out of body

It's the end of April and the other day I realized that last year at this very time we were headed to Ethiopia for the very first time.  The very first time we met our baby J.  And now I'm crying.

I can't believe it's already been a year.  I know I complained about waiting through the whole 2 year experience.  The blog has plenty of evidence of it.  Today, it feels like it went so very fast.

In the middle of the wait, the not knowing when or how it would end made it seem indefinitely long.  Those eight weeks between visits were gut-wrenching for me.  Now from this side I think 8 weeks flies by.  I got a lot of comments and questions about why it was so hard during that time.  I was always shocked to hear these comments, cause it made no sense to me why no one could understand my distress.  I guess it's hard to understand when you're not experiencing it.  I can see it now, from the detached side.  I must have looked crazy.  I can't find the words to describe that painful time.  I like looking at it from this side much better, so I won't try to explain it now to relive it.  I survived.  It strengthened my faith.

Jovey has been home 10 months.  When I realized she had been here longer than she had been in Ethiopia, it made me kind of sad.  Another thing that is hard to explain.  Of course I'm happy she's home with us, but Ethiopia is still a part of her, a big part.  Everyday we're getting further from Ethiopia and I don't want her to lose it.  Ever.  We loved it there.  I wish she could remember it.  I look forward to bringing her back to see it again.  I just hope they have invented teleportation by then cause I still have very strong feelings about that flight.

It's been such an intense experience that I wonder if I'll still have the same emotional response I do right now thinking on it, in the next years to come.  Will I always remember it so emotionally vivid?  I look back at my instagram feed and see the post the morning I found out we were going to bring our baby home and I feel it. . . that crazy crying happy emotion I couldn't contain at that moment.  It's a rush I always want to remember.

I try to remember the first moment Miley held Jo, especially when Jo is teasing Miley and they are annoyed with one another.  It helps relieve the frustration.  ;)  Flashback:  It was 11 at night and we were so tired of traveling, but Miley was wired with excitement and it energized us as well.  We walked in the door and I was afraid that my bouncing Miley would scare the crap out of Jovey, but she didn't.  Miracle.  ;)  Mie immediately wanted to hold her and feed her a bottle.  You may remember the video.  Miley was a natural.  ;)  Jo didn't seem to mind though and just sat and smiled up at her.  Remembering that moment gives me peace when the girls are acting like sisters, and peace when they are acting like the best of friends as well.

It really has been the best year.  The hardest year.  It's weird how those two can go hand in hand.

We're going through the temple this weekend.  One year from the day we saw our baby smile up at us, we'll be sealed as a family.  It seems fitting.

evidence

. . .That my iPad was taken by these two stinkers, for nefarious purposes, like gratuitous selfie taking.

Happy Easter

Cuteness all dressed up and ready to go to church. . .

 Miley asked me to photoshop her lips over her teeth in that last picture.  I told her she made the goofy face and would have to live with it.  ;)  It was not easy getting these few pics of the girlies.  They don't take direction well, or sit still.  Oh well, this accurately portrays my girlies right now.  They love to put on their pretty dresses.

sprinkling

 Wait for it, Miley's cool trick I had to take pictures of. . .

This activity may be infrequent this year since we're experiencing a bit of a drought.  I prefer to have water to drink, so we'll be staying in the AC instead. . . or visiting Colorado and Wyoming who apparently got more than their fair share of water.

air conditioner on

reality - I don't enjoy reality TV cause it doesn't help me to feel good about humanity.  I have a couple of exceptions that do not make me doubt mankind. . . one of which is The Voice, but I don't have time to watch the show because it airs so often for hours at a time.  Yeah, so my DVR is full to the brim with this season and I haven't even had a chance to watch a single one.  Not so LIVE for me, so don't ruin the ending.  Is it already over?  Don't tell me.

hitchcock - We had to do some serious re-planting after our lovely winter.  I'll have to do some more re-planting because the dang birds have torn apart a few of our new plants.  I don't know why.  They hate me, I'm guessing.

anatomy - Miley was looking in the mirror when she saw something in her nose.  She made me look and see what it was. . . . nose hair.  What the what?  She was so confused by that.  Hair in your nose.  Her little mind was blown.  She also wanted to know why she had more hair than I did.  Yep, she checked.  ;)

it's not a lisp - Miley still says 'you scared me out of the crap', instead of, scared the crap out of me, yeah I say that.  What.  She says 'coch croach' for crockroach.  I don't want to correct her because it makes her still seem like my little girlie and not the sassy little monster tweener she'd like to be sometimes.

snap crackle pop - Do not try and tickle or pinch Miley's legs, especially if your face is anywhere within kicking distance.  I'm pretty sure I saw stars and heard a loud cracking noise that my nose doesn't normally make.  So sore, but not broken or crooked.  I checked.  I had to break her leg off after that.  You know, to even things up.  ;)

sawing logs - If you say the word sleep to Jovey she makes a loud snoring sound.  I don't know where she learned that one.  Someone must snore around here.  ;)  Don't say boogers around her, because she'll immediately wipe her nose on her arm.  I'm going to blame that one on Miley, I think.

garage, no garbage - Miley has developed a dislike of throwing things out, like her daddy, but thankfully I still have Jovey on my side.  She'll throw anything and everything away and then clap for herself.  I'll clap too, while the other two are crying.  ;)

punk'd - Miley was really disappointed that we didn't play any tricks on her for April Fool's day.  Yep, weirdo.  When she saw all the kids on my instagram feed that woke up with marker drawn facial hair, she asked me if I could do that to her next time.  Oh geez.  Dave had to go to a manager's meeting in Vegas that night and Miley bawled her eyes out when he left.  As soon as he was out the door for his one night apart, Miley sobbed, 'Mom, is he just playing an April Fool's trick on me?'

saving seats - Jovey finds great pleasure in stealing anyone's spot they recently vacated.  She'll make herself comfy and smile ear to ear when you come back.  Usually this involves laying down to make sure she covers the whole area where you were seated.  That makes it sound like we have big butts, well maybe, but she's just little and can easily be squished to the side. . . but not if she's laying down.  She's a thinker like that. . . and a stinker.

anarchists - So we've finally decided to leave Miley in her school.  We were weighing two other options, a montessori charter and a private, and decided that we feel the best about keeping her in public.  Crazy.  Finally feeling confident about my pro/con lists on this one.  I still think Common Core is pure crap at best and evil at it's worst, but I see light at the end of this tunnel.  Opt out is our friend and hopefully our state comes to their senses before we get to 3rd grade anyway.

mute -ish - I'm having flashbacks of pleading with Miley to just learn to talk already.  Trying to remember how I survived that. ??  Jo is not so interested in speaking her mind just yet.  Whining until my head explodes, yeah, she has that one down.  She's happy to sign her way through the day, but unfortunately she does not know the signs for EVERYthing.  I'm debating whether I should teach her them or try to survive the ehhhhhhhhhhh and keep saying, 'I don't know what you want', even when that's not technically true. . . to smoke her out of her muteness.  ;)

very full - Miley is pretty sure that if you eat too much you'll start growing a baby in your stomach.  Or a unicorn or something.  I probably should have paid more attention when she was explaining that one.  I think it sounds reasonable though.  Like, don't eat anything with seeds especially.

bribery - Spring soccer has begun.  While watching Miley chase fairies throughout her first game I made a decision to start bribing her.  That's right, if she actually plays soccer during the game she can get treats.  Like a smoothie, for kicking the ball 5 times, not including kickoffs of course.  So far, two games into the bribing parenting technique and we're actually playing soccer.  No smoothies yet.  It's still a struggle because she's not competitive and doesn't want to fight strange little girls to kick the ball, but she's doing much better.  Next bribe, push a kid down or at least out of the way and get ice cream. . . maybe.  ;)  Maybe I need to up my bribes.  She really wants to drive a car.

malfunction - My flickr feed on the sidebar is not connecting properly.  Actually my flickr account isn't updating from my instagram for some reason.  I can't find the disconnect cause it says it's all good.  So anyway, if you were wondering why I'm not taking any new pics, I am, they just aren't appearing here.  Check instagram if you want to see them for now.

sprinkling - It's warm, already.  Spring is for sprinklers.  I'll have pictures for my next post.

Making monsters

Dave's birthday was the end of last month and a week before it Miley decided we needed to throw him an actual party.  Miley thought a monster theme would be perfect so she started planning. . .

Yep, she is a list maker and a planner.  She crossed them off once we finished making them.  So, with a week to get it ready Miley happily got her crafting on..

She made this banner by drawing a bunch of different monsters.  They each had a name and a back story.  She decided that she should also include a cute note to her daddy on the banner.  I kept them and am making them into a book so Dave can always remember Miley's monster party.

For decorations we found this tissue balls on sale and made them into monster heads.  We cut out all sorts of shapes for eyes, horns, teeth, hair. . . and then Miley put them together to make faces.  The pink one is her favorite, because it's well pink, and it has eyelashes.  There were six of them, but I guess I didn't take pictures of them all.

I saw this balloon monster idea on pinterest and thought we could replicate it.  What a pain.  If I had more time I would have cleaned it up a bit, but it worked for our monster party and so we were happy with that.

Every birthday Miley wants to hang the mobile, cause I did it once for her birthday.  So it's a tradition now and this time we took pictures of Dave and added monster facial features to them to make him look extra scary.  I just used cartoony monster clipart from the internet.  Easy peasy.

Games. . . We did pin the face on the monster.  I drew a monster on poster board.  Miley colored it.  We used the extra monster parts from the balls to stick to his face.  We taped the poster on the outside of our patio door so you couldn't feel where it was and then stuck the pieces to the glass.  The green thing is a horn, but Miley liked it as an eyebrow.  This is not how it ended up while playing the game, however.

Another monster drawing on a foam core board that Miley colored.  Cut out his mouth and then tossed ping pong eyeballs into it.

Miley wanted a piñata, but I couldn't find a monster piñata, not that I searched real hard.  We only had a week.  ;)  We found this triceratops and we altered it.  Cut his fin up and added more horns and eyes.  It works.

Other games we played were Hide and Scare, which was fun because we got to jump out of our hiding place to scare the seeker.  I made a jar full of rice and eyeballs and everyone guessed how many eyes were in it.  36, obviously, for the birthday boy.  Monster charades was successful.  Miley was very good at it.  Made a list of different monsters from Monster's Inc. to classic monsters such as mummies and vampires.  In the end, Miley thought we needed to get our nerf guns out and have a battle.

Dave gave his party two thumbs up.

Added eyeballs to his Texas sheet cake, but not the accurate number of candles.

Oh and Dave got a cool headband with horns to wear all day, or the part of the day that we were at home and not in public.  He tried wearing it horns facing down and that upset Miley.  She didn't want the party to be ruined.  ;)

This was the gift that Miley and Jovey picked out and bought for their Dad.  Mie was so excited about it.

Happy Birthday old man!

Springing here

Well, it was spring when we were outside taking these pictures.  Now we're getting more wind and rain, which I guess is exactly what spring is supposed to be so . . . springing here currently, but these pics were from last month when I only took my camera out a handful of times.  Shameful, I know.  I couldn't believe my iPhoto selection for March.  I dropped the ball, must have been busy, but won't know with what because I didn't take any pictures.

Here's hoping April is full of clicking shutters. . .

Taking advantage of the windiness in our own backyard.  Yep, we flew it there, up high.  It worked just fine and I saved a trip to the park where the kids would wander away while I was stuck holding the kite and yelling for them to stay and enjoy the holding of a string indefinitely.  Kite flying is a weird activity for children.

Jovey would rather go on bike rides.  Still working on finding a seat or something for my bike.  Until then she is very fond of being pushed on this trike.

This kite has an extremely long tail, which the girls loved chasing.  I know I got pictures of that and video, but it must be on my phone instead of the Nikon.