Go ahead and Laugh. I did.

I have a new job and a new workout routine (P90x). Hey, don't knock it till you try it, plus I got hubby doing it with me every morning! A task no one thought was possible! It is amazing to feel so great after a grueling hour of working out in the comfort of your bedroom by 7 am,  but hard none the less.

Oh, and we have lots of new nasty little bugs invading our house. They jump from one of us to the next, leaving at least 1.4 of us wiped out at any given time.  I also have gray sky's, 14* days and blasts of snow. The snow we love. The mountain town that shuts down in the snow we do not love. I have a little boy who is literally climbing up my walls and a little girl who needs to flap her social butterfly wings AT LEAST every other day.  Parties being canceled, preschool being canceled, work not being canceled... After what feels like weeks of being locked inside I am about ready to call it quits.
Wait, its only December? Maybe we shouldn't move to Vermont!

The gray sky sunset tonight from my back porch

Maybe its one of the 10 things I just mentioned or maybe being a parent is hard.  Belay is a sweet little boy, he truly is, but he has a bit too much fire sometimes.  And Adi, my love, is so busy running the world that she has a hard time coming down to my level to complete any sort of less noble tasks.

Today Snow White some how got put on repeat.  Andy was sick in bed. I spent the morning at work and the afternoon trying to make something out of this table of what I hope will turn into Christmas gifts. 

So when I saw this come running down the hall.  All I could do was throw my hands up and cry or maybe laugh, I can't remember which.

My living room looks like this. And it probably will still look that way tonight, and next Tuesday.

Adi "mopped" the floor.  I just hope it wasn't with anything that came out of that little potty. Yeah that little one that Belay is so proudly giving himself a hand for using.

While I would really like to forget today. I won't forget that I finally got one lousy photo of my kids smiling and posing at the camera at the same time.  Forget the 158 photos we took last weekend in pretty dresses and handsome pin stripes. This one is going out in the mail this year. 

Teacher Adi

Since I use this blog as my "baby book" I feel the need to record some important information.  Two days in a row, to multiple different people, Adi has announced that she want's to be a teacher when she grows up.  Maybe because her Daddy is a teacher? Maybe because Boots, in her "Dora gets a job"(or something like that) book, wants to be a teacher. Either way, she has said it twice and I think it is so cute.   It's a big moment when a little guys first announce these things, right? 

Unexpected love

Today we had an unexpected, to me at least, snow. In our family and in Western NC snow, no matter how scant, is a snow day. Andy's school is canceled, preschool is canceled, my jobs are (yes, I have two now. Did I mention I started back to work as a pediatric nurse again?) of course, not cancled. But today we all stayed home.

So Adi called her cousins on her princess phone or maybe it was her calculator phone. Either way, I had to help with the invite to come over and play.  Now, we all know how getting out of the house with 2 kids all bundled up and driving across town in the snow can actually take all day, but Adi didn't get the memo.  Well she waited and waited staring out the window, pushing redial on that phone over and over until finally they pulled in the drive way.

Three little girls screamed and jumped and tossed coats and boots and without so much as a kiss hello they bee lined it to the toys.  After a little while I had to go sneak in and see what was going on.  I wish I had a photo of it, but really a photo would have done no justice.  Let me paint a picture. I don't have all the right words to really show how beautiful this moment was but I'll try.

A few months ago, in the kids room,  we cleared out the floor of the closet, piled it high with blankets, added a light to the wall, stacked book in sideways boxes and called it the "reading nook".  It is a magical place. I crawl in there daily to "clean up books" but maybe I'm just secretly wishing I was three again?

Anyways, these three little girls  were all cuddled up sitting in the nook sharing a bowl of trial mix. I heard giggles and whispers.  These three little babies aren't just babies or cousins, they are actually friends.  There was an entire conversation going on in there. One with meaning and purpose. One that seemed pretty important to these girls. One that was not okay for a little brother to be part of.  Then all I could see were these almost 3 and almost 5 year old girls as preteens giggling and gossiping as far away from there parents as they could get. I saw them as best friends 4,6,8 years down the road. 

Their eyes were filled with nothing but joy and love and a touch of honest concentration.  My heart sang just a bit and a tiny tear might have filled in my eye.  It was a moment of pure unexpected happiness for me.
Later when I asked Adi what they were talking about she said they were whispering " I love you!"

Who knows, maybe they were.

Broken little bones

Well that possible broken foot turned into a real broken foot. After days of watching Ads hobble around I sucked it up and brought her in for an x-ray.  She was a trooper!  She picked a purple cast, is anyone shocked?

After crying out that it felt too bumpy to walk and another 12 hours of me carrying her around she decided to give it a go.  She is now crawling or hoping or dragging that beautiful purple cast around the house like its nothing at all.

And what really rocked her world was the picture of Dora and Boots that daddy drew on it.

Her only concern now is how in the world is she supposed to go to the library with that thing on her leg?

awww man

 Maybe there still need to be posts about how and what the kids are up to. Maybe all the cute pictures are just me being lazy? Maybe we need to remember the good with the bad? So, in honor of it being the Christmas season I will write about the good and the bad.(I'm not really sure how it actually relates to Christmas but it seemed to fit the bill of the season. Maybe it can be like the song "he knows if you've been bad or good...") And I know we've been singing that song to a few wee ones in the last few days.

I don't know if its the age, the moon, the rain, the season or, most likely, gramma, cookie and juice withdraw. Whatever it is, we have had two wild ones the past few days. Is it normal while with gramma to consume unlimited cookies and gallons of apple cider, to have an endless stack of books being read out loud at all times, to run around like a banshee hours past bedtime?  With our grammas it is.

But, back on the homestead it doesn't fly.  Not that reading isn't a wonderful thing to do with Adi, but I cannot sit and read her 15 books without pause to even catch my breath.  And well the juice and cookie speak for themselves, right?

In the midst of timeouts, 21 month old and almost 3 year old  plotting on how to take over the house, stage diving from the coffee table, near stitches, and near broken feet we managed to put up a Christmas tree, decorate it, and throw the rotting gourds onto the front porch.

In the blur of regaining life after the thanksgiving coma a little voice has been singing sweetly for all to hear ...

 sung to the tune of Frère Jacque
"Bells are ringing,  bells are ringing
Christmas is here, Christmas is here
Happy birthday Jesus,  Happy birthday Jesus
Awww Man, awww Man"

I'm just guessing here but I'm thinking that last verse is supposed to sound more like Amen.


I am also guessing, although it has not yet been confirmed, that this may be her Christmas play song at school.

Alright I was not going to add a photo but how can I leave these out?

Helping daddy put the angel on top

Papa love

Anyone think its possible for Belay to not smile for a picture? cause I don't.

a girl who is very serious about tree decorating

very special guests

A few of Adi and Belay's Aunts came for a North Carolina visit.  Due to the nature of my family, globe trotting is nothing new. A family that lives down the street, what does that mean? We grew up moving every few years. New towns, new cities, new states, new countries. Nope, not military; academia. 

As adults,  my sisters and I did what we know best. We moved. Spread from coast to coast with dabs in the middle, this crew attempts yearly gathers of all, but that rarely happens. Now, we take what we can get and enjoy time with whom ever can get where ever. 

This trip we were blessed with Auntie Chrissy all the way from L.A

We got this city girl into the country.
The day began a bit eerie, but we soaked up every bit of country anyways, hoping for enough left over to ship back to sunny L.A

Mary came down from Maryland.She is hiding there behind Belay.


                                           


We soaked in fall.

For a family who is spread far and wide my kids are lucky to have this time to spend with there Aunts. And they sure did live up to there names.

We got a little extra time with Mary. What a day we had!
I made us, what I thought was at the time, picture worth MBLT's (BLT with a twist of mozzeralla). In hindsight maybe they were not so picture worthy, but oh so yummy. Same goes for those "latte's" I made.

We played. We made Aunt Mary run errands with us, go to the park with us, play outside with us, go to the grocery store with us. I bet she had never had such a fun vacation.

She even participated in post bath, pre bedtime,  princesses song dance party complete with flashing, glowing ghost light necklaces. She even taught Adi a new move, which was practiced night after night long after Mary left.

these last photos are from my not smart phone camera

But the moment that Mary won her place in Adi's heart was when she agreed to read books to her. After she did a little work on the computer. Mary may have thought that Adi would have forgotten about the promise. Mary now knows that Adi never ever forgets anything, just like her mama:)
Adi waited and waited so patiently.  It was totally worth the wait. 

I just have to add one thing....

The other day after getting off the phone with Mary, (who is waiting patiently to become a mommy) I had this conversation with Adi 

ME: one day Mary is going to have a baby too. 

ADI: (with a little worried look in her eyes) " But not me right?"

ME:  " No, a different baby, not you. He/she will be tiny, like your dolls"

ADI: " Oh, and can she be brown and white like me and Belay?"

ME : "Maybe Adi, maybe she/he will be brown and white, but he/she may be pink too"

ADI: "I'd like her to be pink the best"

disclosure: Adi put it upon herself to deem Mary's baby whom may or may not exist yet a girl.

Crusin'

We did it.

We left the kids and went on a cruise.It was our first time crusin...can you tell?

 We acted classy and fancy and like Sea Captains.

 We went in honor of our friends Kristie and Rob to celebrate there wedding.

 We tried and tried to get a swoon worthy couple picture of us...

 

 It never happened. Are you sick of looking at us yet?

Then how about his couple? We got lots of swoony pictures of them...best friends FO EVA!!

And this couple, much cuter than the last one.

What a good looking crew huh?

Andy got to walk down the aisle, again.

We had a blast, but at the expense of a little heart ache. There were 2 little buggaboos weighing heavy on our minds. It was 4.5 days and 2.5 days too long to be away. They got to spend a wonderful amount of time with their beloved cousins and Ama, to whom we are forever grateful for. Andy and I got to spend a wonderful amount of time with our friends at their wedding.  But when it was all said and done, we just prefer to spend a wonderful amount of time with our kids.

Remember when vacation meant days of lingering over coffee late into the morning with nothing but the view ahead to think about? Well those days are long gone. Sure, we can linger all we want but our minds are always on these kids and sometimes it seems easier just to stay put right were we are.

Back in the homeland, one crabby patty woke up on the wrong side of the crib this morning and fed his cereal to the dogs and the other one crawled into our bed singing giberish at an unsightly hour and covered make believe boo boo's with every band-aid in the house all before 7 am....glad to be home but maybe I need another vacation?

Halloween

I slipped a few Halloween pictures into the last post, but here is the gist of how it all went down.

Adi was a "flower fairy princess"

Cousin Padgers was also a "flower fairy princess". 

Padgers coined the term and Adi fell for it right away. 

Halloween evening came and while we were trying to assemble all the kids into what was supposed to resemble 2 flower fairy princesses, 1 "deluxe" Ariel complete with bright red hair, and 1 Peter Pan  not to be confused with Robin Hood, a switch happened.

Adi  had been swooning over Padme's dress for weeks now.

Padme suddenly wanted nothing to do with her dress. 

Adi, seeing the beautiful original flower fairy princess dress just laying, unwanted on the floor, jumped at her chance with it.

Padgers, eyed the other most beautiful dress in the world and we had 2 beautiful Flower fairy princesses.

Both with smiles on there faces.

One lady asked Adi what she was dressed as and she promptly replied "Padme".

Post switch

Can you see her wanting eyes in the background?

Still happy with her version of the dress

Belay, seemed to know what to do right away. He marched right up to the first house with bucket held high. Do they celebrate halloween in Ethiopia? Cause this kids has done this before.
Last night we had our social worked come over for our 6 month post placement visit and when she knocked on the door, Belay opened it with bucket held high yelling "ich er eat " (trick or treat).  The poor lady, she came empty handed and little man had no intention of letting her in without a treat.

 Adi ate purple cupcakes. Does it get any better? Not if you are 2.9 years old and your favwit color is purple and your favwit food is cupcakes.

We carved a pumpkin. Adi was less than thrilled with the processes. But the end result was worth it, what with those triangle eyes and everything. Especially when you are 2.9 years old and your favwit shape is a triangle.

Belay is thrilled by everything.

These pictures beg the question " are you putting one dread in your sons hair?"

All in all it was FUN! I sure am happy its over. Halloween wore me out.

Is there something slightly condescending in Adi's face?Or os she just being the great big sis that she is?