Puzzles

Hannah recently discovered puzzles. She had done wooden ones, but never the cardboard "real" puzzles. She has conquered the 24 piece so I need to pick up so more complicated ones. She is very proud of herself and ALWAYS ends her puzzle solving with a big "Ta Da."

Meet me in St. Louis

We only had a few days together, but we made the most of it just hanging around, playing Guitar Hero, and a trip to the zoo.

Call Day 2009

Mark received his vicarage call on April 22nd. He will be serving at Crown of Life Lutheran Church in Colleyville, Texas (a suburb of Dallas). His year starts August 1st and will go through July 31, 2010. Then Mark will return to St. Louis to get married on August 7, 2010 and finish his fourth year of seminary with sweet Lauren by his side. We are very proud of you, Mark!

Hannah LOVES big brother Mark

Elijah and Nana

Daddy and Hannah

Mark and Lauren (with Luther tower in the background)

Mark and Toby (don't ask)

April, Christian and Elijah (still chasing that perfect family photo)

Elijah stopping to smell the flowers (a good reminder to us all)

Celebrating at Olive Garden

Easter with the Cole's and Bond's

We had both families at our house for Easter lunch. In the evening we went to my brother Jimmy's for dinner. There were egg hunts at both places so Hannah and her cousins had lots of fun.

Aunt Tracy and Hannah

Nanny, Granny and Hannah

Coloring with Granny

Aubrey, Hannah and Chandler on the hunt

Hannah, Aubrey and Chandler
(distracted by all the loot)

Hannah and Aubrey (who needs candy with all this cuteness?)

Resting tired feet

Easter Egg Hunt

We had a great time at Concordia's Easter egg hunt. The staff and volunteers do such a great job of making sure that all the kids have fun and get lots of eggs. This year Hannah would only pick up pink eggs. I can't remember how many of the 14,000 eggs each child was allowed to put in their basket, but it was a lot. We were only half way there when Hannah said "that's enough" and headed for the car. I must say this daughter of mine knows what she wants (and how she wants it and who should do it...but that's a post for another time).

Strawberry Fields

In April we went to Marburger Orchards in Fredericksburg with my MOPS group to do some strawberry picking. I haven't picked strawberries since I was a kid in Upstate New York. The pickings were slim (more people picking due to the economic downturn?), but we ended up with enough for some fabulous strawberry shortcake for dessert. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time with friends.

"Do you go there?"

I apparently have a knack for picking cashiers. Yesterday I stopped in Wal-mart to pick up ribbon boxes and Zone bars. On the end of an aisle near the Zone bars were lip balm with the O'Connor Panthers logo on them. I thought they might make a cute little "I thought of you" gift for Christian and Mark, who both graduated from that high school, and since we will see them in St. Louis in a couple weeks I picked a few up.

The cashier, a young man of 20 or so, rings up the lip balms and says to me...."so...do you go there?" ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I often get comments about how I don't look old enough to have sons as old as they are, etc. I got carded when buying beer or wine at the grocery store until I was 35 years old (like I bought these $200 worth of groceries to hide the six pack). One time, again when I was 35 or so, I was stopped going into a club with Stacy and asked for my ID. But high school? Do I really look young enough for high school? When I told him by sons graduated from O'Connor he didn't think that the school was old enough to have graduates yet. I told him that my oldest graduated in 2001 which led him to say, "Oh...that was like 10 years ago." Good thing I gave him the exact change.

Out of the mouths of....cashiers

Monday Hannah and I were out and about at two different Home Depot's and a Lowe's searching for pegboard and accessories for said pegboard for my girl cave. At the second Home Depot (1604 & Culebra) we were having a very nice shopping experience. A new "race car" cart, everyone being friendly and helpful...very nice. And then it was time to checkout.

The cashier was an older woman [older than me :-)] and Asian. She quietly said to me that Hannah looked Asian. I said she was born in China. She seemed to connect with Hannah on that level, but Hannah wasn't buying it and started acting like a baby. Maybe she knew what was coming (although she was probably just tired of Mommy's shopping). The cashier then asked if Hannah speaks English, told me I "picked a cute one" and then asked if my husband was okay with having an Chinese baby.

Now, I do not believe this lady meant to upset me or even understood how rude she was. But it did remind me that the time is here that I am going to have to be better prepared to deal with these kinds of comments. I could ignore them before, but now Hannah hears them. And she is watching how I react. That's why I didn't say to the cashier what I was thinking. Of course she speaks English...she is an American. I didn't pick her out like picking out a dress or a new pair of shoes. She was assigned to us by the same Chinese government that created circumstances where baby girls are left at the gate of an orphanage when they are a week old. That God spoke to me over and over telling me my daughter was in China, that I was obedient to His calling in urging to my Christian husband to consider such an outrageous plan, and that he was lead to believe that this calling was from God and we made the trip to Hannah together, in every possible way. That he is now "Daddy" and that he is beyond "okay" with being the center of the universe to a precious little girl who joined our family through the miracle of adoption.

The fact is my daughter doesn't look like me. I know it. She knows it. At Disney they have refillable cups at the resorts to use in the food court. They were basically all the same cup with three different colors of lids/handles: black, red and yellow. Hannah picked the black because it matches her hair (she is all about the matching lately). I had to have the red one because I have red hair. Stacy got the yellow one because it matched his head.

Hannah loves to look at the scrapbook of our trip to China. We knows she is adopted and when she meets someone new one of the first things she says is that she was born in China. She doesn't understand all of what that means yet, but she knows as much as she can probably take in at three. But the need for me to finish working on her life book is more urgent. I'm going to start with an "ABC" life book that is age appropriate. It will be her book about her life and how she came to our family. It will be a way to get the discussion going, for her to get familiar with adoption language. A book that will tell her over and over how much we love her, how much God loves her and how much a part of her forever family she is. I have done some writing and planning for an older life book, to talk about birth parents and abandonment and Chinese laws, but I need to get something done now that can grow with her questions.

Do I need to acknowledge every rude/awkward/inappropriate comment a stranger (or acquaintance) makes? No. But I do need to be ready to answer Hannah's questions, which could come at any time. So I'm going to be ready. After all, that's what mothers (and former girl scouts) do.

End of Vacation-Day 6

We only had a couple of hours on our last day so we let Hannah pick her 3 favorite things, which were all in Magic Kingdom: Dumbo, Tea Cups, and Goofy's Roller coaster. So we hit those rides and then stopped for our one and only hot dog in our week at Disney. Stacy and Hannah watch some street show while I finally bought a few souvenirs, then it was back to the hotel to catch the bus to the airport.

This is Hannah, at noon, sleeping. I'd say that we finally wore her out, but once on the plane she developed a fever. At least she didn't catch our cold until the way home so it didn't spoil her first trip to Disney. She still talks about it and will each ad on the TV talks about Disney and asks when we can go again. I think for her it was just the right time to take her. And what is really special is what was most important to her, and what she had the hardest time with post vacation, is that her Daddy and Uncle Toby were with her all day, every day. Her love language does seem to be quality time and she enjoyed every minute of it. And so did we.

Eating, Drinking and Dancing--Day 5

Hannah aka Snow White striking a pose. This seemed to be the "pose of the day"...check out the video below.

Snow White and her Prince Charming

Lunch at the Prime Time Cafe

Hannah enjoying her macaroni and cheese
Monsters, Inc.

Hannah and Cora: Toby and I went in a shop and when I came out Snow White was hugging Belle. Stacy said they had been dancing and twirling and hugging for quite a while. I guess they don't run in to other princesses their own size too often.

Lightening and Mater

Hannah jamming at Playhouse Disney

Hannah's dessert at the Prime Time Cafe was a "build your own sundae." So naturally....Hannah ate the cup of M&M's, drank the cup chocolate syrup, and then ate the sprinkles. She never did eat the ice cream!

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo--Day 4

We started the day back at Epcot to go on the big rides with missed the day before and then ventured to China for Chinese food for lunch. Toby had already taken Hannah on a boat ride in Mexico while Stacy and I went around the race track and to Mars and they met Mulan and Meshu in China.

We arrived at Magic Kingdom just in time for the parade and watched Hannah play with bubbles and dance from our front row seats before the parade began. This is the day Hannah and I became actually princesses with the help of our "fairy godmothers in training" at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique at Magic Kingdom. It's in Cinderella's castle and it was a really special time for Hannah and me. She was soooooo excited that she ran right into the salon and into a chair before they even called her name. She got the princess up do and got to pick her crown (with Cinderella blue crystals), her make-up (she chose purple and green eye shadow), and her nail polish (Cinderella blue). She just loved it and they treated her like the princess she is. I had surprised her with a new Cinderella dress I brought from home ($9 at Walmart.com v. $60 at Disney) and she wore it all day in the park.

I got the "Disney diva" style with hair attachments. We both received a generous dusting with pixie dust. Toby, who went shopping while we were getting pampered showed up just as our fair godmother in training was sprinkling Stacy with pixie dust so Toby got dusted too. He didn't have much choice, but the men will do just about anything for Hannah. Then we went to Tony's (the Italian restaurant from Lady and the Tramp) for dinner and more attractions and fireworks afterwards. A very fun day!

Epcot--Day 3

Tuesday we headed to Epcot. Unfortunately, this is the day Stacy became sick (bad, bad cold that we are all still fighting off) and only made it half the day. We spent the day in future world and had our picture taken with Mickey and Pluto. One of the perks of having a Disney Visa card is that they have a secluded private meet and greet with a character and you get a free 5x7. It was really cool because only one family at a time is allowed in the room and they let you spend as much time as you need to get whatever photos you want. We waited quite a while and I was a bit concerned that we wouldn't get a cool character (they don't tell you who the character is and I was afraid it would be Chip & Dale or Lilo & Stitch, which Hannah either doesn't know or doesn't care about). To our great surprise it was Mickey and Pluto! Stacy hung in until after the photo and headed back to the hotel. Toby and I took Hannah on a couple of her favorite attractions (we had to wait an hour and a half for our photo) and we joined Stacy back at the hotel for nap time. Then we ordered pizza and stayed in our room and watched movies....Disney movies.

Family Photo

Disney has added several neat things to Epcot for kids, I guess because Epcot is considered by many to be the least kid friendly of the parks. In future world, they give kids a tag and have tables in the Land and the Sea pavilions where cast members add tags that the kiddos can color with markers. Hannah seemed to like it and hey...free souvenir. In World Showcase, the kids can color a mask in each country. Very cool. We only stopped in two countries and only did a mask in one, but Hannah did a great job on it.

We wore her out again!! (and it's still daylight)

For some number of years, Disney had a "Leave a Legacy" promotion. You could commemorate your trip by having your picture taken that was added to metal plates and placed on granite columns at the entrance to Epcot. Part of our "romance package" when Stacy and I went to Disney for our 10th anniversary in 2003 included a leave a legacy photo. So we found it (with the help of their computer). Ain't we cute? [Note: it actually looks better in person, but doesn't photograph very well).