IT'S THE HULK!

Nope.  False alarm.  It's just Jeremiah with a green hand.

 

Now, you are probably saying, what in the world.....so, I'll explain.  Jeremiah has decided that he is very interested in a career in agriculture - possibly in green landscaping, which is an up and coming field that attempts to use the existing landscape instead of wiping it out and starting over to create new landscape.  To that end, he has been taking an intro ag class at the high school.  He also joined the FFA and became the only student to memorize the entire FFA creed by the deadline so he got his very stylish FFA jacket for free!  Yeah for saving $70 dollars!

 

After joining the FFA you can stay just a regular old member or you can get to work and earn one of several degrees available to members who meet the criteria.  Jeremiah and two of his buddies completed all of the work to earn their Greenhand Degrees at the end of last month.  Part of the festivities of earning your Greenhand Degree is that you get to walk around school all day with, you guessed it, a green hand! 

 

Jeremiah was mostly disgusted by this and the fact that I insisted on taking his picture at school in my classroom when other kids were around.  I was disgusted by the fact that the cuff of his new white dress shirt to go with his FFA official dress outfit was just as green as his hand.  Luckily, it washed out!

 

Here is Jeremiah's buddy, Trey.  He cooperated much more politely than my own son about getting his picture taken!

 

 

Joey washed his greenhand off before I got to him, but if you look closely you can see that his fingernails are still pretty green!

 

 

Aren't they pretty all dressed up for the Greenhand Ceremony?!

 

 

Here they are with their certificates...

 

...and their Greenhand pins.

Proud of you boys!

 

And here is Jeremiah with Mr. Butler, the Ag teacher and FFA advisor, and Jeremiah's favorite teacher.  If I hear "Mr. Butler said....."  once a day I hear it a hundred times!

 

 

After I nagged him for most of the morning, Jeremiah agreed to let one of my students take our picture together.  I just can't believe how handsome and grown up he looks in is FFA official dress.  I'm so proud of you buddy for the young man you are becoming!

 

 

 





An unexpected gift

I get up early.  I'm talking early like the sun.  Since school started I can't seem to stay caught up on house cleaning and laundry and the like, and I find if I get up way before anyone else at my house I can get lots done before the kiddos start to stir and we need to get ready to head out for the day.  It makes my family crack up that I get up so early, because I hate mornings and always have.  I tend to be in a foul mood until I've had time to shake the cobwebs out, and was always the last one up when we all lived at home.  They laugh and laugh at the thought that I voluntarily get up before 5am these days.  I'm not saying I enjoy it, but I am saying it's keeping me sane and keeping my house from being condemned.

Such was the case this morning.  Jeremiah had baseball last weekend and we were gone a lot, so I didn't get all the laundry done over the weekend.  I also was too lazy to get up off the couch and do any on Monday evening and Tuesday I had to drive to Oldham County for a conference, so I had to get up extra early just to be ready to leave on time.  This didn't leave much time for laundry but I was down to the underwear I don't like, so it was time to take extreme measures.  I sorted out all of the loads of laundry in the floor of my room last night and started a load before bed.  Then, this morning when I got up, I switched that load to the dryer and started another one.  I had just come back upstairs after the first laundry switch and was calculating if I had time to do one more switch before leaving for work.  Just then my cell phone rang.  What the heck, I thought to myself..... It was Matt Morgan saying that Grant County Schools were on a 2 hour delay due to power outages.  I stood there for a second with my mouth hanging open, and then I all but danced around in happiness.  Two whole extra hours to get things done at home before heading to work.  Woo-hoo!

Then, the unthinkable happened.  About an hour later the phone rang again to say that the power was still out at four of our schools, so school would be closed today.  OH MY GOSH!  I don't know if I've had a surprise this good in months.  My kiddos and I took full advantage of the unexpected gift of a day off school.  Dalaney slept until almost seven thirty, so Jeremiah slept about that long too.  After they got up, we layed around all morning and played with Dalaney and wached Christmas movies.  And of course I've done laundry all day!

Then this afternoon, we worked on cleaning out closets and getting out fall clothes.  I know that doesn't sound fun, but knowing that it's done and I don't have to try to get it done on an upcoming weekend feels pretty good.

The thing we did that was the most fun though, was playing with Dalaney's hair.  It's getting longer and I've been stalking hair blogs and gathering supplies to try some new styles.  This was the result.

I know some of these are blurry, but I'm telling you the girl is fast as lightening.  I think I'm going to get a good picture and then quick as a flash she has moved or turned around or gotten down off my lap. I hope you can tell that she has two very tiny pony tails on top of her head that really look more like little puff balls.  It was sooooo cute and I was very pleased with my parts and the evenness of the tails since this was my first attempt.  Miah, however, was not pleased.  He said she looked like Cindy Lou Who and he didn't want her going out in public like that.  I hope he gets over this because I think it's awesome and she will definitely be going out in public with pony tails sometime soon!
  

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!

Dalaney - Day 2 It's Embassy Day!

I would love to post a picture here of how cute my daughter looked when we went to the Embassy this morning, but I don't have one because you can't take your camera or phone in at the Embassy. So, you'll just have to trust me when I tell you she was by far the cutest baby there. 

I wanted to take her picture when we got back to the hotel, but she was sleeping, so you will have to settle for pictures of the cutest sleeping baby ever.

Dalaney - Day 1

                                                  This sweet face was a sight for sore eyes!

And this was pure heaven.