Special Day

Today is a very special day. My neighbors, Kathy and Calvin, are adopting a little girl from China (you can link to their blog through mine 'Journey to Emma'). Today is the day they finally get her. They have been waiting for a very long time and they flew to China earlier this week. I am so excited and happy for them. We can't wait to meet Emma Kate. I believe she is about 7 months old now, so Tessa and Ellis will have a little play mate right next door.

We wish them good luck and are anxiously awaiting their return (June 25th).

McDreamy

For the past week, Ellis has been sleeping until 5:30am and the last two days he has slept until 6:30 and 7:00am. This means that mommy is getting some good sleep now. He truly is my little angel. He's such a good boy and puts up with all of us. He patiently waits to eat while we go pick his sister up from day-care, or patiently waits for Tessa to finish her bath, read her books, and go to bed before he has his dinner. He is talking up a storm. I love listening to his little voice trying so hard to copy our sounds. He's such a happy, low-key, go-with-the-flow kinds of guy. AND since he so handsome, I've decided to call him McDreamy. He's such a dream baby boy.

7.7.07

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!! I can't believe it's been three years! Mike and I were talking this morning about it and it sure feels like it's been a lot longer. I guess with everything we've been through since then, it does seem like it has been longer. I wish we could be together today, but I know he's working hard and am very proud of him.

Below are some pics from the week in the mountains.

Pics from our mountain week.

Click here to view photos

Catch-Up

Downloaded a bunch of pictures and videos from this past week, so I will be playing catch-up on posting them.

Here's a video of Tessa making pancakes with Omi.

T & A

Hahahahahahaha, made you look. For real, Tessa can now identify the letters 'T' for Tessa and 'A'. I figured I start with the letters in her name. She knows her ABC's and loves the song, but can't identify all the letters yet. I think I already blogged about this, but in the nursery I had her name out of these colorful wooden letters on her closet door. I moved these to her new room on the door, and when she got home from day-care that day she immediately noticed and pointed to it and said 'Tessa", so she actually somehow recognized her name. Now she always points out 'T's in the newspapers, on signs, on TV, etc. This morning she pointed out the 'A's to us. She knows 'E', but doesn't always get it right.

Mountain Activities

Yesterday we went to Sylva, NC. It's about 45 mins from my parents cabin. We went to this wonderful local potter called Mud Dabbers. They're 'signature' are the face pots that Appalachia is famous for. Ced gave Tessa and Ellis these beautiful sun-faces for their births from this place, and my mom and sister have bought several face jugs from them. One of the potters, Brad, was so great with Tessa. I was a little nervous, who takes a jacked up 2-yr old into a pottery place (can you say Bull in a China shop?). But, he took her to the side room where they sculpt and sat her on a stool and let her play with the clay while Omi and I shopped (good business keep, babysit kids so that parents can shop). When she tired of this, he gave her a giant piece of paper that she could draw on and just sat her on the floor. He was really great with kids and just kept playing with her and showing her all kinds of different things to keep her occupied. It was a really neat place.

Next cam my favorite place. In Sylva is a little Brewery called Heinzelmannchen (German for Gnome). They have these "growlers" that you buy and then fill up with beer. Then you can bring the growlers back and they will fill it for $8 (and on Wednesdays it's only $6). They have GREAT beer, my favorite was the Black Forest Stout. They always are brewing different ones, so you can go in and taste to decide what you want. It was AWESOME. The other cool thing, is that my mom has a growler that looks almost identical to the one from the Brewery that belonged to her Grandmother. Since back in those days you couldn't buy bottled beer, my mom's Great-Grandfather would send her grandmother to the local pub with the groweler and get 2l of beer. They actually have the growler up at the cabin and it truly is identical to the one they have at the Brewery.

It will happen when it happens

I am amazed that she lasted this long. Since we are up in the cabin, Tessa has been sleeping in a Pack'N'Play. Yesterday when we layed her down for her nap, she finally figured out how to climb out. I knew this was coming. With as active and curious and fearless as she is, I'm surprised she hasn't done this before. So, we skipped the nap (she had slept in the car on our outing already). But I was curious to see how night-time sleep would go. Would she lay down and go to sleep or climb. Before I could even shut the door, she was climbing out. I'm pretty sure she fell and was upset. So I went back in and she pointed to the big bed and kept saying "lay down, lay down". So I layed her down in the big bed, surrounded the edges with pillows and put her blanket on her. Amazingly, she stayed in the bed and went to sleep. I have been worrying about how I was going to transition her to her big girl bed and I guess she decided to take matters into her own hands. When we get home, I will just put her in the big girl bed and be done with it.