26/365 Chúc mừng năm mới!

Happy Tet everyone!





Today I am thankful for our warm, cozy house. I love it when we can use our fireplace. It is not that often, so I use it on any cold day we get. We are in an ice storm watch and I just can't imagine not having a warm home to go to. I hope that everyone out there is able to find a warm place to sleep.

I am absolutely exhausted today, so this is all I have. Some days the sleepless nights just hit me so hard and this is one of those days. Justin got up with Annie each time last night, but I wake up every time and then I couldn't go back to sleep after 4:30 am. That is a really early time to start your day!!

This one is for you Seashy.






This is how she really feels about these pictures.

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Today I am thankful that Annie is finally starting to REALLY get that I am her momma and that I am not going anywhere. Before the past week, she showed very little preference towards Justin or me when other people were around. She didn't mind if someone else was holding her. She has always smiled the biggest and most for us, but that was obviously not enough. This week though, she has changed her tune. NO ONE was allowed to hold her during the party today except for me - not even Justin - she would freak out if someone even tried. She has been my girl all week, and it is really nice to see our hard work paying off. It is really tiring for me - especially my arm that never gets a rest - but I am not going to complain because I know how big of a deal this is for her in her journey towards attaching to us. Break out the slings!!

Our Tet party today was a total success. We got to meet some really awesome families from our area with precious children from Vietnam. One family is still waiting to bring home their daughter and I am praying she comes home soon. There were 8 families total. We mostly sat and compared stories while the kids played. It was at our house and I loved having everyone over. I am really sad but I got almost no pictures. Annie would not let Justin hold her, so she was with me the whole time and taking pictures one handed is not easy. I got a picture of all of the kids on the couch, but I don't want to post it because I didn't ask all of the families if they would mind their picture on here. I FINALLY got to meet Heather in real life. We have known each other through blogging for a long time. It was great seeing everyone and watching all of the kids run wild.

Lucy obviously LOVES to be thrown as high as anyone can get her. I can't explain enough how much of a daredevil she is. She is scared of nothing that involves thrill. She would make Justin do this all day long, but it gets tiring really quickly. She always kicks her legs out in an X at the peak of the throw and squeals with glee the entire time. It really looks like she is about to hit the ceiling. He gets her high, but not quite that high. I wish we had done it outside. It would look crazy high in the air then. We will do that soon. I am trying to get a little more exciting on my pics versus just a normal portrait each day. Most days it is hard to think of something cool. Hopefully I will become more creative because of this little project.

Look at the joy on her face.




The ONLY picture I have of the girls from the party today. Pitiful.




A little rest after church.

24/365

Today I am extremely thankful for days when both babies take nice, long naps. I usually prefer that both girls take their afternoon nap together so that I can have a little bit of time to myself. Annie usually naps like she sleeps at night - she wakes up several times but I can get her back to sleep. However, this morning, I laid her down later than normal and she slept, with no wake ups, from 11-1. Lucy and I ate lunch together and she helped me put away groceries during this time. We also did some cleaning. Mom, you would be so happy, Lucy LOVED being my little helper and she dusted away! Then I took Lucy up for her nap at 1. I got her down and about 2 minutes later, Annie was up. I got to have a lot of quality snuggle time with her. She didn't have to have Lucy trying to get in my lap with her or demanding that I put her down for a while. We just hung out. She smiled and cooed and I enjoyed it. At about 3, Annie was ready to lay down. Lucy woke up as I was rocking Annie. Annie went back down from 3-5:20 (and I woke her up then because I don't want her up all night). So, as you can see, there was a lot of napping today. But the way it worked out was perfect because I got to have a lot of one on one time with each girl, which is something that is hard to come by around here. I don't mind them having nap schedules like this if I get a semi-normal night of sleep. I got a great night's sleep last night. Woo hoo! Come on for tonight. Justin gets home tomorrow and we are all really ready to see him. We love and miss you Dad!!

A little background info on the pictures today. First, it is cold here again. At least, cold to us. I took both girls to the grocery store this morning (my first time to do that alone and it was a huge successs!) and on our way it was only 35 degrees. Cold! I thought it would be cute to get pictures of Annie with this big hood on. This is Lucy's coat, so it swallowed her, but you can't tell in the pictures. Then when Lucy got up, I wanted pictures of her with the hood on too. In order to make that happen, I bribed her with whip cream and Reece's Pieces. Guess which one of my avid readers turned her on to whip cream? She instantly agreed to my bribe. We zipped her up, I asked her to sit down, and she went to work. Lucy seriously knows how to work it for the camera when she wants to. She sat down, looked right at the camera, smiled, laughed, posed with her head tilted, and then a serious straight on look. I swear to you, I said nothing other than what her bribe was. After she did each of these things, she said all done, and that was that. It all went down for her in about 45 seconds. I liked that just as much as she did! I guess all of that time she spends in front of my camera has really paid off! Love that girl. I had a really hard time picking a favorite today. What I really want is a big faux fur hat for both of them. I am on the look out for that if you know where I can get one.







All Done!


Where is my treat?

23/365

Today I am thankful for my bedtime ritual with Lucy. She loves her bedtime routine. We do bath, brush teeth, pick out our books for the night, read, pray, sing songs, kiss, and say I Love You. Her favorite books are Fancy Nancy, Pinkalicious, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, 5 Silly Monkeys, and a few others. She ALWAYS wants to sing E-I-E-I-O, ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle, and Silent Night. We always thank God for our entire family - she names everyone. Bedtime was so stressful with Lucy for a really long time. Now, it is so nice and peaceful and enjoyable.

Not much to say tonight. Annie and I had a long night together last night. Hopefully that is out of her system for tonight. Night, night. I hope you all have a marvelous weekend.





The monkey toes. Mom - this is for you. :)


I love that she is getting to wear these tiny dresses since the weather is so nice. Cute, cute, cute.




Every girl's worst nightmare.

22/365

Today I am thankful for warm, sunny days where you can play outside with your girls all day long. Just like we had today. It was a wonderful day. We had Lucy's playgroup this morning. It started when all of the babies were little and now they are big toddlers, several of whom are now big brothers or sisters. Playgroup is wild, but a lot of fun. They played outside all morning, ate a little lunch, and then came home for nap. Annie will have her own built in playgroup with all of the other new babies. After nap, we met Anna, Louis, and Mandy for ice cream and hit the park. It was so nice because sometimes Lucy clings to me, but not today. She played at the park so well. By the time we got home, it was time for dinner, bath, and bed - all of which happened with no fuss or stress. Today was a really great day.

Just so you can all see how much Annie has changed - she wore her G&R dress today so I thought I would post a then and now picture. The first picture is from her G&R in Vietnam. Just like now, she had just broken two teeth - her bottom two. She chewed her fingers all of the time then, just like she is doing right now - only it is her top two teeth that came through this time. I actually have a hard time looking at our pictures from Vietnam because it is all still so fresh in my mind and I can see the pain and sadness in her eyes, and I don't like that. I don't like what she went through and now I get almost angry. I just don't understand it. I never will. What I do understand is that I love this child so much. We are the lucky ones who get to kiss on her all day long and smile a million times over because of her.











Lucy Goose had ice cream all over her face, her hair, her shirt. She was in heaven. She ate mine and hers.