Building a doll house {Sunday Snapshot}

A got a doll house kit from Santa several years ago for Christmas.  It never got taken out of the box.  She found it under her bed while she was cleaning her room during the break and decided it was time to start putting it together.

A, Cara, and Daddy have been working on it off and on for a couple of weeks and it's slowly starting to take shape.

Cara's job is to hand A the shingles to glue on the roof.

She takes her work very seriously.  Love those eyelashes!  They were so short in China that I thought they might have actually cut her eyelashes off.  Now they're long.

Pretty, pretty A:

And beautiful Cara, who loves to ham it up for the camera:

I wonder how long it will take for them to finish this dollhouse.

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A and C pics

A's BF C is a senior this year.  His mom already took some senior pictures of him, but she wanted some more.  He doesn't really like having his picture taken, but he agreed to let me take some yesterday afternoon.  We stopped at a local winery first, but the gate was locked.  I snapped a couple of shots just in front of the gate.  Let me preface these shots by saying I am by NO MEANS any kind of professional photographer.  My philosophy of taking pictures is just to take a lot and hope a few turn out.



I snapped this one right before we left.  I think it's cute.

After leaving the winery, we went out to the farm to try and find some interesting textures for a background.  This was taken in front of a prop pile.  It's C's mama's favorite.

This one is my favorite.  The white building is a mint still.  This ladder is what you climb up to attach the device from the still to the top of the mint trailer to take out mint to be stilled in order to remove the oil from the leaves.  I don't remember what the hose is for.  Mint prices aren't good and my family stopped growing mint several years ago, so now the still is just used for storage.

This one is cute, too.  One of the last pictures I took before we left.  It was pretty cold outside and my fingers were numb.  We'll take more a different day with C in his letterman's jacket.  There is another galvanized shed that I think would make a good background for those shots.

And now I've held her longer...

I wasn't sure how I wanted to title this post.  Cara was found at around 15 months of age and today she's been mine for 15 months.  At first I thought about, "And now I've loved her longer,"  but that wouldn't be true.  Her birth family will always have loved her longer.  Because I believe in my heart they still love her and think about her every day.  There's no way anyone who has met Cara can NOT love her.  She's funny and twirly and girly and cute.  She dances and sings and grins and cuddles.  She's fantastic.  She's deliciously naughty.  And stubborn.  And a little bit spoiled, I must confess.  And now she's ours.  We are so lucky!

She's been a part of our family for two Christmases.  Two Halloweens and Thanksgivings.  One Valentine's Day, Easter, and birthday.  We've taken her to parades, the movies, parties and New Orleans.  We've been there for her first day of preschool and her first parent-teacher conference.  We will get to experience a lot more "firsts" with Cara.  And I'm sure there is a mommy on the other side of the world that weeps for the loss of the firsts.  I think of her often.  I cannot imagine making the choice she did.  But I'm so very thankful that she did.

 She's goofy:

She's a pirate (Go Cougs!):

She's a kissy face:

She's our sweet baby girl:

I love you, sweet Cara, and I am so very happy to be your mommy.

Continued Language Development

Cara's language skills continue to improve at an unbelieveable rate.  Every once in a while she will ask a question about something and we realize she doesn't understand quite as much as we think she does, i.e. wondering how we were going to take a shower at Olive Garden for a baby shower.  But for the most part, she understands quite a bit of what is said.  The meltdowns/tantrums over lack of words have greatly subsided.  She still does it a little bit with B because he doesn't always take the time to explain things to her.

An excellent early literacy activity to do with toddlers/preschoolers is to sing nursery rhymes.  It teaches kids about language and helps them to understand rhyming.  At Cara's fall conference, her teacher mentioned that the only nursery rhyme she knew was "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."  And I felt bad.  My entire training as an educator has been on language development and literacy.  I should know better!  We had been teaching Cara what it's like to be part of a family; how to treat others and how to act in various social situations.  To me, that took precedence over academics.  And I still believe that stuff is more important than academics.  But she's ready for the pre-literacy activities now.   She loves them!  We used to snuggle in bed and I would tell her stories.  Now she wants to recite nursery rhymes.  She should be all set for spring conferences! ;)

Se still has some pronunciation issues:  "Eating their curves and whey," and "She stanked them all soundly."  But I think she's doing pretty well considering she's only been speaking English for 15 months and came home at 3 yrs and 4 months.

Ski Lesson #2 {Sunday Snapshot}

We headed up to White Pass this morning for B's second ski lesson.  A decided after watching B last weekend that she would like to take lessons, too.  So B took lesson number 2 and A took lesson number 1.  We got to the pass and A and B hopped out of the truck and went over to the ticket stand to get their lift tickets for the day.  J and I took Cara into the lodge to find a place to sit.  I wasn't really planning to spend any time outside, so I didn't dress for the snow and neither did Cara.  Once we found a table, J left quickly to go help the kids go back to the truck, get their ski clothes, boots, skis, etc.   And Cara freaked out.  Like "panic attack" freaked out.  She couldn't catch her breath, she was crying, she was in my lap with her legs wrapped around my waist and fingers knotted in my hair.  She kept saying, "Where's Daddy, where's Daddy!"  I repeated to her over and over that if she would calm down and stop crying I would tell her, but that she couldn't even hear me over the panting and crying and I just held her close.  Then the guy at the table behind us left his 5-year-old little boy at the table and went to go throw his trash away.  And Cara freaked out even more.  "Mom!  That guy just left his little boy!  He just left him there!"  So I tried to explain that he was just throwing away their trash and the dad would be right back.  Thankfully he returned quickly.  That helped Cara settle down enough for me to tell her that her dad would be right back, what he was doing, and that we could text daddy and ask him when he was coming back.

J came back and then Cara was fine.  She was hungry.  She wanted chocolate milk and yogurt.  I've never seen her act like that.  I guess it's true what they say, attachment in adoption is one step forward, two steps back.  Normally we tell her exactly what's going to happen before we do anything.  We didn't think to do that today in a new situation and we got to see how traumatic it was for her.  We will try not to make that mistake again.

After Cara ate, she wanted to go outside to watch her brother.  While she was watching him, a man asked her if she would like to try snowboarding.  The man had brought his 4-year-old son snowboarding and he was getting a little tired.  So he volunteered to take Cara up the "magic carpet" and down the hill a couple of times.  I didn't think she would do it considering the episode she just had in the lodge, but she wanted to give it a try.  She didn't have snow pants and had to borrow her uncle's gloves, but she gave it a go.

Her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth is her concentration look.

 She loved it!

 She was so excited!

 Now she wants to go snowboarding. ;)  Thank you, kind stranger, for making Cara's day!

 B's teacher was better this week than the one he had last week.  That's him behind B.  I could definitely see an improvement by the end of lesson #2.  I hope B gets him as a teacher again.

 Awesome job, B!

 I couldn't get any front shots of A in her lesson.  There were tons of people all around.  It was difficult to get the shots that I did get.  Here she is, listening to her teacher.  A's teacher was really good this week, too.

 A got to ride the pommel up the hill on her first lesson.

A's teacher said she could skip lesson 2 and go straight to lesson 3.  B's a bit green over that! ;)  We will be back up at the pass next weekend for more lessons.  I'm thinking of leaving Cara with Grandma and Grandpa this time and spending the hour in the bar at the lodge!

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This year's 4-H project

A little over a week ago J, A, B, my dad, brother, and niece L went to go pick up pigs for the 4-H club this year.  When they got home, the rest of the club members came over to draw names for choosing pigs and to take their pigs home.  Here's Cara with the dish for the names.

They picked up 21 pigs, which is less than last year.  It takes 2 pick up trucks to haul 21 pigs.

 Here's the pig house for the 11 pigs that are staying at our house.  It's not fancy, just 2 bins on their sides with plywood nailed to the top and back side.  A heat lamp through the top plywood piece keeps them warm.

A fills the water barrel so the pigs will have plenty of fresh water to drink.

The kids get in the back of the truck, grab out pigs, and hand them out to their dad.

So now we have 11 pigs to take care of until the first of May.  Then, it's off to the livestock show again.

Lazy Day Watching Bowl Games

Lazy day at our house.  The kids are hanging out on the couch watching bowl games.  We just sent them to drop off a donation at Goodwill and pick up some groceries for the Rose Bowl half-time dinner:  carne asada.

Tomorrow we go back to work and school.  This will be the last time all of us get to laze around together until this time next year.  A does Running Start so she has a different spring break than Cara and B.  J works year round and takes the bulk of his vacation over the Christmas holiday.  It was good while it lasted! :)