Action Packed Week!

Wow! What a whirlwind week it has been! Holly and I went to visit Heather in Coeur d'Alene on Wednesday and Thursday. One of the things we did was go to a nearby stable to see friends. While we were there, Holly got an up close and personal look at a super nice horse. She was very interested, especially from a distance. She wanted Mama to pet the horse, but wasn't willing to give it a try herself. I can completely understand, since the horse's head is about as big as she is!

It came as a huge shock to her when one horse in the stable whinnied and "our horse" responded! She didn't know what to think of that, but decided it was kinda-sorta ok, since the rest of us just laughed.

After that, we went back to Chris & Dave's house. Their daughter, Margie, was in the arena jumping her horse. After lunch, we went out to watch and Holly must have decided that Margie's horse was better than the other one because she wanted to sit on it. She was very pleased with herself, too!After no naps for two days, I figured she would sleep all the way home. I was misinformed about that! She must have been saving her energy because she was like a little tornado when we got home. She went into the kitchen and was too quiet for a couple of minutes. When I checked on her, I laughed so hard! She has figured out that the drawers don't have drawer locks on them like the cabinets do. This has become a new favorite activity. For her, not me, that is.Saturday morning we spent at our Relay for Life team's luminary and bake sale. In came a scruffy, but adorable, little girl with coupons to get into the circus that evening. A circus in Lind?! We were shocked and amazed, too! They were just passing through to somewhere else and put on a show here, since they were spending the night. Overall, it was a pretty hokey circus, but everyone under 4 loved it! One of my favorite parts was when they put the lady in the box to change her dress and this guy put 3 swords into the box as she was doing it.

Then they put the same lady in this box, put the metal sheets into the box, then moved the middle of the box with the lady in there. Ooooh, magic! One of my friends said that her son might want to date that lady... Even though it was past her bedtime when the circus actually started, Holly was enthralled by the entire thing. She didn't want to miss a thing and watched every minute of it. Here she is completely riveted on something that was going on. Hands down, the best part was the poodles. They had a lot of them that were dyed blue and pink. (Don't go getting all up in arms about this. If you want to talk animal cruelty, Lind has had its share of bad luck the last couple of weeks, and dyed poodles don't count!) They were super cute and there were plenty of baby poodles, too. Holly and Lance had their picture taken with the two poodles in this picture. I still have to get a copy of the picture, but it was so adorable. Neither of them knew exactly what was going on, but they looked at the camera, so that's what counted. Maybe it can be their engagement picture when they grow up!

Several months ago, Grandma and Grandpa went to spring training in Arizona to watch the Cubbies. They brought Holly a Cubs T-shirt, but it was way too big. She has finally grown enough to wear it. Its still a bit too big, but she's not drowning in it, so I figured she should wear it on game day. They also got her a cute pair of Cubs socks, but Mama has apparently lost one of them, so Holly only wore one sock all day long!
Monday night, Mama went to play bunco and Holly got to hang out with Andrea. She LOVES Andrea! They went swimming at the pool, went for a walk, and watched some tv. Holly saw that Andrea had her toe nails painted and kept pointing to Andrea's toes, then to her own. She wanted Andrea to paint her toe nails, too! Smart girl that she is, Andrea found some nail polish in my bathroom and granted Holly's wish. Andrea said Holly didn't sit very still, but they look great to me!
I don't know what kind of mischief the two of us will find to get into this weekend, but I am sure it will be something. Its only a month before I go back to work, so we better get all the fun we can in while we still have some summer left!

Just Random Stuff

First off, I am wondering if anyone knows what this Chinese character means? I ordered this T-shirt for Holly and then realized that I have no idea what it says. It could say something naughty or mean! I wouldn't want her wearing it in that case!
Recently, Holly has taken to dragging one of her diaper bags around the house. She has figured out how to work the zipper, so she had to investigate exactly what all was in there! She took everything out and put it all back in several times before it dawned on her that there were ziplock baggies in there!

She spent an exceptionally long time trying to open a couple of the ziplocks and finally got one open! That one wasn't very exciting, since she had a clean diaper on, so...
she decided that the one with the snacks in it would be a better one to open. Here she is with her chipmunk cheeks stuffed full of puffs! She ate the entire snack sized ziplock full of them.
After her snack, it was back to playing. She decided to crawl into the diaper bag and play for a while. I have a couple of pictures of her falling over or trying to get out of it, but they are kind of blurry, so I didn't post them here.
Whew! After all that work, it was time to take a little rest! Just chillin' out on the floor.
Another day this week, Holly discovered PURSES!!! She saw me changing into a new purse and played with the other one for a while. Then, I decided to get a couple out of my closet for her to play with all she wants to. She isn't big on putting things into them yet, but she likes to take one with us when we go somewhere. God help me! I hope I don't have a diva on my hands! :-)

She loves to run around the house with her purses. Here she is with both of them at once. One has short straps and one has long straps, so she can just drag one around while she slings the other one over her shoulder.
On Sunday we were getting ready to go to the Spokane China Families picnic. While I was getting our food dish ready, Holly sat on the coffee table and read her Fluttery Butterfly book to herself. It makes me so happy to know that she LOVES to read! She reads to herself, brings books to me to read to her, and has a three "must read" books at bedtime. Fortunately, I love all three of them. Check back with me in a couple of months to see if I say the same thing!
I took the camera to the picnic so I could take some pictures of Holly with the other kids. She is by far the youngest and the other kids were not particularly interested in her, so I didn't get any of them together. I also forgot to have someone take a couple of the two of us (I have post-placement pictures I need to get done very soon and don't have any of us together!). Here is the one picture that I managed to get of her. She's just cruising along eating a cookie. *Sigh!* Sometimes I think I am hopeless. I seem to only get pictures when I don't NEED them or really want them.
Holly was really cute last night while I was making dinner. I used the last of a box of pasta and gave her the box. She immediately went and got Bunny, then stuffed him into the box. She opened and closed the box a number of times and finally decided to take Bunny out. At least it kept her busy while I was cooking, though!
Tomorrow, we are going to Coeur d'Alene to see a friend who is visiting from Michigan. Maybe I can remember to have her take some pictures of Holly and I together!

Happy Fourth of July!

This weekend marked Holly's very first Independence Day as an American citizen. For some reason, this day seemed more special to me than Christmas, Mother's Day, or any of the other holidays that have come and gone since she has been home. Maybe its the fact that I am so grateful for having her in my life, or maybe its a better appreciation of the day itself. Whatever it is, the day was very fun and special.

Holly and I went to my parents for the weekend. On the Fourth, we got up and went to Sandpoint for the parade. Holly fell asleep in her stroller about 10 minutes before the parade started. Her timing is impeccable! No worries, she woke up when the police car started the parade with lights and sirens blaring. She wasn't super appreciative at the time, but she got into it as the parade went on.
Holly wasn't quite sure what to think about the bagpipers as they went by. Of course, she was fascinated by it all, but those are just darned strange the first time you hear them! The second bagpipe band in the parade was more acceptable to her.
Here she is waving at Smokey the Bear or one of the other great characters in costume during the parade. She can't resist waving and saying hi to everyone she sees these days!
Who knows what she was clapping at because that's what she did most of the parade. Any time one of us clapped, so did Holly. She definitely gets into whatever is going on!
All that waving and clapping wears a girl out! Especially when the parade disturbed her nap to begin with. She may have been glad the whole thing was over because she slept the whole way home and then for a while once we got back, too.
We went to a small, community potluck and fireworks display on the evening of the Fourth. There was a band, lots of delicious food, and a very impressive evening of fireworks when it got dark. Holly danced with all kinds of strangers before having a "healthy" dinner of animal crackers and cheeseburger patty. I don't have any pictures of that evening because I couldn't find my camera in the diaper bag and Mom's camera hadn't been charged for a while. We had front row seats, though, and they must have spent a small fortune on the fireworks. Holly was able to keep her eyes open for about the first 10 minutes of the fireworks, but then conked out in my lap.

When I put Holly in the stroller, and again later into the car seat, she must have been dreaming of all the events of the day because she would barely open her eyes and clap her hands. She would fall back asleep, but still be clapping. Oh, how cute it was!

The great thing about one of the towns near my parents' house is that they do their fireworks display on the Saturday closest to the Fourth, but not on the Fourth. So, on the fifth, we went to Bayview to watch their fireworks, too. I figured that maybe Holly would stay awake for these because we didn't have quite as exciting a day as the day before. Here we are waiting for it to get dark.


Holly waved to all the traffic that went by on the road in front of us, to the people who were sitting nearby, or to anyone else who may or may not be paying any attention to her.
She spent some time running around the grass and horning in on other families' gatherings, especially the ones with kids her age. I have figured out that you meet a lot of people that you otherwise wouldn't when you have a kid like Holly! After running around, Holly exercised her vocal cords by screaming at different pitches and then laughing hysterically at herself. She is such a ham and knows it. I know it looks like she is crying here, but she is having a great time screaming her head off!
Whew! All that running around and screaming wears a girl out. As you can see, it is now dark and time for the fireworks to begin...and Holly has fallen asleep. Before they even started, this time!
My precious girls slept through the entire 40 minutes of fireworks all cuddled up in her stroller. I know she would have loved the fireworks if she had been awake for them...
We both had a great weekend with lots of fun activities. I have some other cute pictures that I will post later and I am going to attempt to upload my first video onto the blog, too! Next Sunday is the Spokane China Families Annual Picnic in Ritzville. Last year I went alone, with only a couple of pictures of Holly in hand. I am looking forward to bringing my little ball of fire with me this year and showing her off to all the great people in that group. I feel so blessed to have groups like this and others. I have made some very close friends who have experienced the road to adoption and know what I mean when I say that Independence Day is special in a way that other holidays aren't. Thank you to all my friends who are taking the same journey and for sharing your lives with Holly and I!