A Heart for China

Our family is growing.  For years, I have had a heart for adoption.  Hank and I have talked about my desire to adopt since the early days of our dating relationship and over the years, his heart has been opened to the idea.  Deep in my heart I knew the day was coming when we would begin the process of giving a child a forever family and the day is finally here!  We are following our hearts and our amazing God to China.  We know God has an amazing plan for our family and can't wait to hold our next child in our arms.  I have started a blog strictly dedicated to our journey.  You can follow our progress at http://www.alongroadtomeetyou.blogspot.com/.

Breaking and Entering

Okay, so today was such a fun day, with a really funny ending.  We left home at 8:30 am to go on a field trip with Adair's class to see Hanzel and Gretel at Birmingham Children's Theatre.  We had a great time and I would highly reccommend the Wee Folks series if you've never been.  Adair and her classmates loved it.

After the play, we ventured over to the zoo to meet up with some friends and enjoy the beautiful weather.  On the train ride, we got a glimpse of the newest member of the zoo family, Bowagi, a 13,000 lb. male elephant.  The new exhibit, Trails of Africa, opens in March and Adair can hardly wait .

Next it was on to Kindermusik, one of Adair's favorite weekly activities and then to the dentist.  Adair was running on fumes after not napping and being so busy, so she had a total meltdown while they tried to clean her teeth.  By 3:30 pm, and after such a tramatic experience, we were both ready to go home cuddle up on the couch and watch a movie.

Well, that's not exactly how the afternoon went. When I got to the door, unlocked it, and went to open it, the handle wouldn't budge...we were locked out of our own house.  I know this happens to people in cars alot, but your own house...I'm sure you are wondering "how is that possible?".

You see, our house is 83 years old and has the original door and door knob from 1928.  Perhaps, they still make locks like this, but ours is the only one I've ever seen. The door knob has a little button on the inside of it that if it's pushed in you can't push the handle down to open the door (it's a nice safety feature when you are inside the house). Well, this little button in a favorite "toy" of Adair's, she loves to push it in and out, in and out.  Unknown to me, she must have been playing with it this morning when we came in to make our picnic lunch and asked her to shut the door behind us.

To make matters worse, we don't have a key to our back door dead bolt, which, of course, was also locked.  And to make matter much worse, Hank is out of town all week.  So, I called the next person in line to fix my problems...my dad.  Thankfully (or maybe not) he was able to find a way to get in through the window and save us from having to break a window or pay a locksmith.  I did manage to snap a few pictures of the event.  Adair thought it was quiet humorous to be crawling through our window.  We finally walked in the door at 6:00 pm, breathed a sigh of relief and started our bedtime routine.  Now on to finding a way to keep that little button from getting pushed in...

Happy Heart Day

Valentine's Day is always pretty low key at our house, it seems to infringe on Hank's birthday week too much and then there's the whole "commercial holiday" part.  We did get Adair a "pablloon" (aka balloon) and two new books and her class had a little Valentine party at school.  All in all it was a fun day filled with alot of love, even if it wasn't the romantic kind.

One of Adair's new books plays little plastic CDs and has the lyrics in it.

Dancing with her balloon.

Playing a Valentine's Day game at school.

Making a Valentine for Mommy and Daddy.

PS:  Isn't Adair's dress adorable?  My friend Stacey made it.  Check out her blog (http://www.staceysstitches.blogspot.com/) if you are ever in need of a monogram or applique! 

Bring on the Sunshine and Spring Weather

Today after church, we decided to take full advantage of the beautiful weather, so we packed a picnic and headed to Homewood Park.  It was the perfect day and everyone was taking advantage of the sunshine.  People were flying kites, riding bikes, and, of course, playing at the park.  With all of the cold temperatures, ice and snow, it had been a while since we ventured out for an extended amount of time.  Adair could barely sit still long enough to finish her lunch because she could wait to climb, slide and swing.  I think Spring Fever has officially fallen on our household! 

Happy Birthday to the Man in Our Lives

Saturday was Hank's 35th birthday (of course, he won't admit to being a day over 29 if you ask him). 

I have to admit, I thought I had made a big mistake taking her with me to buy his birthday presents.  As we were checking out, it occurred to me that 2 year olds are not the best secret keepers.  Because I was already at the register and committed, I went with it.  On the way home we had a long talk about what it means to keep a fun secret and that Daddy would enjoy being surprised when he opened the boxes.  So everyday for a week and a half she told him that we had a present for him, but it was a secret what was inside.  She never "spilled the beans" and I was so proud of her.  By the time his birthday finally rolled around she couldn't wait to help him open the boxes and see what was inside.  By her excitement you would think we bought him toys or books for his birthday, in reality it was shirts and ties...not so exciting for a 2 year old.  However, keeping it a secret for a week and a half made it all the more exciting.

Adair loves birthdays and loves to celebrate with her Daddy.  She helped him open his gifts, his cards, and blow out the candles.  Friday night we celebrated with dinner at home and opened gifts, Saturday morning we had a fun breakfast with my parents at The Original Pancake House in Southside, and Saturday night we had a wonderful dinner with some close friends at Chuck's Fish.  Thanks so much to everyone who celebrated with us.  It was a fun filled weekend. 

Happy birthday, Hank!  We love you very much and enjoyed celebrating 35 wonderful years of you this weekend!

Fluffy White Stuff

This winter has been unlike any other!  It has now "snowed" three times, one of which was on Christmas Day, and it's only February 11!  Typically, if we get snow at all, it comes in March.  What crazy weather this has been! 

This week's snow was the first "fluffy, white stuff" that we have gotten (before it has been "slick, crunchy, icy stuff") and Adair loved it.  She barely got to play in it before rushing out the door to school, but Daddy made sure she at least got to experience the real deal snow. 

 

What's Black and White and Read All Over?

On Wednesday afternoon Adair got really quiet while I was cleaning up the kitchen after lunch.  As is typical of most moms with a 2 year old, I got a little nervous when I realized how long it had been since I had heard her.  Assuming she had gotten into something, I left the dishes and went to check on her.  When I turned the corner from the kitchen into the dining room, I found her reading the NEWSPAPER to her baby doll, specifically a sale paper. 

Adair's New Tricks

Before I tackle the title of this post, I'll update all of you on our overnight guest, CeCe, because I know you are all wondering if she found a home.  She did.  HERE. 

So far, we (meaning Adair and I) haven't been able to convince ourselves to try hard to find a home for her.  She has gotten really comfortable here and Adair loves her so much.  Hank is still pushing to give her away, but I'm afraid the ladies in the house might win this battle.  We haven't fully committed to parenting two cats, but chances are good we will be.

Now, on to Adair lately.  She is, more or less, past the age for a blog post all about milestones, but she has learned some pretty cute tricks lately.

1)  She can now jump on two feet.  By that, I mean jump up with both feet off of the ground at the same time.  This new found ability has turned her into a jumping bean.  She jumps around the house morning, noon and night!

2)  She can sing the French alphabet (well, we think she can...neither Hank nor I speak or understand French).  She takes French at school once a week and is really enjoying it.

3)  She loves to play hide-and-seek.  She sits on the couch and squeezes her eyes closed, counts to ten and then yells, "better or not, here I come".  We're not sure how "ready" turned into "better" but it's very cute.  When it's her turn to hide, she tells you exactly where she is hiding the second you say "ten". 

4)  She also loves board games.  Her favorite is Hi Ho Cherrio, but she also really likes Boggle and Memory.  I have been amazed at how much she has learned from playing these games.

5)  She can sing the B-I-B-L-E song.  If you ever went to Vacation Bible School I know you remember it.  Thanks to music, she can now spell 3 words...

A-U-B-U-R-N
B-I-N-G-O
B-I-B-L-E

6)  She recognizes and can name all of the letters and numbers.

7)  At church she has learned how to play Simon Says.  This is a brilliant way to work on obeying "all the way, right away and with a happy heart" as we say (thank you Ginger Plowman) and it's a game, so she wants to play.  You just might want to give it a try if you have a toddler in your house.

As you can see, we are having alot of fun at our house right now.