A terrible night...

Last night was horrible. We went out to dinner with some friends, went to the airport to welcome a FCC family home and then went for ice cream -- that was the good part. The drive home was horrible. Olivia has a hard time not talking and using an indoor voice especially in a car. At home it doesn't bother me as much but the car, well it is just extremely loud and gives me a headache and last night was no exception. After being asked several times to quiet down, I made Olivia give me her beloved Taggie for the remainder of the ride home and night. Well, she did not like that and told me that she was not going to be my kid anymore and in Olivia fashion she kept repeating it over and over and over.....well you get the picture. I basically kept quiet (and quietly crying) for the rest of the ride home. We were about to turn onto our street and she said it one more time and I lost it. I said that if she wasn't going to be my kid then I wasn't going to be her mommy anymore. Yes, I know it was not the right thing to say and I feel awful for saying it but I had to show her how words you don't mean can hurt people. She went in her room when she got home just crying and crying and I felt awful because I caused the crying. I got Sophia ready for and put her in bed before tackling Olivia and this issue we were having. I went into Liv's room and got some pj's out and changed her. We then talked about how we both said things that we didn't mean and how I would ALWAYS be her mommy. I think there may be some underlying issue there but I didn't press it last night. I just held her, talked to her about our words and how they hurt, and about how we need to use our indoor voices in both the house and the car. Today has been great.....so far!

Today is my day!

Well, today is my birthday -- one I have not been looking forward to. My husband and mother did this to me:



I want to give a BIG THANK YOU to my dear friend Marla at http://lifewith4js.blogspot.com/ (why can't I get this link thing to work?!) for my birthday present! She sent me some cookies from Harry and David for my birthday. She is such a dear friend and I am so glad we met 5 years ago on our adoption quests. One of these days I am going to meet her in person! Thanks my dear friend! Talk to you tonight!

Update on Snowball

Well, I just got back from the vet - again. The news is not good. They did an ultrasound on his heart this morning and have determined that he is now in Advanced Heart Failure and decreasing rapidly. I asked about how much time we would have with him and he said probably 6 months or so. They called in a script to help his coughing and are keeping him on the other 2 meds he's been taking. I am going to miss my boy......

School can wear you out......

Cooking supper last week (day 3 of school) I walked into the living room and this is what I found:

She is loving school. She got her name in the "excellent can" yesterday and was so excited! I am not exactly sure what that is but it means she got to pick some candy out of the candy box and she thought of her mommy when she picked as she got one of my favorites -- banana Laffy Taffy -- just for me! Oh how I love this girl!

Where did my baby go? (and other stuff)

Sophia has just gone and grown up on me this summer. She is now 3.5 and is doing different things at this age than Olivia did. There is even one thing that she's doing that Olivia can't do. Sophia is swinging all by herself. She can get started and it is her favorite thing to do. Olivia was 4.25 yo before she figured this out. She can also snap her fingers and she is actually quite good at it. This is the thing that Olivia can't do and although she does try hard she just can't get it down. Sophia has really been missing Olivia since she's started school but in just over a week it will be her turn.

Olivia had another good day at school. She is very proud of the fact that she didn't get any "sticks" which makes mommy happy too. Sticks is the new discipline thing for this year. Last year they gave red, yellow or green stamps/cards but this year have changed. Today they had PE and that must have worn her out because she fell asleep on the couch while I made dinner tonight. Poor little thing.

I wanted to give an update on our dog. Snowball was diagnosed with a heart murmur and the medicine is helping some. I took him back last week and they did a chest x-ray for which I got the results yesterday. They are now telling me he has early heart failure. From what I have read that this is fairly treatable but my main concern is that it is cutting off his air supply when he does go into his "episodes" which are still happening more than I like. There is something pushing his trachea up and cutting off his oxygen. We have an appointment to take him tomorrow to see what all our options are. The vet said he may give him another medication on top of the ones he's already taking.

Second day complete

Well, Olivia's second day of school is complete. There is a carpool drop-off which is something she is not used to. A 5th grader helped her to class and she had a great day. The teachers assistant that brought her to the car made a comment that made me proud. She said they are all fighting over Olivia and wanting her in their class. I said "oh really?" and she said yes she is the sweetest little girl. Of course, I knew that but it was nice to hear from someone she's only seen for 2 days.

Officially a Kindergartener

Well, it is official -- Olivia is a Kindergartener! She was a little apprehensive this morning but did wonderfully. She had her favorite (well one of her favorites) cinnamon rolls for breakfast. It was a toss up between the cinnamon rolls and sausage (with eggs) and the cinnamon rolls won. She walked in like a big girl, found her cubby, put up her back pack and lunch. Then she found her name and sat down. She and another girl named Gracie shared a puzzle while waiting for class to start. Mommy didn't cry but Daddy got tears in his eyes. Here are a few pics for y'all:

The school supplies......

The backpack and matching lunchbox.....

The dress we wanted to wear but had to take back.....

The dress we are now wearing on the first day.....

Outside the classroom.......

In class working a puzzle........

Then and now.....

I thought it might be fun to show then and now pictures of Olivia and Samantha. The then was taken in June 2005 and the now was taken in July 2008.

Then:Now:

Trip pictures....

Here are a few of my favorite trip pictures......

Home again!!

We are home again. We all missed Daddy and he missed us. We did have some fun in Philly and we did get to visit with some friends we hadn't seen in a few years. Our week in review:

Sunday: We left our house in the afternoon and started our way through Ohio. We were able to meet my dear agency and DTC buddy Laurie and her family for dinner. Jenna, Hannah and Jordan were awesome. I wish we'd have had more time to visit with them but it was getting late and we wanted to make it through Ohio that night.

Monday: We made it to Philly. Driving in Philly was an experience but we finally made it to the hotel! Mom needed to pick up some prescriptions so we walked the 4 or 5 blocks to Walgreens. Well they had some printer issues and it took over an hour and a half to get her meds. While she waited on her scripts the girls and I walked down to Chinatown. I was a little disappointed. They were doing some sort of construction on the main road and many of the shops were closed because they didn't have any power. Bummer.

Tuesday: Mom had some training classes so the girls and I did a little swimming. After mom got back from class, we drove over to the Jersey shore -- Atlantic City! No, we did not go into the casinos! While the Boardwalk and the beach was nice we were a little shocked by the surrounding areas that you had to walk through to get to the Boardwalk.

Wednesday: The girls and I visited the Liberty Bell and a few things around there. We then ventured back into NJ and went to Chuck E Cheese's. We were able to meet our travelmate Lisa and her daughters Samantha and Sydnie. Samantha and Olivia were roommates in the orphanage. They hadn't seen each other in 3 years and picked up just where they left off. Sydnie was adopted the same time Sophia was and it was great to meet her. We had a great 3 hours visiting them and playing! Olivia is generally the smallest/shortest in the group but Samantha is even shorter than Olivia! She is a cute, tiny girl! After we got back to the hotel, I took the girls down to the pool and let them swim for a while.

Thursday: I packed up our stuff and we just did some walking around, met mom for lunch and went back to the hotel to take naps. We checked out of the hotel and took off for home. We tried several places to get a hotel room to no avail. We ended up driving much further than we planned but were thankful to have found a room.

Friday: We left our hotel in OH and drove to Columbus. We stopped at a couple of scrapbooking places and left to meet another travelmate for lunch. We met Susan and Tootie (her nickname on her blog) for lunch and had a great time catching up. We are hoping the M family can come to our groups next outting which is in September at the Zoo. It was amazing to see Olivia and Tootie interact with each other. I think it has been about 2 years since they've seen each other and they were so cute together. As much as Olivia is short, Tootie is tall. I was amazed at how much taller T was than Olivia -- probably close to 5.5 inches taller! I wish I could share pictures but privacy is important to Susan as her pics are password protected but let me just say the pics are cute of them interacting. After we left Susan and Tootie, we headed for home.

That was our week in a nut shell. Check back for pics soon.