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.

4th of July

It's a little late but here are some pictures of our wonderful 4th of July.

It was probably the best one we've had in a while. No stress just lots of fun. This picture is of Asha in our backyard waiting for it to get dark so daddy could light off some of our own fireworks. Our town has fireworks on the 4th of July every year and fortunately we can see them from our backyard so it's alot quieter and less crowded. She loved them and would yell "Sparkles" every time they lit up the sky. She did really well since there was minimal booming from where we were.

Also while waiting for it to get dark we lit our outdoor fireplace and grandma brought marshmallows so Asha had her very first roasted marshmallow. She LOVED it and couldn't get enough. I didn't get a picture but she had marshmallow all over her face. It's a good thing grandma's think of fun stuff like marshmallows.

This is Asha trying to see the ribbons she put on her head. Daddy bought brother some poppers that shoot ribbons out and she thought they were supposed to go on her head once they came out of the popper.

Daddy also bought the kids sparklers and Asha got to hold her very first sparkler. I got a picture but it's not the best. She liked it but it freaked mom out so the first was the last for the night. She enjoyed watching brother play with his so it was no big loss to her.

Here's my girl in her "kini" as she likes to call it. During the day we went to grandma and papas house to go swimming. She's not a big fan of the water but she really liked it this time. She was shivering and still didn't want to get out. I hope by the end of the summer she is really into swimming more.

Over all it was a wonderful 4th of July.

Tinkle Potty!

She did it she went tinkle on the potty yesterday. We've been trying for months now and nothing but of course when daddy is home she will do it for him. I think she barely went but we made a very big deal out of it so hopefully she will do it again.

She has been very good about letting us know when she needs a diaper change so I hope we are getting closer to her telling us when she needs to use the potty. She asks to go on the potty but it's usually after she's already gone in her diaper.

She's actually been asking to go on the potty more since she had a poop accident in the bathtub on Monday. I had to sit her on the potty for a while to clean up after her accident so maybe something clicked there a little. It was NOT a fun time. That was her first accident in the bathtub ever so I am counting myself lucky. It wouldn't have been soooo bad if she wasn't still sitting there with conditioner in her hair ready to drip in her face. I had to then rinse her hair in the kitchen sink which you would have thought I was trying to kill her with all the screaming and flailing about. We got through it and it will be a nice memory to tell her about when she's older.

Back From The Zoo!

This was the best picture we got of Asha at the zoo. It was so incredibly hot that day that none of us were smiling much. They even had cool mist areas that you could walk through and cool off. We went to the Minnesota Zoo and a good portion of it is indoors which was really nice but once you got outside it was packed and HOT!!

In this picture Asha is growling at the Sun Bear. She loves bears and she loves to growl at them. "AARRRRR" She sounds like a pirate when she growls it's funny.

We tried to take her to the dolphin show which I really thought she would like but as soon as the dolphins started splashing she was done. Daddy took her out about 5 minutes into the whole thing. I guess Sea World is out of the question, at least in the near future.

Asha did really like the hotel we stayed at. She always does so well when we sleep away from home. She loves to sleep in her pack n play and so it's a nice vacation for mom and dad as well. We put it in between the 2 beds so no one would hurt themselves trying to get to the bathroom at night and she would dive head first into it. She thought it was the best and funniest thing ever. She just kept throwing herself in and laughing.

In this pictures she is waiting ever so patient for daddy to get off of work. Daddy works away from home and one of the perks is that we get to stay with him out of town if we want. Since we showed up on a Thursday he still had to finish work.

In the background is her big brother Dakota. She loves him sooo much and he is such a good big brother. Someone at the dolphin show took one of her stuffed animals she HAS to bring with when we go places and he saw them so he walked up to them and told them that they had his sisters bear and asked for it back. They gave it to him and we were really impressed with him for that.

Asha impressed us alot at the hotel too. She has a little magna doodle that we take when we travel and daddy was drawing fish on it and showing her. She took it and started to draw and she drew a frog. It was a frog. She made the little dots for eyes and a line for the mouth and it really looked like a frog. She watches people very closely when they do things especially when we draw or write and she catches on very fast. Later she made a circle with 2 lines coming out of the top and 2 lines coming out of the bottom and she showed me and said "spider". It looked like a spider. She also did a pretty good job drawing fish after daddy did a few more.

This picture is our last day at the hotel and Dakota obviously is not happy about leaving daddy behind. We had lots of fun and it was nice to see daddy and get some time away from home to relax.

Busy Days!

We've been pretty busy around here. Trying to get the outside of the house to look like a home. We finally planted some Hostas and bought some flowers.

I like this picture of Asha in front of our hard work. We have more to plant but need to do some work to the ground first.

Asha is just getting to be so big and so smart. I love to hear her talk and the things she says make her sound years older than she is. She picks up on things rather quickly and suprises me with all the things she can say. She can count to 14 now and we are working on the alphabet and her favorite part of the alphabet is XYZ. She sings it over and over again. She can recognize the letter O and A in words which I think is really good.

We had put a chalkboard up in her room so I could write out the alphabet and start to teach her letters the same way I taught her brother but she doesn't like letters on her chalkboard only hearts and stars. She always wants me to draw hearts and stars and if I sneak any letters in there she erases them. Stinker she is!!

In this picture she is doing her newest thing. She likes to put her finger to her mouth and say "Hmmmm" like she's thinking really hard and then she'll put her hands out and say "I know" or "I don't know". It's the cutest thing.

I love this dress on her. She wore it today and I just could not stop taking pictures of her in it. She just looked so summery and pretty in it. I love summer because we get to see more of her beautiful skin. Her arms and legs are just so cute and we miss them when they are covered up all winter.

She also learned at a playdate we had how to bump fists. It's so cute when she comes up to you and says "fist" and bumps her little fist into our fists.

Potty training is not going well. She is very cooperative about sitting on the potty but still has not done anything on the potty. I thought we may have had some success today but nothing happened in the end. I'm not pushing it but just don't know how to figure out how to make her understand what needs to be done on the potty.

She is still doing great in her big girl bed. When she wakes up in the morning she stays in her bed until someone comes in to get her. For naps I only caught her once trying to get out and once I caught her she went right to sleep.

I can't wait to post pictures of her in her bikini. I can't wait until it's warm enough to go to the beach. We have one nice day and then a week of cold days lately.

We Did It!!

Asha has been in her big girl bed for almost a week now. We converted her crib into the toddler daybed and put a railing on so that she wouldn't fall out but could still get out on her own. It was time. She could get in her crib all by herself so it was only a matter of time until she figured out how to get out. She stays in when we lay her down for the night and she waits until we come in in the morning before she gets out. Now I know that eventually she will start getting up on her own in the morning but for now I'll enjoy her not running into our room and waking us up.

Still having problems on the Nuk front. She has been Nuk free for a few weeks now and the last few nights have been pretty hard on us. She will sleep good for about 4 hours and then she's up crying and whinning alot. The only thing that makes her stop is to have her cd of lullabies on. The problem with that is it's only a 1/2 hour cd so she's up shortly after it stops. It's been up and down all night for the last few days and then she's been getting up before 8 a.m. to top it off. No naps either so I'm pretty tired and don't know what to do. Suggestions????

We've been pretty busy lately with Asha's brother Dakota. He joined soccer this year and we've had it every Thursday night and Saturday morning. The above picture is Asha and Daddy at one of Dakota's soccer games. She did wonderfully at the games and would cheer for her big brother. It's so cute hearing her yell "Go Dakota, Kick It!!"

Now normally I don't have luck at yard sales but I hit the jackpot the other weekend at our town yard sale. I got the above shirt for Asha at a great price and I absolutely love it on her. She is just so darn cute in it and I can't wait until we have nice weather again so she can wear it. Of course daddy loves it because it's camo.

My girl is just so darn cute!! She says and does the funniest things. Today she gave her baby doll a time out since she (Asha) has been getting them so much this week. I just had to laugh. Also when the phone rings she'll run to where the phone is and yell "I get it!!". If I catch her doing something wrong and ask her what she's doing she'll say "Coming". She just speaks so well. She does know how to count to 14 now but I love it when she gets to 11 because it comes out "lemon". Along with all the time outs this week we have been having fun and I've been laughing so much at her. Her personality is just so bright like her and I feel so blessed to be her mommy.

Cute Pictures

I found this cabbage patch doll at a yard sale and it's the nicest African American doll I've found. They just look so darn cute together. Asha loves to play dress up. My husband loves the clearance isle at Walmart because he finds all kinds of goofy hats for her to wear. She's not wearing one here because she was trying to be pretty but she's got some pretty old lady looking hats in her collection.

Asha has discoverd the joys of sidewalk chalk. She loves to color anyways but to be able to color outside and pretty much anywhere she wants is beyond fun to her. She has also discovered that sidewalk chalk shows up really good on her legs. I didn't get them in the picture but they are beautifully colored.Asha had her 2 year pictures done about a month ago and this is by far my favorite. We didn't even intend on getting any Sepia pictures but when she pulled this one up we just fell in love with it. It is just so precious.

Vegetarian???

I think my little girl is a vegetarian. The only thing that I can guarantee she will eat at every meal is her vegetables. She will eat any kind of vegetable but meat is hit and miss. Most the time it's a miss. She loves vegetables that most of us Northerners won't even touch or have never heard of. My husband grew up in the South and has introduced Asha to fried Okra, Mustard Greens, and Collard Greens. She loves asparagus, Homney, spinach, corn and salad. She goes nuts over salads.

We were at McDonalds today and I ordered her the traditional chicken nugget kids meal and she wouldn't touch them. All she wanted was her apple dippers and fries. What kid doesn't like McDonalds chicken nuggets?

She loves fruit too. She's always asking for apples and bananas. I am so happy that she eats healthy but she does need some meat in her diet doesn't she? She eats really good for the most part just not meat.

Toddler Bed~ I think we have decided to convert her bed into a toddler bed. She can now get into her bed by herself even if the railing is all the way up. She can't get out though so all day long she climbs in and then yells "Mama Stuck" so I have to get her out just so she can climb back in. She literally spent over an hour in her crib tonight just playing.

Here's a picture of my future basketball player. She loves basketball now after just playing for one day. She looks out her window and says "Basketball Hoop". She would put the ball over her head and look at her brother and say "help" and then when he would throw the ball and make a basket she would jump up and down like she made it. It was soooo cute!! She's got the height to be a basketball star. She is 90% for height. People don't believe me when I tell them she JUST turned 2. They think she's an older 2 or just 3. My girl is so big and growing so fast. I bought her sandals today and had to buy her a size 7 in toddlers. Last year she was a 4 or 5. Why do they have to grow so fast?

Here is my girl showing her sassy side. Daddy and mommy were talking and laughing about how silly she was being so she was pointing at us laughing at her silly self. We fenced in the backyard for her and she was loving running all over and antagonizing the neighbors dog who could only run to the end of her fence and Asha could go further so she would and that would make the dog whine for her to come back.

We are definately loving the outdoors and I should have plenty more outdoor pictures of her to share soon.

Bye Bye Nuk!

Well last night turned out to be very sleepless. Asha fell asleep on me at 7:30 last night since she didn't have a nap at all and I thought she was down for the night. Guess again. She woke up at 11:30 crying so I went in to find her Nuk (she only gets it for bed) for her and I put it in her mouth and she spit it out and continued to cry. I tried the Nuk again and the same happened only this time she was getting more mad. I finally looked at the Nuk and it was ripped through the middle. I told Asha "Nuk broken" and she had a complete meltdown. This would not be that big of a problem if we had more Nuks but DH said after this one is done that it's no more Nuk. So she threw a temper tantrum until she fell back asleep but continued to wake up many many times throughout the night screaming and crying because she couldn't find her Nuk.

This is going to be so hard to listen to every night. It breaks my heart to hear her cry like that but I know it is something that needs to be done so why not sooner rather than later right? I don't know how much I actually believe that but we'll see how it goes and how long I can hold out before I buy her another one.

We are still undecided about the toddler bed. She doesn't climb out yet but she gets her leg over the top of the railing and just kind of sits there until I get her down. She's getting there but not there yet. How long do you think we can hold out????

Crib to Bed?

Now that Asha is 2 we have been debating if we should move her to a toddler bed. Actually her bed is a conversion bed so it would just mean taking the railing off of her bed to make it into a toddler day bed. She rarely naps anymore but on the days I would want her to nap it would be IMPOSSIBLE if she were in a toddler bed. The positive side of no naps is that she is ready for bed between 7:30-8:00 and she is out cold so there would be no fights to get her to stay in bed. I just don't know if I'm ready to give up the few naps she takes a week. Those days are so nice to have time to get things done without her wanting "up" and hanging on me. I love her to death but some days it's hard to fold the laundry multiple times because she's "helping" or being pushed away from the sink/stove because she wants me to pick her up.

I also don't know if it's a good idea to change too many things at one time for her. We have sort of started potty training and I don't know if that would all be too much for her.

I don't know what to do. In my head she is still a baby and I don't want to think of doing any of this because she's just a baby but then when I REALLY look at her I realize she's getting to be such a big girl and these are things we need to do.

Any advice anyone?

My Baby Is A BIG Girl!!

I don't have a baby anymore I have a big girl. The family picture was taken when Asha was 3 months old and she is now my 2 year old.

Asha had her 2 year doctor appointment and she is 90% for height. A whopping 35" for height and 26 1/2 pounds which makes her 50% for weight. She is tall and skinny .... very tall.

I can not believe she used to be only 6 pounds and 18". When we brought her home she was too small for her car seat. She was just this little itty bitty ball. She didn't even fit in the preemie clothes we had to go out and buy her. Time really does fly.

The doctor had suggested that we start to potty train her since she seems to understand when she is wet. She will tell me "change diapey". It's so cute!! She has yet to go tinkle on the potty but she sits there nicely while I sing stupid little made up potty songs to encourage her to go tinkle on the potty. My step son thinks I'm crazy but if it eventually makes her go tinkle I'll look crazy.

My girl is sick today. No fever but she can't keep anything down. I feel so bad for her because she cries so hard whenever she is throwing up. At one point I had her in the tub to clean her up after one of her episodes and she just started to cry and puke and shake. I was crying because I felt so bad for her. I hope she feels better after her nap.

We did Easter last Sunday since DH won't be here for Easter. I didn't get any good pictures of Asha with her Easter basket because she was all serious again like with her birthday presents. She is really enjoying jelly beans though this year. She will ask "Heas (please) jelly bean" and run over to where her bucket is on the counter. Hopefully next year daddy will be home for Easter and we can do it right.

Happy Easter Everyone!!

Where Does The Time Go?

My girl is officially a 2 years old. We had her birthday party yesterday with family. She has finally gotten the hang of presents and went right to town on them when we brought them out. The funny thing was though that she got so serious about the presents. She didn't crack one smile the whole time she was opening them. She concentrating very hard on getting them open and then deciding which ones she wanted to play with right now. Look at that concentration on her face. She had a job to do and she was going to do it well.

Daddy thought it was funny to pile all of her bows on her head while she was opening presents. She was concentrating so hard that she didn't even notice they were on her head until she was all done.

On her birthday and for her birthda party I painted her finger nails for the very first time. She loved it. She felt so pretty and kept looking at her nails. The really funny part though was when I blew on her nails to dry them she kept saying "hot" "hot". I had to keep telling her "not hot just wet". Silly girl!! Here are her nails all painted and full of frosting from digging into the cake. Here you can see that concentration again. She's usually not so serious. She is actually a VERY silly girl.

On her actual birthday we went and had a girls day out and did some shopping and had lunch. It was alot of fun and exactly what I always hoped to do with my daughter. Here is a picture of her on her actual birthday. She's such a girly girl and I love it.

I just can't believe she is 2 years old. We talked to her birthmom on the phone yesterday as well and she is having a hard time believing it's been 2 years as well. She seems to be doing really well. She is busy with her other 2 children. They were at a parade when we called so we couldn't talk long but it was nice for her to be able to talk to Asha and for Asha to be able to hear her birthmom's voice. Asha didn't say much because she was watching me frost her birthday cake and REALLY wanted some of that frosting but she was listening to everything her birthmom said. It was really sweet.

My Babies Turning 2!!!

I can't believe that on Tuesday my little baby will be 2 years old. I can't believe it's been 2 years since we drove 19 hours down to Florida to see her for the very first time. It just can't be 2 years already. Time can not possibly have gone by that fast. She's still a baby in my head and I think she will always be my baby.

She got her first birthday present in the mail on Friday and it was from her birthmother. I cried when I saw it. It will mean so much to Asha when she is older. It is a red velvet heart shaped box with a crystal angel bear inside and under the lid was this little poem:

A GIFT OF LOVE My gift to you is my love given from deep within my heart. This special love will never end even when we're apart.

It was just so sweet. I have it right where Asha can see it every day. Her birthmother is such a wonderful person and we are so blessed to have her in our lives. Asha will be blessed to grow up knowing how much her birthmother loves her.

Asha's birthday party is going to be on Saturday and we are having family over and cooking out weather permitting. I think we got her just as many presents for her birthday as we did for Christmas and that's saying alot because we went over board on Christmas.

I will post pictures next week of the party. It should be fun and I HOPE we have beautiful weather.

All Moved In!! YEAH!!

Well we are officially moved in. Here is a picture of Asha helping me pack before the big move. She was such a big help can't you tell?

The first day was alot for her to handle. At first she was scared and didn't know what to think of it all but once we got some of her toys in her room she was happy as could be. She loved yelling "HI" to all the guys as they came in and out and she loved running around the nice open space that our new home has. That first night was rough going for sleep. She fell asleep at 8:30 really well but was up at midnight and wouldn't go back to sleep until 5 a.m. Made for a very long and tiring day unpacking the next day. After that first night though she has slept better here than at our old house. She rarely gets up in the middle of the night now and goes down without a fuss.

We are both loving the new house. It is open concept and her bedroom is now on the main floor so no more toys in my living room!!! She does drag some out but for the most part it is contained in her room.

Her new passion now is toilet paper. She has never had access to the bathroom before and now there are 2 on the main floor. We are constantly having to roll the toilet paper back up.

I bought these really cute butterfly pegs and frames to hold her pictures of her birthparents and biosiblings and painted them purple. On the frames I stamped cute little yellow butterflies that will match the wall color. I also put white glitter on the butterflies so they sparkle when the light hits them. They turned out really well. Here's a picture of the finished product. Her room will eventually be yellow walls and big purple butterflies. It should look really nice when done.