Turn on the magical colored lights!

So baby girl go a light bright for her birthday from her aunt!

I'm pretty sure I was more excited than she was.

But she taken to it like a fish in water!

She doesn't do the pictures yet.  Those are still a little hard for her.

But what she does do is group colors together.

And she makes amazing pictures from that!

Look at this art!

I am always amazed by her.  She blows me away constantly.  

This is not exception.  

Garden update July!

Holy crap things are growing!!!

Look at all this awesome stuff growing!

 If you've followed along, you know we've had a ton of problems getting our garden to grow.

But now it's growing!  Look!

This is a very green Cherokee Purple slicing tomato.

There are 14 of these plants in our garden and this is the only tomato on the vine, so far.

But I'm so proud of this tomato.

 We had a ton of problems with carrots and probably have 7.

I planted probably 40.

But those 7 are doing well!  If not a little above ground despite my best efforts.

I have learned so much from these carrots though.  But this is a Cosmic Purple, I believe.  I can't wait for it to get a little bigger so we can pull it and eat it!

 This one I am super excited about!

Yes, the weeds are awful around it.  We are going to cardboard and mulch under it as soon as we can, but this is what we have right now!

This is a Strawberry Watermelon.

And it looks soooooo amazing!

I didn't think my watermelons would make it.  And of the 6 I started, it appears we have one Strawberry and one Orangello.  The only watermelon on the vine though is this one!

I'm gonna really keep you updated on this beauty!

Last but certainly not least is this wonderful little nub.

This is a Cantaloupe!

I am most excited about this little thing and I cannot want for him to grow big and strong and be yummy in my tummy.

I think I have the kiddo most excited for this one too.  As she's all about it every time we walk outside.

It's only a tiny little thing, but this is a Amish Melon.  Apparently it is closer to a muskmelon flavor than a rock melon (cantaloupe in America) flavor, but I'm still gonna call it a cantaloupe and love it just as much!




As you can see, our garden is starting to give us more than beans!  But we do have a lot of beans.  But that picture seems to have disappeared and I haven't the energy to go take a new picture.  That's right, lazy.

But we got one crop of green beans, stringless, and we've left the black beans on the plants to dry.  Our bean plants aren't really doing great.  It seems we got one crop and then bam, they all started dying.  So we are gonna let them dry the beans in the pods for seeds for next year and try again.

Our garden is growing amazingly.  I hate summer, but man I do love gardening!

And I have learned so much this year. So next year we are gonna have the best garden ever!

Bowling fun

Part of the goal of summer 2018 is getting out and meeting new people and experiencing new things.

One of the new things we are trying this year is bowling!

With a new friend at that!

And baby girl is killing it!

I come from a family that loves bowling.  These awesome ramps?  They weren't a thing when I was learning to bowl.

Baby girl doesn't bowl both games completely.  Typically she bowls about half of each game and lets the boy we are bowling with bowl her other frames.  He loves it!

Look at how well she did though when she DOES bowl!

Anyway, bowling has been a great outlet for her and for me.  I've made new friends and found a new activity we can do together.

And it's FREE!

Except for the shoes.  We pay 7 bucks for our shoes each time.  But seven dollars to have such an amazing memory with my kid that I have with my parents?

That's pretty priceless.

Swing life away

We recently had a function at a park and baby girl was in love with the fact that there were not babies there, which meant she got to swing in the baby swings.  Her favorite because she can enjoy herself without having to worry about balancing, which is still hard for her at her barely 3.

She played hard with a new friend.  And after it was over we went to lunch with Daddy.  We were already out, might as well meet him and enjoy some time together!

Well, she was tired.  Apparently swinging in the baby swings all morning just exhausts you!

We had a peaceful lunch.  She didn't sleep long, but you could tell she wanted to.

We love park dates!

The day it was finalized

Someone caught me off guard today and asked if we were celebrating our daughter's "Gotcha day!".  I had to take a step back and realize some people have a very different idea of adoption than the reality.

Today, 3 years ago, a judge awarded us permanent custody of our daughter.

For many, this would be her Gotcha day!.  For us, it's just another day in her journey in our family.

Adoption is a celebration, but it's one that comes at a great price.

We love our daughter, and we understand the pain and suffering she has already endured.

She has lost so much.

And we make it a point to not celebrate loss as much as gains.

So we celebrate her release from the NICU, because that's a gain.

We celebrate her birth, because that's a gain.

We celebrate her being her, because we've gained so much from her.

But we do not celebrate her "gotcha day!".

Because that is her loss.

She gained a family that day, but she also lost access to her original birth certificate.

She gained parents who love her without question, but she also lost see her mother and father's names on paperwork.

Do we find her gotcha day sad?  No.

We love that this is her adoption day.  We love that we get to forever call her ours because of a judge signing a piece of paperwork.

We love her and all that she has brought to our family over the last 3 years.

But we also understand that adoption is complicated.

We listen to adoptees.  We listen to those who have similar stories.

And almost all of them hated their parents celebrating "gotcha day!".

So, for now, we don't celebrate.

If some day she wants us to, we absolutely will bring out all the streamers!

But for now, we quietly appreciate the day she became officially one of us.

Trying new hairstyles

Occasionally baby girl will sit long enough for me to try something new.  

This was one of those days.

And yes, the pictures are very similar, but this was the only two pictures of her hair I could share, so I'm sharing them both!

Regular braid piggy tails.  

Learning to do  new hairstyles is always a battle.

Will she sit long enough to complete both sides?

Will she sit long enough to make it look presentable in public?

If I fuck it up will she sit long enough for me to fix it?

So many questions.

So few answers.

So this time she did sit long enough!  She did amazing while I brained, unbraided, braided again!

She was a champ.  And as a result we ended up with our first pigtail braids!

They lasted all morning, all through swimming, and all through the night as she fell asleep before I could take them out.

Magical braids.

And she's not sat again for them.

But hey, we have this one time now memorialized on the blog, so it happened!

Family fun day

Recently a local park had a family fun day.

We met up with a friend and enjoyed the lower crowds after the thunderstorm that went through when we got there!

Bubbles, firetrucks, sewer grates, oh my!

We found a fire truck.  Baby girl and her buddy were enthralled with it!  So much so that the awesome firemen gave them both a junior fire hat!

It was a little big, but it was a huge hit!  She wanted to wear it all day!

That was until her and her buddy spotted a sewer grate.  I have never seen children so intent on staring at the bottom of a sewer.  It was adorable.  They both just stopped and stared for as long as they could muster!

The DJ also had a bubble machine!  This was the highlight of the event.  bubbles everywhere!  So many bubbles.

So despite a serious thunderstorm that ran across just as we got there, this event turned out to be so much fun!  Not for the booths, not for the MLM sellings, not for anything but the kiddos getting a chance to run through puddles and stare down into sewers.

I am so thankful we are able to give her such a carefree childhood.

Happy Birthday baby girl!

Baby girl turned 3!  Holy fuck how did that happen?!

We had a small cookout for the kid.  A few good friends showed up, the grandparents were here, and we had a kick ass time.

The kiddo picked her own cake.  I went in thinking we were going to get a PJ Mask cake, as that is currently her obsession.  But she saw the minions and she was like NO PAPA!  STOP!!!

So Minions it was!

Also, look at how clean our back patio was!  Husband  and granddaddy did an amazing job cleaning it up!

We obviously didn't take too many pictures.  Because well, I didn't take too many pictures.  I was too busy enjoying myself and grilling outside in the too damn hot weather!

Thank you to everyone who came!  It was a blast!  Baby girl is slowly picking through her new toys.  We are trying to stagger opening them, just so she doesn't get overwhelmed with all her options.

Here is to another awesome year!!!