A must read

If you are an adoptive parent or prospective adoptive parent, this post on JenEx's blog is a must read!

Interview Me

Shannon interviewed me. Her questions are below. If you'd like to participate, here are the RULES.

If you want to participate:
1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me”, or words to that effect.
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions, but I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You have to include this explanation, and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

SHANNON'S questions and my answers:

1. If you were forced to give up one of your five senses, which would you pick?

I'd have to say smell - it would help in changing some of those toxic diapers!lol DH doesn't have much of a sense of smell and it doesn't seem to have too too much of an impact on his day to day life.

2. You win the big jackpot in the lottery. $50 million. After you give to charity, pay for another adoption, buy new houses and pay off bills, what's the first truly indulgent thing you spend your money on? And it has to be just for you.

Well, I do have a thing for fancy watches, so I'd get a few of those, but overall, my big ticket item would be art. I love art and if money were no object, I would buy some amazing paintings and perhaps a few sculptures as well.


3. If a movie was made based on your life, who would play you and your husband & why?

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie of course. Oh wait, you said real life, not fantasy... then it would be more like Rosie O'Donnell and Conan O'Brian or some other tall, skinny guy you can think of!lol


4. Would you walk naked down your street, with all your neighbors watching, for $1 million?

Not a chance... but I'd encourage DH to do it!lol


5. If you could live anywhere in the world for a year (money is no object) where would you live?

You know those houses you often see in Malibu, built right up on the ocean with those walls of windows so that there's a multi million dollar view from every angle... one of those would be amazing since I absolutely adore the ocean. Part of me also feels I should pick something more exotic... how about the beach in Australia or the canals of Venice. Sorry, I can't pick just one!!

You knew it wouldn't be long now...

You had to know once you read that the weather was vastly improving in our part of the world that it wouldn't be long before the beach pictures started coming again! So, off to the beach we went today.

Here's Thomas getting some water to make wet sand to build a castle.

Here's Emma, running off, hair flying, as usual.

Thomas is looking for some good flat rocks to skip in the water.

Emma doesn't go for flat rocks, the bigger and heavier they are, the better for her!

Here she is searching for the perfect rock.

Here they are walking back up the beach...I so love to see them together.

Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun!!

Yes, finally, the good weather is here!! Our bicyling group met this morning and everyone wore t-shirts, some even wore shorts! When we met this last Monday, we still needed gloves!! The lovely Miss Rebecca came to play today, here are the girls enjoying themselves in the back yard. Here they are doing a little playing, chatting and hugging.

Goodness gracious, I think spring has finally sprung!!

Yes, we finally got to head out, without mittens, hats and scarves!!! Here are the kids playing in the back yard yesterday... today, they got to take off even more layers and play without jackets....wooohooo!!!

You paid what??

I may have mentioned in previous posts that we're house hunting. I love houses so I'm pretty much always house hunting, but for the last few months, we've been doing some serious house hunting. A few days ago, a great house came up on the market and we put an offer in on it. So now you'd think I'd be writing to tell you about our new house. Not so fast!! Multiple offers on a property are quite common here and the house ended up selling for $220,000 ABOVE the actual asking price for the property and we weren't the highest bidders, so no new house for us. How depressing is that!! According to all the real estate agents, the house was priced at the very high end of what that type of house should sell for, but they still got $220,000 above asking price anyhow...I'm sure the sellers are having champagne as we speak, but as a buyer, it's pretty depressing!!

And yes, I will post pics of the kids one day soon...it's just so darn cold and dreary out, we never get out and they're both pretty sick of me sticking a camera in their faces in the house!lol

Verify your comment

You know how when you type a comment on a Typepad powered blog, before the comment is posted, you will often be asked to verify that you're a human and not a machine by typing in a code that appears in a little box? Am I the only one who sometimes finds the letters and numbers so distorted it totally turns into a guessing game??lol

Shopping!

Really, when the weather is this cold and depressing, there's not much to do other than going to the mall!! Carolyn and I bundled up the girls and headed off for some retail therapy... let's just say Emma's summer wardrobe is now pretty complete!lol

Spring...could have fooled me!!!

Apparently, someone forgot to send the memo about spring having arrived to our part of the world...here's a picture of Emma playing in the back yard yesterday. And look at my poor spring flowers, they don't know what to do at this point!! I can't even verbalize how sick I am of the cold!!!

A day in the life

Notice anything different about Thomas?lol

Here's Emma hugging her fave Webkinz - thankfully she doesn't put the squeeze on the real cats!lol

I don't get these...

I don't get these...do you?? I can see them being used by little girls as leggings in dance class but I don't see the point for babies... anyone?? They're apparently quite popular so I must lack the cool factor needed to see the point of them!lol That's okay, I'm pretty sure Emma will live a happy and productive life without ever having had a pair of Baby*Legs!lol

Understanding language

Emma talks up a storm. She really has an amazing command of the language for a child of her age (27 months). You can literally have a full conversation with her which honestly just both amazes me and cracks me up. Now don't get me wrong, there are still times when we have no idea what she's saying to us and times when her pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired, but you can really see her language development from week to week and month to month. For instance, she now rarely refers to herself as Emma but will use "I" and "me" properly in sentences. She's starting to use "don't" or "do not" instead of "no", so she's saying things like "I don't like cucumber" instead of "I no like cucumber" (BTW, I believe cucumber is the only food she's encountered so far which she doesn't like!!lol). Anyhow, what's really amazing me now is her beginning understanding of nuances of language or intangibles, not sure what to call it. For instance, tonight she was asking if she could watch Dora. We were heading out and I told her that she might be able to watch Dora when we got back home if it wasn't too late and she replied "I hope so". "I hope so"... to me, that requires an understanding of language beyond the tangible and concrete...it's kind of an abstract. She's using expressions like that and showing an understanding of language, of chronology, of more abstract concepts. I'm sure there's a name for this stage of development and it can be explained clearly in a word rather than vaguely in a paragraph as I've done here, but I hope you get the idea I'm trying to convey. Have I mentioned that I love this age/stage? It's just so cool - there's so much going on and it's all really amazing!

My big brudder!

Emma LOVES her big brother, or perhaps "brudder" is a more accurate rendition of what she calls him. All through the day while he's at school, she asks for her big brudder. When he's home, she runs around with him gleefully, often asking to hold his hand as they play. She's brought out such a wonderful side of Thomas...I love seeing them together. :-)

Speed demon!

It was a lovely day today so after dinner, I took the kids and their bikes down to the dead end street near our house for our first ride of the year, although Emma has been practicing a bit in our driveway. Anyhow, I guess it might be true that you never forget how to bike since Thomas was up and going very easily. Emma hopped on her trike and sped off after him!lol He kept laughing and saying she wasn't going to catch him because he was a speed demon - it was just hilarious to then hear her shouting "speed demon, speed demon" as she sped around on her trike!lol She's such a hoot! I didn't have the camera with me but I'm sure I'll soon capture our little speed demons on tape!

Music class

Emma and I have been attending a music class at a neighbour's house for months now. Emma loves it, she asks for music class all week long. The guy who runs it is great... except for one thing. A few months ago, I met another neighbour who also adopted from China. Her daughter, Maya, is one year younger than Emma. I invited Maya and her mom to join our music class. At this morning's class, as well as at many others in the past, the teacher mixed up Emma and Maya. Why is it that he can't tell them apart, being that there's a year's age difference between the two, Emma has long hair, Maya's is short...doesn't seem to help. Yet, he can tell the 3-4 brunette one year olds apart without problem and that's no easy task....

On the Move!

It was a gorgeous day today so I pulled out Thomas' old tricycle and let Emma loose. It didn't take her long to get the hang of it and ride around the driveway full speed ahead!

Vacation recap

Scottsdale really was gorgeous. I highly recommend the Four Seasons Hotel... the grounds are gorgeous and it's a totally relaxing and pampered experience. The calm and serenity of Scottsdale were a perfect antidote to the frenzy of Vegas!

Here is a pic of part of the hotel...I loved how the architecture was so much a part of the landscape. We'll definitely go back to Arizona. I'm very much an East Coast beach/ocean girl at heart, but there was definitely something relaxing, calming and beautiful about this landscape.

Here's a gorgeous sunset.

Ah Vegas, is there really anything to say...tacky at its best or worst??lol It seems they've really moved away from promoting Vegas as a family vacation destination and the whole "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" is now the way to go. While there were many families there, most of the nicer restaurants didn't allow kids under the age of 5 so we did a lot of pool side dining and California Pizza Kitchen dining! While I'm really not a gambler, I did find a slot machine I enjoyed and went on to lose about $100. We saw the Cirque du Soleil shows "O" and "Love", both of which were excellent, as well as the Danny Gans show - he's an impressionist...fun show overall as well.

The first shot is an Oxygen bar...I had heard of these but had never seen one...honestly, I don't get it... it gave me the creeps to see those little plastic things up the clients' noses...it reminded me of a hospital, not of feeling rejuvenated, but what do I know!!
Yup, we went up the Eiffel Tower...Thomas was studying structures at school and he said he'd love to see the Eiffel Tower one day... this will do for now. I have been to the original and this doesn't hold a candle to it in my opinion, but still fun.
Well, when the real Venice sinks (which it seems we've been hearing "in ten years it'll be gone" for a long time now), we'll have "Las Venice" to commemorate it! Yes, we did go for a gondola ride. Our gondolier was actually Italian (or so he said, but we think it was true since he seemed to know a lot about Italy!lol) and at one point during the ride, he sang a lovely Italian song, Emma was simply mesmerized by him. Even now, she says the boat ride was her favourite and that "I love the boat singer"!!lol
This is the volcano eruption at The Mirage...interesting, but nowhere near as spectacular as the light show at Bellagio.

Kid vacation pics

I must admit that I barely took any pics of the kids on this vacation...too busy taking pics of clay pots I guess!!lol But I did occasionally plop them down somewhere and take a picture to prove they were indeed with us!lol And look at that picture of Thomas' hands and feet...do you think he spent enough time in the pool that afternoon??lol

Clay pots

When we were in Arizona, we stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel in Scottsdale. The grounds are just gorgeous! There are all these clay pots lying about, they make for nice photo vignettes. This is such a great place to take nature shots. So, here are some pot pics! :-) Kid pics to come soon!

After Vegas...

After the excitement of Vegas, a little relaxation was in order...here are a few pics, can you guess our next vacation destination?? Here are a few pics taken on our hotel grounds.

If you guessed Arizona, you're right... what a beautiful part of the world!