo monkey". Soon they were all laughing and calling the monkey "bibbity bobbity boo" monkey.

That'll work.

Angie's PJ's

How do you like them Marilyn?

now available at Mommasdarlins

Baby Cakes pajama sets.

click here to view them at Mommasdarlins.com

backyard fun

We are contemplating going camping with the girls soon so Brent set up the tent in the backyard this evening to make sure all the pieced were still there for our tent. The girls instantly moved in and brought all their stuff out to the tent.


We blew bubbles, I loved watching Angie run around trying to pop them.

Too many ducks!

The girls and I discovered a duck pond at a neighborhood park earlier this week. We went back today so we could show Brent. There are at least a hundred ducks there, as soon as you get out of the car, they start coming towards you. We didn't have bread the first time we went and we had a nice time. This time we took some bread and quickly decided that was a bad idea. Ducks and geese, chasing screaming girls with a little piece of bread in their hands pecking it out of their hands. They all spent most of the rest of the visit on top of the picnic table and the bench. It was all much nicer once the two hot dog buns were gone. I'm hoping there won't be any nightmares tonight.

We love Kiki

Amy loves Kiki, the big blue monkey mascot in the Preschool at our church. We have Kiki shirts for the girls and Amy always wants to wear it. She gets so excited when she puts on the shirt and yells "Kiki Kiki!" and points at the shirt. She saw another child at church yesterday wearing a Kiki shirt so she went up to her and pointed at it and said, "what's that?" the little girl said "Kiki". Amy squealed and did a little dance and said, "Kiki, Kiki!" good thing the girl got the answer right!

Amy is doing very well with her english. She has commands down very well and can tell us to do almost anything. She loves singing songs she learned at church. There's a song called He's Alive. She says "He's Alive" over and over again and then for the verse she says, "I can't do it," to the tune of the verse. I guess she thinks those are the words. She'll 'read' any book and say "God can do anything!".

She still peppers a lot of Chinese in her dialog but we can mostly understand her. We were in the car the other day and all the girls we talking at once in the back of the car. I tend to tune them out when that happens. Over the din, I heard one voice yell, "Mom I'm talkin to you!" It was Amy. When I gave her my full attention she jabbered in Chinese so I am not sure what she needed to tell me but she seemed ok with that. She accepts that we are not as smart as her.

I wanna be like American Girls...

It had to happen, here's a christian version of American Girls.

http://www.girlsngrace.com/

Half Big

Karianne was opening doors for me yesterday with all our errands and stops so I could get the double stroller through the door. She was showing me her muscles and then told me she was half big. "Half Big, what do you mean?" I said. She said, "that means I am half as big as you, so I am half big and almost grown up!"

Poor thing, if she is half as big as me that means she is half short and well on her way to being short, not big. :-)

Ladies night out

Yesterday I crammed 5 Dr visits in less than 4 hours. Our van broke down so we have one car. So after the Dr visits We went and got Brent so he could come home for lunch. He took the car back to work. When He got home for the evening some friends from church picked me up and I got to go out with them for a ladies night out. Who Hoo. We went to a fondue resturaunt and I really enjoyed it.

Girls night out

I took the girls to our favorite hangout, Kiddiepark last night. It's an amusement park for little ones. We were getting together with a group of other adoptive families with children from china. I usually surprise them and not tell them where we are going until we get there, just in case my plans change. :-)
we were almost there when Karianne told me Angie was coloring on the seat with her crayon. I got onto Angie and then Angie told me that Karianne colored on her seat too. I got onto both of them and told them they were going to be in time out when we get "there", and just Amy would get to ride for the first few rides. They were fine with that as long as we weren't going home. Karianne said, "oh I love to watch Amy ride, that's my favorite thing to do." I don't think I was being mean enough. I scolded them some more and I think I ended it with something like, "what were you thinking?" Karianne said quietly, "we thought it was a good idea..."


Besides that, we had fun. They were all "brave" and road almost all the rides. I was even brave and road a few rides myself, believe me I was more brave than them, I hate going around and around. :-)

Lucy Sticks Her Tongue Out

Just Playing

I love Lucy

Preacher's Kids

Karianne told me out of the blue today that she wanted to be a servant when she grew up. I said, "wow, where'd you hear something like that."
She said, "from my music, Sissy Seagull says she wanted to be a servant. So I want to be a servant when I grow up."

Angie chimed in and said, "I want to be a sergeant when I grow up too!"

Karianne asked Amy,"Amy, do you want to be a servant when you grow up?" Amy said, "yeah!"

Karianne told me,"See we ALL want to be servants when we grow up!"

Only Angie and I noticed the subtle play on words and neither of us corrected Karianne. :-)

Our favorite Places to eat because our kids eat free!

Cici's Pizza, kids 3 and under are free

Lone Star Steak House, on Tuesdays and Saturdays Kids 12 and under eat free!

Incredible Pizza, Kids 3 and under are free.

Shoney's, Kids 4 and under eat the buffet for free.

Denney's, NOT my favorite but kids under 3 are free.

Lucy Joy is 7 Months old

What a big girl! She sits up and eats cheerios! :-)

Trash to treasure

Here's Karianne "not" taking a nap in a chair I just did over. We bought 2 Pottery Barn Kids Chairs at a yard sale for a dollar a piece. I wish I had taken a before picture of them. They were really worn out and had someone else's names embroidered on them. I didn't necessarily want them, but I had them thrown in with a "deal pile" :-). I took them home and took the covers off the chairs. took out the embroidery, washed them and redyed them with Rit Dye. I sewed up the rips, and appliqued flowers on them. Whadya think of them now? Only problem is there are 2 chairs and not 3. Still working on that share thing. :-)

Karianne is too big now for naps so it only looks like she is sleeping here. I usually put her out on the couch at nap time and she has quiet time. She reads books and NEVER falls asleep because like I said, she is too old for that now. :-)

There's a new "mommas darlin" in town

I made this outfit today. It is a size 18month so it fits Amy and Angie. I put it on Amy and she just knew what I wanted her to do somehow. She marched out to the backyard, up against the back fence and flashed me a pose and a smile. A born Mommas Darlin'. :-)

2 year old girl needs to find her forever family

Is this your child?

I am a two year old little girl and everyone who sees my photo says I
am just too cute for words! I have iris albinismus in both of my
eyes. My eyes look beautiful! I am also diagnosed with deafness but I
can talk (my orphanage even says I'm talkative). If you ask me, I can
point to my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth! I know "big" and "small" and
love to read picture books. I also love to sing and play games and
play on the slide. One of my favorite things to do is to dress and
undress baby dolls.

If you would like to see my file and consider adopting me, please call
Erin Hunlock at: 281-465-9990. CCAA requires that you must be able
to submit your completed dossier within 3 months of applying to adopt
me. If you meet all of China's qualifications for an adoptive family,
are already DTC through Harrah's, OR if you are not yet a Harrah's
family but you have already submitted your I-800A application, and can
meet the 3 month deadline, please call Erin to review my file!

The Case of the bathroom thief update

This is what the girl's bathroom looks like now. The day after I made the last post I caught HER running from the bathroom with a handful of stuff. As punishment we got a laundry basket and made her clean out the bathroom and put everything in the basket and we took it away. All that is left is the basics: tp, soap, towel and toothbrushes.
We felt pretty good that we had took care of the problem- for one day. Today Brent went into that bathroom and said, "where's the soap?" I thought maybe we had taken it away too but he looked around and found it, yup in her bed with the toddler toilet seat! stripped her bed and threw everything in the wash took the soap and toilet seat away.
At nap time, she came out to go to the bathroom and Brent caught her scurrying back to her bed with the the toothbrushes.
I think we are going to get some therapy for that child.

Post Script on the Olympics- our little claim to fame

We are in Oklahoma now, but for years we live on the same old dusty dirt road that the Karolyis lived on- the Olympic coaches for the American Gymnastics team. They have a ranch with exotic animals and that is also where the Olympic training center for the American Gymnasts. It's kinda an unlikely town for them to pick. New Waverly, Texas- about 950 people in the whole town, about 70 miles north of Houston. There is a small unassuming sign on the dirt road that says "Gymnastic Olympic training Center" with an arrow, that's it. 4 years ago the girls swept the Olympics with medals I was so excited, I wanted to put a "way to go" sign next to there's or something. The sleepy town didn't raise an eyebrow, didn't bother them at all to have such famous people living amidst them. I guess maybe that's why they chose New Waverly. :-)

Olympics

I am not a sports fan. I fortunately married someone with even less interest in sports than I have, at least I played a few sports in college. :-)
But we do watch the Olympics. I love to watch and always have. We have a particular fascination with it this year with it being in China since we have two Chinese daughters. The opening ceremony was spectacular, we let our girls stay up and watch it and they were so excited to "watch China". We enjoy the sites and incites of China and it's people.
It is amazing to us just how different the Chinese value a person. It is all about looks and performance. I was so saddened for the little girl that sang beautifully for the opening ceremonies but was not deemed pretty enough to show her face, so another girl who could not sing, but looked good lip synced her song. That poor child, what does that do to her self esteem? And are her parents ashamed of her or proud of her?
We've watched gymnastics over the past few nights and I just can't help hoping the Chinese win knowing the athletes competing have so much at stake. If they look to have talent, they are taken from their parents at the age of 3 and groomed for gymnastics, only visiting their parents once a year. We heard tonight how one of the gymnasts called her parents and begged her parents to let her come home. They told her this would change her life and made her stay. How sad that they will either be national heroes or bring shame on themselves based on the outcome of these games. I am relieved for them that they did so well.

Hmmmm

One of my children, I won't say who, has been raiding the bathroom every day for 2 weeks. It started when I opened the cabinet over the toilet when Brent's sisters got here to get them some soap and washclothes. I guess my children had no idea that cabinet opened. Ever since then I find soaps, liquid soaps, with no lids, towels, powders and nic nacs missing from that shelf. One day the entire shelf was emptied! I searched their room and found the stuff next day in her bed. Evey day she gets in trouble and solemnly tells me she will "never take that stuff again". the next day, more stuff missing.
today their bedroom had baby powder unleashed on it and I coughed every time I went in there, I finally realized they had dumped powder right on top of a fan and it was stirring all around the room.

Tonight we heard strange noises coming from the bedroom when we thought everyone was asleep, Brent went in there and came out a few minutes later with lotion, washclothes, an antique glass powder cup and a plunger! He found it all in her bed and she was rolling on them in her sleep.

Ewwww.

Lucy's smile

This is Lucy's new smile. She is constantly biting her lower lip. It looks pretty funny but I guess it is hereditary.

at the park

Today we had a small front that brought our weather out of the triple digits and even into the high 80's. It felt so nice. We took the girls to the park in the evening. They love the slides and the swings. Karianne kept tripping on the mulch ground. I asked if she was ok after the second fall and she brushed herself off and said she was fine because she's a "pretty tough girl". Yeah right.

Help China understand English

If you followed our blog while we were in China a few months ago you know what a kick we got out of the "English" signs we saw everywhere that made no sense at all. Brent often said he wished he could get a job fixing all of their signs for them so they made sense. Well, we're not getting paid for it, but finally someone in China cares enough about their image to ask those of us who speak English our opinion. Take this fun survey to see if you understand the intent of the sign or not and maybe leave a comment for a better way to say it. :-)


http://bringinghopetochildren.org/language.html

Bathing Beauty

Here's Lucy getting her bath. She is really good at sitting up now, she also likes to splash. the "bathing beauty" actually refers to me because I get so wet now when I give her a bath. HA! :-)

In the news

I won't comment on the news site and engage those people, but I just have to say somewhere for the record how hurt I am by the comments left on that story. It was not easy to share my testimony. I wish the story was told in full so those people really knew our life story and how God has formed out family.

In the news

One of the local news stations came out and did a story on me about a month ago, it finally aired today.

Click here to see it.

Will Rodgers house - take 2

We went to Will Rogers house this morning, bright and early to make sure it would be open. It was, we made it! Felicia toured the house and the girls got to pet the animals and chase the chickens on the farm. The view of the lake from the farm is just gorgeous. Angie and Amy kept picking up the "pebbles" on the sidewalk and throwing them. I don't know how long they had been doing it before I saw them, but I ran over and told them NOT to touch THOSE pebbles, they used to belong to the goats! I don't think Angie believed me. I had to keep my eye on her. She loves to throw rocks.