Just For Fun - Part II

Part Two from AA's day at the church playground.
These are just for fun... as AA laughed, ran, kicked a soccer ball.........





What fun!

First Time Swinging Fun - Part I

.........on a "big"girl's swing.
In the beginning, AA at first was not very keen on the idea of swinging when I first put her in one of those baby/toddler swings (the type that has the front and back, plus openings for the legs, like a high chair hanging on the chains).
After awhile she really enjoyed it, and sliding and the occasional swing was fun for her.

This past Sunday, at the church playground, I took a chance and asked her if she wanted to swing in the "big" girl's swing....... well, that alone sealed the deal once she heard the "big girl" words.
She wants to do everything for herself so I expected her to try. With a little help from Mommy putting her in the swing, she seemed very happy to swing and be able to get off it all by herself. Another step in growing up!

Mommy's Gift

AA is doing great in her two mornings a week pre-school. I came home from work late last Friday night and DH said that AA had a gift for me in the morning.
Saturday morning, AA woke up and greeted me with her usual hugging/snuggling on the couch routine while drinking her chocolate milk (white cow milk with a splash of chocolate soy milk, both organic). AA and Daddy had a few secret chats and then AA presented me with this flower she made at school!


(ignore the "vase", chosen as it is non-breakable)...

I think she loves her Mommy!! She's a sweetie!!!

New Blog - Maine Products & Ideas

Check out my BIL and sister's home based business blog and the great (very inexpensive) idea for Christmas gifts that kids can put together. Pancake mix, canned Maine blueberries, Maine maple syrup, brown lunch bags and your own Christmas decorations embellishments - that's all you need! Yummy too!

Check out this simple gift idea!

AA's Birthday Gift to Daddy

Cousin Sarah suggested hand prints for a birthday gift for AA to make for her Daddy when I posed the question on Facebook (I love Facebook for quick posts and even quicker replies when I ask a question).
AA loves painting but doesn't have the concept of covering the paper; she tends to slop paint on the same spot and using the paint brush, mixes it until the paper disintegrates! We practiced several times with her hand prints but AA thought wiggling her fingers made it much better!

After drying, popped it in a frame and presto, a great gift for Daddy!

Thanks Sarah for the idea!

We enjoyed another treat for DH's birthday.... celebrating seemed to come easy this month and this impromptu extra treat was sweet!! Carrot cake cupcakes (store bought) and vanilla ice cream. A very RARE treat in this house!!

BTW, AA has graduated to regular teaspoons for eating. No more baby spoons for her!!

LID Anniversary Video

Do you remember all the LID Anniversaries we (you) celebrated or tried to ignore? I remember every 27th of the month. Each month. Each UP and each down during the WAIT. We were grateful that our WAIT was less than three years.

I just visited Two Brothers Waiting For A Sister and boy, get ready to tear up! They have such a long WAIT yet they are finding joy and a ton of love in each step of the journey.

You really need to take just a little time and go watch this video. It's only two minutes long.
Share some love with them and before leaving, help lift and sustain their spirits by leaving a kind word.

Family Visits

As part of celebrating DH's birthday last week, we went to lunch with both oldest kids and AA, the two grands and cousin Gloria. I didn't get a group picture as the little ones were running around too much.
I did get a few of eldest grand-Kilee when we went back to cousin's condo.

Kilee and AA playing and being goofy!


DH with cousin......

Three pictures of our oldest grand.......

Hiding under a chair.......

Being coy and elusive....

The Last of the Halloween Candy.....

I hope you can endure more photos of AA (need I even ask?).
She knows she has some Halloween candy and we let her have one piece per day. Last weekend, I tried to bribe her with a large Halloween lollipop given to her by Aunt Mia...... Bribe meaning in exchange for some pictures....... a real photo shoot. Well, AA tried and we have a few keepers. I think this must be the 1000th+ photo we have taken of AA..... bear with us! :)



Thank you Aunt Mia!

Low Rider....

AA and I found this great deal on Craigslist a couple of months ago.

Once home, we moved the seat as far forward as it would go and though her feet barely touched the pedals, AA gave it her best scooting around the house.
Fast forward to today (and prior post) and as the video shows, AA enjoys her Low Rider :) With the cooler weather, we often take a "ride" in the morning and another in the afternoon following her nap.

However, the BEST time to take a ride, is when Mama's home...Life is good.
peace
fm

Baby Shower

Not for us! (we are way beyond having another..... you really weren't thinking... you do remember our ages..... AA was/is our last!).

DD is due in December and two family members and friends teamed up to host two baby showers. The first one was this past Saturday.

DD with host Sharon and Nicole (Nicole is taking the picture).

Had to have one picture in this post of grand-Livi.... she is talking up a storm and very aware of being a good socialite! She was so cute in her frilly tutu and is so tall and lanky, she seems to glide wherever she goes!
This picture isn't the best, I didn't seem to be on my best paparazzi patrol.......

Group photo.... over 20 of us there. Great location, good food and a great job by the hostesses.

You can see peeks of the ocean in these pictures, I should have taken a picture of the oceanfront view. It was great!

Happy Birthday! To My Love

We haven't made a big deal over DH's birthday in several years. I think we both just want them to stop coming (will we not age anymore?). Not since his fun in Key West when he turned the BIG 50 (before we ever began blogging).
Last year his birthday got lost in all the traveling and adjusting to our first month with AA.

Each year does seem to come faster; each year we want to celebrate.... just need to come up with that next theme party that will get us all excited again. He tells me no big party until he turns 62! I guess we will have to wait.....

Happy Birthday my love!

Speak Native?

Growing up I never gave much thought, if any, to what nationality my friend’s last names were linked. In fact, I can’t recall when it dawned on me that last names indicated a connection to a world beyond my 30-mile radius of comprehension. Looking back, I was rubbing shoulders with the Germans, Polish, Irish, Italians, English. A virtual vegetable soup of names and countries if you will, with a definite Euro tilt.

No Spanish. No Black. What’s up with that…?

What I do remember is not one of my friends speaking anything but English.

I knew Wilfred spoke a bit of German but I marked that down to his mother speaking a bit of English and I was pretty sure my friend John knew some Italian because his dad was named Enzo and had this neat cadence to the way he spoke.

It was years before I knew the Irish had a language of their own. I mean seriously, when was the last time you heard Gaelic and no, listening to Rick Steves travel adventures on PBS does not count. I don’t think my Grandma Murphy spoke Gaelic and no, her speaking in tongues at church didn’t count either.

We led a sheltered life. These things happen…

So why is it that my friends did not speak the native tongue of their family heritage? So many reasons come to mind. Way more.

We all looked alike and none of us were born in the “motherland”, making it far easier and decidedly more desirable for our parents to have us blend in and conform to one another. There was not, as best I could tell, any perceived need or consuming desire to connect us kids to anything cultural other than American. Again, it’s not like the bunch of us just got off the boat. My great, great, great, etc, etc….Grandfather Theophilus swam ashore in North Carolina sometime in the 1700’s. He most likely spoke English. My guess is that's all he spoke.

Today it is not just considered fashionable to speak a second language but advantageous. If anything, parents crave the potential rewards that come with their children able to speak a second or third language. Can you think of any future benefits derived from having an English-speaking child of today being able to speak Spanish or Chinese? Now flashback to the 50’s, how many parents enrolled their kids to learn Russian? There was considerable concern about all of us speaking Russian; just not by choice. Ah, memories of backyard fallout shelters, hiding under school desks.

Sort of gives you a different take on the whole Ward Cleaver thing...

So AA has joined the American melting pot. While the melting pot is still largely viewed as a mostly European stock recipe, a lot of new “seasonings” continue to be added. The reason Alyzabeth draws stares is not only because mom and dad look different than the kid or because she is so incredibly cute but also because she is still a novelty in many parts of the country. AA doesn’t fit the norm. She doesn’t have the Euro or African-American look. She’s seasoning to a melting pot that in truth has always existed if not always accepted, not always acknowledged.

Ahhh, ye old family recipe, we just keep adding a smidgen of this and a pinch of that. Welsh, Irish, English, Native American, Chinese, etc, etc...

Seasoning, the paint brush in a master chef's hand... Bon Appetite!

peace

fm

Watching my All Time Favorite.....

My favorite NASCAR driver "was" Ricky Craven. Since he isn't racing, we selected some drivers from Missouri to follow (McMurray and Edwards). Ricky has been writing as a Sports columnist on Yahoo for a couple of years now but I had really fallen off even looking for him in the NASCAR news for well over a year.
NASCAR Now was on our ESPN2 channel and all of a sudden, DH is yelling at me (I was playing with AA) that Ricky is on TV. There he was, one of the sports analysts. Yep, he's been there quite awhile. How did I miss that? Ricky's Home is on ESPN2!
And here is just two of many comments that really support and flatter the team with Ricky:

Ricky Craven, Ray Evernham and Randy LaJoie will be making conversation and talking NASCAR. These three are absolutely the best combination on this Monday hour. Chemistry is tough to find on a three man TV panel, but this group is just great to watch.
Evernham is especially powerful on this show, offering a crew chief point of view that fits quite well with Craven's sophisticated perspective as a former driver.

Here's Ricky's first big wreck.... in the #41 (yes, flying through the air); funny, later he drove the Tide car (#32) to two Winston/Sprint Cup race wins....

Well, now that I know, you know where I will be whenever NASCAR Now is on TV!

Baking with AA

I love this time of year as the weather cools down, the holidays are coming, fresh apples have arrived (they don't grow in our southern climate) and I gear up for baking. Love the smells of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger along with sage, rosemary and thyme.
I took advantage of one of my favorite fruits, fresh cranberries and added them to a traditional apple crisp thanks to a recipe from Emeril.
Too bad we didn't have any whipped cream or vanilla ice cream!!

AA has mastered stirring....

The best apple peeler - gift from friends Larry and Charlotte; we get the most use out of if every fall.
The recipe from the the magazine Everyday FOOD October issue, pg.38, Kick it up with Emeril.
This is our favorite food magazine, very easy recipes, lots of ideas, down to earth.

Peeling the apples......

AA was thrilled with the peeler; seemed each apple was a new experience!


The fruit is in the dish, need to add the crisp topping......


Ready for the oven.......


It was yummy!!!!

Church Festival

Our little church has a fall festival at the end of the stewardship campaign. We missed it last year due to being on the road to visit family after returning from China.
We didn't take very many pictures and I couldn't get an in focus picture while AA was in the bouncy house (with her Daddy!). How do you take pictures while there is so much motion up close? I did not succeed!

Daddy being funny while visiting.......

Good friend Pam watching AA while she played........

The bouncy house. And why is everyone following the "Sheriff"?

AA bouncing..... I was on the outside and most pictures were out of focus and looked like she was in jail!


AA always has to slide wherever there is one....., our church playground is no different!
The weather was nice, about 70 degrees when we were taking these pictures and AA said she was cold... Oh oh... we have a true Floridian.... no thick blood in her!!

School Time

I think we have mentioned that we enrolled AA in a two days a week preschool class at the local church in mid-August. It was mainly so she would be around other children and due to her behavior with other children, we thought we would be in for a two or three week "adjustment" period. She adjusted the very first day. She really loves her teacher, Mrs. Amanda.

I am still puzzled at why AA is so shy around most people even those she has known for the past year but at this school, from the first day, has acted secure and relaxed and "normal". If you know AA, she is not a social child, will not tolerate being out of our sight (we understand all the issues she is having/could be having so please don't go there with us).
I am baffled that she looks forward to this gathering of children, yet at all other play groups she is her usual self, withdrawn, shy, meltdown possibilities.
Enough about that, she continues to make so much progress with her English and all the "home schooling" we have done to bring her to what is expected of a three year old. She is happy, joyful, plays hard and you should see her run now! We are so pleased and she knows it with all the praising she gets from us!

Here's two pictures of her playing a game at school (yes, Daddy is a school volunteer and played the games with each class).
I have a story to tell someday about how I thought AA was a lefty, but she has used her right hand ever since being home from China, she eats with her right and picks up pencils and crayons with her right. So, I was very surprised to see these two photos of AA throwing with her left! Maybe a switch hitter in the future?


Informal class picture. DH took several pictures but AA kept pulling her shirt up... what's up with that? Finally, this is the only one with shirt in place!

Do you mind if I say this over and over.... she's growing up too fast, my little baby is a little girl.... She is a little person now! (the tears begin....).