Tribute to Kayla

Riding a pony at the Renaissance festival

Kayla lets me get her ready almost everyday. She will sit in front of the mirror while I do her hair. She is my real live baby doll!

I have been such a slacker when it comes to blogging. I actually tried to upload some photos from Halloween and it didn't work so I got frustrated and quit. I realized though that I have not blogged since Alex's birthday. Now Kayla's has come and gone and I have not said a word. So here is my tribute to my beautiful 3 year old daughter.

3 years and a few months ago we received an awesome phone call. Our little girl was born 6 weeks early. Her Birth mom called us the day before and let us know her water broke. I was excited she was coming but worried because it was so early. I immediately prayed that she would be okay and that she would be healthy. Early the next morning we were woken up to let us know she had been born. I was so anxious to meet her. We were able to meet her and her birth mom a few hours later. Kayla was only 4lbs 9oz. So little and so beautiful. She was such a precious little bundle. They kept her in the hospital for a week and I visited her as often as I could. With a 2 year old at home that made it difficult, but i made sure I was there every single day. They said they would keep her for 2 weeks, but after one week she was eating and breathing like a champ, so they let us take her home. Right now she is at that fun age where everything she does makes us laugh or smile. Well maybe not everything, the tantrums are not so cute, but everything else is adorable. Kayla has the personality that draws people to her. She has so many people that love her and want to be around her constantly. Her little mind is like a sponge. She absorbs everything she hears. We are surprised but what she knows and what she says. Half the time we have no idea how she knows what she knows. Recently my parents visited from Idaho and one thing they noticed she does is she winks at you. She is a winker and it is so cute to see. Kayla is still a little princess. She loves to play dress up and has almost all the princess dresses. She loves to play dolls and has several of the princess ones.
Another thing she loves to do is anything artsy. She loves to draw, paint, color, cut, glue....really anything. She also has a love for horses. I could not get Alex on a horse to save my life. The first time Kayla saw a horse and could ride it she was just 2 years old. Now she wants to ride them anytime there is one to ride. This makes me wish we lived closer to my parents. We grew up with horses and even though we no longer have them we know enough people who own horses that she would be able to ride one often. I guess we will have to just make sure she gets a ride every time we visit home. Kayla is still at the age where she needs mom. I love this most of the time. She will say mom, I need you, I need you to hold me. I do love this but sometimes I need to get something done and little miss Kayla is under my feet wanting me to hold her or snuggle her. She is starting to love dad as much as mom which I am LOVING. If she gets in trouble she now cries for daddy. Speaking of, she is super sensitive. If you tell her not to do something she may end up in her room with her hands over her eyes crying little soft cries. It is so cute with the lip poked out. Then she may say something like you are mean to me, or you are not my friend. Then I will hug her and explain why she couldn't do whatever it was. She is so sweet. Kayla is also a little comedian. if she can make you laugh she is one happy girl. She loves to make her brother laugh. If she says or does something and he laughs, she will repeat this over and over again just to hear him laugh.

I feel like I am the luckiest mom in the world. I love both my kids so much and they are so perfect for our little family. When people find out that they are both adopted they can not believe it. Then they can't believe that Alex and Kayla are not biologically related. I know that God had a hand in both of our adoptions. They are both my perfect little beings! I love them so much and can't imagine my life without them. Happy 3 years Kayla! I will try and do better at blogging from now on.

Alex is 5 today

I want to pay a little tribute to my favorite little boy in the whole world. Today Alex turns 5. I can not believe it has been 5 and yet I still remember that day like it happened yesterday. My mom was in town visiting waiting as anxiously for his arrival as we were. We got a call on May 5Th. At 3:27 p.m a couple of hours earlier she had our baby. 9lbs 12 oz and 22 inches long. We were told that we could come and meet him the following day at 3 p.m. Knowing my baby was here and I had to wait nearly 24 hours to meet him drove me bananas. We immediately got in the car and went shopping. The ultra sound early on did not indicate if he was a boy or girl so we didn't have a lot of things for him. So we went shopping. Believe me shopping therapy works.

We met Alex on May 6th the day after he was born. What a bittersweet moment. We are so thankful to Stacey and the sacrifice she made for us to be able to have this sweet Little boy in our lives. I can't believe it has been 5 years. I am getting so emotional thinking back to that time in our lives. I can't imagine my life without this awesome kid. I love him SO much.

When I woke him up, to Kayla and I singing "happy birthday" , He got a big smile on his face and said "am I 5 now?". Such a big mile stone, not only to me but to him too. He is so excited to be able to say that he is 5.

Alex is a great kid. Most of the time if he is told not to do something he listens, he knows what is right and what is wrong. He is so tender hearted. He is aware of others feelings. If someone at school is having a hard time he is the first to put his arm around them and help them through the day. I am such a proud mom when I learn of the great things he does at school. He makes friends easily and has a lot of them. He is a good helper and is so proud when he does his chores. He is very athletic too which makes playing with him a lot more fun for us big kids. He has such a excitement for life, always wants to have fun. (hmmm wonder where he go that) He is so dang smart too. I had parent teacher conferences a couple of weeks ago. The teachers love Alex and are going to miss him. She showed me some of his work and i said well that is pretty good. It was identifying letters and #s. H got 48 of 54 right with letters and on #s 17 of 21. So I said that is pretty good and the teacher said, no, that is incredible. Kids in kindergarten might get 10 out of 54 right. Imagine how I felt knowing my kid is so brilliant.

Alex I love you so much. I have loved every moment in these last 5 years and I look forward to the next!

Zoo

Playing at one of the parks at the zoo.
She is was in a weird mood at the playground. I think she is still cute as heck.

My little chicken

Alex loves the grizzly bears

Grizzly Bears.

Once again I am posting zoo pictures. Everyone better just get use to it because we have a pass and it entertains the kids for hours. They love the zoo. Summer at the zoo is a lot more fun because the kids can play in the fountains and we are outside the whole time. Winter gets a little long unless we get an occasional nice day like this day where we can venture on outside. Lucky for us a big portion of the zoo is indoor.

copy cat

Alex was laying on the floor so Kayla of course had to copy him and lay right next to him.

Alex would not smile normal. Kayla thinks he is hilarious. I like this picture because of the way Kayla is looking at Alex. You can tell she absolutely adores him.


These kids crack me up. Notice Kayla is really reaching her feet to the stairs because Alex has his feet on the stairs. Alex had his hands behind his head so Kayla copied him. He moved his hands as I snapped the picture.

My divalicious daughter

My makeup had to be put up high, on a tall shelf out of sight. Why you ask? look at this little diva. She can not keep her hands (or face) out of my make up. There has been 3 occasions where she has applied mascara to her eyelashes and most of her eyes. The lipstick was in my costume drawer. I don't normally where bright red lipstick, just on Halloween. Now when I am getting ready she comes in and says "mommy, you do make up". I tell her yes I am and she says "I need my makeups" So she sits on my counter and pretends to put makeup on using my makeup brushes. I have learned to get my makeup done before she wakes up or while she is busy. Love this girl so much.

Whats going on.

This is mostly going to be a written post. I decided to throw on some pictures of the kids because I personally like looking at blogs with lots of pictures. It has been a long winter and we are all ready for the spring and summer to arrive. Alex is in his second year of pre-school and doing fabulous. A few months ago we decided that we would like to put Alex in a Montessori School. If you don't know much about them, google it and check it out. Well in my research around here the tuition was just too high for us. It ranged from $600-$1000 a month. At that point I decided that we would have to put him in regular kindergarten. I was bummed out about this because I felt so strongly about wanting him in the Montessori school. Well one of my friends said there was a Montessori school in St. Paul that would be taking a # of students for free grades k-2nd. So we went to the open house to learn more and we applied. They were taking 24 extra kindergartners and if any more applied then it would go into a lottery and it would be the first 24 drawn. We of course didn't tell very many people so that his chances of getting in would be better. Only 24 kids applied so he got in and my friends son got in. I am excited about that because her son and Alex have gone to 2 years of preschool together. Also we can carpool to the school. The other great thing is, now that Alex is in Kayla will get in because it is preference.

Alex has been taking swim lessons since last Sept...one day a week. Last week his teacher said he is doing so well and he is ready to move up. I was so excited. I watched his first lesson in the new class. There is only one other child in this class and that child didn't come this last week so Alex got a private lesson. AWESOME! So I watched him, and man was I impressed. He is doing so good. He can swim 10-15 feet on his own, both on his front and on his back. I couldn't stop smiling. Right now the things Alex likes to do are....play guns. He got a few Nerf guns for Christmas and he and Dad play guns all the time. he also really likes to play go fish, war, and match with cards. He is really good with his #'s right now. He still likes to be outside any chance he gets. Kayla is our real life little princess. This girl loves to wear dresses, everyday, she wants her nails painted, everyday, and she likes her hair done like a princess. When it is time to do her hair I ask her which princess she wants to look like. It actually was a way for me to be able to do her hair without her complaining. She loves to have tea parties. She talks about tea parties after having a play date with her friend Hannah, or after the gym. So for Valentines day I got her a cute little princess tea set. She loves it. We have had our fair share of tea parties around here. She also really likes her princess dolls, her doll house and her kitchen she got for Christmas. Lately I have been buying the Disney Princess movies on VHS. I have found them for $1 each. She was requesting to watch princess movies that we didn't have so I being the sucker that I am, caved and went out and got them. Kayla is such a sweet heart. If I have been gone for even an hour, as soon as i get home she runs to me and says "I missed you so much" with a huge hug. She is talking so good. She can say just about anything. I understand everything perfectly. Some people have a hard time understanding her and need me to translate for her. The big news is Kayla is fully potty trained. YAY! No more diapers. Well just at night. Even during her naps she is keeping her diaper dry. She is wearing big girl underwear and in the beginning after a couple of accidents I would tell her the princess and Dora underwear were sad when she peed on them. Soon she would put on clean underwear and say "I not pee her" "she be sad" Oh this little girl melts my heart. I LOVE LOVE LOVE her so much. The other night I was having a rough night and needed to get a good cry in. Kayla saw me and said "mom, I be right back okay" She ran to the bathroom and got a tiny piece of toilet paper, not even a square, and brought it to me. She said "this is for your eyes". She is so thoughtful.

We have been so blessed in our lives with these 2 awesome kids. They are a perfect fit for our little family. I am so grateful that they are a part of our lives. How lucky are we!

New Blog

I have a new blog. It is designated for healthy food only. Erik and I have a news years resolution to eat healthier and work out more regularly. The program is set up for 12 weeks. We are both loving this new "lifestyle change". We like it so much that we are going to continue our journey after the 12 weeks are over. Well the food was getting boring so I started searching for new recipes on line. I have found and tried several that I love and he likes most of them too. You have to understand that Erik is a "meat and potatoes" kind of guy so this health thing is a bigger adjustment for him. Anyway here is the new blog for anyone interested in my new favorite healthy recipes.

www.theminnesoteseatingforlife.blogspot.com