OK, I'm a geek, I'm a freak, I'm a dweeb, but I'M SO EXCITED!!

American Gladiators is back!!! Woo Hoo! The Wall, Powerball, Breakthrough and Conquer, The Eliminator.......yes!

I used to watch this show on Channel 50 out of Chicago when I was in college! I remember watching it from '89-93. Jeff and I still talk about "Two Scoops"----remember him?

Anyway, it starts on Jan. 6th on NBC! The perfect balm to the end of football season!

"Gladiatorrrrrs Readyyyyyyyyyy........." :)

ELEVEN AND ONE!!!

The Dallas Cowboys are

11-1!

I love them! :)

Holy Cow.....Holy Cow......Holy Cow!

This is the most important night of the whole entire year!

Please, please, please Dallas-----------bring your A game!!

Go Dallas Go!

Hey, Do You Think I Need S'More?

My little S'Mores collection. I LOVE them, they're sooooo cute!! :)

And, hello! Like I can take a picture without "Camera Hog 1" getting in the picture..........

Which, of course, leads to "Camera Hog 2" (or should I say "Camera LAMB?")

Brett's like "Eewwww....what's wrong with her nose?"

Merry Christmas!

"Mama, Lili Fonzie!"

I just have to share this, if for no other reason than to embarrass Lili when she's 16!

I was watching "Happy Days" the other day and Fonzie came on. Lili got all excited and ran to the TV and pointed and then smacked her heart.

She called "Mama! Mama!" I told her that that was Fonzie.

She said "Lili........Fooooooonnnnnnnnzieeeeeeee". what???

I asked her if she loved Fonzie and she said yes.

I asked her if she wanted to give Fonzie kisses and she got this embarrassed look on her face (like Brett does when I talk about girls!-----OK I guess HE'LL be embarrassed when he's 16 too!) and she said "YES!"

Richie, Potsie and Ralph came on the screen and she pointed to them and said "bad boy, ick". Then Fonzie came on again and she said (for the next 5 minutes)

"Lili........Fooooonnnnnnnnzieeeeeeee".

What can I say, my girl's got taste. First Troy Aikman, now Fonzie.

Next up: Lili's first viewing of the "Hardy Boys" featuring Shaun Cassidy singing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! mmm-mmm-mmm :)

"Mama Had a Little Lamb"

You know it's Christmas program time when your child comes home with a "lamb nose". And, seriously, this is how Lili's been ever since she got home from school. She's just obnoxiously wired! She did tell me, in no uncertain terms, that she DOES NOT want her nose wiped off. "Mama, no wash, no bath."

Here's some pictures of our house all aglow......

Can you see Madeline the cat? She's always ready to have her picture taken. It was a real treat taking our dossier pictures (NO cats, NO dogs allowed). I think we had to take 3 or 4 pictures of each pose!

Yes, the TV is always on! We love our TV around here, what can I say?

It looks like it's one of those drug commercials. ("Do you have trouble breathing, walking, eating, sleeping, doing trigonometry......?") I swear I feel like I need to make Brett leave the room when one of those "e.d." commercials comes on. ugh.

Christmas Photo Shoot, or Maybe I Should Splurge For The Professional Shoot!

Drama Queen: How To Make A Chalk Outline

Lili LOVES to pretend she's dead.

Yep, we're all into the fun and educational toddler games around here.

Believe me, she came up with this all by herself.

Notice how she's so into it for awhile, but as you can see, she can't keep it up for very long!

Thanksgiving: Part Deux!

This is Lili on "Thanksgiving Friday". We usually have Thanksgiving Day with Jeff's family and then the next day with mine. Lili thought it was just GREAT to get to dress up 2 days in a row and eat!

This is supposed to be her Christmas dress, but since she is so thankful for pretty dresses, I thought it was appropriate to let her wear it!

We're all decorated for Christmas, so now it's time to work on the Brett and Lili photos for the Christmas cards.....

Make a slide show, scrapbook, or ecard

Happy Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for, this year especially.

Last year at this time I would never have believed that in one year I would have Lili home with us. I never would've believed she would be 4 1/2 and I never would've believed we could be this blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours.

Check out my Slide Show!

Look What I Did!

Mission Accomplished

I finally finished the first 2 of 3 scrapbooks for Lili.
From paperchase, to waiting, to referral in one book. Then the China trip in another. One last book for photos from her first year at home: kind of a "Baby's First Year" book.

These are just a few pages from each book. Believe me, I must have hundreds of pages!

Already, just after a few months, it's nice to look back and remember. Hopefully one day she'll cherish them.

Preschool Follow Up

When I went to pick Lili up the teacher said "I need to talk to you. Nothing bad." So of course, like any good mother "nothing bad" means "Holy crap, I'm surprised the school's still standing, what did my demon child do?!?!?!" But, actually, she was right, she had nothing bad to say! whew!

Lili had a wonderful time. She painted and had snacks (like FIVE snacks instead of one!), she talked and participated and kinda-sorta shared (I guess that's the one thing she needs to work on). Lili saw me and was like "Oh, yeah, you. Hey what's up." WHAT?!

We did have a slight problem with her..........she didn't want to leave! She kept saying "Lili stay school, Mama go home!" The teachers thought that was HILARIOUS! They said that she asked "Mama come" at snack time and that was it.

They thanked me for letting her come to school. Yes, they thanked ME for "letting" her come to school. hee. hee. My pleasure!!

So, preschool: day one was a success. Like I just knew, she's already asking when school is again. (gotta love that!)

Her teacher said that Lili is a wonderful addition to the class and she already has one really good gal-pal. Well, she IS 4! They'll be texting each other in no time! (maybe Lili can teach me how!!)

We heart preschool!! :)

Fingers Crossed!

Lili's at school right now!

Eeek!

So far, so good. She only needs to make it through the next hour and 1/2.

This is the FIRST TIME I've taken her anywhere and left her there.

When she goes to skating, Meemaw and Peepaw and Gogo are there. When we go to playgroup, I'm there. Church, we're there. This is a big step......

She couldn't wait to go to school this morning, although, of course, I had to wake her up!!!!!

I drilled her this morning:

"What do you do when someone says Hi?" (you say Hi)

"What do you say when someone says What's your name?" (say Lili)

"What do you do when someone wants to hold hands?" (hold their hand!)

She passed with flying colors! She was a little overwhelmed when everyone was there at the door so excited to see her, but she said "hi", said "Lili" and went where she was supposed to!

I had to stay and do some paperwork, then when she went to PE (holding hands with another girl!) I slipped out the back way. I thought that would be best, rather than being there when she got back then awkwardly trying to slip away.

Hopefully she'll love it and want to go back next time. Although, since she only goes on T/Th, I'll have to answer the "Lili school?" question over and over for the next 5 days!

I'll let you know how it went later.

They Grow Up So Fast!!!

Guess who starts Preschool tomorrow?!

Ahhh! I'm so excited yet so scared yet so happy yet so nervous.......

One of the churches in our town has a preschool that is always filled up. Well, thanks to my neighbor (Hi Karen!) we appear to be pretty famous around these parts. "Oh, aren't you Karen's neighbor? We know you from your blog." :)

So, I talked to the preschool director today (who I met at the library's halloween party, who knew me from Karen.......). She said that she would LOVE to have Lili in their school and asked if we could come tomorrow! Yay!

I just hope that everybody's still just as excited about it tomorrow at this time.

I know Lili won't be a behavior problem. She won't be loud or obnoxious. She won't be a brat. (OK, I know, I know: "My child will not be this or that") But, really, her biggest problem will be her NOT talking or communicating and NOT interacting with the other kids.

She has come a LONG way socially, but I'm usually there with her, which I will NOT be doing at preschool. (My empty house from 8:30-11:00am is beckoning to me and believe me, I'm going to answer that call!)

I think that the best thing for everyone is for me to just let her go.

They have PE first thing tomorrow morning. I think I'll go with her and stay for that 1/2 hour and then when they transition back to class, leave then........we'll see how it goes!

Please pray that tomorrow goes well for everyone involved.

Lili needs to do this. Hopefully it'll be a good experience to get her ready for kindergarten next year. Hopefully it'll be a good experience to get me ready for kindergarten next year!!!

Oh, and THANKS KAREN!! :) :) :)

Happy Birthday To Me!

Welp, today's my birthday.
I'm thirty seven years old!
man.
Anyway, I found out yesterday that Brian Stuy over at http://www.research-china.org/ has found Lili's "finding ad"!
This is a picture of her placed in the local paper to try and find her parents. They do this with every abandoned child. If the parents do not come forward, the gov't can go ahead and place them for adoption.
So, this should be the youngest picture we could ever have of her. Mr. Stuy said that it's a nice clear color photo of her. He also has the original newspaper that the ad is in, so he can get that to us too. So (as soon as we have mail again.......doesn't it figure? There's never any mail either the day of or the day before my birthday. ALL those cards and big fat checks being delayed!! Tragedy!) I'm going to put a check in the mail and hopefully we'll have Lili's picture in a couple weeks.
We're very excited about it. Who would've thought that a picture could mean so much?

Yee Haw!! How 'BOUT Them Cowboys?!?!?!!!