2 years ago today...

We were in St. Petersburg Florida staring into our newborn daughters eyes. I still can't believe it has been 2 years already! We had her party on Saturday. The weather cooperated thank goodness. Lots more toys were added to Sarah's collection. Tonight we are heading out to dinner to celebrate her birth and Valentine's Day. I hope they will sing Happy Birthday to her. She will be sooo happy if they do! We talked to her Birth Mom on the phone. Even Sarah's half sister talked to her. She is too cute. And her half brother said Hi too. We saved a couple of gifts for her when we get back from dinner. One is a kitchen set that she is going to love for sure. The other is a stroller for her doll. She will really like that too. Daddy won't care too much about all the small pieces! haha But it will be worth it to see her happy face when they are all put together. I'm trying to take more pictures...but it seems like a week or so goes by before I get any. I will take alot more tonight..but I need to try and do a better job of taking the everyday ones. Anywho...I sure do miss those days where the most she could do was roll over! haha She couldn't get into trouble for sure. :o) I am liking this stage alot tho too. We can talk to each other and she gets most of what I am telling her. That is so neat. To hear her put several words together is wonderful. We have so much to look forward too this year. Hopefully the big one being potty training. I have a feeling once we go full time with it she will train really easy. Oh joy to not changing any more diapers!! ;o) This entry took me forever to write. We had a good dinner and she loved her gifts. Daddy even brought us chocolates home. YUMMO!! He is sooo sweet. We are lucky to have him in our life. I got a really cute pic of him and her that I put at the top of the post. Happy Birthday my baby girl and Happy Valentine's Day!!

One month from today..

My little baby turns 2! Before I started typing this, she was playing with her little potty that talks. She lifted the lid and it said "open" to which she said "closed" then it said "up" and she said "down". I am amazed at all she knows. We have people tell us all the time how smart she is..or they can't believe she can speak so well. Yup we are so proud of her! We got a scare at the pool this weekend. Well I did..Daddy was on the other side and couldn't see us. She is able to walk on the bottom of the baby pool. She decided to walk over to the edge and grab a toy out of the box. Her feel must have slipped cause she went under water. I swear it felt like an eternity before I got to her and got her back in my arms. I was only a little ways away. I thought she would lose it, but she was pretty calm. She wanted to go right back to standing on the bottom. Mommy on the other hand took a little longer to calm down. Dave made up a song when she was little that goes like this..Good morning Sarah..how are you my sarah..how are you doing today? Your hungry and thirsty and need a new diadie...that's how you are doing today. Well Daddy will change you and then he will feed you...and then we will be on our way. He went a couple of months without singing it..and just started it up again recently. Now Sarah will ask (ALOT) "How you doin today Mama?" I usually say "Great Sarah. How are you?" To which she says " I doin fine or I ok Mama". LOL Took me a little while to figure out that she got the question from her Poppa's song. So sweet! She always wants to kiss our pain away.."I make it betta". And it always does. I hope she never looses that caring and sweet side!

Christmas Eve

I sit here realizing how much I am blessed. In 25 minutes it will be Christmas..I still need to vacuum and bring up presents from the basement, help set up Santa's gifts...and for some reason it took till now to really hit me how lucky I am...I mean I always knew it...just certain times really make it stand out. I have a beautiful family...Husband who loves me to pieces and a precious baby girl who tells me she loves me all the time. We have so much to be thankful for. I can't wait till the morning when Sarah wakes up and opens all of her gifts. It's the best feeling to see her so happy and excited. Sure we went overboard with gifts. But it is so much fun to buy for her. We went to Christmas Eve service tonight. I got teary eyed when we sang certain songs. I really miss going to church on a regular basis. Sarah was really good. She swayed to the music and even tried to sing a couple of songs. It was really cute. She would clap after each song. There is a guy in the choir that looks alot like Santa. Dave and I wondered if she would see him. Well the last few songs had the choir spread out all over the church..and Santa was a couple of rows down from us. Sure enough, when the choir finished and started to leave..she shouts..."there's santa!" LOL I told her Jesus' birthday was tomorrow. She smiled at that. I want her to know our Lord. She likes to pray. Randomly she will say things like "Thank you Jesus for this box, and for cookies and for Poppa and Mama". (she was sitting in an empty storage container) My heart just swells and I am so proud of her! Isn't childhood innocence the best?! Well better rap this up. I hope that everyone can know the love of our Lord..especially this time of year. Merry Christmas!!!

Another new addition!

Well we decided to take Minnie (guinea pig) back to the pet store. She just wasn't warming up to us...too jumpy and waaaay to messy! I really wanted a dog...for years actually. I talked Dave into going to the local animal shelter and a no kill shelter about 45 minutes from here. The local shelter had a couple of cuties..so we kept them in mind as we headed to the open house at the other shelter. I had done a little searching on their website and really wanted to meet a dog named Sweetie. We got there about an hour after they opened and the place was packed. They had so many cats it was unreal. Alot of the dogs were either gone or spoken for. But Sweetie was the "greeter". The first dog you saw when you walked through the door on the dog side. We looked at her...thought she was cute..but had several patches on skin with little hair. So we kind of went on. I just wasn't drawn to any of the other dogs in the 2nd room. We came back out and I asked to see Sweetie again. The lady got her out of the cage and let me walk her outside a little. Good night that dog is strong! If I had ski's on she would have pulled me all over the place. lol I could see why people were passing her by...the way she looked..but I looked past that and saw a gentle dog. She wasnt jumping all over us like the first shelter dogs did. She wasn't barking like crazy..and all the ladies that worked at the shelter loved her. I asked Dave if we could adopt her and he said yeah. I was so suprised they let us take her home that day. We had to bring home meds for her for her skin. We took her to the vet today and found out she isn't as "well" as they made her out to be. We got her more meds and special shampoo. Hopefully with that and lots of love we can get her coat back to what it use to be. She is really a lovebug. If we leave the room she follows us..or if she doesn't she is always waiting with a big kiss..or at least a paw to the chest. Sarah really gets along well with her too. She has tried to ride her a couple of times and Sweetie just lays there. If they ride together in the back of the SUV..Sweetie is usually right next to Sarah. It is sooo cute! I hope they can be best buddies as they grow up together.

Sarah's 1st Christmas Tree

We went to a Christmas tree farm not far from our house on Saturday. This was after driving 3 hours from Illinois. The ad said cut your own or we will cut it for you. The guy running the place handed Dave the saw and a carpet square and pointed us in the direction of the 6 footers. Poor Dave! haha I took a couple of pics of Sarah and Daddy in front of the tree before he started to cut it. We were not dressed for this at all. It was on a bluff so the wind was really blowing and none of us had any gloves. We didn't know we would be cutting it ourself..thought we would just pick it out and sit back. haha Dumb! Got the tree decorated yesterday with help from Dave and Sarah. She has done really well with the tree. Such a good girl. She only looks at the ornaments or just puts one finger on them. Praying that keeps up! She is such a sweetheart (most of the time..but alot lately!) If we hurt ourselves, she is right there to say "I kiss and make better?" I have said that to her a few times..and usually get a stern NO! LOL The only real "problem" with her is at the dinner table. She loves to throw food when she is done eating. Drives us nutso. That and saying NO to everything. Other than that she is a wonderful little girl. While at Wal-Mart yesterday, we went by the toy cars. She immediatly wanted a car. I said "ask Daddy". I know..so nice of me! So she said "Daddy I want car". LOL Of course she got one. Well two..the cheaper ones came in a two pack. He said she was practicing now for when she wanted the real thing. LOL She loves her Daddy so much. He has a set of drums..she wants to play them, he loves cars...she has to have one too even if it is a toy, he loves to play on his pinball machines..she has to "play pinballs with Poppa". So cute. I love this stage..but then I love every stage she goes through!

Where has time gone?

I cannot believe it is almost Thanksgiving again! This year has flown by. One another note..my sister is doing great. Her shock treatment worked! PTL! Sarah and I ended up leaving way early on Friday to come home. She woke up with a nasty cold..which she still has today. She didn't want to go back to sleep and I just wanted my own bed. She is doing some better today. Hopefully she will be back to her old self by Wens. She is so looking forward to swimming with her cousin next weekend. We found a tricylcle at Wal-Mart that she had fun on. She didn't want to get off tho. We didn't buy it. I wanted to..but we already bought a ton of stuff for her Christmas and birthday. Found out that A had the baby Friday. The couple named her Olivia. Dave and I thought that was a great name..one we hadn't thought of when we were coming up with names for Sarah. The baby weighs a pound more than Sarah did and is an inch longer. Part of me is sad that we weren't the ones to adopt her...but it is for the best. Sarah is more than enough for us. Growing up I always thought I would have two children. A boy and a girl. But things work out for a reason. We are so blessed with Sarah. She is such a joy. I now believe the saying "how did we live before she came along?" I am also trying a recipe I got off my favorite adoption forum. It smells wonderful. I hope to take some with us for Thanksgiving dinner. There goes the buzzer...better run!

It's so quiet..

Little one is down for her much needed nap. After being awake till almost 1am. I got her to bed around 11 last night and she entertained herself till falling asleep. She was having a conversation with her bear bobo I think. I have a feeling she was showing him her Biscuit book. ;o) I don't know how she has any room to sleep in her new bed. She has bobo, a musical aquarium (taken from her crib) and a ladybug that shines stars on the ceiling, plus a book. I decided to hold off on full blown potty training for now. She askes to go to the potty but then has already gone in diaper (just a few minutes before asking) or she just wants to sit on the potty. Plus we are going out of town on Wens for a couple of days...plus going out of town for Thanksgiving..so not the best time to start. Hopefully all will go well with my sister on Thurs. Praying that the shock to her heart will kick it back into regular rhythm. She and her husband and our niece are going to Florida for a few days in Dec. I know she will go no matter what. So better her being healthy so she can enjoy the trip!