Too cute for words

It began with just one . . .

Then it morphed into two . . .

Sometimes we call them her radio towers.

Or piggly wiggly.

Other times, they've been referred to as horns--


unicorn . . .


giraffe horns . . .


or "spikes".

Whatever we call them, we think they are just too cute to accurately describe.

So we'll just say that they are too cute for words.

(Just in case I have left any room to wonder, the answer is yes, we think we have the most wonderful baby girl ever to be. Oh, how we love her so.)

Chocolate

Apparently we have a budding chocolate lover in our house.

So far, none of us are die-hard chocolate fans. We all enjoy it, but we don't have anyone among Daddy, David and me that absolutely loves chocolate.

This little girl just might change that.

Apparently she doesn't mind her chocolate if it's frozen.

And fed to her on a stick.

Those eyes are for her Daddy--

 

--who just happens to be holding a fudgsicle (at least the very last drips of one).

More Soccer

Wednesday morning soccer is still going well. I'm glad that we've had four for four on sunny Wednesday mornings--so we haven't yet had a weather cancellation.

The volunteer coaches are getting the rhythm down. Things took a turn for the better when they split the group into 4 teams instead of just 2--now all the kids get more playing time. Yay! This actually worked out in a round about way. On our first Wednesday, we were at a school, and just as we were rapping things up, the principal came out and told us we had to rent the field from the district if we wanted to use it. So the next week we changed locations. I checked with different people that work for the school district, and they thought this principal was over the top in his request, as we are just a gathering of families, not a formally organized group--so we changed to a different school. The new school has been happy to host us without any problems. As an added bonus, they have a bonafide soccer field with goals. So we add the portable goals provided by one of our coaches, and we are able to get 2 games going with smaller teams for 6-7. It has made for much less chaos on the field! What first seemed like a major setback to our low-cost soccer efforts has turned into a blessing because our new field is better equipped for us.

Since the teams have been divided in half, David is much more likely to enjoy soccer, and he's been better about staying on the field when he's supposed to. (It also helped that we decided to leave his bike at home, so it wasn't a distraction when he was supposed to be listening to his coach.)

As for the sidelines--well, they are still being graced by this beauty:

As the organizer of this soccer group, I sometimes get pulled in different directions during the hour long practice and game combo. Alina is so patient with me. One time, I left her in her stroller with her bottle. I kept glancing over to check on her, until I saw that she wasn't there any longer. One of the other mothers had found her on the ground next to the stroller, happily playing. Apparently Alina had squirmed her way out of the stroller and didn't call for help. The other mother saw that I was tied up, so she held Alina until I got back to that side of the field. So typical of our patient little girl.

The Bike

On one recent Saturday, Daddy and David had the goal of putting fresh tubes into David's bike tires. Typical of our Saturdays, the day filled up--so the bike was not tended to until just a few minutes before bedtime. David was thrilled to have a rideable bike--now all he had to do was learn how to stay up and pedal.

Much to David's credit, he willingly set the bike aside for the evening, knowing that he wouldn't have another opportunity to learn how to ride his bike until Monday morning. It was one of those moments as a mother that reminded me that David is growing up, and he's beginning to understand some of the things we have been teaching him. He didn't even question the bike issue on the Sabbath--he just waited.

I was excited for him to get back on the bike as soon as he finished his chores on Monday morning. I was inside still finishing my chores, expecting to join him outside shortly to help him learn. About 20 minutes after David went outside, he came running back in shouting, "Mom! I can do it! I can ride up and down our street really fast! Come watch me!" Wow! Another moment of seeing David's maturity--he stuck through a hard thing of teaching himself to balance, and he kept on getting back up without a complaint. I was so proud of him, and glad for the tremendous satisfaction he felt in teaching himself to ride his bike.

This bike had training wheels on it, but when David decided that they were crooked and in the way, he promptly removed them. Thankfully, that's all that was removed. Until a later date, when he tried to fix the seat. Thankfully, Daddy was able to reattach the seat after David took it off. 

 It is now one of his summer time highlights. (He especially likes to leave tire track marks on the pavement as he rides in and out of these puddles.)

I feel so grateful that we have a short street that ends in a culdesac, and that I have a boy who respects the boundaries he's been given for riding his bike.

Family night on that Monday evening had all of us outside to watch David's new talent. This is Sister Amy Russell holding Alina--she joins us for family night about once a month. We love all that she brings to our home when she comes over!

Alina was excited for David's success--she kept squealing her approval of his newest trick.

Family Soccer Team 2014

 As we were looking at summer time activities, we thought about getting
David into an organized sport. But the price was high, for only 6 weeks of sport. One thing led to the other, and I found out that other families were interested in gathering informally for a soccer team.

Thus began the effort to put a team together. We have 16 families on board with 34 kids and three lead coaches. 

We have the whole summer ahead of us still to see where this goes, but we are off to a good start!

The sidelines are graced with patient younger siblings--one of them is especially darling, in spite of the chilly morning. 

It's a home grown effort, but we're hopeful that everything will work out and the kids will enjoy playing a team sport for the summer.

Our Day in Court

It came back. We arrived home from our trip to Utah at 1:30 am, and twelve hours later we were at the court house to finalize our adoption with Alina. 

I kept kicking myself for agreeing to a court date immediately after we returned from such an exhausting trip. We had several meltdowns that morning, in spite of putting the kids back to bed right after breakfast. I wondered how we could possibly take two tired kids into the court house, particularly after our last experience. 

(Just a few last minute reminders and adjustments while we waited for the judge.)

Then there was the part of getting ourselves mentally prepared for the court room, and double checking that we were taking everything necessary with us. As we were trying to prepare that morning, I had flashbacks to when I traveled to Romania as a college student. I returned from a 2-week trip, took a short nap, then went and got a loan for my first car. I was so tired that day that I misplaced all the paperwork and couldn't find it for months. I thought I had learned my lesson back then, but here we were in what felt like very similar circumstances. I was worried that we would go back to court and again be raked over the coals. 

Just as we were trying to get out the door, all I wanted to do was lay down and take a nap--I was the only one who hadn't recovered from our late-night arrival. I was truly convinced that this was the wrong day to be going to court, and kept wondering what it would take to reschedule our time to the next available appointment. Why not? It's already been so long, what's another month?

As we pulled out of our driveway, we offered another family prayer on behalf of the adoption. By the time we arrived at the court house, my nerves and mind were ready. It was nothing short of a miracle. 

In fact, we saw several miracles that day. 

The first one was that we were assigned a different judge.


The second miracle was that as soon as she entered the court room, she smiled at us.


Clearly this was going to be a completely different experience. 

She put us at ease, and instead of having to offer up our prepared statements, she simply asked us all of the pertinent questions and all we had to say was yes or no. (Remember we were there pro se as we didn't hire an attorney for the court room, our legal help was only in preparing the forms to submit to the court.) 

She approved the additional paperwork we had submitted, and said that according to the findings of the court, she would recommend that our adoption be final and complete.

After we were done, Judge Gandbhir threw her arms up in the air and said, "This is the best part of my job! Can I come see the baby?!?"


She complimented David on how well behaved and quiet he had been, and asked permission to go get him a sucker. (The previous judge got upset with David for tapping his feet during the court session, so this was a completely different experience.) Judge Gandbhir was more than happy to take pictures with us.


Memorable? Yes

Final? Most definitely. (Pardon her seriousness--she was missing a much needed nap through all of this.)

 Our dear friend Petersen (aka Shasta) came as our photographer.

 Even when she's tired, David can get this little girl to smile.

Come to think of it, by the end of our 20 minutes, we were all beaming ear to ear.

Goodbye to Grandma's House

Incidentally, my parents were the first to fly out of town. Funny, because we were all staying at their house--but Dad has a job back East, and he was headed back to work while Mom was headed back to Georgia so she could pack up their little apartment and make the drive up to Boston to join Dad there for the summer. 

Before Grandma left, we got a photo of her with her Alaskan grandkids. (Sorry, Grandpa--4 am was too early for a farewell shot with you!)

We love you, Grandma and Grandpa! Thank you for making our time so worthwhile. It is packed full of memories of your love towards the children, which always leaves us begging for more.

Older Cousins

I remember how fun it was to get together with cousins growing up--we generally made the hour drive over to Mesa once a month for a gathering. We would all break off into our respective age groups and made ourselves at home at Grandma's house. But there was a period of time--quite a few years, I think--where the thing we wanted to most together was sit around and hold our baby cousins. I remember one year when 7 new babies were born into the family, and those of us who were preteens thought it was the jackpot--because finally there were enough babies for all of us to hold one at the same time!

So when I saw my nieces and nephews pandering to hold the babies, I remembered just how fun it was back in my day. They were doing their best to be careful, and really the only way to learn to  hold a baby is to hold one! They really don't break in any loving jostles they might get from adoring cousins. Alina was lucky enough to be one of the three babies happily passed around between the older cousins.

Just a few pics to capture all that loving charm from her older cousins . . .

The pre-teens and teens seemed to pass around the babies. In fact, they also did a great job of  showing love to David! He figured out that he could get them to carry him around in a sort of chair lift. To put it mildly, he ate that one up!

Sweet Paige likes to sing a song to Alina that she made up, and the lyrics go like this. "Alina, Alina, Alina!" repeated over and over and over again. Paige has shared some of her baby clothes with Alina, and is so cute with her! In fact, I think 3 year old Paige might be one of the next closest girl cousins to Alina's age (besides 2 year old Brynn), so I bet they are just beginning the cousin memories together!

After attending church on Sunday as a large family (we had enough youth from our family present to form their own Sunday School class out on the church lawn, led by none other than Aunt Amy and Aunt Dacia), we gathered for the rest of the day at my parents' home. We had a lovely meal and lots of time together that afternoon. In the evening, we played reverse charades using scripture stories. Again, the teams were broken up by age groups--the adults, the littles, and the teens. During the charades, Alina got passed around between her cousins quite a bit.

I think she really enjoyed all that attention!

I can't say it enough how grateful I am for my children to have such good role models among their cousins. As an added bonus, they also feel so loved in their presence!