New Year's Wishes

"Oh no, it's New Year's Eve already. Where has the time gone." Wishing you and your family a safe, happy, and prosperous 2009. For all those waiting families, our prayer is that the CCAA will finally speed up in 2009 and bring your little one home sooner.

Favorite Links

Family Blogs

(D)rivvel Supp
A View Through My Window
Adventures of Hannah Mei
Allie's World
Cady Chase
Double Happiness
La Bicicleta
Love & Happiness
Making a Family
Moments with Maisie
Oliver Michael
Our Loco Life
Rachel Days
Salsa in China
Sasha Lili
She Makes the Stars Twinkle
Stinky Mouse
The Chronicles of Mommia
The Pixel Fairy Princess
The Taming of Tenley
Waiting for Sophie

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours. Noelle, as usual, didn't want to pose for her traditional Christmas picture but I managed to bribe her with the promise of ham and roast for dinner!!! More pictures to come later after we visit with my family.

Look What Dallas Got for Christmas!!!

Looks like Dallas got her "pink bikikul" for Christmas. Now she just needs to learn how to ride it!!!

Update on FIL

Thank you for all the prayers and kind words for my dear FIL. Here is all we know so far. The doctors cannot find the source of the stroke(the blood clot). He is a very healthy(aside from the stroke) and stubborn man. He is now in rehab in Duluth and doing very well. They are hopeful he will be able to go home this weekend.

I've been tagged.

I've been tagged for an 8 things meme by Casey from "The Queen Bee" Here are my answers.

8 Favorite TV Shows:

1. Grey's Anatomy
2. CSI Miami
3. Dancing with the Stars
4. Fox and Friends
5. * Wow Wow Wubzy
6. *Caillou
7. * Make Way for Noddy
8. *Kipper
* By this time Dallas won't let me watch anything else I like so no more favorites for me*

8 Things I Look Forward to:

1. Watching my few favorite shows.
2. Time for my Photography
3. Time for my Digi-Scrapping
4. The end of football/baseball season!!!
5. Few minutes of peace and quite here and there!!!
6. Having my house clean if only for a day!!!
7. Seeing the joy on Dallas's face when she sees the new "Pink Bikickul" Santa will bring her
8. Turning "42" on Tuesday(the 16th)!!!

8 Things on my Wish List:

1. Peace and quiet on my birthday(Hey it's my wish list!!!)
2. Dallas would sleep in her own bed all the time with no problem going to sleep
3. My family's/friend's health and well-being
4. All the camera equipment I can imagine
5. The knowledge to use all that equipment!!!
6. To lose weight and look good in that bikini on the beach in Cancun(Hey it's my wish list!!!)
7. For people to know the true meaning of Christmas
8. For everyone to know of God's love

8 Things I did yesterday:

1. Emergency Room(Sinusitis and Pharyngitis)
2. Take a nap with Dallas
3. Few loads of laundry
4. Internet
5. Hit Amazon for last minute deals(Dallas' birthday in March is now covered!!!)
6. Read Scott Kelby's "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2" Chapter 1
7. Watched TV with Skip and Dallas(Their fave shows not mine!!!)
8. Sulk and pout around the house about not feeling good

8 Favorite Restaurants:

1. Landry's Seafood(local)
2. Chili's
3. Applebee's
4. Casa Ole
5. Ruth's Chris Steakhouse
6. Outback
7. A great Italian Restaurant(unfortunately none around here)
8. A few various local Chinese Restaurants

8 Blogs I Follow:

1. (D)rivvel Supp
2. La Bicicleta
3. A View Through my Window
4. Kristin Vald
5. Making of a Family
6. Allie's World
7. Love and Happiness
8. Confessions of a Pioneer Woman
*In no particular order*

An innocent little cough....

It all started last Thursday with an innocent little cough. Dallas was in the doctor's office the next morning. Cough, cough, snot, snot!!! Then she started with the high fever that wouldn't stay down. Two more calls to the pediatrician's office and three prescriptions later, she is finally feeling better. Then it happened, she gave it to me!!! Why is it that I feel like death and she was bouncing off the walls while sick. Cough, cough, snot, snot, puke, puke!!! I really don't feel like typing anything else so I am going to take my codeine cough syrup and go to bed. Maybe I will blog more tomorrow.

Dallas and Santa 2008

Miss Priss went right up to the big guy and hopped up in his lap. She wasn't afraid of him at all. Santa asked what she wanted and she told him "I wont pink bikickul Santa". Dallas wasn't shy about asking either as she kind of demanded it!!! Yes my baby, Santa will bring you a pink bicycle for Christmas.

Prayers for my FIL please

Skip's dad had a minor stroke yesterday. The doctors ran tests today and found his carotid artery 60% blocked. He is being transferred to Duluth tomorrow morning where he will undergo more tests to find out where the blood clot is and then surgery. Could you please say a prayer for him. I will update tomorrow when I find out more.

I'm Getting Braver!!!

I find myself not taking nearly as many pictures of Dallas lately. Now that I have learned to take the camera out of Auto, I have a tendency to take better quality pictures(or at least I think so!!!) I'm not just standing there shooting anything that moves hoping to get just one good picture!!! I'm getting braver about taking my camera out in public and taking pictures of Dallas when the mood hits "both" of us. I really enjoy shooting in RAW format. I feel it gives me more freedom to do what I want with my pictures. I shot the second picture this afternoon with a Nikon 85mm f/1.8. I think this will become a favorite lens along with the Nikon 50mm f/1.8.

Oh How I Love Her Smile

"Grammie, I Da Bomb"

I finally got into the mood to take some pictures today. There are times when Dallas gets aggravated because I won't stop!!! Then there are the times when I just don't feel like it. I decided to take Deb's advice and bribe Dallas to let me take a few pics of her today. What worked you might ask...Mint flavored Chapstick!!! I swear she would eat it if I didn't watch her. Today was a beautiful day here in South Louisiana. Tomorrow is a different story, with it being about 15-20 degrees colder. She was so proud of her new "Moo Cow" dress from Matilda Jane. When we arrived at my Parent's house to take my Mom shopping today, she looked up at Grammie and said "I Da Bomb". Oh the things kids say!!! The last pic is of my nephew "B" or "Bubbie" as Dallas calls him. She still can't say his name, so "Bubbie" it is. I shot these in RAW today and tried my best to process them. I have a long ways to go but I am quite proud of the start I have made. Before I get emails asking about the Christmas decorations in the yard, it is my Parent's house and half their neighborhood is already decorated!!!

Why Can't They See What I See?

Dallas is my daughter...she was born on the other side of the world..she was born from her Chinese mother...she was born from my heart...she was wanted...she was prayed for...many a tears have been shed over her...by her Chinese mommy...by her forever mommy...by her Chinese family...by her forever family...when I look at her, I see hope...I see love...I see beauty...I see laughter...I see childhood innocence...I see mommy...I see daddy...I see the Chinese family who gave her life...I see the child who makes my gray skies blue...I see the child who is making me go gray early...I see God's answer to our prayers...I see that God does have a sense of humor...I see the child who is her grandparent's joy...I see the child who is adored by aunts, uncles, and cousins...I see the child who puts a smile on everyone's face...I see the most beautiful, intelligent, spirited, loving, creative little girl God put on this planet...most of all, I see my daughter Dallas.

written by Mommy on 11-09-2008

The Things They Say!!!

Daddy: Dallas, are you a goof-ball?

Dallas: Thinks for a second and then says "No, I'm a red ball"!!!

One of those Moments

I was sitting at the computer this afternoon messing around on the internet and I hear Skip yell for me to "Hurry up and bring the camera". I grab my trusty Nikon D90 and run as fast I could to the back door. Dallas was standing there in her school clothes all covered in sidewalk chalk. Wait a minute, she wasn't like like when I picked her up from school 30 minutes earlier!!! Of course I had to remind myself that they are only little once and this is, after all, one of those moments I just have to photograph!!! I'm in the last week of my photography class so I have learned a few things about taking the camera out of Auto. I start going through my mental checklist of what I would need to do in order to take a great shot of this moment in manual mode. I set the ISO too high and I wish I hadn't set the aperture for this much blur. I did a little color correcting in Photoshop, added my watermark, and here is the finished product. While I was getting the camera set to take the pictures, Skip was telling Dallas where to stand and to smile(which she didn't). He was even telling me where to stand to get the best shot. I think I've got him trained!!!

New Layout

I finally finished my new blog layout. I really wanted to create my own background instead of just doing a plain one. I am going to change it more often now to reflect holidays and seasons. It was a real pain but I was determined not to quit. I am still seeing HTML code flash before my eyes!!!

Many Apologies

I am so sorry to have been such a lame blogger this past year. I fear I have lost many faithful readers due to my lack of posting. I am back blogging now and plan on posting much more often. Now that I am developing my photography skills, I won't be as ashamed of showing off the pictures I take. Now catching Dallas in a mood to be photographed is another story!!! She's not always the most cooperative when the camera comes out. My Mom says it's payback because I did the same thing to her when I was younger. Here is a picture I took of her last month. She was tolerating me sticking the camera in her face!!!

Look What I've Been Working On!!!

I just realized that I have forgotten to post some of my Digital LO's I have been working on. I haven't done any lately because I just haven't felt like it and I have been doing other things, like learning how to use the camera!!! Here are some LO's I have done over the past several months.

Photography Course and More Pictures

I've been taking this online photography course over at the Spraground for the past 4 weeks and I am loving it. I have actually taken the Nikon out of Auto and put it into Manual!!! I don't always know what I am doing but I love it. Dallas and I went to the airport last week and you should have heard hear scream DADDY as she ran to Skip's arms. She is such a daddy's girl and has him wrapped around her little finger. The first picture is the original straight out of of the camera. In the other four I was playing around with different actions I purchased from Mindy.

Can You Guess What She Did Today!!!

Dallas got more chalk on her than the patio!!! As you can tell, she really gets into her work.

My Poor Baby was BittenToday

Dallas hadn't even been at preschool for 2 hours when the phone rang. Her teacher was calling to tell me that another little girl had bitten Dallas on the arm. She didn't break the skin but she did leave her bite mark on Dallas' arm. Dallas was crying but she was okay and they had ice on her arm. It was a totally unprovoked incident according to the teacher who witnessed it. When I picked Dallas up later that afternoon the director mentioned that the little girl had done this before. Kids will be kids and things like this unfortunately do happen so I didn't make a big deal out of it. If something like this does happen again I will ask that more be done. Dallas is fine now and hasn't even mentioned it tonight. Give her a few chocolate chip cookies and she's happy!!!

New Camera and of Course Pictures

Dallas is getting more used to the idea of being in front of my camera now. I bought the newly released Nikon D90 last week and I love it!!! I am also taking a photography course finally and am learning how to take it out of "Auto" mode!!! Here are some of my favorite pictures taken over the past few days.

Post-Hurricane Update

We all made it through the storm. It was bad but not quite bad as it was supposed to be. We went to my parent's house and stayed from Sunday to Wednesday. I don't remember much about the hurricane because I took a tranquilizer and went to bed!!! I slept for a while then a big branch came off the tree in the front yard and hit the bedroom window. Thank goodness the windows were boarded up. The electricity was off for about a day and a half but it didn't bother us because we had a generator on the refrigerator/freezer. My parent's have a motor home so we took turns relaxing in there with the air conditioning and satellite TV!!! There was no damage to my parent's home, our home, or my little brother's home. Our home lost power for 2 days and we are still under a "Boil Water Alert". I lost the entire contents of my refrigerator and freezer because things had started to defrost. I can't complain because we could have lost much more. I just can't restock it yet because the grocery stores also lost everything and it will take at least a week to restock them. Somehow all 3 of us have managed to become sick. This is a first for all of us to be sick at the same time. Coughing, sneezing, sore throat, headache: you name it, all the good stuff. So we are at home resting and doing nothing much. I am closely watching out for the next hurricane and praying that it doesn't come near here(IKE STAY AWAY!!!). I managed to take some pictures during the daytime when the curfew wasn't in effect.

The pecan tree in my parent's adjacent lot. Took out 2 neighbor's fences!!!

Snapped power line downtown.

My brother's neighbor lost an old oak tree.

Mulate's world famous Cajun restaurant lost it's roof.

Pulled the pumps out of the ground at the service station.

It didn't take long for the hummingbirds to return.

Darn Hurricanes!!!

Thanks to those who have emailed and text messaged me about my need to update the blog. I don't know why I have a mental block about updating the blog lately!!! So here we go. Looks like Gustav is going to roll right over us. Looking at the last hurricane tracking map, the eye might pass extremely close to here. As soon as I finish this post I will finish packing up a few things and we will head to my parent's house. Then we will all decide on where we are going to next. The adoption paperwork already got packed up first yesterday. Can't forget that paperwork!!! Skip and my little brother will be staying behind at my parent's house so they can check on things after the storm passes. We really think they will be fine or my Mom would have already thrown them in the camper and locked the door!!! I packed plenty of chips and beer for Skip so he is all set!!! We might head towards Houston so I have already contacted someone about the possibility of staying with her family for a few days. I will update you as soon as everything is over and they let us come back home. If you can spare any prayers and positive thoughts for us all I would appreciate it. This was the weekend we were supposed to head to Disney in Florida for our travel group reunion. Oh well, maybe next time.

Look what I got!!!

We bought this to travel in. The new 2008 Honda CR-V EX-L. It gets awesome gas mileage on the highway!!! I love green so I had to have this one.

We're still here!!!

It's been a crazy busy summer around here. After my last post we decided on the spur of the moment to head to just outside of Boston to visit family. My Aunt was in the final stages of a brain tumor and we knew she didn't have long. We had a great time with my cousin, her husband and their 3 wonderful adorable girls. Dallas just loved meeting her new cousins. I took Dallas to meet and spend some time with her Great Aunt. She was a very important person in my life and it meant so much to me that Dallas spent time with her. My Aunt was in a semi-coma but I have no doubt that she knew we were there. We left on a Monday and she passed away that Tuesday morning.

We were home for about a week and a half before heading to Minnesota for my IL's 50th Wedding Anniversary. Another 11 day trip!!! I loved the weather as it was about 25-30 degrees cooler that it was here!!! I had to go buy sweatshirts and warm pj's for us. Dallas spent time with more cousins, 16 to be exact. She's grandchild #17 on that side of the family. I don't think she had a chance to walk for the first few days we were there because they all wanted to carry her. We had a great time and are already planning to go back next summer. I would really like to buy property up there for summer vacations and eventually retirement.

I don't want to leave the house until next year!!! We have decided to cancel our trip to Disney World this September. Being gone for 22 days was alot, especially $$$ wise with gas prices. Dallas did well but it took her a while to get settled back down once we got home. I was looking forward to seeing our China travel group again and seeing how all the girls have grown. Oh well, there's always the next reunion.

Dallas is doing extremely well in preschool. She really likes going now and doesn't cry when I drop her off!!! We are going to try her two full days a week next month instead of the two half days we do now. I have ordered a preschool homeschool curriculum for us to do together. It arrived yesterday and you should have seen the look on her face when she saw all her new books. She just sits there and "reads" to herself.

Overall, things are going well now. We have had our fair share of ear-infections, stomach viruses, etc. We did have a scare back in May when Dallas had a few minor seizures. She had to have an EKG, MRI and EEG. The MRI and EEG were both done with sedation. I am happy to report that the test results all came back negative. We have to watch her in case it happens again.

Big Girl Bed!!!

Dallas is now sleeping in her "Big Girl Bed"!!! She started climbing out of her crib a few months ago. Sometimes she would climb totally out and other times she would get "stuck" on top and scream for us in the middle of the night. I converted her crib to a toddler bed but that didn't work at all. She would wake up and promptly run to our room and get in bed with Mommy and Daddy!!! There were several nights where we would lay on the floor next to her until she feel asleep. By 2:00 am she would be right back in bed with us!!! Dallas has never been a great sleeper. It took us 7 months just to get her to sleep in her own crib after we got home with her. Even when she does get in bed with us she still is very restless. She gets half of a king size bed and we get the rest!!!

So "Sleeping Boot Camp" began earlier this month. I went out and bought full sized bedding for her and we converted the toddler bed to a "Big Girl Bed". Bye Bye crib!!! Yeah, Mommy didn't handle that too well. The the real fun began with night #1. I ended up sleeping in the bed with her because she would have nothing to do with her new bed. This went on for several weeks. She didn't want Daddy in the bed with her only Mommy. I was functioning on very little sleep. We finally decided to let her CIO. This was the best thing for us and we all sleep much better now. I made sure the furniture was bolted to the walls and that there was nothing she could get into. I moved the video camera to where it could scan the entire room. Finally, we put a gate in her doorway to prevent her from walking around at night. The first week was horrible. Skip would lay in the bed with her until she went to sleep and then go back to our room. When she would wake up and realize she couldn't get in bed with us, she would scream. I would watch her from the monitor in our room. She started taking everything off the bookcase by her bed and throwing it over the gate into the hallway. Then she threw the bedding into the hallway. Finally, she would climb back in her new bed and go to sleep. The next morning she would get up and clean up her mess and act as if nothing ever happened!!! It's been about a month now and Dallas is doing much better. She still doesn't like to go to bed but at least she is sleeping through the night without anymore major tantrums. If she does wake up she will cry for a while and then go back to bed. I think she got tired of cleaning up her mess so she doesn't throw stuff anymore!!! The gate will remain there until she can learn to stay in her bed without running around the house in the middle of the night. I have the monitor by the bed and can check on her at any time. Mommy and Daddy are finally getting some sleep and Dallas is actually sleeping better as well.

This Child is Making Me Go Totally Gray!!!

Dallas decided to fall off the back steps tonight and land on her back and head. By the time we got her to the ER, she had a nice sized goose egg on the back of her head. Thank God Daddy was home for this trip to the ER!!! Nothing broken and no stitches needed!!! We just have to watch her tonight and keep putting ice packs on it. I think Dallas wanted to see her favorite Nurse tonight. Nurse Deb is the best and always takes great care of Dallas. Dallas is making the most of her injury now and getting waited on hand and foot!!!

Several people have reminded me that I need to update the blog. I have been sick for about 4 weeks now and am just feeling better. It started out and allergies/sinuses then went to a respiratory infection and finally pink eye. After 5 trips to the doctor I am finally on the mend. Fortunately, Dallas was only sick for a few days. She went to Grammie and PaPa's for a few days so Mommy could rest up. Skip was at work as usual.

As soon as I catch up with cleaning the house/laundry, I will sit down and post more. I have some pictures that I managed to take and will post them as well. It will be a long night as we have to wake her every few hours and check on her. I think Daddy gets to do this since he has all the emergency medical training!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

My Baby Turned "3"

Things have been a little crazy around here lately. Dallas turned "3" on Monday. I threw a party for her Saturday with several of her friends and cousins. Total Hello Kitty themed party. They all had a great time. Dallas finally got her doll house she wanted and hasn't stopped playing with it since then. I promise to post a few pictures of her birthday and some that I took of her in her birthday dress. She is growing up so fast. Her 3 year check-up is next week and I will let you know her height/weight stats then. I have been working on my digi-scrapping after she goes to bed. I really am getting into it now and get so excited when I learn something new!!! Here are two that I have worked on lately.