Forever Day Party: Pirate or Mermaid?

The Saturday after the adoption we had a fun party at our house.  Our celebration was a pirate or mermaid theme.  I had a blast planning the party!

Marianne took pictures for me again.  And I love them!  

We had Oysters (vanilla wafers, strawberry icing, and a marshmallows).

A goldfish bar and cupcakes.

And Pearls (Cream Puffs).  We had lemonade and blue Hawaiian punch to drink. And popsicles and capri suns for the kiddos.

My pirates and my mermaid.

My Mermaid girl.

And her sweet friends Ruby Grace and Harper.

And the super fun water slide!

The boys climbed up the stairs and went down the slide non stop for 2 hours!  Ha!

The kids loved the swords, eye patches, crowns, and wands.  The bubbles were a hit with the little ones, too!

Another shot of the slide.  We are definitely renting one of these again!

Thank you SO much to everyone who came and helped us celebrate one last time that we get to be the forever parents of these 3 precious kids.  A family of 5...it still doesn't seem real!

Rae

Adoption Day: Part 2

The morning of our adoption was actually the shortest amount of time we have spent in the court room ever!  So we had a full day of fun with family and friends.  First stop:  Memama took us to Chuck E Cheese!

Sweet girl and Poppy!

Silly Boy!

Elliott and Ruby Grace!

Daniel and Daddy!

Rylee and Jordan came too!

We all had a great time!  It wasn't very crowded at all which was super nice.  And, it was a very clean Chuck E Cheese!  Gets an A+ in my book!

Then after lunch we went to Nanny and Poppy's house to rest before the kids big welcome to the family party that night.

Nanny had a sweet cake made for the kiddos!

I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was way to busy eating the awesome food and chatting with family that we don't get to see much.  I did get a sweet picture of all of the baby girl cousins.

Mary Blanche, Darby, Fallon, and Kaiya.  I'm so excited that MB has these sweet girl cousins to grow up with.  :)

And the boys:  Jordan, Harrison, Daniel, Connor, and David.  Love these boys!  And I love that they have each other to play with at family stuff!

And then we drove home. 

 It was a super special fun filled packed with family and friends day.  Thank you so much to everyone who was a part of it and helped make it special for our kiddos!

Rae

Our Adoption Day

There are WAY too many reasons to list on this blog of why these 3 children were meant to be ours.  God made some of the reason's pretty obvious :), but there are even more that are much more personal. I really respect a friend/fellow foster parent who says that her adopted children's stories are their stories to tell, not hers.  And if they want to tell their personal story someday, she will be more than happy to help them.  But, until then, she will keep them private.

Our adoption day was a very long awaited day. And just like any and every other part of our foster parenting story there was the question of is it really going to happen?  For real, we didn't know for sure until 2 days before, but I was still a little leery.  Joe was scared to death that someone hadn't done one little piece of paperwork and it was going to throw everything off and I would end up losing my mind and doing something not very smart!  Ha!  I can laugh about it now, but I was stressing to the max until the lawyer announced before court began that there was an adoption about to happen in the judges chambers before court could begin.  Then they actually called us back.  And the judge actually granted the adoption.  Which took all of 2 minutes.  But, it actually happened.  I have to admit, it was a little bit of a "all of this for that" moment.  ha!  But it was also super special.  And I am very thankful for the special people who were there to share it with us!  Okay, I'll shut up now and show you the precious pictures that my awesome friend Marianne took for me!

My favorite picture from the whole day.  Probably my favorite picture ever taken of these 3.  It just captures their personalities perfectly!  This is in front of the court house before we went in.

A few of the outtakes just because they make me laugh!

Lets choke our sissy while smiling.  I mean, why not!?!  Oh that boy.

The best one of our family of 5.  I gave up on the "perfect picture" a long time ago!  Ha!  

Some family shots.

More family shots.

With Marianne and Ruby Grace.  Really not sure how I would have made it through the last 20 months without her!  And one of my favorite memories of the adoption will always be MB and RG squeaking around the judges chambers in their squeaky shoes playing during the adoption.  It really was precious!  And they have no choice but to be friends for life, so it is wonderful that they got to share this day together.

Here is the official picture with Judge Goodson.  I was a little sad that Judge Wilson, who had been the judge the whole time the kids were in care, was recovering from heart surgery so he couldn't be there.  We might have to make a special trip to see him.

And the kids with Tjuana Byrd, their attorney ad litem.  She is absolutely wonderful!  I cannot say enough good things about her.  She truly has the children's best interest at heart.  And is absolutely wonderful at her job!!  We feel very lucky that she has been looking out for these 3 from the beginning!

I'll share more about our day in another post because this one is getting ridiculously long!  Ha!

Rae

Finally Final

Hello again!  It is FINALLY FINAL!  Joe and I are officially the parents to 3 sweet precious kiddos!  I can hardly believe it!

Announcing.....

In case you are wondering:  

Robert = my daddy

Daniel = Joe's middle name

Tyler = his birth name

(I have 2 middle names so he gets that from me)

Charles = Joe's Grandpa

David = tons of family on my mom's side that I love

Mary = my grandmother

Blanche = Joe's grandmother

We call them Daniel, David, and Mary Blanche.

I LOVE the way our announcements turned out!  We used our beach pictures that Tony Thagard at Tony Thagard Photography took.  And Lindsey Watson at LindseyFaith Photography designed the announcements.  She was wonderful to work with!

I have always enjoyed blogging, but I always seem to take long breaks for no reason.  Oh well.  I'm back now!  Blogging with no pictures is just, well, no fun!  (And a little challenging, too!)  BUT, since the adoption is finally final, I can share pictures of these sweet babies with the blog world (which probably consists of a few close friends and family who already know all about our sweet kiddos, but hey, its a great way to journal.)

I plan to do a few catch up posts, but not too many.  That's WAY too much pressure!  Ha!  But, there are a few important posts that I missed that I plan to go back and do. Next up, I'm hoping to share all about our adoption day.  Stay tuned.....

But, before I go, I would really like to thank everyone...Our good friends, our friends we haven't talked to or seen in forever, our close family, our distant relatives, our church family, our work friends, our acquaintances, and total strangers that just heard our story.... for all of the well wishes, prayers, and support.  It truly is unbelievably overwhelming!  When deciding to become foster parents, I never considered for 1 second that our friends and family would not totally accept whatever children we had in our home as our own.  But you guys have gone above and beyond.  For real.  Thank you!

Rae

One Year Ago-Gotcha Day

One year ago this week (Well actually February 29th, but since that only happens every 4 years we will have to celebrate on the 28th.) was Miss Priss' Gotcha Day.  Gotcha Day=the day she came to live with us.  It was a day that I will never forget.  Along with all of our family and friends....they will probably never forget that day either.  Will we get her or won't we get her? That was the question of the day....All the way up to the moment I had her in my car driving down the interstate.  It just didn't seem real.

So many memories from that day.  Meeting her sweet foster dad who along with her foster mom had taken such great care of her since the day she came home from the hospital.  Who thankfully I have gotten a chance to know and love!  Besides these precious kids, new friends have been my favorite part of fostering.  And the poor sweet worker who signed her into our home....she had no idea what she was walking into.  A whole dorm of college kids were waiting outside and peaking out of all of the windows and doors to try to sneak a peak of Miss Priss as I carried her up to our apartment door.  The worker told me she has never experienced anything quite like it.  :)  I will always remember the girls and guys who came to see her that day and were a part of our lives everyday. 

I remember what a cute (bald) chunky baby she was.  Not a lot has changed in a year.  She is still my cute (bald) chunky baby.  :) My mama of course came to meet Miss Priss and fed her her first bottle.  And our good friends Matthew and Marianne came to meet this long awaited baby.  And it's the first time Miss Priss met her BFF Ruby Grace even though Ruby Grace was still cooking in her mama's belly.  :) I had taken off work for the next 2 weeks to get to spend some time getting used to having a baby in our lives for the first time.  I'm so glad I did!

Miss Priss didn't sleep much the first night we kept her.  We noticed pretty quickly how easily that baby girl got cold, which by the way hasn't changed at all.  Joe held her in the recliner while she slept for most of the night.  Of course she was warm while he was holding her so she was happy. But a few minutes after he would put  her down in the cradle, every time........she would wake up crying.  He would get her and they would go back to the recliner.  :)  He too was off work for a few days, so he requested the night shift so I could be awake with her during the day.  As Annslie says every time she comes to our place, "You could hang meat in here!"    We do keep it pretty cool, especially at night, so we knew we would need something to help keep that baby girl warm.  We went to Wal-Mart the next morning after eating her first breakfast in the Cafe at ASU Beebe to purchase a swaddling blanket....our new best friend.  (Baby girl only woke up once the next night!  Success!  :))  Baby girl slept in that swaddle blanket every night and nap for the next 4 months.  Wal-Mart would be our first outing together.  :)  We also stopped by Textbook Corner to see Miss Priss' future BFFs mom and dad.  

So much healing also happened that day.  A day Joe and I had longed for....the day we would be a mom and a dad.  No, not "officially" but when we are the ones feeding the child, getting up in the night with the child, taking that sweet baby to the doctor and having to give her medicine every day, bathing the child, and changing all of those diapers along with all of the hugs, kisses and love we could give, we are the parents....even if only for a little while.  That even for a little while recently turned into forever.  :)  We don't know the date of when that forever might be.  Could be up to six months.  But that is okay.  From a family of 2 to a family of 5 in 3 months.  It's still a little unbelievable.  In a good way.

Miss Priss-

I couldn't have asked for a more precious baby girl to be my daughter.  God definitely knew what he was doing when he gave you to your daddy and I.  A year ago this week you changed our lives forever.  A friend of mine uses the words custom made to describe her daughter, and you are definitely our custom made baby girl.  You and your brothers make our family complete.  I love it when I take you out in public with your brothers and I get so many "oh, you finally got your baby girl" comments.  You are very well known for your bows and cute frilly clothes.  And I love it that you love it all.  The attention, bows, shoes, and clothes.  :)  I love it that your first sentence was "Uh-oh, bow!"  And you now request "bow" and pat your head when I put you on the changing table in the mornings.  So, of course, I let you wear your bows with your pajamas if it isn't time to get dressed yet.  But even more than all of the frilly clothes and bows, I love your sweet feisty spirit.  I love how much you love to be loved.  You love your hugs and kisses, and you love to give them.  But you have just enough feisty that I am not ever going to have to worry about anyone taking advantage of or running over you.  I know you won't let that happen. And even though it can be a challenge sometimes, I love how independent you are.  I love it that you insist on walking every where by yourself now.  Well, I love it most of the time.  :)  And of course it is just a mom's opinion, but you are so stinking smart!  Sometimes that is not to my advantage.  But I love your smarts anyway.  I love it that our prayers were answered and you are going to be ours forever.  Your Gotcha Day will always be precious to me.  I love you with all my heart. 

Mama

 

Miss Priss Turns 1

On Saturday, January 5th, we had Miss Priss' 1st birthday party at our house.  (notice the at our house.....not sure I will do that again.  Don't get me wrong, it was great to have everyone over, but double the stress to get the house clean and presentable AND everything ready for the party.  :)  And not to mention the 3 little people who are constantly making another mess as soon as I get one cleaned up.  I wouldn't have it any other way though!)  I had a blast planning/crafting/preparing for the party.  The theme was Winter Onederland.  I have a few pictures without the super cute baby girl I can share.  But, just know that she looked absolutely precious in her very fluffy tutu dress, enormous bow, and white fur boots.  :)

The cake was one of my favorite parts of the party.  I thought it turned out wonderful!  It was beautiful and tasted great.  One of my friends from high school who also lives in Conway now made it.  She has a small business on the side.  Isn't it great!?!

Some more of the sweets table.  Everything was pink, white, and glittery.  Imagine that!?!

I thought her smash cake was equally as beautiful and fitting.  :)

I had a wonderful time painting an decorating her high chair.  Thanks to Tara and Tony for finding it at the flea market for a great price!

Of course she had a few pink balloons tied on her chair.  :)

The princess car was our gift to her.  :)  She loves it!

And we had a hot chocolate bar.  It was very cold outside so I think everyone enjoyed it.  We also had pink lemonade.  It had to be pink.  :)

 Another picture of the sweets table.  :)

Another picture of Miss Priss' chair.  I had fun making her birthday banner.  And the pictures on the mantle are her monthly pictures.  We got her when she was two months and 1 week old.  I am so very thankful to her wonderful foster mom for emailing me pictures of her first 2 months.  I even got to include her 1 month picture that they took of her with all of the ones we took.  It really means a lot.  And I am so thankful that they were there to help us celebrate her special day!! And that Debbie took all of these awesome pictures for me! :)

And this was the favor table.  We had to have wands for all the sweet little girls who came.  And who doesn't love cotton candy!?!  The big marshmallows turned out to be a big hit.  I gave all of the big kids that came each a bag of marshmallows and they had a "snowball" fight in the front yard.  It looked like they had a ton of fun!

And this is what I called the Sissy Tree.  I took all of the ornaments off our Christmas tree and had a bunch of pictures of Sis printed, glued them to scrapbook paper, and hung them with ribbon from the tree.  It was a fun way to display pictures from all of her first holidays and some more fun firsts.  And it was a fun place to put all of her gifts.  

Gotta love these precious 1st birthday bloomers that her Memama got her.  :)

We are SO very thankful to our friends and family who did get to come and celebrate this precious baby's special day!

Miss Priss has been blessed with some wonderful little girls to get to grow up with.  It just happens to be a plus for me that I get to be friends with their mamas.  :)

It really truly meant a lot to us that so many of you took the time to come and celebrate our special girl with us!  And we really missed those of you who could not come.

It will definitely be a day that I will always remember!  

 

 Miss Priss:  

Planning, preparing for, and having your first birthday party was everything I ever dreamed it would be.  We love you with all of our hearts and are so very thankful that we got to spend this day with you.   I LOVE it that you danced and wiggled in your high chair while everyone sang happy birthday to you.  Your eyes were very big and you didn't crack a smile because I'm pretty sure you were a little overwhelmed, but you know what you are supposed to do if you hear music.  Dance, of course!

  I love it that you did not lay into and devour your cake.  You definitely enjoyed it, just one little bite at a time.  I love it that I was going to give you your cake last, right before everyone went home because it is so messy, but you had other plans and as soon as you saw everyone else eating (which is what we did first) you kept demanding "MORE" until I gave in and let you have your cake.  :)  You are definitely a girl who knows what she wants.  I also love it that you have got this present opening thing down.  You sure know how to pull some tissue paper out of a sack.  I'm so very glad that God decided to make you my daughter and I can't wait to show your sweet picture to everyone one day.  (Hopefully sooner than later.)  Happy Birthday, sweet girl.  We love you so very much!

Rae

11 months

Yes, I am finally blogging her 11 month post 2 days before she turns 1.  Better late than never, right!?!  Moving on..... :)

Miss Priss turned 11 months old the day after her first Thanksgiving, which she totally enjoyed!  Baby girl loves to eat!  And she really loves table food, but it does not love her.  :(  She spits up like crazy if she gets more than 3 or 4 bites of table food.  But she does great with baby food.  Doesn't spit up at all.  I'm gonna talk to the doctor about it at her 1 year check-up.  I'm pretty sure we will just have to slowly ease her into more table foods.

And is she ever living up to her nick name.  :)  She is super sweet most of the time, but the girl definitely has a feisty side.  I mean I'm sure you could never imagine a certain sweet baby girl saying "ugh" and hitting her mama in the face because she didn't get what she wanted when she wanted it.  I mean. never!  :)  And for the record, she totally knows what no, no means whether she wants to admit it or not.    

And boy does she have a mouth on her!  Oh my!  She has no less than 10 consistent words, used in the right context.  She cracks me up.  She has got mama, dada, more (which she says once and if she doesn't get immediate acknowledgement begins to yell over and over), bye-bye (while waving with 2 hands), hi (while waving with one hand), uh oh, ow, hello (while talking on her play phone), yay (while clapping her hands), and hey (when she wants your attention).  Like I said, she doesn't have any attitude at all.  :)

The girl's balance is great!!  She has been standing on her own for a while.  She can even squat down and pick something up and stand back up great.  But she has NO interest in taking steps by herself.  She will hold one hand, but she isn't letting go.  Every time I try to let go, she drops to her knees and takes off crawling.  And looks at me like this is much faster.  Walking will come in time, and I'm sure I will want her to go back to crawling.  So, I am definitely not trying to rush things.  I know she will do it when she decides she wants to.   

Miss Priss has 8 teeth.  Whew.  That wasn't fun for either one of us.  But she looks so cute with her toothy smiles.  :)  And she loves to crunch her puffs in her front teeth.  I think she likes the sound.  Ha!  I fully expect for teething to get more dramatic the older she gets.  I mean I wouldn't expect any less.  :)

She makes a lot of cute faces.  I love her sideways-grit-her-teeth smile.  It cracks me up....like everything else she does.  :)  I promise though, if you spent much time with her you would feel the same way.  She pretty much wins over everyone she meets.  :)  I'm sure I don't feel that way just because I'm her mom.  Ha! 

Girl does NOT like cold.  She doesn't like the cold weather and she definitely does not like to be cold.  And she tells me all about it.  No exaggeration, the first morning it was really cold outside and I got her out of bed in the morning and took her straight outside (still in her pjs, yes I'm that mom) to take her big brother to Pre-k.....she hit at the air and said "ugh" then screamed and proceeded to throw a "sissy fit."  All I could do was laugh.  And absolutely nothing was wrong, except it was cold.  I thought it might have been a fluke, but no, she has done that multiple times since then.  Needless to say she has enjoyed the warmer weather we have been having.  Silly kid!  :)

Oh, and speaking of words, she totally said thank you at supper tonight when Joe handed her a sweet potato fry (1 of her 5 bites).  I thought I was hearing things until Big Brother said "Sissy just said thank you, mama, sissy said thank you!"    And Mister Mess said "Thank you??? Sissy, mama???"  Ha!  If he picked up on it, I'm pretty sure it was a real word.  Hopefully that will be word number 11 soon.  :)  It was super cute.....of course!

She really loves having her own room.  She usually doesn't even want to be rocked to sleep.  Sometime she lets me, but I think I enjoy it more than her.  Ha!  She likes me to lay her flat on her back with her pacie (don't even remind me that we are saying bye bye to pacie after Christmas...) and her favorite blanket that her Memama crocheted for her.  I have to pat her head and tell her night night and I love her (forgot one time and she "ugh"ed at me when I closed the door...really) turn off the light and close the door.  And that's it.  Do you know what a production it is to put her 2.5 year-old brother and her almost 5 year-old brother to bed???  I'm hoping it stays this way for her, but I'm not holding my breath.  And she usually goes to bed around 6:30 or 7 and I wake her up at 7:30 the next morning to take her brother to pre-k.  And she usually takes a 3 hour nap during the day.  Girl likes her sleep!

She has had 2 experiences with Santa and did great both times.  She LOVES the Christmas tree.  So glad I decided to put it in the front living room (where we never go) becaue I'm pretty sure it would not still be standing.  She loves Christmas lights.  And she loves her red shoes which she gets to wear a lot because they match most of her Christmas outfits.  (Which she has at least 15 of.  :))   

And Miss Priss LOVES to dance......which makes her mama so proud.  Anyone know of a good dance studio in Conway???....just kidding....kind of.  :)  Every time she hears music she starts shaking her booty.  Sometimes she dances so hard she falls down!  Ha!  The kids have a stuffed Santa that when you push its hand it sings and dances.  She adores it.  And really breaks it down for Santa.  :)  She also adores Mickey Mouse Club House and Sesame Street.  They make her dance, too.  And until we went to Shreveport for Christmas with my sister and her family and I rode in the back seat with her for 4 hours, I had no idea that she dances in her car seat when a song she likes comes on the radio!  Ha!  Crack me up!  

And since she learned to wave and say hi and bye bye she says it to everyone no matter where we are or if she knows them.  And by golly you better pay attention to her because she doesn't stop.  Friendly baby girl.  :) Oh, and another thing she said today and I almost died was "bow"!  I'm not even kidding.  She touched the bow on her head and said bow!  It sounded more like ba, but I know that is what she meant!  And what made me think of that is everyone always comments on her bows after she persistently tells them hi until they listen to her.  But I mean really, how could you miss them.  We like big bows at our house! :)  

She is getting a little more hair.....or maybe I just want her to have a little more hair??? Ha!  It is getting darker and darker.  Not a blondie like her brothers.  I still can't believe sweet baby girl will be one in one day and one hour.  It just doesn't seem possible!  

I'll be back soon (hopefully sooner than later) with her 1 year post.  I am LOVING planning her first birthday party.  Can't wait!

Rae