How can my baby possibly be thirteen months old?

I'm still struggling to believe it, but according to the calendar, my baby turned 13 months old yesterday.  It's sort of strange because in some ways I feel like she has always been here and in other ways it feels like yesterday that my sister and I walked off the plane at the airport to find the best welcome home party ever.

If I think about it though, Dalaney has come a long way in the three plus months we have been home.  When we came home she was a tiny nine month old who was still wearing lots of 3-6 month size clothes.  This past Saturday Jeremiah dressed her in one of our favorite shirts that says little sister on the front, and to be quite honest it was so small that she sort of looked like a sausage in it - most definitely about to bust at the seams!  Now, most outfits that she wears are nine to twelve months, with a few six to nine months mixed in.  She is even taller than the other little girl at her sitter who turned one in May!

Here she is in a teeny tiny outfit the day after we came home. 

 This outfit is also too small now!

When we came home, Dalaney was doing a sort of wounded soldier crawl where she slithered on her belly and pushed off with her toes. She didn't move on to regular crawling for over a month.  Now, she walks short distances all by herself!

She goes from the couch to the love seat in the living room and when she gets there without chrashing she looks around at us like well, why aren't you clapping - clearly I am amazing!

This girl absolutely loves to read books!  She has a few favorites and she will dump her whole book basket out to find them and then drag them across the floor and put them in my lap so we can read.

As an English teacher this makes me very happy!

She is an incredibly happy baby - usually laughing and smiling as soon as I get her out of bed in the morning.  Recently she has started throwing her head back and belly laughing.  It is so stinking cute!

Dalaney is also starting to mock things that Jeremiah and I do or say.  Apparently, when I tell her no-no about something I point my finger at her and shake it, because now when I tell her no-no she points her little finger at me and shakes it. Right now that's pretty cute, but I have a feeling it might not be so cute in the future! 

Sometimes I wish that I could stop time so that Dalaney could be this age forever, because she is so stinking fun all the time.  And it seems like she is growing up so fast.  She's not a tiny baby anymore - she's a big girl who will soon be walking and talking up a storm.  

The thing that is the hardest to believe is that a little more than three months ago I found out that our paperwork had been forwarded to Nairobi and I cried like a baby because that meant another delay in bringing her home and no one could tell me how long that delay might be.  And now, she's sleeping right down the hall and I can go in and look at her, and touch her soft curls, and kiss her sweet face  anytime I want.

God is so good. 

Thank you Lord for this beautiful baby and the joy that she brings to our lives every day.

Happy thirteen months Dalaney!

We love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.

  





The Stolen Swing

Jeremiah and I had a great time shopping for Dalaney's birthday.  It's the first time since she's been home that we had bought her anything to play with and it was super fun now that we know what things she likes.  In fact, we made a day of it.  We all went to Florence and went out to lunch and then walked all over Toys r Us letting Dalaney play with things as we made the final decisions about what her birthday gifts would be.

We finally narrowed down our choices and headed to the checkout with a baby pool, a swing for the porch, some noisy toys, and a set of blocks.  Our cart was pretty full with the pool and the giant box for the swing.

The checkout lines were pretty full and we got lucky when a nice lady opened up a new line and people quickly filed in behind us and our full cart.  The check out lady signed me up for a Toys r Us reward card and in doing so I gave her my email address which has Grant County in it.  She asked if I worked at the school and I told her I did.  It turns out that her brother subs at our school and had even subbed in my room before.  As we were chatting, she was ringing up our purchases as I put them on the counter and I ended up having to get the box with the swing in it out of the cart for her to scan.

  We finished up and headed to the car just as Dalaney started to let us know she had had enough shopping for the day and was ready to go home!  As I was driving on the interstate, I got to thinking that my total at Toys r Us wasn't as much as I thought it was going to be.  I dug around in the bag on the seat beside me and looked at the receipt as I was driving.  (I know - very safe driving habits!)  From what I could tell from my quick glances at the receipt, the swing wasn't on there.  Huh?  But I specifically remember picking up the box for the cashier to scan....that makes no sense.  Puzzled, I told Jeremiah I thought we hadn't paid for the swing, and he said, you mean we stole it!!!??? 

Everybody had a great laugh about the stolen swing, but I didn't really want to drive all the way back to Florence that day to pay for it.  So, I decided we would go ahead and give her the swing for her birthday and return the box and receipt, explain what had happened and pay for the swing the next time we were in Florence.

With that decided, I wrapped the huge box and gave it to Dalaney to unwrap at her party.  The morning after her party Jeremiah and I decided to hang the swing on the front porch and let the swinging begin.  I wish you could have seen my face when I cut the tape on the top of the box and opened the lid.  There wasn't just one swing in the box, there were four swings in the box.  I had inadvertantly "stolen" and entire packing box of swings!  Jeremiah and I laughed ourselves silly over this and Jodi has added this to my list of "criminal behavior" and says I migh not be a fit parent with such bad habits! 

You'll be happy to know that the swing hanging on my front porch has now been paid for and the packing box and extra swings have now been retured to the the Toys r Us without further ado.  Even so, I'm pretty sure Dalaney's swing will always be referred to as "the stolen swing!"

Dalaney seems to like the swing an awful lot and I'm wondering if it's more fun because it's stolen! :)

Darling Dalaney Turns 1!

Well, yesterday marks three months that we have been home and now that I think I've finally gotten the hang of being the parent of a teenage boy and a one year old princess, it's time to go back to work.  Oh no!  How in the world am I going to do that?!  Just the thought of it stresses me out, so to put off thinking about it, I'm going to talk about Dalaney's first birthday, which was awesome!

The big day is actually July 19, but since that is a weekday (and my house is the size of a postage stamp) we had two parties - one the weekend before the big day for my out-of-town fam and some friends and the other on the actual big day for my in-town fam and some more friends.  It was so much fun!

The birthday princess was dressed up in her new tu-tu and matching hairbow made by Aunt Tabby.  She loved it!  I thought it was pretty stinking cute too, but the tulle in the tu-tu had glitter in it and I'm still cleaning glitter up off the carpet and other unexpected places in our house.

 The best part of the tu-tu was that when she crawled around she kind of looked like a turkey from behind becasue the tu-tu stuck straight up off her rear end.  Sooooo cute!

This was Dalaney's first experience with cake and I'll just say she's a fan.  She is not a fan, however of singing Happy Birthday.  She just sat there with her eyes wide open and then when everyone started clapping, she started crying.  It was all just too much to take!

She had so much fun with the cake that she had to change clothes when it was all over and she wasn't happy about giving up what was left of her mangled cupcake.

She got all sorts of awesome gifts, but Jeremiah and I gave her a baby pool.  She even likes playing in it in the house without water. :)

We also got some fabulous pictures just in time to send them in with our first post-adoption report.  I can't believe that my baby is a year old and has been home for three months.  When we came home she seemed like a tiny baby and now, just three months later, she is a big girl who has four big girl teeth, can feed herself finger foods, put herself to sleep in her crib, and almost walk all by herself.  It's all going by so fast!