Merry Christmas

Our house in the snow

The girls all ready to go out and play in the snow

Lennah and her giant rapunzel doll

Delylah jamming on her new barbie guitar

Keith ate way too much

Christmas was a wonderful and crazy event at our house. To start off Keith worked late the night before Christmas Eve since he was going to have a 3 day weekend so I had to deliver a cheesecake (occasionally I still take an order or 2) rather than have Keith take it as I originally planned. Anyway so after I deliver the cheesecake I head to the bank and to Kroger to put the check in the bank and whack of course the car got rear-ended in the parking lot of Kroger on the morning of Christmas Eve. No one was hurt but the kids were scared because when the cops had to come they thought they were in trouble for something. So I thought that was going to be the start of a crazy Christmas but all ended well. We headed to church which was a beautiful service and came home and had the annual Christmas eve seafood dinner.

So after dinner it was time to get ready for Santa and get the kids in bed. It was amazing that we were able to get them to sleep. Everyone finished their last touches on gifts and whatever else needed to be done for the morning.

So the race for gifts began at 6:20 am when the kids woke up. They wanted to wake my parents up and begin opening gifts. So there we were at 630 in the morning opening up presents. All that time wrapping and it was over by 7:15 for the kids. After we had a great breakfast and low and behold a miracle in the south happened (one that has not occured for 128 years) it began to snow. Yep! we had a white Christmas. It was truly a beautiful day. The kids were able to go out and make snowballs on Christmas day so what an extra special present. I was shocked that they didn't want to stay in and play with their toys.

Overall it was a great Christmas and the kids cannot wait for it to happen all over again next year. Delylah has been so cute and asking about when Santa is coming back and how our family celebrated the holidays. I think what made it extra special is the fact that both the girls are old enough to get the idea of Christmas this year.

Pictures with Santa

Well to complete our holiday season photos we had the annual visit to Target to meet Santa. The girls did great and of course were too cute. This year they get Christmas which will make it awesome. They also are getting into the real meaning of Christmas and that we celebrate Baby Jesus's birthday. I just wish they would leave him alone under the tree. LOL.

I guess to just also drop a note about where we are in the adoption is NOWHERE. Honestly, I am more and more frustrated each day because our agency said that we would be very quick to get a match. Yeah! Not happening. I am not sure what to expect at all when adopting through the state foster care system but we have inquired about quite a few sets of siblings and we hear nothing back. The system is so frustrating because there are so many kids in the US that need homes but honestly the system does not seem to work fast enough. We had Delylah's referral quicker and we were out of country. I know everything is in God's hands and timing so we will still wait but who knows when we are going to expand our family. Either way I am very Thankful this upcoming Thanksgiving because I have the most wonderful husband, two beautiful little girls, and great family and friends.

Anyway, my rant is over but enjoy the Santa photos.

It's that time of Year

Yep! Christmas is coming and we get super excited over here. I have the trees up, the outside got decorated yesterday, and we even found time to get the girls formal holiday pictures done yesterday. It is a good thing I got them done yesterday since Lennah and I are both nursing colds. Anyway, we have had a busy past few weeks. Unfortunately the transmission went out in my car (no I was not happy about that large expense so close to the holidays and the girls birthdays), Keith has been working a lot since his company got bought up by another and they have a massive amount of business right now, and I have been plagued with massive school work. But overall I love this time of year and best of all I think the kids get it this year. Lennah has been creating a very long Santa list and Delylah just keeps telling me how much she wants Barbie fashion fairytale from Santa. It is so cute watching them get excited as we talk about Christmas. Anyway, I am keeping it short since I am sick but here are the girls latest photos. This weekend is pictures with Santa so there are more to come so Stay Tuned.

Fall Photos

My babies are growing up way too quick. I had some photos done at Target for fall recently. The girls looked so beautiful and so grown up. Where have my babies gone. Delylah is 2 and looks like a big kids already. It is hard to believe she doesn't turn 3 until January. My goodness Lennah looked liked a kid and not a baby. Hard to believe my big girl turns 4 in December. Time is flying by.

Disney

I was fortunate enough to have a break built into September for our new school calendar. Being a teacher does not pay great but I do enjoy the breaks that so many others out in the work force do not enjoy. Unfortunately Keith is one of these people who doesn't get as much time off but that did not deter me from taking the kids to Disney. So off we headed with my parents and brother to take a much anticipated trip.

The first day my brother and I took the kids to Epcot for several hours. The girls love the finding nemo ride and the boat ride in Mexico. They just wanted to keep going on the rides. Luckily for us it was not too crowded.

The next morning we took the kids back to Epcot and had breakfast in Norway with the Princesses. Every time a princess came to our table the girls were just thrilled.

The next day was the highlight of the girl's week since we hit majoc kingdom. We had breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and just had a blast watching the girls get excited from each ride. THey both loved Dumbo, Magic carpets of Aladdin, and any other ride we stuck them on.

We also hit up animal kingdom which Delylah really enjoyed. She is my museum, zoo, any sort of learning place type kid. She just loves watching animals and seeing new stuff.

We also had a chance to visit Seaworld while we were in Florida. Delylah had a blast feeding the dolphins, Lennah however got a little freaked out and was nervous that a dolphin would bite her. Delylah absolutely loved the shows and Lennah really enjoyed the rides that they had for kids. Overall it was a fun trip.

My little speller

So we have worked very hard with Lennah to get her to know her alphabet (both upper and lower case) and to get numbers and counting down. So since she has mastered her whole alphabet I have been working on words and spelling. Here is Lennah spelling her first 4 words she learned for us in a video. Mind you Delylah has a long name so we are proud of our 3 year old.

Soccer

So it has been a month since my last post and in that time Lennah has started soccer. We gave up Karate and dance, well basically because I don't think either was high energy enough for Lennah. She has been asking about doing hockey and living in GA hockey is not an option to play, especially for a little girl (She got the idea for hockey since my dad was watching it in front of her one day). Anyway, we figured soccer might be a good fit. So she had her first practice almost two weeks ago and this past Saturday was her first game. Needless to say Lennah did not want to play at her first practice but last week she started getting into it. So thank goodness she got to play in her first game. Granted it is only a bunch of three year olds but they were so cute to watch. Her team, the Rockets, lost but hopefully this coming Saturday they will get a few more goals.

As for the adoption front. We did not realize what a different ball game adopting from the US is in comparison to international. Our agency never heard back from the social worker when she told them she had a family interested in the group so we are still waiting for a match. We are okay with that because we do have our trip to Disney planned in a few weeks and were worried that we did not plan on having a few new kids to take since we never thought the process would have been that fast. All we can say it is in God's hands for now.

We are also very thankful that we abandon our journey to Rwanda since we read that they are not accepting any new dossiers until all the Hague stuff is settled. I am not quite sure how that will slow down the people waiting but I now know 100% that we were never meant to be in Rwanda it just was a detour that took us to where we were supposed to be.

Princess Gala

Tonight was a fun night. Lennah has been attending Princess camp through the local parks and recreation this past week. Tonight, they ended the week of camp with a princess gala. All the little girls were crowned as honorary princesses. Keith took the night off work so he could escort Lennah to her crowning. It was such a cute event. I cannot wait until next year when both girls can go to Princess camp. Delylah wanted to join so bad. Lennah was a little too over excited about the event but all in all it was a fun and really cute night.

Happenings

Happy Adoption Day Girls

3rd Gotcha Day

I have been so backed up I have not had a chance to post. I am especially angry with myself because I needed to post two important days and hadn't gotten around to them yet. Anyway, on July 21st we hit our 3rd gotcha day for Lennah. It is just so amazing that she has been with us for 3 years and also so sad that time is going by so quickly and our beautiful little girl is growing up on us. We don't do big celebrations but being that she has a grasp of her adoption we showed her pictures and talked to her that three years ago to that very day Mommy and Daddy got to meet her for the first time in Vietnam. Honestly, I never thought a three year old could understand her adoption so well. Several weeks ago we were in a doctors office and there was a huge wall map and I showed her where we live, where she is from, and where her sister is from (we are really trying to get her into geography being that we are an international family and mommy does teach it) and she asked if she could go visit her other mommy in Vietnam. Yes she gets it that she had another mommy that could not take care of her because she was sick. When I told her that I wouldn't not know where to find her she told me that it was sad. Lennah could be so sweet sometimes. Don't get me wrong everyone knows our little Lennah could be a hyper wild child but she just amazes me sometimes.

Of course two days after gotcha day is the big day in our home because it was adoption day for both the girls. Delylah hit the 2 year mark as our little girl and obviously for Lennah it was her 3rd. Delylah still has her gotcha day to come but I just can still remember praying that we would get to be Delylah's parents and really hitting a low point where we thought we would lose her since there were problems with her orphanage. It was just a miracle that two years ago we got the call saying the court granted the adoption.

We did have a mini celebration because Keith had to work. Each girl got a little present. Lennah got a little scooter and Delylah has been into her toy kitchen so she got a whole big toy food set. Oh and we got a beta fish now named Eleanor. The girls were so excited and we talked about how it is a special day just for both of them.

Since all those happenings last week we have been busy. Lennah has been going to Princess camp this week so I have been lucky to have some one on one time with Delylah. I also had a yard sale thanks to Starbucks. They hosted one for free and you just had to sign up and bring all your stuff there to sell this past Sunday. We figured we needed to do some major cleaning out since we know we will be having additions to the family soon.

ON that note, we sort of have a referral. Once we know more we will update everyone but we are trying not to get too excited since this is totally different than our other adoptions. We still have to get the profile for the kids (yes kids more than one) so we should hopefully know more by Friday.

One last note. For all my fellow Vietnamese adoptive moms. I am in the middle of reading a book called If you lived here by Dana Sachs. It is a fictional novel based on a women adopting from Vietnam. So far it is a good read so take a look at this book. I picked it up I think for a few dollars used on amazon.

Vacation

One of My Fav Pics of Delylah taken before vacation with Charlie (her cribmate)

THe kids on the Staten Island Ferry

The Fourth of July

Point Pleasant NJ

The Presidents Museum with Ronald Reagan(No it is not a great likeness)

Building their bears

Working on pottery at the Wilderness Lodge

We just finally got back from vacation several days ago. It was almost a ten day trip if you want to count travel time. Anyway, we have had this trip planned for a while to go see one my friend Jaime up in NJ. Anyway, we drove straight through up to NJ and was quite surprised the the 16 hour trip (thanks for the traffic in Maryland turning it into 16 hours) were really good. I thought the girls would give us such a hard time being cooped up in a car for so long but everything was great. We got in Friday night and obviously we were tired. The next day we decided to hit NYC. We spent the day at the American Museum of Natural History. Delylah really loved this place. It is amazing to see a 2 year old get excited about places like this. She loved seeing the animal exhibits and the dinosaurs. We were also fortunate enough to visit an exhibit that I had really wanted to see on the Silk Road.

Over the next few days we spent time in her pool and took a trip to the beach at Point Pleasant, NJ. Delylah did not dig the waves but eventually Lennah really got into the beach and the girls had a great time. After that we hit up one of the kiddie amusement parks and the girls spent some time riding the kiddie rides.

We spent a bit more time visiting family and friends in the NY/ NJ area and then headed to Hershey Park, PA on Thursday. This was the perfect theme park for kids. There were so many rides that the little ones could do and we also spent part of the day in the water park they have that is also included in admission. Gosh I sound like a commercial but I have to say it was a great place for the little ones since so many theme parks are not kid friendly and are more focused on the adult type thrill rides. The next day we took a trip to Gettysburg, PA. I wish we would have had more time there but trying to do educational historical stuff with little ones is not really the best idea. So we opted to visit the Museum of Presidents for an hour and then walk around the battlefield before we did something in the area more kid friendly. We stopped at a place called Boyd's Bear country. Basically it is a tourist version of build a bear out in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty cool and the prices were actually a little cheaper than build a bear so the kids had a good time in Gettysburg after all.

On Saturday we made it to the Smokey Moutains and took the girls to the Wilderness Lodge that they had begged to go to. It was a great place for the little ones because they had several kiddie areas in the water parks that the kids could play around in. Delylah loves water parks and it was so hard trying to get her to come out of the water. She may not have enjoyed the beach this trip but she definitely is a pool person.

Finally on Sunday we headed home but not before we made one last stop for the girls to visit Santa Claus. Yep that is right in the middle of July in Pigeon Forge you can visit Santa Claus. Hopefully, this gives me a little leverage with the kids because I have been telling Lennah that is she is a good girl I will call Santa and let him know.

So that was the end of our trip. It has been nice being home and trying to get my house in tip top shape before I head back to work in less than 3 weeks. Gosh this summer has went quickly. But I would like to get rid of a lot of stuff that just takes up space before we have a referral and then I am scrambling to get everything going to accommodate our new children. So it is going to be crazy around here while I get organized and get rid of useless items taking up space.