This is Alexandra's favorite thing to do (other than eating). She loves to look at books and have you read to her. And unfortunately, if you look real close, she has a shiner. Nope, she didn't fall and hit the corner of a table. Her older brother Aidan scared our dog who in turn made a mad dash away from him that Alexandra just happen to be in his way, so without seeing her, he ran over her. Needless to say, I was not very happy and had to pray for forgiveness after a few bad words flew out of my mouth. And yes, this would be the first week that I would take her to our regular pediatrician, go the YMCA, and church, etc... I never had so many things to do with her in tow before. And I had to explain why she was sporting around her shiner. I'm sure it won't be her first. Even though it was a complete accident, this little girl is into everything. She's running all over the house, laughing all the time. She has climbed on top of a few things - the couch, out of her high chair, she's tried her bed and hasn't accomplished that yet -into the tub, on a storage box, and she loves to put whatever she can in her mouth. The other night she tried putting insulation in her mouth. The good thing is, is that if I think she's put something in her mouth, and I tell her to give it to me. She will spit it out into my hand. Since the day we got her she's always liked putting fuzz in her mouth.
This is what she did the whole fourth of July. She was not any different than her usual self. She ran around constantly, and it was very hard for me to get any pictures of her because she would not be still. Nope, she wasn't afraid of any of the fireworks or the noise.
Taking a little break with her dad and looking a little out of sorts after playing hard.
From the picture below, she's trying to get her hands on the goods. She even threw her head band in the box so she could have an excuse to stick her little hands in there. Don't worry though the box only contained things that the kids could play with like the pull string confetti, pop rocks, and sparklers. I was close by making sure she stayed out of trouble.
I also wanted to put in my blog some interesting facts that I learned about Alexandra's matching process to our family. How she became our daughter. I will never forget gotcha day, seeing all the little Asian babies and not knowing exactly which one was ours and how blessed we were to have her. So many people gave us complements on our trip about how she was the perfect fit for us. I know God had his hand in this, but what was the deciding factor for the directors of the orphanage. How would they choose this child to be part of our family. Believe it or not we were told that they do look for physical similarities. Alexandra and Ashlyn have the same mouth for sure. And I did run into some people that I had not seen in a while and introduced them to my daughter and they said that she looked like her dad. Sorry, I didn't tell them any different. But anyway, I'm straying here. I found out that other than the physical characteristics, they will match a child according to the birth date and their Chinese zodiac sign, which is not like the American zodiac sign. The Chinese Zodiac is done in years, not months. So Alexandra's birthday is two days before Adam's and her Zodiac sign is the same as mine. I thought that this was so interesting that I had to include it in my blog.
With everyone pitching in and the help of family and friends, our house is finally finally getting started with renovations.
The kids love helping their dad work on the house, especially the boys.
Ashyn did not want to be left out, so she decided to pitch in too.
I've been wanting to do this for a long long time - knock this wall down. We are expanding our back wall from our living area that had a horrible design of two windows on opposite ends that were way too high to see the outside yard. And I hated it because I could not see my children while they played outside. With this wall down we will have about an extra three feet added to our living area and I will be able to see my kids play outside from any area of the living room without having to get up and look out the window. We have added a door, french doors, and a huge window that takes up about half the wall. It really has opened up the room. So far Adam and the kids have knocked down half of the wall, next they will do the fire place in the middle and then the other half of the wall. YAY!!!!
Nope, this is not a posed picture. I am really up on the roof, screwing the plywood down. It took me a while before I started to get blisters on my hand to look over at my husband and see him wearing gloves. He forgot that minor detail while handing me the tools. OOPS. I managed to finish the job in over 90 degree weather. There are very few times that I am willing to pat myself on the back, but I was sure damn proud of myself for getting up on the roof for over an hour bent over drilling the plywood. (Yep, I was sore the next day) So see, I'm not a total girly girl. I also helped drill the holes in the yard when we first got our house to put up the fence. I wonder if I can add all of this to my resume and who knows, by the time I look for a paying job, I may have to look into this line of work. It's been so long since I've done administrative work - yep, that's why it takes me so long to blog because I'm not as efficient as I once was years ago on the computer. Not to mention the alone time is few and far in between. But hey, for the most part, I'm happy.
