Merry Christmas and Happy 2 Years

So I am obviously a little behind here. We have just been having too much fun to find the time to edit pictures and then actually type something out. Let me do a recap of the past week starting off by saying that Lucy is finally 100% well and Annie and I escaped getting even a little ill. YEAH!!! Lucy was fine a few days before Christmas and I have never been so relieved to have her back to her normal self. That was one rough week for my sweet girl.

We started out in OK with Justin's side of the family. Lucy and Austen got so much cool stuff - golf clubs, keyboards, dance cams, Little People sets, etc. Lots and lots of goodies. Annie and Jaksen raked in some great toys also, but Lucy did the honors of opening pretty much everything for the little bitties. Nana and Grandy really went above and beyond in the gift department and the kids were in heaven. Cayce had several fun Christmas activities for Lucy and Austen to do and I was so happy about that because Lucy missed out on all of her fun Christmas things we had planned when we were home. They made Christmas sugar cookies and Christmas placemats. These kinds of things are right up Lucy's alley.

Late Christmas Eve we left OK to head to my parent's house. We have done all of our driving during the girls' bedtime. It has worked out great so far. Annie has slept the entire time and Lucy has slept and watched some movies. We were kind of late getting up Christmas morning because the girls were up so late. Lucy was still kind of asleep when she came down and found her Santa presents. She just sat in Justin's lap and checked everything out. She was definitely happy with what Santa brought her - an ironing board and iron, cash register, broom set, mailbox, etc. Lucy and John played in the toys for a while and we all ate breakfast. Then it was time for all of the presents from this side of the family. Again, a zillion things for all of the kids. It was crazy. Lots of great books, puzzles, dolls, a Barbie laptop, a scooter, and dress up shoes. Lucy just adores opening presents, so she has loved all of this activity.

We have just been playing and having a lot of fun with our families. Lucy has once again, been VERY slow to open up to her cousin, John, but starting yesterday we are seeing some improvement. Annie is the center of attention all of the time and she has just loved it. She is so easy going and relaxed now. Still having sleep issues, but I know that will get better with time. She is such a joy to have around and everyone cannot get enough of her.

I have become 100% obsessed with Rock Band. Seriously, I love it. We all kind of do, except for my mom. Of course Justin rocks out on the drums at expert level and can nail it, but the rest of us are improving. I prefer either the guitar or bass, but I am not scared to belt out the vocals. Let's just say I have no chance at a career as a vocalist! :) It is so much fun and we are all not getting nearly enough sleep because we are staying up late and playing.

Finally and most importantly, yesterday was our 2 year anniversary of Lucy's Giving and Receiving Ceremony in Vietnam. 2 years since the queen of the house moved in. Unbelievable. Life would not be anywhere near as fun without her with us everyday. Lucy, you are funny, intelligent, a great big sister, and our baby girl. We love you so much. You are such a blessing.

I am going to have to break the pictures down into several different posts. I will start with the ones from OK and keep catching up over the next few days. I hope you all had a lovely holiday season filled with love and laughter.

Getting started on the Christmas cookies.




Everyone should try the icing to make sure it is okay. :)






Annie and Jaksen - they are basically the exact same size even though there are almost 5 months between them.


Opening one present the night before - precious jammies and a movie from Nana and Grandy.


Present opening professional.

Baby Steps

Lucy is very very slowly getting better. Her fever is gone and has been for a day and a half now. I am very pleased about that. She is still pitiful. Today was the first time I have seen her walk in days. She was all stumbly because she has literally eaten nothing since Monday night. Since Monday, all that she has eaten is 5 bites of TCBY yogurt, half of an ice cream pop, and I force fed her 5 bites of regular yogurt this morning. That is it until she did eat a push up tonight. I would let her eat anything at this point. For Lucy to turn down ice cream or any kind of sweet, she most be deathly ill. She turned down those things for days. Until today, she has basically been asleep for three days. She was sleeping between 19 and 20 hours a day. The time that she was awake she was miserable. It was really lucky that she slept so much because she obviously needed it to get well and she wasn't so miserable in her sleep. One night she went to bed for the night at 4 pm and woke up at 8 the next morning. That was after a 4 hour nap in the day. Then last night she slept from 6 pm to 8:30 am. Unbelievable to me. She has been more awake today but still went to bed around 6:15 and took a long nap in the afternoon. This has been the first sickness that Lucy has ever had that actually really scared me. I have never seen her like this before, not even close actually.

Both girls completely lost it in the bath tub tonight. It was awful. Lucy had to have a bath because the push up was all over her. Annie needs a bath every day because she spits up and Justin and I hate that smell. They both screamed bloody murder for the entire bath. I had them bathed, out, lotion and redressed in record time. Lucy went straight to bed from there. Annie and I read books to her and then sang her songs and she was out by 6:30. Annie goes to bed at 7 so I am getting a nice break in the evenings. It would be really nice if Annie would not wake up for her dumb paci over and over. She had a good night last night, so hopefully I will be so lucky again tonight.

Thanks for all of the prayers and kind comments! Here is proof of how pitiful Lucy has been. This is from this afternoon and yes, she is still wearing her Halloween pjs because they fit so well.

Just Hanging On

Lucy is so so sick and she has been since Sunday. She has a high fever, horrible cough, congestion, etc. She is miserable. I have never seen her like this. She slept almost all day today. We have been to the doctor and started an antibiotic in case it is a severe sinus infection, but I am scared she has the flu. I am REALLY scared we are all going to have it next week while we are supposed to be with family for Christmas. Justin or I have held Lucy all day the past few days. She just wimpers all day. She has no appetite but she is drinking water and juice. Please say a prayer for her healing. She really feels awful.

We are all EXHAUSTED. Annie is having a terrible time sleeping at night and Lucy is up several times as well because of big coughing fits. So between the two girls up and down all night, I feel like I am sleep walking through life at the moment. We never get more than a 45 minute stretch of sleep before one of them is up again.

I am so sad for Lucy because she missed her school Christmas party today and her playgroup is decorating Christmas cookies tomorrow. She would have loved both of these things, but she can barely lift her head up. I also planned on taking the girls to Santa this week, but there is no way at the rate we are going. Again, please pray for her to get better and for the rest of us to stay well so that we can care for her.

No pictures because I have had at least one girl in my arms non stop since Saturday. There is no way I could have taken any pictures and trust me, Lucy looks as pitiful as she feels. I got Lucy's school pictures today and I can't wait to post them. They are too cute.

Personalities

I know, terrible blogger. As I said on Annie's blog, I am trying to figure out how to balance 2 babies now and make sure that everyone gets the attention that they need. It is a work in progress, but we are definitely getting there. I have been most concerned about bath and bedtime when I am here alone, but we successfully did both last night, so I know we can do it! Justin is back so I won't have to worry about that for a while. It is so much easier when there are two people, especially at bath time.

Lucy and Annie have the complete opposite personalities, and I just love it. It is so fun to notice all of the differences and what I love so much about both. As I have said many times and those who have met her know, Lucy is a pretty serious child around strangers. She would literally never smile at a stranger and would never go to a stranger. She has always been like this. It took a long time once we were home with her for her to be comfortable going to anyone other than me or Justin. She is head over heels in love with all of her grandparents now, but Nana and Lee Lee hold the most special place in her heart. She is finally comfortable with my sisters and Justin's sister. She loves Mandy and Christy in special ways, but that is pretty much it for her. She likes several of her little friend's moms, but is still very hesitant around them. She has to see someone LOTS of times and in a comfortable setting before she will start to open up to a specific person. She will play and have fun out of the house around other people, but it takes her a while and I have to always be right by her side in order for her to feel safe. You have to earn Lucy's trust, but once you are in, you will always be in. People feel very very special when Lucy opens up to them and it makes me smile. I like that she is reserved around people she doesn't know. She would never run off in a store, walk off with someone she didn't know, etc. She is very cautious. Unfortunately, sometimes her little personality comes off in a "snooty" kind of way, but it is not that she is snooty, she just needs her time and space. This was hard for the Vietnamese to understand when we were just there since they are so hands on. She hated when they all wanted to touch her and hold her. It made her very uncomfortable and they just didn't get that. Most of the time when they would touch her arm, she would shrug away and wipe her arm where they touched. It is funny to me, but comes across quite rudely to others. I don't know where she would even pick something like that up. I think it is just a natural reaction for her. She is my intelligent, quiet, reserved, non-touchy, cautious little girl and I love her just the way she is. Again, this is only around strangers. She is always a studier and a thinker. She can focus on a detailed task for long periods of time. She is quite a different child when we are at home with just our family. She is a nonstop talker, full of laughter, busy body at our house.

Annie is really starting to show her personality to us. She is going to be our super friendly, easy going, always smiling child. I am sure we will have to keep a close eye on her because she just loves people and wants to smile and coo at everyone. All someone has to do is look at her and grin and she lights up. She will smile at everyone, which is obviously so different from Lucy. She is very calm now and is happy on the floor with one or two toys, which allows me to actually get some stuff done around our house. I really am enjoying seeing her personality come through and can't wait to see more. But from the part we know now, I know that her disposition is quite different from Lucy. It is so obvious already. I am really thankful to have two such different girls. It should be fun and I think that they will balance one another out.

I have been terrible about taking pictures lately. I promise to get better soon. This is all I have for today and these are not good pictures at all. She got to go to another birthday party with a pony and she was once again, in heaven. She rode so many times. Her daddy really needs to get her a pony for Christmas. Maybe next year, right honey?

This one is actually from Vietnam. It is blurry, but still cute to me.


Lee Lee walked next to her on the pony. Lee Lee was so scared Lucy was going to fall off of that pony.

The Big Sister

In case you haven't had time to read up on Annie's blog, I want to say that Lucy has transitioned into her role as the big sister as smoothly as could have ever happened. She has done awesome. I know that it won't always be this smooth because today she did start claiming toys as hers and only hers, but really, Justin and I have been so proud of her. She is very loving towards Annie, she does not get upset about me having to hold Annie all of the time, etc. She just rocks!

Lucy started back to school this week and she has seemed to be pretty happy to see her friends and teachers again. Things have been so busy around here, but once we get settled back down, it will be nice for me to have that one on one time with Annie. Lucy has been really excited about all of the Christmas decorations being out and she has only broken one ornament. She has been *pretty* good about not touching the ornaments and only touching the special ones just for her, but sometimes curiosity just gets the best of her. Understandable. I will try and get Christmas pics up soon, but it really looks the exact same as last year.

Lucy got back on US time so quickly after our trip to Vietnam. She is right back on schedule, which has been so nice. I think she is really happy to have her own quiet place to sleep again without a screaming baby in the background the entire time! :) She is so happy to have all of her toys again and has been busy as a bee ever since we have gotten home.

It seems like Lucy has gone through a vocabulary explosion recently. She says things every day that just crack us up. She is understanding concepts much more now. The other day she was just talking away and I mentioned that if something happened it would not be good. I don't remember what we were talking about, but she responded with, "Well, we don't want that to happen momma." It just seemed like such a big statement. She seems HUGE now that Annie is here. Huge size wise but also just so grown up. She is definitely not my baby anymore, even though I always want her to be my baby. Every time we tell her we love her, she responds with, "I love you too, honey." Sweet girl.

Lucy Goose, we just love you more and more and you have amazed your dad and me with your maturity and loving heart. Thank you baby girl. You are such a wonderful sister and we can't wait to see all of the fun times you and Annie have together.

We're Back!!!

Want to know what we have been up to in the last 2 weeks?? Well, here you go. Click HERE. I took the password off of all of the posts. It has been a VERY long and hard 2 weeks, but we are recovering and making all kinds of progress. Happy Thanksgiving. I have an insane amount of things to be thankful for. I posted everyday of our adventure, so if you are interested, you can really get the full story. I look forward to posting everything on this blog again.

A Little Break

This blog is going to be a little quiet for a while. Don't worry, I will be back to this blog soon and everyone will know what is going on. Give me about 2 weeks. I got really concerned about making a password protected blog and giving the password out to 240+ people. So I only gave the password to people who I feel like I know. Please don't be offended or upset with me. It just got to be too much and kind of defeated the purpose of going private for a bit. Our family is growing. I made that pretty clear. It is just the how that is up in the air still! See you all in a few weeks. I look forward to posting to this blog again.

Happy Halloween!

I sure do hope that everyone has an awesome Halloween today and tonight! Lucy kind of got screwed this year and she is wearing her flamingo costume from last year. It is so cute and she didn't do any trick or treating in it last year, so really no one saw it. I will post pictures of that tomorrow. She practiced the idea of trick or treating last night and as soon as she saw the candy, she got it. Trust me, this girl is going to be beside herself when she realizes that all of our neighbors have candy for her. Here are some pictures from her test run of trick or treating. By the way, PLEASE go HERE and leave a comment saying that you think that the pink flamingo named Lucy should win!! Consider this a little hint as to what my secret news may be. Subtle, huh? Anyway, here is the flamingo in all her glory. Now, go vote for us!!




About the new blog and password, again, don't worry, I still haven't sent out the address or password. I am waiting a bit longer. Shouldn't be too long though. I have LOVED some of the guesses as to our surprise. I wish that it was that we won the lottery! I got a good laugh over the reality show or Lucy being in a movie guesses. Just so you know, years ago I did try out for Amazing Race with my friend Liz. I am still shocked that we didn't get chosen. Our video was awesome. Whatever, their loss.

I got some really adorable pictures of Lucy today. She has always loved playing in my shoes. I have written before how she is more than capable of getting on a pair of my super high heels, clunk around in them, bring them back to the closet, and change into a new pair - all with no assistance. Today I got some pictures of her playing. Have you seen the pictures Brad Pitt took of Angelina in W? My favorite is the one of Angelina and Zahara both in heels. Such a precious picture.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.





No one said getting up in these things was easy....





And these are from this morning at the park. I just love this first one.

Um, Wow.

Okay, so I am a little overwhelmed by the requests for the password. I am not positive about how to handle it all. Don't worry, I have not sent it to anyone yet. In fact, I don't even have a second blog started yet. My plan is to get it up with at least one post this week. I can make no promises, but those are my intentions. So, hopefully I can get the password out this week sometime. But for a little fun while I procrastinate getting the site up, what is your guess about my big news? I am interested in hearing and bet that I know what most of you will say. My guess is that most of you are wrong!! So, that mixes things up a bit, huh? If you know my news, zip it up. It will be out of the bag soon enough, password or no password.

I am feeling overwhelmed in many aspects of my life at the moment. It will all calm down, but in the meantime, I am just feeling stressed out. I am not sleeping well again. I feel like there are not enough hours in the day, but then I find myself not getting the things done that need to be done when I have the time. Do you know the feeling? I look back on a lot of my days and think of what I SHOULD have done. Get it together, Kelly!

One of the exciting things going on that is not a secret is that I am going to really pursue getting into the photography business. I still lack the confidence to really say that I am going to do this, but I am getting better. I find that I am normally embarrassed to say that I am doing this because I just don't think that I am there yet. I still have so much to learn and figure out. It is definitely a learning process. Some day I hope to be really, really good. But I have to start somewhere, so I am getting the courage to take the next step. I have a bunch of friends with kids here, so I have summoned them to be my guinea pigs and luckily, they are all more than thrilled to aid in my learning of how to work with other people's kids instead of only my beautiful little subject. I have worked with two of the families so far and both sessions have gone so well. I am just so excited to get into this and think that it would be the most amazing job - I love taking pictures and can work my own schedule. Lucy will normally be able to be home with Justin when I would be out working, so her little life will not really be affected, which is VERY important to me. But, I need your help. Can anyone think of a good name for my business? My goal is to capture natural, fun photos where the child or family's personality really shines through. I want to photograph what feels like a normal day for the child. So, going on that, any name suggestions? I like A Day in the Life (sticking with the Beatles theme here). Justin likes this name as well. Thoughts? Here are a few of my favorite pictures of some of Lucy's adorable little friends. She really has the cutest little friends, so my job is fairly easy. I have more sessions coming up, so stay tuned to hear more about this. But don't forget to give name suggestions.

I really love this picture. I love the light in her eyes and the sweet, precious look on her face. I am really proud of this one.



For some reason I really love this picture. The focus is on the baby, and sweet Hannah is just so joyful in the background. You can see that the baby would love for this to be over and Hannah is smiling so big at her momma and is clearly thinking, "Hey, I will smile all day for a few fruit snacks!" The girls did so well, but let me tell you, getting an almost 2 year old and a 2.5 month old in the same picture, looking natural is not any easy task. This is the kind of stuff that I will only learn with time.




And this is my favorite of Hannah. She kept asking me where Lucy was. Luckily, she was more than thrilled to just look at a few pictures of her that I had on my camera.


And from my very first session!! The first one is definitely my favorite. I just love it.







I don't even have any new pictures of Lucy Goose. Sorry grandparents!!

Princess Party

*Be sure and read the last paragraph if you normally just skim or look at pictures because there is some important stuff there*

Lucy attended Princess Anna's birthday party this past weekend. It was so cute. The girls were to come dressed in princess garb. I just kind of assumed that Lucy would not be that interested in dressing up because she is not that into it. She has started to like it a lot more, but she only dresses up when it is 100% her idea. However, she got really into it when I asked her if she wanted to dress up for Anna's party. She wore 2 pink skirts, fairy wings, a tiara, and of course, her high heels. Anna looked so adorable. I am going to give props to Mandy for making such a cute outfit for her. She just loved being a princess.

Lucy is always really shy/clingy to me at birthday parties. However, once the cake comes out, she is not shy anymore and even when she is done with the cake, then she is fine. She was very hesitant to jump in the bounce house before the cake, but afterwards she would go right in on her own and bounced away. I seriously believe that she is so concerned at birthday parties that she may somehow miss out on the cake that she can't relax until she knows she gets her piece. I am not kidding. My girl loves her some cake. So does her momma! Oh yeah, and we were trying to bride Lucy, Anna, and Maile (all adopted from VN) to sit in the grass to take a picture of them together. It was hilarious because they did sit next to each other, but all three just scowled their biggest scowls. Mandy and I had to keep telling Lucy and Anna that they could have cake when everybody got there. Once we gave up on the picture, Lucy jumped in my arms and said, "Everybody here momma." She was ready for that cake.

Remember how I have said that Lucy just loves Anna's brother, Louis? Well, she had kind of been giving him the cold shoulder lately but fell back in love with him at the party. She would follow him around and whenever she couldn't see him, she would turn to me and say, "Where Louis momma?" He is so good with her, so luckily he didn't seem to mind. Speaking of boys, I got an interesting report when I picked Lucy up from school today. Her teachers told me that she had her best day yet. They have told me that she stays very quiet at school, but apparently today she totally opened up and decided it was okay to talk at school. They said she was so active and just chattering away. And she also decided that one little boy was her special friend. They held hands when they walked to their activities and her teachers said they saw her kiss him!!!!!! For anyone who knows Lucy, you know that this is a HUGE deal. I try and get her to hug or kiss her cousins or friends all of the time and she rarely does. However, apparently some boy in class is quite worthy. I got the biggest kick out of that.

*I am about to start a second, private blog. I have some really exciting stuff that I want to share, but I am not ready to share it on this blog just yet. The information will eventually make it to this blog, just not yet. If you want the new website and password, you need to do two things. Leave a comment here with your blog address and email address TYPED out in the comment. I get comments from people all of the time that I can never see their blog because it doesn't show up in their profile or they use a different service or whatever. For those of you that I don't know personally or really well through blogland, you will most likely have to have a blog to get this information. If you are not comfortable with sharing your email address AND blog address in the comments, you will have to wait until the news makes it to this blog, which will be a month or so. I need to have some way of tracking who is reading. Thanks for wanting to follow along and understanding my need for privacy in some aspects of our life!*

Here are pictures from Anna's party. Enjoy the crazy cuteness.

I have to get this for Lucy for Christmas. She loved Anna's camera. The girls almost went to war over the thing.

The birthday girl taking a quick rest in the bounce house.

This is what I am talking about when I said that the girls didn't want their picture taken.

Right before the cake came out. The girls decided that they were in fact happy since it was cake time.

I absolutely love this picture of Anna and Maile


Lucy was about to eat her hand as she waited patiently for Anna to blow out the candles.

And then Lucy got a little impatient. Notice how Anna is trying to block her from getting in there!



I think this is my favorite picture from the day.


2 cupcakes anyone?