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.
Unlike last year we didn't let this summer pass us by without a trip to Sea World. We all had a good time, with the exception of Landen and Aidan not being able to ride a lot of the rides. It was very very hot, but we managed. We will go again when the boys are a little taller, not in August and not on a weekend.
Ashlyn and Alexandra displaying their gifts of love given to them by their dear friend Ms. Stephanie and Harper.
Our family photo taken for our Social Worker's visit the next day. We have plenty of photos of everyone, but very few of all of us together. (Someone has to be on the other end of the camera). This is one of Alexandra's favorite thing to do, play rough with her dad. The visit went really well with the exception of me wanting to choke Ashlyn. The social worker has to come and see how we are all doing six months and then a year after our arrival from China. While conducting her interview with me, the kids did not want to leave the room. I asked them to leave, but they wanted by all means to stay. I told them they could stay if they promised to be quiet and listen. Well about two minutes into the interview, the boys had had enough and left the room. Ashlyn on the other hand stayed and decided that she would answer the social worker's questions. I told her several times that the social worker was talking to me, not her, and I asked her to leave more than once. She just out right refused to listen. Okay let's just stop the interview with the social worker so I can strangle my daughter. The social worker asked if Alexandra was sick since we brought her back. I answered no, she just had a bout with allergies that I needed to check out, I noted she was allergic to peanut butter and possibly had some outdoor allergies. And then Ashlyn chimed in, "Oh remember Alexandra was really sick when she had a fever of 103." (I forgot about this), and then she proceeded to say that Alexandra had a black eye too. From that point on, I just wanted to say yeah, and we lock our kids up on the closet too. Let's just say I wasn't a happy camper with Ashlyn after the interview. I wanted to tell her that if she really wanted to do an interview with the social worker then she would have to go to China and get her own kid.
This is what we did during the summer. I cannot tell you how many Saturday's I had to show up at the gym at 8 o'clock in the morning for the games. I don't think we will be doing any summer sports again. This was the first season that the kids played basketball and for the most part all of the kids seemed to enjoy basketball. I think Aidan was kind of in la la land about half the time - he was with the four year old team. Ashlyn and Landen played on the same team. They both did really well. Every time Landen got the ball, he ALWAYS passed it to his sister..JPG)
This was a wonderful treat for us. We had a mini reunion with some of the families that where with us in China. We were able to meet in Austin before going to Sea World. It was so nice to see everyone again. My only complaint was that it was not long enough. I got to talk to everyone, but couldn't really speak to just one person in depth. I really did miss these guys. You wouldn't believe how close you can get to someone after spending three weeks together and having to share the same experiences together. This is just a small portion of our group. We are trying our hardest to have a reunion sometime in the future with the whole group. The baby being held in the back by her dad, Julieann was Alexandra's crib mate.
