Finally....PICTURES!

Yes....she's cute AND knows it.

This is as close as Cam wanted Anna to be to him that night. ;-)

Samantha and Julia working on puzzles.

Wayne using Poppa's dinosaur dial-up

Me and JuJu Chang (yes, there is a real JuJu Chang, but she's Korean)

Anna and me hanging out, waiting to do presents
Cam and Wayne
Julia and Grandma Darlene
Ok...here's the scoop. This is a bread bowl. A HUGE ONE! My mom bought it for dinner, it's full of Christmas colored rolls. I thought it was pretty cool. Kids liked eating red and green rolls.

Julia took this picture of the salsa. No idea why, other than it was sitting right in front of her.

Here is Poppa, me and Anna.

My superstar Showgirls!!

The girls acting all silly

Presents/Stockings

Cam, Julia and me
Wayne in the U of M Wolverines hat that Cam got. Too funny!

Cam finally wearing the hat
Little brother (aka nephew) and Big sister (aka Aunt)...acting all of their age

Another famous Samantha and Melissa photo...tired of them yet?

Theresa and JuJu!

Another goofy pic
Anna trying to get me to act like a Vegas showgirl!

Julia peeking in on a great photo of Poppa and Tyler
Julia took this one of me after I put her in the her carseat last night.

Christmas morning 2007

Merry Christmas and Red High Heels

First, let me start by saying Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays or Happy Whatever-Else-You-People-Celebrate. ;-) (Remember this is my PC blog...haha!) I hope that everyone is having a great time with their friends and family. After the snow storm we had Sunday night, I was deciding that I'd sooner be somewhere warm and south...New Zealand perhaps? They are having their summer time right now. Although, what is Christmas without snow? It's nice I tell you!!!



So Saturday morning was spent with my dad's family at the Stewart house in Pentwater. It's still weird to be there with no Grandma and Grandpa around. I have fond memories of eating M&M's, getting new jammies and slippers as presents and sitting in the "backroom" playing cards and hanging out with my cousins. Now's it different that I have a family of my own. But, we still manage a good time. Sorry, there are no pictures of this event as I forgot my camera at home. Imagine that heartache. Any fellow family blogger knows that you can't leave the house without a camera in hand. Ugh.



Moving on to Sunday. We spent the afternoon at my mom's parents house in Hart. We're there like every weekend, so it's no biggie to be there. :-) Too much food as usual. My Aunt Pam makes the best shrimp dip. MMMmmm....didn't help my diet, but it was good. The kids had a great time and I did remember my camera, so there will be pictures to follow.



Last night we went to my parents house for dinner and presents. Theresa surprised us with a HUGE gift certificate to Great Wolf Lodge for our family. My parents also got us one. The kids can't wait to go. You've seen pictures of us there before, it's a giant indoor water park in Traverse City. We have a great time (and now I can walk around in a bathing suit not worrying what I look like!! Wohooo!) and the kids love having dinner there. Samantha got me 2 really cute porcelain dolls that are dressed in Chinese Christmas outfits. I couldn't figure out what they were at first, but...they are really neat and will match my collections of Chinese things. Again, I remembered my camera and will be posting pictures.



This leads up to this morning. The kids are heaven unwrapping gifts and showing us everything that they got. Anna loved the white stud belt we got at Hot Topic and Julia really liked her puzzles and Aquadoodle. Cam got a new bike and some really cool new Ps2 games. It feels great to be able to give your kids the things they wanted for Christmas...except.....

RED HIGH HEELS

Yeah...we had one small meltdown over red high heel shoes. Apparently Anna has been listening to Kellie Pickler a little too much on the iPod. LOL! She had wrote Santa to ask for a pair of red high heel shoes and mom wasn't going for it. So hence no shoes to open this morning. She cried, I explained that Santa thought the shoes were a bit too grown up for her and that maybe when she was 8 years old that she could get some. She liked that reasoning, but was still a bit ticked over not getting the shoes. This kid got her OWN iPOD for Christmas! What has this world come to?? HAHAHA! She's a good kiddo, just has some very interesting taste. You'd think that she had a dominatrix as mother. ;-)

Well, here are the family photos that you all have been dying for. Have a great Christmas and I will thinking of all my regular readers today. Take care!!

(FYI...Pictures will come later. Blogger is giving me grief and I can't get to the photos! WEIRDNESS!)

Julia sings

School Parties

Julia's friend Jordyn. I love the red tights and white shoes. ;-)

Another friend, this one is Jessica...she makes me laugh.

This little girl, is one after my heart. Nothing like starting out the tattoo freaks early on. Woohoo!

Julia's feet...Dawn, want to add this to EmmaLi's collection? LOL!!!

Jordyn again...

Julia opening the present she brought for the class.

Sister...can't ya feel the love? (Shameless plug...The girls are wearing bows from the Amazing Tonni at 4Princessbows go check it out if you'd like some like this!)

Show girls?
Cam and Julia at his party today.
Cam and Alexis
Ok...this is my neato pic of the day...MICE!! They are chocolate covered cherries (the butts) with the stem sticking out for tails and Hershey's kisses for the face with almonds for ears. By far the coolest school treat I've seen in awhile.

Another avenue...

Ok....so my niece Kate wanted me to make keychains for her externs that she works with. This is what I came up with. Don't everyone rush at once to have me make these, as I haven't prefected my technique yet. But...I thought it turned out great. :~)

Anna's Christmas program and misc pics

Is it wrong to have your Chinese daughter to make Chinese eyes at you? She was doing this all night long. (Um to clarify, we've NEVER done the "eye thing" to her....)

Julia and a VERY tired mommy...

Julia and Samantha's boyfriend Jonathan




Anna and some friends from school

Anna and her friends Rikesha and Elexus

This is a heart focal bead that I'm going to make a necklace out of. It's called Chinese Bloodstone and I think it's super cool. :-)

Another surpise!

I got an email today from Lois...she's one of the ladies I went to Tampa with (she works for the ISD). Anyways, she wrote to tell me that the Mason-Lake ISD was nominating ME for the Michigan Council for Exceptional Children’s Exceptional Parent Award for 2008! ME. They want to nominate ME. I'm still stunned. Here's the link to the MCEC website.

I'm going to be humble for a moment and say that I don't think that I do anything that any other parent wouldn't do. For my kids, I do anything. But, I've always believed that if I don't advocate for them, WHO WILL? Yeah, I feel blessed that my kiddos are healthy, bright and good all around kids. They've all had their stuggles and I know that Anna will have more than the average kid, but I encourage them all the same.

I don't know if I will win, but I'm still in shock to be nominated and that the ISD thinks that highly of me! Wish me luck!!

Almost forgot!!

I wanted to mention that I got accepted to present at the National EHDI (Early Hearing Detection and Intervention) conference in New Orleans!! It's Feb 25th-26th and I couldn't be more excited! There's a amazing woman named Janet DesGeorges who has a daughter who is hard of hearing, like Anna. Janet is Hands & Voices Outreach Director Executive Director, Colorado Families for Hands & Voices. Here's her bio. We've known each other since I think 2002 when I first presented for EHDI in Washington, D.C. and have always talked of getting together to present. Well, we're now getting our chance. We will be talking about our kids with mild/moderate hearing loss and what they need or how their challenges are different. Janet is really my idol and I hope to accomplish what she has with her daughter and what she's managed to do from "just being a parent"!! Just a shame we're going to miss Mardi Gras!!

I found the coolest charms. The are EARS! Yep. An ear shaped charm! I made a bracelet tonight with one of them, what do you think?

2 years ago today....

We arrived home with Julia. We were also faced with the terrible news that Wayne's dad had passed away due to complications due to surgery. He never got to meet Julia. Grandpa George was an incredible man and I know how proud he was of Wayne for stepping outside the normal ways of adding to our family by choosing to adopt. Peach (our nickname for him) was always telling his friends about our upcoming trip to China. We had thought about postponing the the trip til after his surgery, but he insisted that we go as soon as we could. I have an email that Cindy sent me saying that Dad had seen our blog and that he thought Julia was too cute. In 2 years, I haven't been able to delete that email.

So today is a what I call a rollercoaster day. Extreme highs with the thought of Julia coming home and extreme lows when I think of losing Wayne's dad.

CHINESE SYMBOL FOR PEACE

What I did today

Instead of doing something constructive like cleaning or doing laundry...I made 2 necklaces (and about 6 bracelets). I really like both of necklaces...adds another dimention to my jewelry business. My friend Tonni has some of my bracelets listed at her 4Princess site. My new company is called Through being Cool. Eventually, I've got to get my own site, but for now Tonni is helping me out. THANKS TONNI!! Sooo...now I've really got to get some stuff done!

Introducing.....OLIVER!!

This is Oliver! I've been after Wayne for a long time for a new dog (since we had to put Sherman down over a year ago) and finally I got my wish. I won't do a long rant about how fruitless my search had been with Petfinder.com because I think it's a wonderful site. It's just the rescues that use it have become a bit overzealous with their requirements for adoption. Like needing 5!! references (which we only needed 3 for our homestudy to adopt Julia from China), a fenced yard (yeah, I understand that one, but we have an acre plus and there's no way we could fence the the damned thing in!), and adoption fees well over $300 dollars. This is for dogs that were STRAYS! I decided that we could just find a puppy/dog that matched our needs without being put under the microscope. :-) Hey, if we can adopt from China...we should get approved for a dog, right? LOL! Well, I found Oliver in Nunica from a great lady named Pat. Yes, she's a breeder. But, she's super sweet and really loves her pups. By no means is she getting rich off it. Just enjoys raising good dogs. Oliver is 11 weeks old and a purebred English Springer Spaniel. He's been wonderful so far. No accidents, just doesn't like the crate so far. :-)