Favorite Dress of All Time

Here it is, my favorite dress I have ever gotten Lucy. Isn't it precious?!?!





It is made by Lola et Moi. Check out how cute all of their stuff is. This dress is a size 2, which is crazy to me that it fits her, but it is elastic in the back, so it fits really well. It is the perfect twirling dress, and my girl can twirl. I got her two other dresses by Lola et Moi in a size 2, but I tried them on her today and they were huge. They are more of just a pillowcase dress shape. I am going to see if my mom can fix it by making the straps shorter, but they might have to go back. I am dying right now because all of the spring/summer clothes are coming out, and I want them all. I did clean out Lucy's closet again. It is nice and neat - still jam packed, but looking better.

Let's do something fun, tell me your favorite clothes for you little one. Here are some fun places to start. I love pretty much everything made by these lines. Misha Lulu (my friend Kate gets all the credit for introducing me to this adorable line), Pink Chicken (the brown and blue dress from the other day), and Tea Collection. In addition to their regular/dressier clothes, Tea Collection has a great "play wear" line called Daily Tea that is relatively inexpensive and awesome comfy clothes. I prefer non-babyish clothes, if that makes any sense.

Friends Are the Best

Before I get started, she peed in the potty tonight before bath!! She again acted like it was no big deal. I am so proud of her! She is so smart.

I wanted to say a big thank you to all of my wonderful friends. I don't know what I would do without you all in my life - this includes family, life long friends, college friends, new friends I have made in the past year or so, and my blog friends. You have all touched my life and provided such an enormous support network for me. I love the laughs that we share, the parenting advice, and always being there to listen to me. Thank you a million times over. You all know who you are.

I love how Lucy is already developing some great friendships. I would say that her best friend is Anna, who has a pretty great momma for me to hang out with in the meantime! :) Anna is also from Vietnam, and I know that it is going to be so important for her to have friends that she can really relate to when they get a little older. She asks me about Anna everyday. Lucky for her, we get together a lot, so I can usually say we will see her this afternoon or tomorrow. She is protective of Anna when she thinks her brother is getting too rough and she loves Anna's mom (Mandy) in a way that only a very few people outside of family have ever experienced. Today she wanted Mandy to hold her hand and run with her and she will always share a hug with Mandy. I cherish having another mom to relate to, ask a million questions, and share thoughts/concerns about being a parent, especially an adoptive parent.

These pictures hurt me they are so sweet!! Aren't they just the cutest set of besties ever?

Holding hands on a leisurely walk




Running as fast as they can

Your mom's sunglasses look good on you, how do mine look?





Stomping in the puddles

I am in love with this picture - it looks like Anna caught the sunshine

A Really Big Accomplishment!

Tonight, for the first time ever, Lucy poo pooed in her potty!!!!!!!! I seriously freaked out I was so excited. I totally did not expect it, and I was so proud of her. I got Lucy a potty for her bathroom about a month ago. I wanted her to get used to it and have lots of time to get used to having it around before we even considered trying to teach her about it. I have always been a little scared of potty training and know literally nothing about how to do it. All I know is that I should always be positive about it and never pressure her into it. So, when we change her diaper, I usually ask her if she wants to sit on her potty. She always says, "Yeah!" and will run in the bathroom and sit on the potty for a few seconds. I always praise her for just sitting on it and then we put her diaper back on. Also, she is always around when I am in the bathroom, so I have started talking to her about it. Tonight after dinner she was clearly working on going to the bathroom. I checked her diaper and she had not gone yet, so I asked her if she wanted to poo poo in her potty, and of course, she said, "Yeah!" I took her upstairs, took off all of her clothes because it was bath time, and told her to go and sit on her potty. For about a minute, she was just playing - on the potty, off the potty. I could tell she needed to go. I told her one last time to go potty and I did not look at her. I was filling up the bath. All of the sudden, she shouts "Poo Poo!" and sure enough, she had gone!! I was so excited and kept telling her what a big girl she was. She acted like it was another day at the office and no big deal at all. At almost 19 months, she used her big girl potty for the first time.

In just the last few weeks, Lucy has changed a lot. All of the sudden, she is a total snuggle bug, which is SO NICE! She gives out lots and lots of hugs and more kisses than ever. She is still pretty stingy with the kisses, but the hugs come any time you ask. If I ask her to snuggle with me, she nuzzles into my neck. I obviously LOVE this. I have always wanted her to be more snuggly, and it is finally happening. We are just a few days away from her 19 month birthday, and I will do a full update then.

I got several questions about Lucy's brown and blue dress in the last post. It is made by Pink Chicken - check out how cute all of their stuff is at www.pinkchicken.com. I would actually like all of their dresses for Lucy!

We have had the most amazing weather lately. Yesterday, it was 80 degrees and sunny. It was hot outside and we were in shorts and tees. We go to the park almost every day for at least an hour and a half. It is so wonderful to be outside. Lucy loves the park and we have such a great one about 4 blocks away from our house. I am really trying to take full advantage of this awesome weather because before we know it it will be too hot.

Weekly Goal #7 and Oscars

Are you watching the Oscars? Who do you think was the best dressed? Right now my favorites are Jennifer Garner and Katherine Heigl. There were lots of beautiful dresses. As I have said before, I love watching the red carpet of the award shows. George Clooney mentioned that he and his girlfriend were in Vegas for Valentine's Day. For some reason, he forgot to mention that he saw me! Ha.

I have been asked many times about what camera I use, and it is the Nikon D40. I have the lens that it came with and the 55-200 VR. I love it and it makes taking pictures so easy. What I really want to do is take a Photoshop class. I think that is where pictures take on a whole new life. Maybe someday.

My personal goal of the week is to start eating healthier. I have been eating so poorly lately. It has to improve. My task of the week is to yet again clean out Lucy's closet. It feels like I did not even do this just a couple of months ago. I really have gotten better about shoppping for her, but her closet is still overflowing with things that are too small since she has hit a major growth spurt. Despite my best efforts of reducing the shopping, I think I have found my all time favorite children's clothes designer. For those of you who know me at all, you know how much shopping we have done for this girl, and to say I think I have found my all time favorite is a bold statement for me. I will share when I get a few pictures of the dresses I got Lucy in Vegas. They are the cutest. I would have liked to get them all, but I held back to only three. Can't wait for summer so we can break them out!

Fun pictures from the weekend



Trying to catch her shadow



I am in love with this picture - the light in her hair is awesome




The most amazing climbing tree I have ever seen


So cute for a dainty girl in a dress to be climbing a tree - I love it!


Justin and I are so incredibly blessed to be this amazing child's parents

Elbowwwww

Lucy still says several of her words in a nice country accent. Check out how she draws out the word elbow. It cracks us up every time. I just adore hearing her voice and she talks all of the time now. Still mostly single words, but a few more chained together phrases like, "Come on!"

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Here are some cute pics from today. We had another beautiful day and really enjoyed our time outside. It is supposed to be rainy and cold the next couple of days.










Please disregard the crumbs on her mouth

Weekly Goal #6 and Las Vegas

I want to give the biggest congratulations to Emily, Lee, and Lulu for being together as such an adorable family after a very long wait. You can absolutely feel and see the love in their pictures. They are going to be such great parents. I know everyone is reading, but I just had to say how happy I am for them!

My personal goal of the week is to say thank you as many times as possible every day. And my task goal is to make some headway on a few blog posts that I have swirling in my head that will take some time to actually get out what I want to say. They are about what I have learned being a parent and improvements that I want to make as a parent.

Justin and I went to Las Vegas this weekend. It was a lot of fun! I am very tired because we stayed up really late every night. I LOVE to gamble - Black Jack. I almost always win, and I did this trip as well, which always makes things a little more fun! We ate some amazing meals, shopped, and saw the Cirque du Soleil show, Ka. George Clooney was eating at the table next to us at Nine Steakhouse!!!!! I was drooling over him. It was very hard for me being away from Lucy, but she did great with my parents. I know she had a lot of fun. She was napping when our plane landed, so she stayed home and my sister picked us up from the airport. She woke up while we were on our way home and my mom had her outside when we pulled up. I jumped out of the care - I think it may have still been moving - and she got the biggest grin and came running to me shouting MAMAMAMAMA! It was so awesome to be with her again. I missed her terribly and still really worry about leaving her.

I wish I had taken more pictures. I only got a few from the night we went to Ka.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope today and every day is filled with lots of love in your life!

Love,
Kelly, Justin, and Lucy

Weekly Goal #5 and Grammy's

Did you watch the Grammy's last night? Justin and I did - we always do. You should Tivo all award shows - so you can fly through the commercials and boring parts. We thought that they were pretty good this year. Some years they are just so boring. Most of the performances were great. I think my favorite was Beyonce and Tina Turner. Want to know something fun? Four years ago Justin and I actually went to the Grammy's in LA because Justin was nominated for a Grammy as a songwriter. It was amazing, to say the least. I got to wear the coolest dress, get my hair and makeup done, and see a zillion celebrities. Isn't that cool? Fun, fun, fun! It would have been so much better if he would have won, but still, not many people can say that they have been nominated for a Grammy. By the way, he was robbed and absolutely should have won! I am still so proud of him. I love award season time. The red carpet is so fun to watch. To say I am a big fan of E! Fashion Police is a big understatement.

On to the important stuff. Personal Improvement Goal of the Week: work on my posture. I slouch so badly. It is awful. It hurts my back to try and sit up straight for long periods of time, but I can do it. I love how straight Lucy sits up. She has perfect posture, and I am a little jealous. I am trying to become more aware of the slumping.

Task Goal of the Week: Think of something fun to do with Lucy every day that involves us as a family doing something together. This can include things like going to the park (which we did today), doing an art project, etc. I want us to be more and more active together and not rely on TV as entertainment. Lucy LOVES tv all of the sudden and can sit and watch it for long periods of time. I do not want this, so I am going to stop allowing so much of it. Her little brain is so receptive to learning right now and she is not going to get the stimulation that she needs from the tv, but from our interaction together and using her imagination to actually play. I am not the kind who plans on eliminating tv all together. I just want to limit the amount of time she spends camped out in front of the tv. I don't think there is anything wrong with watching Sesame Street in the morning. The problem is when it goes much beyond this. There is just too many other things that we could be doing. I am working on a post about my views of parenting, which seem to always be evolving, but I think also improving at the same time. I am reading the most fascinating book about parenting and the way children learn right now. I LOVE it and will discuss it in my post that I am working on. I want to get through the book before I write my post, but in case you are interested, it is called Magical Parent, Magical Child - The Art of Joyful Parenting by Michael Mendizza with Joseph Chilton Pearce. For me, it is a book that will change the way I mother my children forever. I really really wish I would have read it earlier, but better late than never.

Here are some pictures of Lucy in her Ao Dai and from the park today. Cutie Patootie.