Isabelle's first year home...in pictures

These are my very favorite pictures of Isabelle. It took a while to narrow down my very favorites, but here they are. I'd LOVE to hear your opinion of your favorite ... leave a comment to let me know!

Isabelle's big day

Well, it's official. I have 2 two year olds. That just sounds painful. I used to pity people who had two children in diapers and ... well God is proving that He has quite a sense of humor :) We celebrated Isabelle's big day in style. My sister, her husband and their two daughters came down for the party and helped me finish all those last minute things that needed to get done. We were able to finally find a half decent kiddie pool. I've been searching since we moved here and everyone has been sold out. My brother-in-law, Bob, bought 20 bags of sand to fill up the lower level of the kids' playset, making a nice, big litter box, er, I mean, sandbox. We descended on Toys R Us for party supplies, sand toys and water toys, then hit Wal Mart for a Hello Kitty birthday cake. We had one of Isabelle's favorites for dinner, tacos, and moved straight onto cake and presents. She really enjoyed the singing of "Happy Birthday" but got pretty stressed over the sparkler birthday candles on her cake. That was a bad choice on mama's part ;) Last year she refused to even touch her birthday cake, but this year she just dove right in. She ate with her fingers and then just put her face right into it. It was great to see her having such fun, engaging in life and enjoying her big day. Her favorite present was a Little Tikes keyboard ... with microphone. Now we can all hear Isabelle being Isabelle in stereo! But she loved everything she got, a baby stroller, water table, pretend food and dishes and a 'moo'ing cell phone. Can't wait to watch this girl continue to grow and learn over the next year!

Sites are finally updated!

I carved out some time, usually in the midst of chaos, to update the girls sites. Please forgive any typos! I just love the way Joe and Jen have done their sites, I am looking so forward to having them as a keepsake on CD for their lifebooks. For Sophie's site click here and for Isabelle's site click here.

Almost two

Isabelle will celebrate her second birthday on Monday. When we had her first birthday party, shortly after we arrived home with her, we had no idea how she would change and grow in the first year. At that time we were only seeing a glimpse of the little girl she was to become. A loving, funny, adventurous, busy little girl. There is little doubt that Isabelle was given very little attention and/or contact during her time in the orphanage. She spent months after she came home refusing close contact, except being carried over my shoulder. She turned away from our efforts to make eye contact. She was very uncomfortable if we tried to snuggle with her in bed. We were told by the SWI director, when asked if Isabelle had a favorite nanny, that they purposefully switch the nannies around so none of the children become attached. How sad. How ironic. In their mind they are trying to make the child's adjustment into their newly adoptive family easier, when in fact they are doing anything but. I ache inside when I think about Isabelle's time in the SWI. While we were waiting to travel for Isabelle, the few pictures I had of her were more precious than anything to me. I stared at them for hours, studying her sweet face, her hair, her features. What was she thinking? I wondered. Now I don't like to look at those pictures. I notice how expressionless she looks. How devoid of happiness, contentment, peace. I wish for her all these things. That she will, one day, be able to overcome the sadness, the lonliness of her first 11 months. I know we're doing our best to help her on her way.

And so it goes

This was my coffee. I like my coffee a certain way and I can't drink it unless I have it fixed just the way I like it. Ask my husband, I won't even let him make it for me. I drink one cup, just one, so I want it to be just right. Well this morning I left it on the counter to, you know, cool off enough to be drinkable. I reached for it and as I was taking a sip I noticed something. Yea, you know what I'm talking about. A nasty fly poisoned my entire cup of delectible coffee. Thanks fly. Anyway, the rest of my day didn't improve much. Isabelle is on a crazy streak and it takes me longer to clean up after her than it does to just stay on top of her at all times. We had to stay home all day waiting for the cable guy to come and install our phones. We've had internet and TV service for weeks now, but no phone. I guess only certain technicians are qualified to install the phones. I didn't want to miss him since I've been without a regular phone for what feels like forever. The good news is that tomorrow, someone else is going to clean my house for me. I have given in and agreed to have a cleaning lady come a few times a month. I think it will help my sanity tremendously. I can't wait to see my floors sparkle and my toilets shine!

Adventures in motherhood

Last night was one to remember. It was a pleasant enough evening with the kids playing outside and eating popsicles. Then onto bath time which went off without major incident, unless you call Isabelle throwing unattended towels into the tub and incident ;) I got the girls ready for bed and took some pics of them in their diapers ... Isabelle being silly (as usual) and Sophie doing some signs. She is signing 'help' and 'mama' and the pic of her with her mouth in an 'o' is her saying her name. She's so cute when she says 'XiaoXiao'. Bedtime went fairly smoothly and I even got to bed at 11:00, a pretty decent hour. The boys are sleeping with me since Chris is away and, of course, they need to protect their mama. About 2 hours later there was what seemed at the time a tidal wave of peepee headed right for me and the unoffending brother. Normally this is Chris' territory, he's the go-to guy for any yucky clean ups (see yesterday's post for more on that) so it took me a second or two to get a game plan. I got up the offending brother and helped him get changed. Then I changed the sheets, rolling the other sleeping brother over as I did. Soon we were back in bed with fresh sheets and laundry rolling in the washer. About an hour later Isabelle was up. Normally she's a great sleeper so when she wakes up, she expects to be tended to. I went in to lay her back down and she was up a few more times before going back to sleep. About 30 minutes after laying back down I woke up to the sound, and if you have a dog you know that sound, of my dog getting ready to heave. I sat up just in time to witness her blowing all over the comforter. Ahhh, it makes one wonder what kind of preservatives they put in dog food to make it stay in complete chunks 8 hours after it's been consumed. I cleaned up what I could, and since the peepee sheets were still in the wash, I just squished myself over on the boys' side of the bed. We all twisted and turned for the rest of the night, trying to keep my feet off the affected spot. It felt like we were adrift on some raft just trying to hang on long enough to get some sleep. Thankfully today dawned a new day and we're all looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight.

In honor of a great Dad

I know yesterday was Father's Day. But we were in denial about it here. Chris is away and so there wasn't much to celebrate. In fact, I was trying to keep the boys from being sad that daddy wasn't here so we didn't discuss Father's Day much besides yelling "Happy Father's Day!" into the phone when he called. So I was sad yesterday. But today I am feeling better, my man won't be gone long and I wanted to post some cute pictures of him and the kids from the last year. He is a wonderful dad, very active in the kids' lives and loves them all to pieces. He is the first one to get up in the middle of the night if any of the kids wake up. There has yet to be a poopy diaper he has refused to change. If there is a dirty job, he's always willing to do it ... from snaking out an overflowing toilet to washing piles of vomit covered laundry. He catches snakes with the boys and builds huge bonfires to let them roast marshmallows. He pampers the girls, remebers to put conditioner in their hair, dresses them in clothes that actually match and puts clips in their hair with the utmost care. I thank God for blessing us with you, babe ... here's to being a dad of SIX!

Nothing new

Yesterday was a quiet day, after all the commotion that's been going on in our lives for the last few months it was kinda boring! So I took the kids outside to burn off a little energy and enjoy the day. Sophie was in a bad mood, which is quite unusual, so I put her up on Dalton's bike and she loved it. She also kicked the ball around with Dalton and I, she's got a pretty good foot on her :) Isabelle had fun running around like the crazy girl she is ... I tried to follow after her with the camera to get some pictures of her smiling. There's something about having their pictures taken that both girls hate. Every time I have the camera pointed at them, they refuse to look at me, much less smile. I have tried every sound, every game I can think of to even get them to look my way and still nuthin'. So I guess I'll just have to catch them in something they're smiling about ... but that's a little easier said than done!