Happy Heart Day and First Day of School!

Happy belated Valentine's Day everyone! Hope everyone had a super day!

We had a great day, she spent the day with Grammy while mommy worked but we woke up in the morning and got a new Einstein DVD, a new book and a tin mailbox with teddy grahms , mini m&m's and Valentine little people - she was thrilled, here's a pic of her in her outfit

She started her first day of school today. She did really well - much better than I did. No tears and when I called to check on her they told me she ate her breakfast, loved the inside playground, had crackers for snack and drank all of her apple juice - - WHAT? I've been trying for 3 mths to get this girl to drink anything but milk - she refuses water, won't drink any juice - nothing. First day at school and she's chugging juice, these women are miracle workers! Not only that apparently she ate carrots (only veg she eats for us is green beans) and she slept on a nap mat for 2 hours today!!! I'm speechless. She was happy to see me when I got there but didn't want to leave the playground - so no tears when dropped off but tears for pick up. Not quite what I had expected - LOL.

No the coloring on your computer's not going haywire, I'm a brunette! 11 years as a blonde so it was time for something new :)

Happy Chinese New Year and D Day!

Happy Chinese New Year!
NOT again!
Our par-tay decorations!
Sophia and Erica (Bo's g-friend)
Sophia playin with uncle BoHappy New Year cousin Maddie (goodbye kiss!) How sweet Closing the freezer door - a sophia favIt's been awhile since we had a leopard post - I didn't want to let ya'll down...LOL

Sportin my sweater dress for church
Daddy's little angel

This post is a little overdue - HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR - Year of the Rat! We had some of our fam over for chinese food and horoscope reading for the upcoming year - it was a lot of fun. It's a really fun tradition and Sophia got to wear her new chinese outfit from Andrea C.! She looked adorable! Thank you so very much!!!! I hope you all had an enjoyable new year!

Sophia has turned 15 months old today and it's amazing to see how much she is growing as I look back through the posts. She is now starting to talk - she repeats everything we say (not the words but baby talk with her the exact tone we say them - - scary!) and she points to body parts and makes animal noises.

Tomorrow is D DAY - I start to back to work at the office - I've been working but from home and now it's time to get back to the grindstone. I'm so going to miss my days with this little lady but I think she is really going to enjoy school. She went for the first time this week and honestly she cried during the art project and got ticked when kids took her toys but overall it went well. One thing I will never forget and will remind her of it when she's older is the fact that her very first story time with the kids she walked right up to the teacher (while all the other kids are sitting) and grabbed the story book from the teachers hands and walked away with it! Oh my we've got a live wire on our hands! This week I will actually leave her there for awhile a few days - my mom is watching her since daycare cannot take her until the 18th. It's been a hard transition so far and I'm glad I've been able to "ease" into it but not looking forward to it at all!!!I cannot believe how busy we have become now that I'm not at home with sophia all day - it's amazing so for all of you I haven't spoke to - please forgive me I'm hoping it gets better this week.

Love to all - - -

Fairies ROCK!

Mom, please put on my fairy skirt! I know I wasn't to rummage through the closet and find this from Becky, cousin Chris's fiancee, but my new fav thing to do in the morning is to go through my closet and play with hangers, shoes of course and find bubbles and other stuff mom was saving - PRETTY PLEASE?!?This looks pretty good, I feel like granting some wishes!Mom - ENOUGH with the pictures already!!!!You mean I get a wand too? Mom, I wish for you clean floors!Wishing the bills away - LOL!This being a fairy business is hard work!I wish the dirty diaper bag away!Winston TOOK MY WAND!!!Even fairies need a break sometimesWinston says...I hate fairiesThis is me after a diaper change where I insisted on the following shoe selection.which I wore around for the rest of the evening Random cuteness
It hit 40 degrees today so we opted to model some of our spring attire and retire our sweaters if only for a day :)
My looks are really changing now and in this picture for some reason I (mommy) just think she looks like such a little girl in this one!
Until next time...

Fashionista mommies and taiwan cuties take outlets by storm!

Don't be jealous but I seriously met the superstars of the Taiwan adoption blogger world this week! You all know who they are!?! :)

Check it out - this little cuties momma made a cool video to sum up our day.

We had a blast and cannot wait to hang out again!!!! However, our hubbies and their wallets may think otherwise - LOL :)

I'm a BIG girl NOW :)

I love my sparkle shoes and I turn on my fridge DJ and dance away on the wood floors! It's hilarious
This is me cooking - this is my second passion - pretend cooking...I stir my cheerios and puffs and put them in the muffin molds. I see a kitchen in my future!
Future Central PA Realtor, yes Daddy is putting his shirt on me and I loved it.
Walkin my baby around the house - really more like torturing poor Winston.

I took my first "bites" of pizza with grandma rhine since I have my two front teeth now (well almost!)
Dreaming of Winston...and Winston dreamining of cupcakes - my mom found this shirt at Old Navy last year and knew sophia had to have it!
Look at this big girl. This is the first time she actually sat at the coffee table and ate her snacks off a PLATE and didn't pick it up and dump it out. I'm so proud - it's the little things these days - LOL
We had a playdate with Reagan and Jackie - and this is sophia's first time at a big girl table eating her dinner and NOT in a high chair, she loved it and just thought she was hot stuff!
Reagan LOVES playing dress up and got out her dress up drunk and dressed herself and sophia in princess costumes! Sophia loved it and Miss Reagan helped her with her beads and bracelet - they kept these on allllll night!
The budding artists - this is sophia's first time with aquadoodle and she had a blast and to knock it up a notch aunt jackie got paint brushes out and let her paint on the mat! Again she just thought she was hot stuff and had a BLAST!

Yesterday marked 2 months as a family!! I cannot believe how much Sophia has grown. She continues to amaze us everyday. She got the stomach bug (the rest of the family at the same time, it was awesome...not!) but it was my first experience with a sick child, so I've been christened :) We were out of commission all last week until Sunday. We are trying to get ourselves back to normal.

WOOHOO!!! SHOUT OUT:

to Megan and Ken who just picked up their daughter, Kimberlyn - she's gorgeous and you can check out their blog at http://www.kimberlynwilliams.blogspot.com/. We are so thrilled she is finally with her forever family and on her way home!!!

Lori, Jeremy and Sierra celebrated GOTCHA day this week also getting baby Samantha! We cannot wait to see pictures of the new fam of 4! :) you can visit them at www.tsang2007@blogspot.com they will update as soon as they come home!

Love to teresa and Randy who are on their way in 24 hours to Taiwan to pick up Jeremiah. Wishing you safe travels and a wonderful GOTCHA DAY :) http://www.journeytojeremiah.blogspot.com/

For those of you who have followed our journey - you know we received our referral of Sophia along with 9 other families in May. There are never words to describe the wait as you anticipate meeting your child and we are thrilled to post that in 2 DAYS all 9 BABIES will BE WITH FAMILIES - we have all grown very close over the past 8 - 12 months and with each new high and low it's like you go through it with them and it's been long time coming. Our referral family has grown and my hope is that the other SLC moms we have met will also experience the homecoming of their babies VERY SOON! Messages such as people travelling or receiving referrals give adoptive parents HOPE that their time is coming and it means more than you know. This community is tight and I know my journey would have never been complete without them.

Don't get your tutu in a bunch :)

the tutu comes out again with the chef hat and the fan remote today! Lily and Sophia riding the train Lily set up with the chairs - took her laptop on this trip too!

Wearing Vincent's shoes
Vincent Hug sophia - this is the face we got on that one - LOL
Gettin ready for my walk with daddy and winston
What a picture!?!

And the tutu comes out again...


This is the result of the my gym and YMCA classes - we climb on EVERTHING now!
This is the face we get when we take off the tutu in the morning... our little drama queen!

We have some new obsessions this week - one would be our Zoe Tutu (thanks aunt jackie!) and other folks bigger shoes!! Here are some pics from the rest of this week. We had a weekend of chillin with friends - - Felicity and Seth, Karen Paul and Vincent (even brought doggie Nico over to play with Winston!) and Lo, Kevin, Lily and Jimmy! I love these kind of weekends!!! Nothing like catching up with friends and some kiddo comic relief.