Love Birds

For some reason, birds seem to want to come into our house! I don't know if it's because we have so many windows or what, but it's kind of crazy. We constantly have birds flying into our back windows. Some make it to fly away...some don't. I don't know if you remember, but I posted about a cardinal who would beat on my kitchen window way too early. We took care of him (no, I will not tell you how!!). We now have a little finch who loves to tap on my window. He's so sweet and just gives me little "love taps". I am actually enjoying him being around :-) The other morning, he was visiting us and Wesleigh was able to see him. She was so cute and the little bird kept coming up to her. You can see the lion's mane in these pictures!





The boys went back to school today. I can honestly say, I was very sad to see them go. Not so much because they would be gone during the day, but because I know it means hours of homework (and getting up way too early). I've been telling them and myself that it's just 3 weeks! We can give it our all for three weeks and then have a well-deserved break. I'll let you know how that plan works!

I'm also trying to get the house decorated for Christmas. It's not going so well ;) I am having a hard time getting motivated for some reason. I don't have our big Santa party planned this year, so there's not a big event that is spurring me on. I think we're going to do things simple this year. Of course, simple still includes a 12 ft. tree, so "simple" is a relative term! We'll see how it turns out. Wesleigh has attached herself to a paper mache Santa that I have. I even found Santa in her bed today for a nap. I'll post a picture of Wesleigh and Santa soon.

It's supposed to cool off tomorrow, so maybe that will help us get into the Christmas spirit!!

Thanksgiving, 2010

Thanksgiving was pretty calm and laid-back this year. We went to my parents for dinner and enjoyed the day. This year was special because we have Wesleigh with us. I can remember how stressful the holidays were for me last year, as we waited for all our approvals to come in. I am very happy to not reliving that this year!

My oldest and youngest. They always seem to take the sweetest pictures together.


Miss W and her daddy. She loved it. She ate everything on her plate and had a second helping of mashed potatoes!




Bryce shared the art of builing things with Legos. These Legos were my brothers' when we were little. Every grandchild seems to love them! He was happy to sit there and make things for her ;)


This totally cracks me up. We don't have alot of leaves in our yard, so this is the first time she's seen a pile of leaves like this. She hiked up that dress all on her own before she got close to it. So funny!!







My parents and my kiddos.


It was 85 degrees and sunny yesterday, and today it's rainy and 50! We enjoyed the warmer weather yesterday, but forget about wearing your cute boots and sweaters!!

Someone asked where Wesleigh's dress came from. I bought it last week on the "my adoption website" auction! I was so excited about it and think it looks adorable on her!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Last year, I knew this child as a picture. I longed to have her here with me so deeply it hurt. This year, I am so very thankful that Wesleigh Jane is home!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Love,
Jennifer

Belle?

Wesleigh is just learning all her princesses. She has panties with them all and makes me tell her who they are before she puts them on. The only one she knows all on her own is Cinderella. Probably due to the fact that she's seen it about 200 times in the car!


The other day, she found a jingle bell (who knows where it came from!). She brought it to me and this was our conversation:

W: wha dat?

me: a bell

W: Pulls her shirt up and looks at her panties that have a picture of Cinderella and Belle on them. Then she says, "noooooooo". I about died. She looked at me like I was crazy...after all, everyone knows that Belle is the pretty princess in the yellow dress! Not a silver ball thingy!!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I have so much to be thankful for this year. We will be having a small dinner with my parents, so I will be thankful for a stress-free, relaxing holiday.

This and That

You can't imagine how disgusting my house is right now! I am swimming in piles of "stuff" everywhere! I don't even know where to begin. I do know that I can't stand to look at it anymore, so I'd better start somewhere. The house cleaning fairy just won't show up!! She is turning out to be even less dependable than the tooth fairy... Geez...the incompetence of figments of my imagination these days!!!

This week has been crazy. The amount of collective homework I've helped with this week is unbelievable. I'd better have made A's on those assignments!! :) I am so excited to have the boys home this week for Thanksgiving just for the fact that we won't have homework to do! I told Bryce I might pay him to get up with Wesleigh one morning so I could sleep in. Of course, I know better than to think that I will actually be able to sleep late on that day! I'm exhausted though, and just can't seem to catch up. I'm sitting here hoping for a burst of energy so I can get this house whipped into shape before the week starts. Hmmm....waiting.....waiting....Nope, hasn't hit me yet, so I'll just show you a few "couch potato" pics I've been saving.


Wesleigh loves to snuggle up to whoever is willing and watch "boos coos" (or elmo, or dora...you get the idea!). Seems, when the boys are around, there's always someone willing to ablidge her. She was actually playing with Cade's hair with her feet. So cute!




Paw Paw got in on the action too. (Notice the baby and the finger again!).


This might have been the funniest. I walked in the room and these two were laid out on the table watching something.


Of course, then they had to pose.




I've also been on the search, lately, for another one of these. I used to have two, but we seem to have misplaced one of them (probably at a baseball park). Wesleigh has been more and more attached to "baby" recently, and I want to make sure we always have one (or 3). I know I found it at wally world for about $10. Now, I can only find it on Am@zon for $24!! I'm just way too stubborn (or cheap) to pay that! I've found similar babies and she'll hold them in the store for a few minutes. Then she hands it back to me and says, "no baby, baby home". Telling me to put the baby back in her home. I think it's hysterical and I'm so thankful she hasn't been making me buy them all!! So if you have one of these hanging around that your daughter is not attached to, I'd love to buy it from you!! She'll get lots of love at my house!!


OK...I've procrastinated enough. Time to put on the cleaning fairy wings and get to work! Ughhh.... Have a great weekend!!

I Wuh Woo, Mommy

Yesterday, for the first time, Wesleigh snuggled into me, put her hand on my cheek and said these words to me without me saying it first. It is beautiful when any child tells you this, but with Wesleigh...it just means a little more. For someone who spent most of her first 2 years without the love of a mother, it is nothing short of a miracle to see her now. She is pretty stingy with the words, "I love you". She doesn't use them lightly, which makes them all the more valuable. What an honor to be the recipient of such beautiful words and emotions.

I Wuh Woo, Wesleigh Jane!

Time of His Life

Braden is having the most amazing weekend! He is duck hunting with a friend and having the time of his life. These pictures were on my email when I woke up. They shot their limit in 30 minutes!!! Can you believe these pics were taken on an iphone? They are beautiful!






I asked him what they are going to do now...they're going to set pig traps and hunt coyotes!!! Lord, is he in heaven!

Mommy?

So Cinderella seems to be Miss Wesleigh's favorite movie right now. I think it's probably played in my car, at least, 100 times so far. The boys even get out of the car singing the songs ;) I have realized something lately that has brought me much joy. Wesleigh lived in an orphanage the entire time she was in China. She never knew what a mother was. In fact, that was the first thing we had to teach her when she got home. I have noticed that Wesleigh associates "mommy" with one of these characters.

Thankfully, it's the fairy godmother! As she is watching the movie, she starts saying "mommy" when the fairy godmother appears. She does not think of the stepmother as "mommy" at all. Yay!! Thank goodness!! I'd rather be associated with fat and happy than the evil stepmother ;)

Have a great weekend!!

9 Months Home!

Yep...that about sums up the Christmas card shoot! The boys were so sweet and willing to do whatever I asked, but Wesleigh was overdue for a nap and was not being very agreeable. I'm afraid I'm going to have to break it to the boys that they have to get dressed and do it again. They are not going to be happy about it! Wesleigh wasn't the only problem, I didn't have the lighting right, so the pictures were dark too. Oh well, live and learn.



I realized that I really haven't given a decent update in a while, so thought I'd do that. Wesleigh has been home for 9 months now!! It feels like she's always been here, and also feels like we just got home yesterday. She is amazing. She is so full of personality and keeps us laughing all the time. Most of the time she is super sweet and very agreeable. She has, however, started to show a little bit of a 2 year old attitude lately. She dropped on the floor and started kicking her feet in a full out tantrum while we were in Tennessee. I couldn't help but laugh at her. Thankfully, she's not a professional fit thrower, so it just came off as silly :-) Hopefully, she has realized that throwing fits doesn't really become her. LOL...

She is talking more and more. She has a big vocabulary but doesn't really pronounce most words correctly. She leaves off the first and/or last sounds of a word. Braden did the same thing when he was her age, so I'm not too worried about it. I've been working with her a little bit and we'll seek out help when she gets a little older if we need to. She is starting to put more and more words together and can have quite the conversation. She is the most polite thing ever! Everytime anyone sneezes she says, "beh". That would be "bless you". She had also gotten in the habbit of saying "huh?" alot. Now she says, "huh?...mam?" (of course "mam" sounds like "ma") Don't forget that we live in the south! Yes mam/No mam is a requirement. Anytime you give her anything or do anything for her, she says, "dane doo" in the sweetest little voice.

She now really goes after the boys. Of course, they have taught her this. Bryce actually put a video on facebook that he and Cade made one day when they were watching Wesleigh for me. She was a "ninja" and they were having her beat them up with a nerf sword. I guess that will teach me for wanting a minutes' peace! I might load it here. It's funny to me (as a mom of 3 boys) but not everyone might appreciate it ;) lol...

This past week, Richard has been out of town. For whatever reason, Wesleigh has picked this time to start waking up in the night. You might remember that Richard and the boys are the only ones that have any success getting her to lay back down after she wakes up. I don't really worry about it. I'm just glad that Richard is the one that has to get up this time!! That's all fine and dandy unless he's out of town!!! The first night, she and I went round and round until I finally put her in bed with me. This didn't even work so she ended up crying it out in her own bed. We were up for hours that night. The second night, after an hour of her crying and me going in there every 5-10 minutes, I decided I only had one option....go get a boy!! Poor Cade was the one I chose and I woke him up at 3:00 am to help me. Poor baby. He was so sweet and I swear it took him all of 5 seconds to walk in there and get her to lay down quietly. She never made another peep all night! The third night I was a little smarter. I only waited 30 minutes and then went for Cade. Again, 5 seconds later, he got to finish the night in my bed. Thankfully, she has slept better the last couple of nights!

OK...I know you're bored reading all of this. I am just trying to get it down so I don't forget it. I'll post more in a day or two. Have a great week!

Giveaway!!

Go check out Ni Hao Y'all! Steph is having a great giveaway and you don't want to miss it!!

So Handsome

I've still been playing with this new lens. It's a 50MM F/1.4. So far, I love it and I don't even know what I'm doing!! I chased Wesleigh around all day and got a few cute ones of her (I'll share those later), but this one of Cade is my absolute favorite!! It's much easier with a kid that will actually sit still!! I think I'm going to attempt Christmas card pics tomorrow. Pray for me!!

One Year Ago....

It's hard to believe, but it has been one year since we saw Miss Wesleigh's picture for the first time. The picture was taken when she was 16 months old. (She is now 33 months) It's hard to even believe that it's of the same child. What an amazing day...what an amazing child. She's a blessing sent straight from heaven!




A number of months ago, Wesleigh lost a little bracelet that my mom had bought for her. It had her initials engraved in it, and I loved it. It was really her first "special" piece of jewelry she had been given. I got way too emotional over it being lost and felt like she had already lost so much by living in an orphanage for two years...this was one more thing...lost. My mom replaced the bracelet with this silver one (that I'm scared to let her wear!!) She also found this ring from when she was a baby and passed it down to Wesleigh. I've been meaning to take a picture and post about it, but I'm kind of glad I never did. I love this picture.


I'm playing around with a new lens and trying to get the feel of it. I know this picture isn't great, but for some reason, I think it's sweet.

Quick Visit

We had a quick visit this weekend from the Peanuts as they traveled home from Disney! We are always happy to see the Peanuts! (We had all the kids except Braden. He and Richard were hunting.)



Kate and Wesleigh had a great time playing together. (The boys did too, but we weren't chasing them with our cameras!!)




Kate brought Wesleigh this adorable coat that she has outgrown. Wesleigh was SO excited and wore it for the longest time.




Dave got to meet Wesleigh for the first time and she loved him! She usually doesn't respond to men at all and would never let a man pick her up. I think she was sweet on Mr. Dave ;)


Comparing hacky sack skills they all learned in China :)

Trick-or-Treat

Wesleigh LOVED her first Halloween! It only took her one house to figure out how this works! She said "Trick or treat" at every house and then followed up with a "thank you" after. She was adorable! I loved her costume and so did she!







These 2 pictures of Wesleigh and Cade are so sweet. They are hysterical together!




Our trick or treat gang


Her first house. Our sweet high school neighbor Evan wasn't exactly expecting the mamarazzi. He turned beat red. So cute!


Happy girl!


I had some of you ask about Wesleigh's outfit in the previous post. That sweater is from Target!! Can you believe? So cute! The jeans and boots were from Gap. It needs to cool off again so she can wear it again!