Mamma D

When I look at this beautiful little face I just can't help but to think of Mamma D. I worry about her and think about her every day. I know she is doing fine and getting on with her life now that she's not in Grad school but I still worry. It's even worse when she goes for long periods of time without e-mailing me.

I worry that by getting on with her life that she won't want to have as much contact as we have in the past and that makes me sad for Asha and for myself. Like I have stated she is like the sister I've never had and we truly love her like part of the family.

I can understand if moving on with her life means not having alot of contact with us but I will miss her very much!! I may also just be overreacting like I tend to do. I freak out and then she e-mails me to tell me how insanely busy she's been and then I feel stupid for thinking she was moving away from us. She does have 2 kids in school now and a full time job so it just may be that she is too busy or tired to e-mail.

I just want Asha to grow up knowing her Mamma D and how wonderful she is. I think only good can come from Asha knowing her birthmother and I think Mamma D feels the same.

I'll let you all know if she does contact me. I've been e-mailing her updates as usual but have not heard back from her at all.

Fun Times

We've been having a great end of summer. We are still doing the park thing regularly and there was a fair we took the kids to last night. Asha really is starting to enjoy rides and that is so much fun to watch.


She is still into her pink boots and has been wearing them with everything again. Her new passion is her new leotards for gymnastics. She keeps pulling them out of her drawers and wants us to put them on.

Asha on the carousel at the fair. She never used to like it but the last few times she's really started to smile and laugh and yell "Whee" while on.

Here she is all dressed up for her Great Grandma's birthday party and of course there are the pink boots. We tried VERY hard to talk her into her cute white sandals but it had to be the boots. We get comments every where we go about her boots. Everyone loves them and that makes her want to wear them more.

This is Asha at the school playground. I really love this picture of her even though part of her got a little cut off.

Did you all realize that it's getting darker out earlier? Well the night we took a walk to the school playground I thought we would have plenty of time to get home before dark but I was very wrong. It was almost completely dark out by 8 p.m. We ended up walking home in the dark. So just in case no one has noticed it is getting dark earlier.

Pictures!!

My girl is addicted to corn on the cob. She had 2 pieces this night and wanted more. If you even mention corn on the cob she runs around the house yelling "corn on cob" "corn on cob"!!

This is Asha enjoying the fact that we took the railing off of her bed and that she got new blanket and pillow case. She LOVES it. The only problem is that she sleeps pretty rough so we tuck the blanket into the side of the bed so she doesn't roll out. Well she didn't roll out but I found her at midnight with half her body hanging over the side almost touching the floor and the other half still tucked nicely in bed.

Here she is in the new leotard I bought for her off of ebay. She is going to be starting gymnastics next month and I found some really great deals on ebay. This is the day it came in the mail. She HAD to wear it.

I just love her sparkly mischevious face in this picture. She just sparkles. I can't get enough of her.

Another Question Answered

Question 3:

Do you think her faith impacts how she has handled her grief and her relationship with you all? Does she ever talk about that...the correlation between her faith and how she has processed and handled everything over the past couple of years?

I can't recall for sure if and when she mentioned her faith helping with her grief but I'm pretty sure she had mentioned something along those lines in one of her e-mails that first year. She is very active in her church and has even written and directed Easter and Christmas plays. She leans on God heavily in hard times and like I said always comes through with a smile. Her faith amazes me and I'm pretty positive that's what helped her through it all.

The thing about Mamma D is that she is a VERY busy woman. Her e-mails aren't as frequent or long as they used to be so I only get tid bits of information from her at a time. I used to get more lengthy e-mails but she now has a full time job and a 5 and 6 year old to take care of. Seriously there are times she doesn't check her mail or e-mail for weeks. If I send her something in the mail I e-mail to tell her to check her mail. I miss her and her e-mails but I do understand that she has her own life down in Florida and she may be trying to move on. I know we will never loose touch but she has a life and she's going to live it. She has big plans for her future and she is working towards those plans. I hope she gets everything out of life that she deserves and she deserves ALOT!!

Questions Answered

Thanks for asking questions ladies and they are good ones at that!! Here are some answers.


Question 1:

Do you and Mamma D ever disagree about anything? Just out of curiosity. If so, how do you handle it?

Now you may not believe this but we have never disagreed about anything. I don't know how to say this so it doesn't come across the wrong way but she knows that we are Asha's parents and she doesn't step over that boundary. I don't know if boundary is a good word but that's what popped into my head. When she was here visiting people naturally thought Asha was hers so when people would ask her questions she would look at me and ask me to answer. We got some funny looks but she never stepped in and acted like the mom. She let me do that. She would let us take care of discipline and taking care of Asha the whole time she was here. She has had nothing but praise for us and what we do for Asha and for her and her children.

Question 2:

Does Mamma D ever share some of those harder emotions with you? Do you see them affecting your friendship, or her relationship with Asha at all?

We were really worried when she went home after her visit here that it would be too hard leaving Asha again but when she got home she sent me the most wonderful e-mail about how much she lovs us all and how blessed she feels to have us in her life. I know the first year was hard for her and we even sent her a video of Asha's first year and she did tell me that she couldn't watch it because it was too hard. After her visit and she got to see up close the kind of life Asha has she told me she would probably be fine to watch it now. In the beginning I asked her how much information she wanted and if it would help her or hurt her and she said the more information the better. She wanted to know everything and I think that helps her to know how well cared for and loved Asha is. I send her a TON of pictures and she just gushes over them and appreciates them sooo much. She has not expressed since our visit last year that there has been any sadness and I do my best to try and help in any way I can.

I hope I answered your questions and if not ask again and I will try to elaborate some more. Keep the questions coming ladies and I will be happy to answer them.

Our Open Adoption Story

Someone on another blog I read mentioned that she is trying to find common threads in adoption and has not been able to find any and has encouraged adoptive families to share their open adoption stories.

I have briefly shared about our open adoption but not in great detail. Actually I am very happy with our open adoption and I think Asha's birthmom is too. She has stated more than once that she never thought she could love us as much as she does.

Some people think we are out of the ordinary for open adoptions because we are willing to go all the way. If we lived closer there would be frequent visits and many many memories to be made. Unfortunately we are in Wisconsin and Asha's birthmom and 2 children are in Florida. We try to have atleast one visit a year but did not get to our visit yet this year. We are hoping to go down and visit them in January if all works out. We send regular pictures sometimes monthly sometimes less and we receive pictures of them a few times a year. We have pictures of Asha's birthfamily all over her room and the house. She loves to look at them and can point them out when you ask where her Mamma D is and brother and sister are. We do call her birthmom Mamma D and that is something we all agreed on. We e-mail back and forth frequently and truly Mamma D is like a sister I never had.

I feel so blessed to have her in our lives and especially since she had no idea how open she wanted to be when we all started out. In our first conversation we told her we were as open as she wanted us to be. From there she took the reins and we have a wonderful relationship and great love for eachother. She thinks I am the funniest worry wart out there. Since she lives in Florida I am always worried about hurricanes so she always e-mails me letting me know that they are ok and that I can stop worrying because she knows without me even e-mailing her to check on them that I am worrying.

The best thing for me is seeing Mamma D with Asha. I have the best memories of last summer when she came to visit. She would put Asha up on her shoulders and dance around with Asha squealing and laughing. She would even call Asha the pet names we call her without even knowing those were our pet names for her. Asha was fascinated by Mamma D's hands. She would hold them and turn them over and then look at her own hands. It was so sweet to watch. I will always cherish their time together.

Mamma D is such an amazing woman. She just finished Grad. School and has gotten herself an amazing job. She is a single mother and goes above and beyond for her children while dealing with hardships and trying to get her life on track. She takes so much joy in hearing about Asha and everything she is doing and learning. Mamma D also has an amazing faith in God. Even when her life isn't looking so good she can look to him for strength and she always makes it through with a smile on her face. She amazes me and I am truly truly blessed to have her in our lives and Asha could not have been blessed with a better birthmom.

If there is anything anyone would like to know about our adoption feel free to ask me. I love to talk about adoption!!

Front Pictures Of Asha's New Hair Style

Tonight was a good picture night. It seemed that every picture I took of Asha turned out sooo cute so I am going to post a few of them and then you can also see how cute her hair is from the front. I think this is my new favorite hair style for her. I think for Halloween I will put orange in her hair. That will be sooo cute!!
This is my favorite one of the night. I think it was also the first one of the night too. I take alot of pictures.

Asha playing with her new toy box.

Just one I got of her walking into her bedroom.

I love to take pictures of her. Tonight was a wonderful night and she cooperated so well for me.

I Love This Picture!!

I just love this picture so much!! We were heading out the door to take Dakota to his mom's house and they were having a nice little family moment so I snapped a picture. It turned out so nice. I think I might need to get it framed.

New Hair Style

I tried a new hairstyle today on Asha and I really think I like it. It takes less time than the beads but it still puts color in her hair. Let me know what you think!!

I will try to get a good one from the front and post it later. She wasn't cooperating after sitting for so long. She just wanted to play.

At The Park!!

Our town got a grant for new play equipment at the local park and it's finally done so we had to venture down to see it this week. We went twice and Asha loves it more every time we go. She particularly likes going to the park because it's next to a river and she loves to watch the river as we walk over it. As soon as she gets in her stroller she says "see river, see river".

It was so cute at the park there was this little girl who was 4 and she was just drawn to Asha. She followed Asha around and Asha followed her around. The little girls older brother was more than willing to help Asha get around the tunnels and places I couldn't get to. She seems to draw people and kids where ever she goes. When we went to the beach last week this little girl kept coming up to Asha and saying "Your sooo cute!!" People are always coming over and talking to her at the stores and even men go gaga over her. It's so funny to see men stop and talk all cutsey to her.

Any ways here are some pictures from our outings this week.

This is Asha sitting on the steps going up to the tunnel that she played in most of the time we were there. She couldn't get all the way through by herself but she kept trying.

Here she is in the tunnel. It was steep and some of the kids used it for a slide as well. She had fun just trying to get through.

This picture was taken the first day we went to the park. She was more interested in the swings the first time but today she liked the actual new play ground stuff.

Here is Asha and her brother having fun on the new equipment. Asha really tries to do everything that he does.

This one is just for fun because she looks so cute and just so darn old in this picture. This was taken today and so were the first 2.

We will definately be going back to the park as much as we can before summer is over. She didn't want to leave.

Just Pictures

This was Asha's outfit on Thursday with her pink boots. We were going to the beach that day so her top is just her bikini top.

Daddy dressed her today since I had a migraine. He did a pretty good job but she did talk him back into the boots. She actually went a few days without them.

I took this at the beach on Thursday. I just thought it was a cute picture so I included it. She really had lots of fun and actually went into the water up to her waist. I guess she doesn't mind water if it's warm enough because the last time we went to the beach she barely went deep enough for the water to touch her butt. I wish she was more of a water bug but we have fun in the sand too.

Here she is in her new bikini. She loves it and wants to wear it all the time. I love her in it too so we'll just have to go to the beach more I guess.

Still All About The Boots!!

She's still wearing them and getting compliments where ever we go. She is sooo obsessed with her boots that when I put her down for her nap she must have gotten out of her bed and put them back on because when she woke up they were on and on the wrong feet. When I took those boots off tonight she had some pretty ripe feet. I thought she had a poopy diaper her little feet smelled so bad.

Hopefully tomorrow she will keep them off since we are going to the beach. I don't think boots and sand will mix very well.

I just love being a mommy to my little girl and take joy in all the cute little quirks she has. I will always remember these fun days and I can't wait for many more.

I would post a picture of her in her boots today but I left the camera in her diaper bag again so it will have to wait!!

It's All About The Boots!!

I think my husband is as much of a shoe horse as Asha is. We went looking for new sandals for Asha on Saturday and came out of Target with new sandals and a pink pair of cow girl boots. The boots were compliments of daddy and his little girl had to wear them all through the store and the rest of the day. It was all about those pink boots for her and she loves them. She has been wearing them ever since Saturday afternoon. She wakes up in the morning and her first words are no longer "Good Morning mom" oh no not when there are pink boots to be worn. I now get greated with "Pink Boots mom". She wears them with every outfit including her pajamas. It is the sweetest thing and the one thing I love about having a little girl. Her ability to be girly and loving to dress up. Here are some picture of her outfits since the boots have arrived.
This is what she was wearing Saturday when we bought the boots. The outfit actually does match because there are little pink flowers on her dress.

This is her Sunday morning wearing her boots with her jammies. Luckily she did take them off when it was bath time. We thought we might have a battle of wills over that but it all went smoothly.

This is her outfit from Monday. I tried to make her match since we had to be out and about that day. Here is today's outfit. We did have a little time this morning without the boots but she did finally remember and had to have them on again.

No boots in this picture but this was her fashion statement for last Wednesday when we went to pick up brothers football gear at the school. She HAD to wear her wings. She got lots of compliments on them.

I wonder if tomorrow will be a bootless day?? LOL

First Time Camping

I must say that Asha is definately an out doors kind of girl. She LOVED camping more than I ever thought she would. She laughed from sun up to sun down and just ran ran ran. We camped with Grandma and Papa and had joining camp sites so she ran back and forth visiting and playing. She got soooo dirty but had sooo much fun!! We didn't get to camp as much as we wanted because it rained Thursday all day so we stayed home and went from Friday to Sunday. She had her very first pudgy pie this morning. Daddy made her a cherry pie filling with a marshmallow in the middle and she couldn't get enough. She is now addicted to marshmallows. She would wake up in the morning saying "Chocolate Mallow?" We had to keep telling her that she couldn't have chocolate mallows for breakfast but at night we would have some more. Here are some pictures of her having fun!!

This is Asha in the tent. She kept calling it "Asha's tent". When we took it down this morning she kept saying "Asha's tent flat". It was so cute!!

This is Asha being silly while waiting for papa to throw her the frisbee. She really liked chasing the little red disc around. Kept her busy for a while.Here she is chilling on daddy after scarfing down a bunch of marshmallows and grahm crackers.

Just for fun here is one of Asha in her new bikini. Unfortunately we didn't get to go swimming even though it was hot enough. We were just too busy doing other things. It didn't help that mom had a migraine part of the day on Saturday.

I definately think we will be going camping again. Probably not this year anymore but next year for sure.

We LOVE Play Dates!!

What a wonderful thing play dates are!! We love them and look forward to them. I was never able to do them with my stepson and feel very blessed to have a group of woman who like to have play dates with us. The best part about our play dates is that we all have adopted children and they are all of other cultures. It tickles me to know that Asha will have friends who have families just like hers.

The play date yesterday was with T, M, S, and K. We didn't get any pictures of S & K because they had to leave early. Here are the pictures I did get.

This is Asha and T attempting to play together. None of the girls really play together it's usually just near eachother. Asha is the oldest among the girls but they all get along so nice.

Here's my musical girl trying out the drums.

Here is M sitting on her mommies lap.

We have so much fun at the play dates and it's so nice for us mommies to talk about real life things rather than toddler talk. I hope these girls will have a bond for many years to come!!

Fun Weekend & Finalization Day!

We had a pretty fun weekend. Saturday there was a parade in our town as part of the fair. We've taken Asha every year but this year she really got into picking up the candy especially when they were throwing handfuls of suckers at her. In the picture my family is patiently waiting for the parade to start.

Saturday night we also had a fire again but this time we roasted chocolate marshmallows and they really did taste like hot cocoa. They were so good that Asha wouldn't let anyone else have the bag. She carried it around and kept popping whole marshmallows in her mouth.

Today July 22, 2007 is Asha's finalization day. 2 years ago today she officially became part of our family. I know that some people celebrate this and some people don't but it's just another day we take advantage of to remember family time. It's now been our tradition to go to the beach and have a picnic. That's what we did on the first one and that's what we've done ever since. We bought Asha her own froggy inner tube for the occasion and here's some picture of her with it. She even tried to wear it while playing in the sand which prooved to be pretty difficult.

We try to cram as much as we can into our weekend since daddy isn't home during the week. It's been a busy summer and there's more fun to come. We are going to try and go camping next weekend and that will be Asha's first camping adventure so it should be interesting. We aren't going far from home so if it doesn't work out then it's not big deal we can come home. We are pretty excited and I can't wait to post pictures of her first camping trip.

Picture Post!

Asha loves to wear our clothes including shoes. She is definately a shoe horse and we can not walk through the shoe department without buying her something or she has a melt down. Any ways here she is wearing my hooded sweatshirt even though it was rather warm outside.

We pulled out the outside fireplace and had a nice little fire Saturday night and here is Asha with a whole big marshmallow stuffed in her mouth. She couldn't wait for it to get roasted so she just shoved it in plain. Hint to anyone who likes roasted marshmallows my mother-in-law says Walmart has chocolate marshmallows that taste like hot cocoa when roasted. We will definately be trying that!!Here is my girl giving a concert of her wonderful recorder talent. We were pretty amazed by her that she could just pick it up and make sound right away. She got the putting her hands over the holes and blowing thing down all by herself. We didn't even have to show her what it did she figured it out all on her own.

Here's my ducky girl. She loves ducks and has a ton of ducks all over the house. Those little ducks that you fill up with water and squirt she's got a ton. We even sing a little ducky song "Mack (quack) Mack (quack) Waddle Waddle" sometimes and she was singing it while wearing her little ducky inner tube. It was so cute!!

Fun Day!

I want to add some pictures to this post but I left my camera in Asha's diaper bag which is in her room and she's still trying to get to sleep so it will have to wait.

We had a really great day with my in laws. How many people can actually say that? I finally get along great with my mother and father-in-law. It took years but we are finally there and I am so extremely happy about it.

Any ways to get to the fun day part we went over there after some doctors appointments to go swimming and after we shocked the heck out of the pool since the water was green we finally got to go in and swim a little. Asha isn't real big on water but the more we go there the more comfortable she gets. They had bought a ducky inner tube for the little ones and she wore it in and out of the pool. Once they opened it and blew it up she kept begging to go back in the pool which in itself is a miracle that she wanted to go back in the water. I gave in and put her wet "kini" (bikini) back on her because I just couldn't resist her "wimmin poo" (swimming pool) plead anymore it was just too cute.

After the swimming pool she had a blast when her papa came home with a tupperware tub full of toys for her to play with. He works for 3 apartment complexes and you wouldn't believe the toys that people leave behind when they move. Nice stuff too. Today he brought home about 15 Beanie Babies in really good conidtion that someone just left behind. He also had the whole bottom of the tub full of play kitchen dishes, silverware and food to go along with the play kitchen someone left behind a few weeks ago. It is incredible how much stuff he had for the kids. Everything had been cleaned already so she dove right in and started digging through that tub like there was buried treasure at the bottom. It was so funny to watch her wearing her little ducky inner tube trying to practically dive into the tub.

We had a wonderful dinner of Subway courtesy of Aunty who works at Subway and gets a discount and then some nice visiting time.

I really feel blessed to have these wonderful people in our lives and they truly are what grandparents should be!!

Waaay Too Smart

My girl is just way too smart for only being 2 years old. She just amazes me and some of the things that come out of her mouth just make my draw drop because they are things 2 year olds usually don't say or understand. Even my mother-in-law who has homeschooled 3 children can't believe how smart Asha is. Sorry just a little bragging going on here.

She was being really sassy today so here is our conversation:

Mom: "Do you want to go to bed?" (sounding very serious)

Asha: "Not yet." (also sounding very serious)

Mom: "Then you need to behave"

Asha: "OK!"

She was good then for a while so I know she understood the whole conversation but that's what gets me is that I can have a conversation with my 2 year old.

She also informed me that there were "rain clouds" rolling in and me like the big dumb mommy said "yes those are clouds" not believing they are rain clouds because it's not in the forecast and she tells me again "rain clouds". Sure enough 5 minutes later downpour right on us. Next time I'll listen to my daughter not the weather man.

Also another conversation my husband had with Asha which I thought was completely hilarious was about her misbehaving and throwing temper tantrums again. He asked her "Do you want to go to bed?" She comes back with "yes". I snickered because she got him there. He does not put her to bed even though she has said yes so a little while later the same conversation because she has yet done something else naughty and again the same answer "yes". This time I tell daddy to listen to her so he gets her ready for bed and she was out cold. Apparently she really was ready for bed.

This girl knows what she wants and for the most part can voice it. Some days that's good and some days that is soooo bad.

Yes everyone this angelic little face can throw one heck of a temper tantrum. She can be heard down the block with the doors and windows closed.

Six Flags

The day after our wonderful 4th of July we took the kids to Six Flags in Illinois. We found a wonderful package deal offered by the Hyatt in Deerfield so we couldn't pass it up.

The first day we went to Hurricane Harbor which is the water park there. Again Asha wasn't real big on the water part of it but she did love the lazy river. She layed on daddy's belly and said hi to everyone who passed.

They had an amazing kids area with water cannons and huge buckets at the top that would slowly fill up with water and then dump out on whoever was down below. For that reason Asha would not let us put her in the water. She was fine until she saw the bucket dump. I love this picture of her and daddy.

The second day we hit all the big rides and all the little kid areas for Asha. She is obsessed with trains and thankfully they had a little kiddie train. She loved it and for the rest of the day thought all the big roller coasters were trains. She would yell "train choo choo"!
Lastly the girl loved our bed in the hotel room. We almost thought she would sleep with us. She kept climbing up there and making herself at home. I do not blame her though because I could have stayed in it all day. I've never said that about a hotel bed but it was AWESOME!! Here she is enjoying our bed.

By the way I am the QUEEN at Wack A Mole and won her some really nice stuffed animals. The one you can see in the last picture is the most adorable little puppy. The prizes at Six Flags are waaaaay better than you win at carnival games. It was so worth the $3 to win her such cute prizes. She walked away with a cute unicorn, an octopus (really cute) and her puppy.

It was alot of fun and I will have not problems going back in a few years when Asha can actually remember she's been there.