Dog and Duckie

Braedan has carried around this white stuffed dog since he was about a year old. It was a gift from Danny to me for a Valentine's Day in high school! One day Braedan just picked it up and has carried it around ever since. He named it "Dog". He sleeps with it, watches movies with it, takes it to church, and it occasionally has to go to the store with us. It gets washed often and has had many, many repairs. We hope it makes it a few more years! I can't tell you how often we couldn't find it or thought we left it at our last destination. So I guess Zoey picked up on this and started carrying around this yellow blanket that we call Duckie as it has duck patterns and two appliqued ducks on the corner. It was actually a baby blanket we used for Braedan. She insists on having it when she gets in and out of the crib and cries hysterically (I can actually hear her now!) when Daddy takes it away from her for bath time. It gets dragged through dog hair, water, dirt and we have to wash it pretty often too! She will often lay it on the ground and then lay down on top of and pretend she's going to sleep. I'm not too surprised by either of these "lovies" as they're sometimes called, it's really just pay back for the years I sucked my thumb and carried around my dad's old shirts. We won't go into how long that lasted, I just hope it's not the same for my two kids!


On this day, she even needed it while she ate grapes in her high chair! She cried when I tried to take it away from her and this was the face of one happy girl when I handed it back!

Etsy Store

I have been brainstorming ideas to make my Etsy Shop more successful and today added an all new item...the cutest little baby leg/arm warmers! They turned out adorable and of course, the model is pretty cute too even though you can't see her face! :) Spread the word for me, will ya? 10% of all proceeds goes directly to Holt International and I'm hoping to write a big check for Christmas! Thanks for all the support so far! More new items coming soon! (Pending more Zoey naptimes!)
Check out the store for the rest of the items!

Wordless Wednesday

Okay, well a few words to explain! We have these poems hanging in our hallway and I found Zoey kissing them yesterday! I think she likes the feel of the cold glass...

Happy Halloween!

It was a pretty uneventful night for us as we decided to go to our church's Trunk or Treat and forgo the neighborhood Trick or Treating. It was a lot of fun but Zoey never really did get the hang of the candy collecting thing! She was much more interested in just eating it as it came to her! Braedan had picked out a Transformer Bumblebee costume weeks ago and was thrilled, but at the last minute tonight, he decided he wanted to be Buzz Lightyear, a costume he got for Christmas a couple of years ago. But he did wear his Bumblebee costume to school on Thursday, his Spiderman costume from last year all day today, then Buzz Light Year this evening...so he was three different people for Halloween! Miss Zoey was adorable in her flower costume but we had to bribe her with M&M's (it seems like the last couple posts focus on her eating candy, I promise, she really doesn't eat that much!) to keep her hat on. Here's some cute pics of Buzz and the flower!

CELEBRATING MONTH SIX!!!!

Hanging out in her jammies this morning...


Can you even believe it's been that long? We are now offically the family she has been with longest in her life, (she was with her first foster family for four months, then the second one for five months) but still have three more months to go to equate the time she was in Korea. She's still so tiny...today she fit in 6-12 month costume that was barely too short for her to wear! She slept through the night last night and is just doing awesome! Tomorrow she will be 15 months old. We feel very blessed. How did we end up with such a beautiful girl?!?!?!

And someone else I know is happy to have a girl in the house...but maybe for other reasons than me!! He put this bow in all by himself and was thrilled about it!

Weekend Trip

This past Sunday and Monday we made our first out of town trip to be with some of Danny's family, many of whom have never met Zoey. We must admit that this was a huge break through for Zoey and both kids did remarkably well. It was our first hotel stay since homecoming nearly six months ago and I was really worried about disrupting Zoey's sleep pattern. But we brought along the pack n play and as you can see by the pictures below, she didn't have too much trouble getting used to it!




She slept fairly well as she was exhausted for most of the trip, but decided to have a little play time from 1-3am where she laughed, squirmed and rolled all over the bed!

But we were so pleased to see her so outgoing and friendly to everyone! She is usually very shy and reserved (except for at home of course, where we like to call her crazy girl lately!) but she opened up to everyone and was very curious and brave. She didn't fuss when people picked her up and she was walking up to strangers and babbling to them! It is so wonderful to see her personality continue to blossom every day. She just seems so much more comfortable with her place in our family now. We are thrilled to see it and think she is adjusting beautifully!

We spent a lot of time in the car and let's just say she discovered lollipops! I like to call this one Lollipop 27! (she didn't really eat that many, it just seemed like we'd do anything to make her comfortable and keep her quiet!) We went through a few snack bags of M&M's too to get through the two day stay!

While we had a wonderful time catching up with family, by the end of the trip the kids were exhausted and hardly slept on our 3 hour plus ride home. This is what was left of them as we pulled into the driveway...(the blue mouth on Braedan was caused by his own "keep quiet" candy!)



Unfortunately the visit was to lay to rest Danny's aunt who recently lost her two year battle with cancer. We were so happy to be able to be there with her family and continue to keep them in our thoughts and prayers. May they find peace in her passing by keeping the memory of her sweet spirit alive.

Wordless Wednesday.