Merry Christmas!

We had a fun Christmas, last year I ended up opening all of Lilly's presents. Not this year, Lilly loved opening the presents and I think she really liked everything she got. Here is a picture of Lilly in front of our tree on Christmas eve in her new p.j's. She was so excited for Santa to come. Mike & Lilly tracked him online and it really helped Lilly go to sleep fast when she saw that Santa was getting close to our house :) Lilly loves the Dr kit she got (she likes to play Dr. with Mommy and sometimes uses Mommy's things, now she has her own) Lilly did a quick check up on her new Wonder Pet, he's healthy.Lilly also got a Swipper figure (from Dora) and thought that was the best thing ever! Lilly gave the box a great big hug.

After opening presents at home we got ready and drove to my parents house. There we had breakfast and opened more presents! Lilly got tons of fun things from her grandparents and Aunts & Uncles. She even got a new pair of pink cowgirl boots!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, this was our third Christmas as parents and probably the best Christmas ever. Even though we've had a few crazy things happen this month with our crawlspace flooding and Mike having surgery it's still been extra special because we have our Lilly bug. I am so happy to be a mom and feel blessed always because of the greatest gift I have ever recieved. Merry Christmas!

Foto Friday

It's been very busy around here for me. Mike is recovering from surgery and I miss him SOOOOOOOOOOO much! Lilly and I have been having fun, and today we got to spend some time playing in the snow. Lilly's favorite thing to do is for me to pull her around the yard in her sled. It's fun for me too - I get a good workout and get to see my little baby girl giggle with pure delight. I've never been much of a snow person, but it's fun to play in it with Lilly. Today instead of having hot chocolate after our fun outside Lilly wanted Otter Pops! I had one too, I was hot from pulling Lilly in the sled :)

Mike's no Chicken!

Mike had his surgery yesterday and it went really good. Lilly had a blast spending the day with Grandpa Y. and was sad that he wasn't here this morning to play with. It is nice to have family close enough (70 miles away) to count on for help when you need it.

Anyways Mike came home yesterday and was feeling alright, today he is mainly resting and staying down. The surgeon said that he should be feeling a lot better in about 3-4 weeks. So I guess I will be a 'single' mom for a couple of weeks while Mike is recovering. Luckily Mike is on winter break from school so he has a couple of weeks to rest and get ready for Winter Semmester to start.

Lilly and I get to go to the Art building tomorrow and pick up Mike's portfolio and check out the student exhibit to see if any of Mike's work made it. I am sure it did, and I will post pictures of it too :) Pretty cool to have your husbands work hanging in a gallery. We went to an art show a couple of weeks ago where Mike's art class had created 27 (each student) pictures with the same theme, Chickens! it was hillarious and pretty cool. Each piece of art sold for $1 and all proceeds went to the food bank.

It was also a potluck so Lilly had fun eating the chicken cupcakes :) We brought the chicken in a bisquit crackers :) :) Here are two of Mike's pieces the purple and white polka dot ones.

Silly Lilly

Lilly's newest fashion accessory is her helmet :) Mike helped her make it and she wore it for a good hour around the house on Sunday. She also sported her bicycle tire pump as her sword.

I especially love the hair bows peaking out of the sides of the helmet. Lilly is always so much fun and I love that she has such a vivid imagination.

Foto Friday!

Lilly got to see Santa today! We waited for Mike to come home from work and then went as a family. I took a couple of pictures of Lilly before we left all dressed up in her Christmas dress, she is so beautiful! Unfortulately, Lilly was a little freaked out by Santa and I had to sit next to Santa while holding a very nervous little girl. She warmed up a little, but not enough for me to leave her there for a good picture. Lilly did manage to tell Santa that she wanted mega blocks and told him thank you for the candy. She also told Santa that she wasn't going to smile for the camera, or for Daddy - yup my almost three year old has an opinion :) She did look adorable and we had fun, ah the memories. Our Christmas tree is re-decorated multiple times daily :) Lilly loves to hang the candy canes and can hardly wait until Christmas when she can eat them.

Happy Birthday Mikey!

Today is Mike's birthday! Deffiantly a reason to celebrate, Mike is my best friend and I am soooooo happy that we are married (almost 10 years!). Mike is a kind, caring loving husband and is the BEST dad. Lilly and him and best friends and I love seeing them play together.

Lilly and I made Mike a cheese cake this morning and suprised him with it when he got home from work. He also was able to open his birthday presents an MP3 player and a Wii Zapper with the Crossbow game. Mike also has the Cabella's hunting game he can use the Zapper on too :)

My dad suprised Mike today by hand delivering a birthday present to him! Mike got a nice screw driver set and a bow saw. It was a fun suprise and Lilly thought it was awesome and Grandpa Y. played a game of fishing with her and had a fun time visiting. It was so nice to see my Dad and everyone was so suprised by the visit.

Pictures Updated Finally

I finally updated photos for September, October and November :) You can view them in the photo section of the website. Also, don't forget you can move your mouse over the picture to view the comments I wrote about the photo.

Incase any of you would like to add our site feed to your links list, I posted in October what link to use http://mandamike.com/blog/2008/10/last-updated-on-blog-lists.html along with some instructions. Hope that helps!

One more tidbit of news, LDSFS is updating their online adoptive couples website. You can check out the beta version at www.beta.itsaboutlove.org and login as a guest. Mike & I are up on the beta site so feel free to let us know what you think. This new site will be a lot more searchable for birthparents and I think is a good move for LDSFS.

Foto Friday! (Thanksgiving photos)

So my camera was acting up while we were on vacation, sorry these pictures are graining and not that great :( But they are still cute and fun memories. If anybody has better pictures PLEASE send them to me. :)

Lilly and Owen got to sit at their very own kids table this year! They had a lot of fun, Lilly tried to show Owen how to dip his turkey in his cranberry sauce, Lilly's always the little helper :) Owen made the cute tee pee center piece too!Lilly was able to spend some time with her Grandpa C. He was recovering from mouth surgery, but luckily was feeling good enough to play. They were busy drawing turkeys, playing Zoo and reading together. Lilly patted him on his belly one night and asked him what was in there, then she went on to suggest that it might be a basketball :) It was very cute and funny. I think that one of Lilly's favorite things was to feed Grandma C her pumpkin pie. Not only did she get to feed someone, but she also ate most of Grandma's pie too :) Our last night in Washington we spent the evening at Mike's sisters (Thanks Shelly & Mark) they suprised Lilly with an early Christmas present. It was such a thoughtful gift, a pop-up book! I was telling Shelly earlier that Lilly didn't have any popup books, so they got her a Christmas pop-up book. All the kids loved reading it, and it added such a special feeling to our visit.

Going Green for Thanksgiving!

We spent our Thanksgiving in the beautiful state of Washington! Boy do I miss all of that green, every Christmas they play a song on the radio that says:
If you take away the presents
Why, they still will have a dream
For Christmas in the Northwest
Is a gift God wrapped in green
It's a pretty cheesy song, but totally true!
We had a blast visiting with family, playing the Wii and doing a little Christmas shopping. Unfortunately Mike was pretty sick with a cold and I was just a little sick so we didn't have the energy to do everything that we had planned. But we still had fun and Lilly LOVED playing with her cousin Owen and meeting the new baby Gwyneth (she's a year old now!) and is sooooo cute and has such a fun personality.
Lilly really enjoyed her time spent with her Grandma & Grandpa C. she charmed her grandparents into reading her books, playing Zoo and all sorts of shenanagans :) Who can say no to Lilly :)
The hardest part about visiting with family is having to say goodbye. I totally love my in-laws and miss them tons, it was so hard to say goodbye. Lilly and Owen gave lots of hugs and Owen almost started to cry, so of course I almost started to cry. It was sad, but we will come back to visit again and hopefully it wont be a year and half wait until the next time. I will try and post some pictures soon. We've been dealing with a plumbing issue on our house so hopefully once that is resolved I will have some time to do fun things.

"Only Pennies a Glass" - Kool Aid Man

Kool Aid Playdough Recipe

Ingredients:

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup salt
2 packages unsweetened Kool-Aid - any flavor/color (I used the Walmart Crystal Light x2 containers)

2 cups boiling water

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

How to make this recipe:
Mix the salt, flour and Kool-Aid packets. (Be sure you are using the small sachets of unsweetened mix.) Use one color per batch (although you can mix your own color and/or add food coloring to intensify the color). Add the boiling water and oil and stir until blended. Let cool, and then knead until the dough is consistent in color and texture. You can store it for several months in a zippered plastic bag or other airtight container. DO NOT EAT

This recipe made 3 zip lock sandwitch baggies worth of dough, so you could divide the recipe and make more than just one color. It smells good, but doesn't taste very good :)

Foto Friday, Our Little Helper

Lilly loves to help clean, build things and we love that so Mike and I always try to help her participate. Today I wanted to wash some of Lilly's toys. So I had Lilly do it for me :) Mike gave her a little scrubbing brush and I filled up a cup with warm soapy water and Lilly played/worked for an hour! It was so great, my floor was mopped and Lilly's barn and animals (and one monster truck) are all clean.

Mike builds, fixes and tinkers with things and Lilly really really really loves to help daddy do anything. So when he brings out the tools she is right there beside him. We are getting our trailer ready to bring with us on our trip to Washington next week so Mike wanted to make sure all of the bolts were tight and sterdy so him and Lilly spent the afternoon hammering, wrenching and spending quality time together.

What have we been up to?

I've been so busy this month posting adoption stuff, I thought I would take a moment to give an update to what we have been up to.

We rearranged Lilly's bedroom and set up her tee-pee in her room for Lilly to play in. Her favorite thing to do is read stories in it. One night we tried to have a slumber party in her tee-pee but about 30 minutes into the party Lilly told us to sleep in our very own beds and she was going to sleep in her very own bed :)
Mike and Lilly made a turkey count down to Thanksgiving! Lilly is very excited to visit family and she gets to take off one feather every day. Lilly sometimes asks to take off all the feathers so it will be Thanksgiving today too :)

It snowed a few weeks ago! It only lasted a couple of hours, but we took full advantage of our big backyard. Lilly loved the snow and loved making snow balls and helping me throw them at Daddy :) She also thought it was funny that Bryn would try to catch the snowballs and chomp them. I found an awesome recipe for playdough! It's made with sugar free kool-aid (or the generic Wal-Mart stuff I had). It smells so good and it is so soft and awesome to play with. Lilly helped me make it and then got to play with it.

I am almost done with my CNA course and will start my new position at work (working as a CNA/EMT) next month. I am getting a raise and also my schedule will be changing a little bit, so every other weekend I will have 4 days off! I still will be working at night, so I can spend my days with Lilly. I am also excited to be able to use my medical skills in my job, I really like helping people and I think I am really going to enjoy my new position. I will be learning a lot of new skills too.

I Speak Adoption :)

When Mike and I first started our adoption journey I read and read and read probably every book at the library about adoption. While reading I noticed that there is kind of a language that is used. So here are a few of the important phrases, terms and words used in adoption that I embrace and use in my daily life.

Positive Terms:
Adoption Placement Terms (These help convey that decisions regarding adoption are carefully and lovingly made.) - "Arranging for an adoption", "making a placement plan for a child", "arranging for a transfer of parental rights", "making an adoption plan", "placing a child for adoption"
Terms Related to Parents:
"Biological Parents", "Birth Father", "Birth Mother", "Genetic parent" "First Mother" Parents of conception.

Negative Terms: (never use these)
Adoption Placement Terms (These perpetuate negative stereotypes and can damage a child's self image.) - "Put up for adoption", "adopted out", "abandoned", "give up a child"
Terms Related to Parents -
"Natural Parents" - Used often in legal settings. Not a positive term since it implies that adoptive parents are "unnatural".
"Real father or real mother" - Terms used in society to describe biological parents. Not appropriate since they imply that adoptive parents do not act as "real parents".
Terms Related to Children -
"Illegitimate child" - Literally means that a child has no father.
"Unwanted child" - No child is ever unwanted, certainly not my own.
"Is Adopted should be "was adopted" sure it's part of the childs past, but not their identidy.

Common Questions/Comments People Make About Adoption: (Imagine if your own child were standing next to you hearing an adult say these things. These comments undermine a child's place in their family and sense of security. Although most of the time they are said not meaning any guile, they are offensive.)
"Where's her 'real' mom?" "Are those her 'real' sisters?" "Does she have any 'real' siblings?" "I knew someone once who gave up her baby." "Didn't her mom want her?" "I could never give my baby up; I would love it too much." "Are you ever going to have your own kids?" (What?! Like Lilly isn't 100% "our own"!) "Which of your kids are your own?" "I knew someone once who adopted because they couldn't have their own children." "Did her 'real Mom' use drugs?" "How old was her birthmother, I bet she was really young?" (statistically 20-25 year olds are the most likely to place their child for adoption) "I bet you're glad you adopted because you got to have kids the easy way." (There's an easy way?)

So now you can speak Adoption too:) Again if there is any questions that you would like to ask me about adoption please feel free to. I may not know the answer, but I will try to find it for you.

Time to Celebrate, it's National Adoption Day!

Happy National Adoption Day!

I love November because it is National Adoption Month, but before it was celebrated for an entire month there was one day set aside, today :)

I am grateful for adoption and feel blessed to be a part of it. I love adoption!
Here is a very sweet picture of the first time I ever held Lilly. It was amazing and a moment I will never forget. Our first family picture with Lilly, this was taken at the hospital where Lilly was born.

I know that adoption is inspired and Lilly's sweet birthmother was guided by Heavenly Father to selflessly place Lilly in our arms. Take time today to say a prayer for the birthparents, adoptive parents, birthgrandparents, social workers and everyone touched by adoption. I know I am forever grateful for the prayers and thoughts sent for our family to bring Lilly home.

Tag for National Adoption Month!

I got tagged! It was a week ago, but life is so busy :) I was tagged by Shanna and I love the twist she put on the tag, so fun!

Here are the rules:
1.Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share 6 nonimportant things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag 6 random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website. 6. Here's the twist Shanna put on the tag "Well, since it is my blog, I can change it a little, right? I've already done lots of random things about me here, so I thought I would list non-random things. In honor of National Adoption Month, I am going to list 6 things about my adoption experiences."

1. I've always loved taking pictures, but now my motivation for family pictures is a little different. I am trying to take fun pictures to include in our adoption profile, or on the blog :)
2. I love it when people comment on how cute and beautiful Lilly is and then they say she must of gotten her looks from me :) It's a great opportunity to tell them a little bit about adoption.
3. When Lilly was a tiny baby it was so fun to take her to the store and recieve comments on how good I looked after just 'having' a baby :) Talk about ego boost!
4. I've never prayed so hard or so much for something in my life until the start of our adoption journey! It's been so inspiring and faith building to see first hand that Heavenly Father does love me and hears my prayers.
5. Adoption is so wonderful, it has changed my life in so many ways. The main way is it is the reason Mike and I are parents today to Lilly and I wouldn't want it any other way. It is also the hardest thing I have ever had to experiance in so many aspects. But the trials really did make me a better, stronger person. I learned patience, love, humility, strengthened my testimony and more. I truly believe I am a much better mother to Lilly now then I even would have been at 20.
6. Mike started telling Lilly about her adoption story in the cutest way ever! Lilly constantly asks us to tell her the "Something was Missing" story. We are hoping to someday write a childrens book on domestic adoption and this might be a good start :) Mike of course would illustrate it too :) I am so glad that we are open with Lilly (on a 2 year old level) about her adoption. I never doubt that Lilly wasn't meant for me, and I hope that she will always know that she is my daughter now and forever.

Ok, in keeping with the adoption theme, I will tag 6 friends that I know through adoption:
Christine, Lissa, Carlie, Laura, Megan and Cindy