I Got the Bug

Lucy was kind enough to share her stomach bug with me. Last night when she was eating dinner, I started to feel yucky. I managed to get her bathed and to bed (with no bottle - we are on day 2 of being bottle free and she has refused to drink a single sip of milk even though she really wants it - I think she will give in to milk in the sippy cup eventually, but not just yet). By this point I was really not feeling well and I knew what was coming. I was sick all night long. Really not fun. I feel like I have been run over by a truck. Lucy has been so easy today though, so that has been very nice. We are having a very lazy day. In honor of my complain free goal, here is what I am so thankful for: 1) That Lucy was not nearly as sick as I was with this bug, 2) That I was sick in the night while she was sleeping and not trying to keep up with her while feeling like that, 3) that she has been so sweet and easy today because I am totally exhausted and weak, and 4) that I have great neighbors and friends who have offered to take care of Lucy if I need them to. Of course, Justin was gone when this happened, so I have been on my own. I can't wait to feel normal again.

I thought I would note how this blog has been jumping with visitors lately. I get lots of international hits from countries like Canada, United Kingdom, Malta, Phillipines, Spain, Vietnam, South Korea, Netherlands, Belgium, Argentina, Mexico, France, Qatar, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Cyprus, Switzerland, and Portugal. Pretty crazy, huh? I would love to hear from those of you who read that I don't know. I have been averaging around 300 hits a day since I have started writing more.

Also, I have been tagged a few times. Sorry I am just now getting around to this. I really think I am the last person in the VN adoption community to do this.

4 jobs I’ve had:
1. Clerk in a pharmacy - high school
2. Waitress/Bartender - college
3. Financial Planner - this is what I majored in and I HATED it
4. Office Manager for a Financial Planner

movies watched over and over:
1. Notting Hill
2. Pretty Woman
3. Love Actually
4. Old School

4 places I’ve lived:
1. Little Rock, AR
2. Fayetteville, AR
3. Austin, TX
4. Dallas, TX


4 shows I watch:
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Project Runway
3. America's Next Top Model
4. Biggest Loser

4 places I’ve been:
1. Vietnam - Danang, HCMC, and Hanoi
2. Paris
3. London
4. Zurich

4 people who e-mail me regularly:
1. Sisters
2. Chatroom
3. Mom
4. Dad

4 favorite things to eat:
1. Sushi
2. Mexican food
3. Spring Rolls
4. My mom's Chicken Noodles

4 places I’d rather be:
1. the beach in St. Maarten
2. Under the covers since it is cold
3. the park with Lucy
4. Disney World - I can't wait to see Lucy's reaction

4 things I look forward to this year:
1. Becoming a better mom and person
2. Learning to cook more
3. Watching Lucy continue to grow and learn
4. the arrival of several pregnant friends' babies

I am not going to tag anyone else because I really think that everyone has done this. If you haven't and you want to, I tag you!

18 Months Old

Tomorrow our little pumpkin is 18 months old. I can't believe it. She is such a big girl these days. Not only does she look so much older, but she acts so big. I am going to give an update on her accomplishments, but first I would like to ask everyone to say a little prayer for Lucy - she is fighting what the doctor thinks is a viral bug. She has been sick out of both ends since last night. She is clearly uncomfortable and it is so sad. This is the first time in the 13 months we have had her that she has run a fever. (Well, she runs a fever with vaccines, but they never seem to bother her) She is a totally different child with fever. She wants to cuddle nonstop and is very lethargic. She has kept her head on my shoulder for a large part of the day, which is just unlike her since she is such a busy child. When the fever reducer is working, she feels pretty good. We were so lucky because she had an 18 month check up already on the schedule for this morning, so she has been checked out by the doctor who thinks it is just a little bug. She is currently in our bed watching TV with us because she can't get comfy in her bed. I actually love the cuddle time I have gotten today. It is such a treat.

Okay, so what is the girl up to these days. As far as talking goes, she can imitate about half of the words that we ask her to say. She can say all of her aunts' names and all 3 of her boy cousins' names. She can say all of her granparents' names, except for Grandy - which she tries to say but it isn't clear just yet. She can say three phrases with words linked together - Hi ____, Bye____, and Yeah, I do. If you ask her if she wants something and she really does want it, she will reply with a big Yeah, I do!! It is hilarious. When you ask her want she wants to eat, she puts her finger by her mouth and says, "Ummmmmmmmm". Again, it is so funny. Whenever she sees Swiper on Dora the Explorer she shouts, "Oh man!" in the funny little voice that Swiper says it in every episode. We about fell over the first time she did it. She has a large vocabulary. She can understand pretty much anything that we say to her and can follow most directions, even multiple step directions. We think she is VERY smart!

Physically, her stats at 18 months are 21 lbs 3 oz (below 10th percentile) and 33 inches long (90th percentile). This is her biggest weight gain so far. In three months, she has gained almost a pound and a half. More impressively, she has grown 2 whole inches in 3 months. That is really unbelievable to me. I knew she had grown for a lot - you can tell in the length of her pants. Due to length, she needs size 18-24 month pants, but I have to be able to cinch the waist up tight. She wears mostly 12-18 month clothes, but they are getting small because the arms are starting to get short. She is hard to dress a lot of the time because she is tiny, but so long. I can't wait for spring and summer when we can go back to dresses every day.

Her fine motor skills are really improving. She can hold a pencil or crayon correctly. She is definitely right handed, but will color with both hands. She wants to use a spoon and feed herself all of the time. It is really messy, but she is getting better each day. She continues to be a real challenge with meal times. She just doesn't like to eat. She really does not have time for it. Her favorite is still fruit. I haven't found a fruit she won't eat. She is not a fan of meat. She will occasionally eat chicken, but most of the time she just plays with it. She does love waffles and pancakes with a dab of syrup to dip it in. I stress more over her diet than anything else. I just worry about her getting the proper nutrition.

She is a pretty good sleeper. She often wakes up once in the night, but goes right back down. She goes to bed between 7-7:30 and the whole process is so easy now. Getting her to bed used to be pretty exhausting. It was a long process and you could not leave the room until she was dead asleep. Now, she drinks her milk and lays straight down and we can leave the room. It takes all of 5 minutes and it is awesome. She almost always sleeps 12-13 hours a night. Tonight was her very last bottle EVER! We have decided to give it up at 18 months. The only reason it was not gone before is because she refuses milk out of a sippy cup and I know how badly she needs the milk calories and nutrition. I think she will change her mind after a couple of days and start drinking it again. I am scared she is going to get cavities from the milk before bed, so we are going to start a new routine of milk in a sippy during books, brush teeth, and then to bed. Wish us luck!

She knows her body parts, knows most animal sounds, and can point out what you ask her to in books. She is a little sponge and absorbs everything. Her doctor said today that she is right on track and ahead in all of her development. We are so proud of each new accomplishment that she has. I say this all of the time, but it is really amazing to watch a toddler learn. She is smart in getting what she wants - Justin calls her the boss of our household, and he is right. She is full of attitude, spirit, love, and happiness all wrapped into one adorable little person. She has the all time cutest giggle which was just documented tonight in the video below - keep in mind she is "sick." She just got her second wind I guess and is feeling significantly better.

Enjoy the pictures and videos. I know the video is dark, but you can hear and that is what really matters. So many smiles! Happy 1.5 baby girl!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Weekly Goal #3 and Weekend Trip

Sorry I have been MIA. Justin, Lucy, and I spent a long weekend in Angel Fire, New Mexico. Lucy and I went with Justin for work. It was a nice weekend, but we are all glad to be home. A ski resort is a little difficult with a young child. After a while, we felt a little cooped up and I did not have internet access - this is really hard for me. Lucy was an ideal traveller. She really was amazing. She slept in bed with us and did great. She adjusted to the one hour time change with no trouble. She never fussed on the flights or the 3 hour drive to the resort. She started to get a little upset on the drive back to the airport today but just ended up falling asleep. She was a little restless at dinner last night, but that could only be expected after all of the time we had spent in our hotel room. She is probably a better traveller than me - I know Justin would say so! I get stressed while travelling. I totally sweat the small stuff and miss all of the conveniences of being at home with your own things. I am not the kind of person who was called to travel the world. I must say, I am a little jealous of those who are called to do that. There is so much to see and enjoy in this world. I just prefer to see most of it in pictures. Weird, I know. Maybe in my attempt to find a new calm in my life, I will become a better traveller.

Justin works with Kristin's husband, Brett. They are waiting for travel approval. Brett kept telling me that he was going to crack Lucy - meaning he was going to win her over. She is still extremely reserved with strangers and does not interact with people she doesn't know well. I didn't think he was going to do it, but Saturday night Brett held Lucy for a very long time (I think his arms were finally going to give out on him because any child gets really heavy after 30 minutes) and he almost got her to sleep. He held her while the opening band played. It was really loud (she had in ear plugs) and he still almost had her to sleep. The only reason she didn't go to sleep on his shoulder is because every time a song ended, she had to cheer with the rest of the crowd. Kristin, Brett is going to be such a wonderful dad!! Lillian is one lucky girl.

Before I get to the pictures from the weekend, let's get to my goal of the week. Most weeks I am going to set a goal to improve my character and a goal that is a project. My project of the week is to get my favorite pictures from the past and recently, uploaded to my Flickr account. It takes a lot of time to sort through which ones I actually want to upload. My personal improvement goal is a SUPER ambitious one and is not going to be easy. I am going to fail at times, but now that I have said it out loud, I am going to be so much more accountable. My goal is to stop complaining. I have nothing to complain about, but yet I still whine about silly stuff. There are so many bazillions of people who have real things to complain about, and I am not one of those people. I am going to be more thankful and less ungrateful. So there it is. NO MORE COMPLAINING out of this mouth.

Here are pictures from the weekend. We did take Lucy tubing, which she loved!

Blankee Lovin Girl

I have written about this before, but I want to say that Lucy's love for her blankees grows stronger every day. She has two that she equally adores. They are the same blanket, just different colors. In case you want one of these magnificent blankets, HERE is the link. She has the Dot Velour Blanket under Classics. These are the softest, most loveable blankets I have ever found. We got the hot pink/orange when we were waiting for Lucy because it matched her room. The light pink one was a gift when we got home. Thank goodness we got that spare. She used to love the hot pink one more than the light pink one - that is not the case any more. She loves them equally. She sleeps with both of them and rubs on the satin edge. When she was throwing up a lot with the acid reflux, we had to hide one of them in case she got sick so we had a back up ready. I can't even imagine trying to put her to bed without one of them. She would flip out. They have to be washed seperately in case of an emergency where we needed one immediately. When one comes freshly out of the wash, she will snuggle it with such love. I thought I would share a few pics I got of her today actually playing with her blankets. She literally will play with them.

So cute - I know her ribs are really showing, but it is just the way she is laying. I think she has actually been putting on some chub lately. You can see in the other pics she is not so boney.






Goal update - tax organization - DONE!!!!!!! I feel so relieved. Seriously, I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am that I don't have to worry about this. Watching the camera dvd and reading the manual tomorrow. And Lucy has been back to her sweet little self this week. I have been totally calm with her. I seriously have not raised my voice once since Monday. It has been awesome. So, goals are going really well. I love having goals. Why didn't I do this earlier?

Weekly Goal #2 and ART

First things first. I actually have three goals this week that I have been thinking about a lot lately. Quite ambitious of me!

First and most important to me, choose my battles with Lucy more wisely and let the small stuff go. This is an ongoing goal for the rest of our lives. I have been talking with several very helpful and knowledgeable mommas lately about Lucy's "attitude." I think that I am letting it get to me more than I should. We are having a battle of the wills and I think I am actually making it worse by making a big deal about it. I feel like I end up telling her No a million times a day and then I wonder why she says no so much. She is going through normal 18 month old stuff. Most children go through a no and very vocal (in not a good way) stage. I am so used to my quiet, sweet Lucy and this new temperment has just caught me off guard. I am going to take the approach of ignoring her seemingly constant whining and shouting no and really praise her good behavior. She HATES to be ignored, so I think it will actually work and won't require Justin or me raising our voice. I am only going to use time out for very serious things - like hitting, which she doesn't do much. Time out is extremely effective with Lucy, and I don't want to lose that by over doing it. I am pretty sure that she is not actually a bratty child, she is just enjoying testing me at the moment. Thanks to all of my friends who have let me vent about this and have given me such great advice. I truly appreciate it. I don't know what I would do without such great friends.

Second goal, organize our tax deductions. I STRESS out in a major way about taxes every year. Our taxes are really complex and take a lot of time to get prepared for the accountant. We always have a million unorganized receipts all over the place. This year, I am not going to stress because we are going to tackle it this week. I am going to have everything ready to go to the accountant by the time all of the W-2s and 1099s get here in the mail. I will not work myself into a tizzy over taxes this year. WILL NOT DO IT! I am so excited to be so ready to go this year.

And my final goal, read the owner's manual of my camera and watch my Nikon dvd. I need to actually know what the buttons do in order to maximize my picture taking. I have literally never opened my owner's manual. I pulled the camera out of the box and just started shooting. I want to know more of the technical stuff.

And now, what I am just giddy with excitement about - I picked up all of our artwork from the framer that we bought in Vietnam. It is all back on stretchers and looks awesome. Here are all of our pieces. You can't see all of the detail, but they are each amazing and several have a lot of texture to them. They are all oil paintings done by artists in Ho Chi Minh City. If you are ever in Saigon, DO NOT MISS THE ART! It was such a pain in the butt to get all of this home, but it was so worth it. Which one is your favorite? I think my favorite is the red one with the Vietnamese girls and the Buddhist monks. I can't wait to get it in frames. Slowly but surely I will post pictures of the pieces in frames and actually hung on the wall!

Three small Van Goghs. These will likely go in our downstairs bathroom. They are very textured because the paint is very thick. These were $15 each!!!!!

Three men with no face (Thomas Crown Affair) paintings - all of the paintings this size were $35 - seriously, I feel like we stole this stuff

The detail on these is so amazing. The gold is very metallic and rich. I wish you could see it better. You kind of can in the up close one.


This is for Lucy's room. One of my favorites

This one is kind of hard to see, but it is elephants where their legs are kind of stilts. The color is amazing.

Working in the field. The grass is all textured.

This one is so cool - it is swans in a lake, but their reflection is elephants. Until the recently, I had only seen the elephants and never noticed the swans.

The Buddhist monks. My other favorite. I actually really love every single one of them.

Thoughts on Eat, Pray, Love

I finished Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert on Thursday evening. This is after starting it on Tuesday evening. When I got to Tuesday and had not started reading, I was a little worried that I wasn't going to complete my first ever weekly goal. As soon as I read about 25 pages, I knew that I would. I had this book in my hands A LOT for 2 days. Any chance I had, I was reading. I could not get enough of her stories and adventures. I kept a pen close by and highlighted the passages that seemed to make the most sense to me. Some of her words touched me deeply and I knew that they were ideas and thoughts that I would like to read many times over. For me personally, this is a book that needs to be read, allowed to process in your head for a while, and then read again. That is exactly what I plan on doing.

Here are some of the ideas or thoughts that I took away from the book. This is kind of a jumbled mess, but it highlights some of my favorite bits of the book. If you haven't read the book, I suggest you do. You won't ruin the book by reading my thoughts. Every person will come away with such different thoughts after reading it. I can see where some people wouldn't enjoy it that much. But I needed this book. I learned so much from her stories and insight. It made me think down deep about myself and changes that I need to make in my life. It was inspirational.

One of my initial thoughts was that I need to do yoga and learn to meditate. I need a way to give my brain a break. I would like to do yoga for the sense of serenity and calmness that it can bring, not as a part of my exercise plan. I will get much more out of the mental side of it. I love the idea of sweeping my mind clean for a bit of time each day and just letting it relax.

Here is how she defines Yoga on page 122: "Yoga is the effort to experience one's divinity personally and then to hold on to that experience forever. Yoga is about self-mastery and the dedicated effort to haul your attention away from your endless brooding over the past and your nonstop worrying about the future so that you can seek, instead, a place of eternal presence from which you may regard yourself and your surroundings with poise. Only from that point of even-mindedness will the true nature of the world (and yourself) be revealed to you." Sounds pretty good to me.

I think that through meditation, I can get closer to God. The author believes in Hinduism. I love her outlook on religion though. I agree with her in the idea that we don't all have to believe in the same ideas in order to get to heaven.  You don't have to have the same beliefs as her for this to make sense, you just need to have a belief that you truly believe in, in my opinion.  I am a Christian and I believe in my God. I want a better relationship with God and I think I can do this by setting some time aside for myself each day to focus only on Him and my prayers with Him. She says, "There's a reason they call God a presence-because God is right here, right now. In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time." Right now is the time for me to improve my relationship with God, not in a day or week or month, but right now.

For quite some time now, I have been waking up very early in the morning. Way before Lucy is awake. I end up staying in bed until she is awake because I feel like I need to be sleeping, but obviously I have gotten enough sleep or I wouldn't be awake and unable to fall back asleep. I think that maybe I am up at this time because God is telling me that it is the most quiet and peaceful time of the day and it would be the perfect opportunity to sit and focus on my faith - free of distractions. I am really going to start getting out of bed when I wake up, washing my face to wake up a little more, and then sit quietly and focus on God. It is going to take some practice and getting used to, but I am awake already, why not make the time beneficial to my mind and body?

I have, as I have addressed on this blog, a real issue with sleep. For years I have been inflicted with insomnia. I cannot seem to shake it. The acupuncture has really helped, but I still take medicine for it every single day. Before the acupuncture, the medicine was not even working. I don't want to be on prescription sleep aides for the rest of my life. I am over it. I want to be able to lay down in a bed, relax, and peacefully drift of to sleep. Honestly, I can't even imagine what that would be like without my medicine because it has been YEARS since I have been able to do this. I want to be able to take a power nap if I need one, but I can't. The reason why I have such a hard time with sleeping is because I literally cannot shut my mind off. I cannot stop these random and often times bizarre thoughts from racing through my brain. It is not usually thoughts of worry, just totally random and nonstop, rapid fire thoughts of all kinds of things.

The author wrote about how she lived with sleeping problems for several years. Hers was probably more related to depression, but she had a very hard time turning off her head just as I do. She could not let her mind rest. She says that "When I ask my mind to rest in stillness, it is astonishing how quickly it will turn (1) bored, (2) angry, (3) depressed, (4) anxious, or (5) all of the above." I could not agree with her more. It took her quite some time to figure out  how to quiet her mind so that she could meditate and sleep. She wrote about how her mind would race when she was trying to meditate or sleep. In one chapter (pages 134-136), she actually documents the weird thoughts that are going through her head that she is trying to stop but can't. These thoughts are similar to mine. They are random and unrelated and keep changing and blah blah blah. Her description felt like I had written it. She eventually learns how to calm this after a while, so that is my goal as well. To teach my head to chill. If I could get my brain to relax for just a moment, I could get some peaceful, restful sleep. This is why I REALLY need to learn yoga and meditation. I think I can kick the insomnia naturally with these two practices.

This is how she describes her mind on page 132 (and I often totally feel this way): "Like most humanoids, I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the 'monkey mind' - the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit, and howl. From the distant past to the unknowable future, my mind swings wildly through time, touching on dozens of ideas a minute, unharnessed and undisciplined. This in itself is not necessarily a problem; the problem is the emotional attachment that goes along with the thinking. Happy thoughts make me happy, but-whoop!-how quickly I swing again into obsessive worry, blowing the mood; and then it's all over again; and then it's the remembrance of an angry moment and I start to get hot and pissed off all over again and then my mind decides it might be a good time to start feeling sorry for itself, and loneliness follows promptly. You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions."

And finally, I want to talk about what the author was trying to find in her life. She was trying to find pleasure, holiness, and a balance of the two in order to live her life to the fullest. I think one of the biggest things I took away from the book was learning to be more content in my life. You are happier, laid back, and more relaxed when you are content. I have so much already. I am so blessed. But we live in a society where you can never have too much. Where you are always trying to out do someone or get more. When you chase this idea of always wanting more and more and more or having what the other guy has, you will never be content because what you have will never be enough. Some people are going to ALWAYS have way more than you, but there are also millions and millions of people who have way less. Don't try and live anyone else's life by trying to have what they have or act how they act. Live your life. Be content with your blessings and situation. I want to be more content. I have plenty, in fact, I have excess of almost everything. I don't constantly need more "stuff". This is easy to say, but hard to live. Heres to trying!

Here is a passage that reiterates this idea from page 95: "It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly." This makes so much sense. My life isn't going to be perfect, but neither is someone else's.

These are a few of my favorite quotes from the book. They just make so much sense to me.

From page 115: "You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight." For Elizabeth Gilbert, it was learning Italian. This made her soul happy. We all need to find something in life that gives us total happiness.  Everyone deserves happiness.

I love this about always chasing time - I always find myself saying how I am so behind and don't have time for things (page 155): "Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time-when pursued like a bandit-will behave like one, always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you. At some point you have to stop because it won't.  You have to admit that you can't catch it.  That you're not supposed to catch it.  At some point, you gotta let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you."  It is time to live in the present and stop focusing on the lack of time to do things.

Her thoughts on praying on page 177:  "Prayer is a relationship; half the job is mine.  If I want transformation, but can't even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I'm aiming for, how will it ever occur?  Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention.  If you don't have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift."  I find myself lazy in my prayers - always saying about the same thing and putting little to no thought in it.  I am going to start articulating my prayers in a much clearer manner.

About controlling your thoughts and not letting them control you on page 178: "On first glance, this seems like a nearly impossible task. Control your thoughts?  Instead of the other way around?  But imagine if you could?  This is not about repression or denial.  Repression and denial set up elaborate games to pretend that negative thoughts and feelings are not occurring. What Richard is talking about is instead admitting to the existence of negative thoughts, understanding where they came from and why they arrived, and then-with great forgivenss and fortitude-dismissing them."  Richard is a man in the book who helped her in India with her holiness.  She also says, "Every time a diminishing thought arises, I repeat the vow:  I will not harbor unhealthy thoughts anymore."  She said she repeats this vow around 700 times a day.  I love it.  I don't want to think negative and unhealthy thoughts, but they come so easily.  If I am more aware of them, I think I will be able to learn to control them.

I find that I often times speak before thinking, and it has been known to get me in trouble.  She says on page 190, "Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss."

This is my final passage that I love - there are so many more but this is already so long!  About happiness on page 260, "People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough.  But that's not how happiness works.  Happiness is the consequence of personal effort.  You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.  You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.  And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.  If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment.  It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your sould hold tight to its good attainments."  I LOVE THIS so much.  We have to work for happiness.

I know that I went on and on and on about this.  I just wanted to share a fraction of how powerful this book can be.  I truly believe that this is a book that can change your life in a magnificent way, if you let it.

Changes!

Check out my new blog design. Here is the thing though, I want a custom header with some pictures in it and a quote, but I can't figure out how to get what I want. Any suggestions for custom headers are welcome. I don't want anything elaborate, just more personalized. I also need to widen the section that posts go in, so that my flickr photos fit without getting cut off. I don't know how to do that.
*UPDATE: Thanks to some help, I was able to adjust the width. Still working on the header.

The next part of this update needs your help. If you read this blog and are not listed in my sidebar of blogs I read and would like to be, drop me a line and I will get you added. I tried to get several of the ones I read updated, but I read SO many that I need your help to remind me to add you. If you are a wordpress user, make sure and leave your site address, because it doesn't show up in your profile. I will happily add blogs that would like to be added. And like I said, there are lots and lots that I already know of that are not up there and should be. I am slowly working on getting it all up to date.

It is going to look great in here when it is all done. I was inspired by my new blogging friends who just jumped right in and had their blogs looking a million times better than mine. I have thought about changing mine for a long time, but I was entirely too lazy to figure out how to do it.

Happy Girl

Here are lots of pictures of my happy girl from the past couple of days. Thanks for all of the anniversary shout outs!!








She has never fallen asleep like this out of her bed before. It was so cute.

Where's Lucy?

Here I am!!


Here are some new one's from my idea of "From Lucy's Eyes"
These are maybe the cutest shoes I have ever bought her. They are from Target and were already almost sold out, which is why she got a size 7, but I think by this summer, they will fit fine.

Sippy cup

The ever fun and exciting, musical instruments


And finally, this is a frightening picture of me screaming in frustration for those of you waiting for your I-600 approvals who did not get them, even though you have reached the maximum of 60 days. I am so sorry for all of you. I would love to see lots of people do this - post a picture of yourself or your child screaming. Maybe if we can make enough "noise", the approvals will come!! I pray for you all every single night. (I can't believe that I am posting this scary picture of myself, but I am hoping it will make those of you waiting smile and feel a little better, even if it is only for a few seconds!)