Melted heart

My heart melted when I pulled a stack of papers out of Lily's backpack and found this gem.

New and Improved!

So, what do you think? I got a blog makeover. I love it and owe it all to Tina at The Story of You. Isn't she awesome? I was lucky enough to get to travel with her and her husband when we got Lily. She was such a help during that trip (they were seasoned China travelers and parents -- and we were neither of those) and now she has helped in making my blog FABULOUS! Thank you Tina!

Bouncing, hand painting and a baby goat

Yep, big goings-on in the good ol' Midwest this weekend. We've had a huge case of cabin fever, so we jumped at the chance to go to a FREE local family fair event today. They had a bounce house, which makes me hold my breath the entire time my girls are in there bouncing -- I always picture horrible mouth-related injuries (I can't help it, I'm a dental hygienist :) ). But both girls came out unscathed with all teeth still in their sockets! Whew!

And there was also some face painting, but my girls chose to have their hands painted instead.

The best part of all was this adorable baby goat. I seriously wanted to take him home and so did AJ (he had visions of never having to cut the grass again!)

Flashback Friday

Oh, I could soooo cry. Look at how little my baby girls were. This picture was taken about a week after we brought Lia home from China.

Wordless Wednesday

A few more Disney photos

During our trip to Disney in December, we had the Disney photographers take some pictures for us with their Disney Photopass service. We were lucky enough to find some other folks to split the cost of the CD with. It was fun because you can add cute little frames and captions to your pics (I know some of them are corny, but it was fun.) We finally got ours in the mail, so I thought I would share a few with you.

See Tinkerbell in their hands!

Check out my award-winning expression of surprise in my face when we saw Stitch. I'm thinking that is Oscar-worthy!

Do you see how excited Lia was to see him???

Hard habit to break

From one of the first photos that we saw of Lia in China, we knew we had a finger sucker coming home with us.

Luckily, her big sister, Lily, never had any finger, thumb or pacifier habit. Although we did try to force a pacifier on her after our meeting in China simply because we were dreading that 14 hour flight home with a 10 month old. She really didn't take to one and simply didn't need one even on that dreadfully long flight.

Honestly though, it gave me a little peace when I found out that Lia did suck her fingers in her referral information. I was happy to know that she at least had her little fingers to pacify her while laying in her crib waiting for us to come get her.

Now, at almost 3.5 yrs old, I know it's becoming a problem. Although she really has decreased the frequency in which she sucks her fingers, her sleep time equals finger sucking time in her mind. She does know that we don't want her to suck her fingers. But she continues to ask me in her sweet little voice when I put her to bed, "It's okay I suck my fingers just a little?" And I have to look at this....

So, my answer is, "Yes, but just a LITTLE." Luckily, I work for a pediatric dentist, so I should have a discount in her "for sure needed orthodontic treatment" in the future.