11 Years Ago Today She Arrived...

 

And nothing has been the same since!  I can so vividly remember wrapping her up in a pooh bear snow suite that was WAY bigger than she was, even though it was a newborn size.  She was six tiny pounds and mine to care for and to love.  The weight of that responsibility was so heavy the day we came home from the hospital.  I rocked her when we first got home, while my husband unloaded the car.  Savage Garden was playing on the stereo in the background, "I Knew I Loved You" was the song.  I was overwhelmed staring at the precious little face that belonged to my new daughter.  How was I supposed to know how to be a good Mom?  How could anyone think that I would know what to do with this tiny, precious child that now held my heart squarely within her tiny little fist?  Tears streamed down my face and I prayed that I would be worthy of such a huge responsibility.

11 years later I am still praying.  As much as I tell her I really need her to just take a break from growing so fast, she refuses.  It won't be long and she will be taller than me, and I am sure it won't be much longer before she thinks she is smarter than me too...

She has a beautiful heart, a gentle spirit and a great sense of humor.  I have loved every moment of being her mother and am eternally grateful for the tremendous blessing I have in her.  I love you sweet girl!  Happy Birthday!!

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus

I would have loved to been there for this!

People tell me that she is just like me...

I just don't see it.

At all.



She even turns a little Mommy, Daughter pampering into a riot!  Such a funny kid :) 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful day, surrounded by friends and family.  We have had a really great family day today and I am constantly reminded of all I have to be thankful for.  So many people have touched my life, enhanced it and some have forever changed it.  I am thankful for all of you today and missing many...

Some of my most precious blessings:

I hope you are filled with a happy and peaceful heart...

Adoption Photobook

I wanted to share the photo book I made for Rylee, using pictures from our trip to China:

You can view the whole book by following this link:   http://www.poyomi.com/book/547a3e77bf30407790a833b48444fb37

Rylee really loves the book, it was so sweet to see her reaction when we looked through it for the first time.  She put her hand on my face and told me "Mama, you have just the right face and the best nose".  She gently touched my nose and then put her hand back on my cheek, looked straight into my eyes and told me "you are just the Mama that I always wanted, and I am so glad you have the right face, you are the best Mama that I exactly wanted"...

I am not quite sure what she meant about having the right face, but I am thankful that I do!  In any case, it brought tears to my eyes.  I am not sure how we got so lucky, but I am ever so thankful that she is part of our family.  She is exactly perfect for us!

If you are interested, I am giving away three photobooks.  You can enter here.  The contest ends 11/26 at midnight and has very low entries!

No I am not allergic to my blog...

Today I received a message from someone asking if I had developed an allergy to my blog.  I started laughing, until I realized that it has been 5 MONTHS since I posted anything here!  Is anyone even still out there? 

What is wrong with me you might ask?

I do not have a good excuse... just busy working, raising a family, blogging, working, watching my house pile up with dust balls, working, taking pictures that fill up my laptop and just sit there, working and blah, blah, blah.... I know these are not nearly good enough reasons to be failing my loyal reader (you are still there right mom?)...

So today I am turning over a new leaf, or maybe I should say an old one, and am determined to catch up my blog, return to practicing my photography skills (which are getting rusty, while others of you have gained amazing skills during my absence!) and find out if any of my old friends are still here!


I am doing some clean up of my blog, deleting some really old stuff, changing things up a bit and making room for more.  It may be a bit messy for a little while, but I'm pretty sure we can all use a break from the bright pink background...

So I am going to leave you with two small bits...  with the promise of more to come (for real!):

Conversations with Rylee:

Rylee:  Mom, do you want to know what I am very, very, very thankful for?


Me:  Yes I do Rylee, what are you very, very thankful for?

Rylee:  I am very, very thankful for our swelter!!!

Me:  Okay, and what is swelter?

Rylee:  You know the very, very top of our house with the points on it and the little brown square things?

Me:  You mean the roof?

Rylee:  Yes MOM!  I am very, very, very thankful for the roof that is on top of our house, that is the swelter!

SO when you are all counting your blessings this Thanksgiving day, do not forget to add your swelter!

And I also give you this, because I think you need it:

 Consider it a gift :)

You just gotta love pure 7 year old delight!

It's five minutes long, but how sweet Rylee was with her excitement about her Birthday gift!



Pictures and details to follow :)

Update 6/3/2010

When I picked Rylee up from day camp yesterday she hops in the car and I hear her repeating this over and over:

"Seven not six, seven not six, seven not six, seven not six..."

After several minutes of this I ask her what she is doing. She says "Well, I just don't feel like I am seven yet, so I am making myself know that I am seven not six!"

As of this morning, she still had not convinced herself!

"I knew I would..."

Tomorrow is Rylee's 7th birthday (crazy isn't it??), so tonight I made her very favorite meal (Ramon Noodles) for her for dinner.

Just as I was finishing up the noodles I heard her mumble something under her breath.

I said "What did you just say?"

Ry: "I just said something about you, but I can't say what."

Great must be another one of her spicy comments, I was thinking. So I just shrugged my shoulders and went on with what I was doing.

Ry: "Okay, I will tell you what it was. I said I knew that I would get a good Mom."

That stopped me in my tracks and I went over to stand in front of her. "What do you mean, you knew you would?"

Ry: "When I was in China I knew that I would get a good Mom. In China I did not have a good mom."

Not quite sure what to say I just asked her why she says that...

She gets a big grin on her face and says "Mom you know! In China she made me wear pants that showed everybody my booty! That is not good! Peoples don't want to have everyone seeing their booty! Also I had boy hair!"

And then she threw her arms around me and kissed me about 100 times!

Cleaning up...

These chairs seem to be a dumping ground for the girls after they get home from school. Daily they are piled with books, papers, backpacks etc... and every day I have to get after them to clean up their spaces.

Today Rylee was so pleased to show me that she had cleaned up both chairs - and believe me with end of the year books and papers coming home in record numbers the piles were especially high.

I was so please and told her how wonderful it was that she cleaned up not only her own chair, but also her sisters as well - without even being asked!!

She looked at me, like she was all perplexed...

"But Mom we sang the song together!!"

Now I was confused... The song?

She rolls her eyes at me "YES Mom, the song... Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere, clean up, clean up, everybody do your chair!"

I actually did not tell her yet that we are actually singing "do your share" and am still laughing!!

My Little Fashionista!

Remember how much fun we had with Fashion Friday? I think Rylee is taking it to a whole new level. Do you think that maybe she is somehow sneaking in episodes of America's Next Top Model or does this just come naturally? (sorry for the odd sizes, I didn't have time to fix them first)





And for just one more glimpse into my life:

We sat down as a family to watch American Idol and after a while Rylee gets up and comes to stand in front of me. She takes her little hands and very gently cups my chin with them. She looks deep into my eyes with a very serious expression on her face. In a deep sort of husky voice she says "Mama... you are deeeeeelicious!"

I really have no idea where she gets this stuff - and she was just a little offended when I fell over laughing!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

The newest member

Well, it caused a lot of flack from my husband but we have a new member to our family. This is Oreo and she is super sweet. Once you get past that tail - she really is quite cute! The girls adore her and so far have been taking really good care of her.

I have so much to catch up on, which I plan on doing very soon, but I wanted to just share something that happened this week with Rylee. I consider this a big milestone for us and I know that my friends that have also adopted will know just how important this was...

Rylee got off the bus on Monday and came running up to me "Mommy! Mommy! guess what???" She then went on to tell me that one of the teachers (her favorite) had said to Rylee on the playground "There's my little Rylee!" She looked up at me all serious and said "But I told her - I am not your little Rylee, then she (Ms. C) said Oh, I know you are my big girl!" Rylee takes a big gulp of air and continues "But I told her the truth Mama, I told her that I am only Mama's girl, I am not her girl. I have my Mama and we are together forever!"

Maybe this seems rude to our favorite teacher, but boundaries has been a hard thing for Rylee to grasp and she "family shopped" for a very long time after coming to us. She was always willing to go with whoever had the best looking family to her at the time and has even told me a few times that she wishes she could have that family... or she wants to live with so and so's family because they get to have makeup... whatever the reasons, there where times that I really felt if she could have she would walk away and not look back. But things are different now and she really seems to have claimed her place in the family. I know without a doubt that she loves me fiercely and it brought tears to my eyes for her to publicly state that she belongs with us and that she will keep us forever!

Do you see anything different? :)

Rylee as we have always known her heh....

and Rylee now...

And because it's been a while (okay a really long time!!!) here is a Rylee quote:

Rylee: "Mom, I know what's big! REALLY BIG!!!!"

Me (hoping she is not going to include me in this list): What's that?

Rylee: "God and Mickey Mouse! THAT is the two biggest things!"

Happy New Year !!!!