Monday, April 29, 2013

Gotcha day!

Today was a very important day.
After 19 months of waiting, this precious little guy...


...can no longer be called a foster child.


He has a new name.




A forever daddy.  And a completely awesome forever big sister (one of two!).




A forever mommy who loves him fiercely.

He no longer has a (totally awesome) case worker.  Don't worry, we still love you, Alicia! ;)


A forever godmother who will always spoil him rotten!  :D


 So many people who love him!

And most importantly - a complete forever family who loves him to pieces just the way he is.

Elijah Cain Beck

your story has just begun!  :)

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11

(so much has been going on around here lately that today i've been getting a little teary over everything...so i couldn't bring myself to be too mush in this post lol.  here is a link to more about what i think of my sweet little godson, Eli.  just click on his name.)

Thursday, April 11, 2013

little gym!

Usually I send a collage picture of our hour at the gym to
mommy and daddy after we get back to the house, but today I took too many pictures and I couldn't choose so I'm just going to post them here.  :}

Just waiting for class to start...
I think Superman is starting to recognize where we're going when we get out of the car.  Today he started "talking' to me and smiling as we were walking to the building.  In this picture we were waiting for the class before ours to finish up so he was intently watching them through the big glass windows.


Excited already!




This is a funny picture, but that is a little scarf he has on his head.  I love that everything they do at the Little Gym has a purpose - one purpose for this is that because they float kinda slowly, it is a good activity to practice tracking with their eyes...and playing peek-a-boo...and pulling it off their heads etc.

"What is that??"


I will admit that I have been eyeing these overalls for a while now.  They have been hanging up in Superman's closet just waiting for a warm spring day...and today was the day! Besides, we have to look super cute on days we get to go out! :)




We practiced standing on the balance beam today, although I didn't get a picture of that since I was too busy holding on to him. :)  He also liked just standing on the floor and holding on.  The balance beam provides a new texture for their hands and feet to explore.  :)


Haha!  I was talking to him and just happened to snap this pic at the moment he looked at me like "What are you saying, Kiki?"


Balls and bubbles time!  He likes sitting on the ball and can almost hold himself up on it...


Hi. Just sittin' here on this green ball like a boss.



That little girl in the background is one of our friends, Baby A., and she is always dressed in THE CUTEST little girly outfits ever! She has the best smile and laugh! :)


Baby G. is the one trying to take the ball.  Her family goes to my church!


See? He's a pro...my hand is on his back, but I'm really barely helping to balance him.


This is Baby B...Superman's girlfriend.  :)  
Somehow we usually end up sitting together when we're on the big red mat and Baby B and Superman like to stare at each other or sometimes pat each other's arms.  :} 

After we're all done, we always get to have a stamp on our hand!  They're always different...today was a letter N.  When he gets older and cares more, I bet he'll end up like Maddox, who also goes to a class at the Little Gym - he sometimes ends up with stamps on both hands, both feet, and sometimes even his nose!  :}

Yay for another fun day at the Little Gym!!  :)




little lion turns 2!

I didn't quite get this up before midnight...oops. 
Today was Little Lion's second birthday.
We had hoped to have him home in time to celebrate with his family but for reasons only God knows, he is still across the ocean with his foster family.
Next year Little Lion - you'll have a cake and a party and presents and a family and a nanny who already love you very much! :)
I hope you had a special day today anyways and felt loved and happy.
We'll see you soon sweet boy!!
Soon!!



Happy Birthday Little Lion!!!


Sunday, April 7, 2013

great weekend :)

This has been a bit of a whirlwind weekend.  Friday morning I spent two hours at Lowes getting some necessary things for my house and looking at items I will buy in the near future.  Then we headed to the condo to tape stuff in preparation for painting the next day.

Here's a tip for you about that: I like to try to do things as cheaply as possible when I can...and I love the Dollar Tree store...and they have painters tape. But don't do that. Buy the "real" stuff. You know, the Scotch brand painters tape.  Otherwise you will come back later that evening and find this:

Puddles of painters tape!!  Ack!! lol

Anyhoo. Saturday morning I stopped and grabbed some "real" tape and headed over to the condo once again to begin the painting process.  We got most of the downstairs done yesterday, thanks to my parents and several friends who came and helped! 

The color I chose for the main living space downstairs is called Hinoki yellow.  It is soft and warm and inviting and cheery and I love it.  However, it is actually somewhat close to the color that the walls were already painted - just with more yellow warmth to it - so you may not notice a huge difference in these pictures from the ones I put up earlier, but here's what it's looking like so far...


If you look closely (click on the picture to make it even larger), you can see the slight difference in the color the walls used to be and the yellow that we painted them.  And they got a little darker as they dried of course.  

It just so happened that Michael's nieces and family were in town this weekend so they spent the night with Lauren Friday night and came to help me paint for a couple hours on Saturday.  We definitely would not have gotten as far as we did without them there!!


This picture is funny because the yellow isn't quiiite this dark...and it looks like we hadn't painted that bump out in the wall...but we had! 


 Aaand this would be half of my kitchen in the dining room ha!  Anyone want to buy that stove? It's for sale.  Brand new.  Never been used.  Going on Craig's list soon.


This shows you in full light how the walls look.  Funny, these last three pictures were taken from the spot on the floor I had finally plopped myself after being on my feet all day long...just turning my head slightly for each one, the walls look different in all the pics! ha. Oh well.  You get the idea.

Man my feet were tired!

Here are a couple other details before I get to more painting:


One of the shower curtains I ordered came so I went ahead and put it up in my bathroom upstairs - already makes it look better!  :)


So this was the hideously ugly and extremely dirty ceiling fan in my living room, but it is no more, thanks to my mom for picking out a new gorgeous one and my dad for taking this one down and installing the new one! (And my brother who helped!) 


 Beautiful new fan!

Ok so back to the painting.  Those of you who know me well know that I have always wanted a RED kitchen.  Well my little kitchen here is a galley kitchen and my mom suggested I just paint the end wall red for fear that red on three walls would be too dark and overwhelming.  But just one red wall would not give me my red kitchen! :-p  Then Leah came over to see my new place and I asked her what she thought and she had the brilliant idea to just paint two walls red, which solved several problems and I think is going to turn out just perfect!  

 Mom nervously applying the first bit of red.


Yeah, definitely needs a second coat, but I love it!
When I said red, I meant it!
Show stopper red to be exact. :}

So after working all day, I went and grabbed Lauren and Reegan and made Reegan a cute little tiny purse while we waited for Michael's nieces to finish eating dinner with their family.

So cute! That is almost life-size! :)

Then we grabbed the girls and their uncle and tried out a new frozen yogurt place called Sweet Frog and their Frog stands for Fully Rely On God!  And their bowls have the reference John 3:16 on them! So go check them out at Turkey Creek, ok??



Lauren and Emily

the funny little sisters, Claire and Reegan  :}

and Abby, who just got her driver's license!
(and a photo bomb by the uncle. goofy boy.)

Then this morning we headed over to cheer for Melissa, Michael's sister-in-law, who was running in the relay marathon race downtown.  

Who says you can't have fun while running a marathon??
She had to have had more fun than the army guy we saw running in his fatigues with a complete pack on his back! Bleck! 


Waiting...


 Three of the four relay runners on Mel's team.  The fourth one had to leave immediately after her stretch of the marathon due to a child's soccer game or something like that. :)  Being a mom never stops - even when you do something as awesome as run a marathon relay lol.




Actually stepping on the finish line.  So I was so excited to get to use my telephoto lens on my camera to get better shots than I did two years ago when they did this same race, that I forgot to zoom out just a little bit so you could see the "finish" banner as they went under it! Ha. Next time...


Congratulations hug. :)

 Getting her well deserved medal.


Eve spotted us. :)


...and wanted to make sure we saw her...  :}  she's cute.


 HI!!

 Yup. Should have untwisted your medal, Mel.  :}  Oh well. I obviously didn't notice when I took the pic.

Just hangin' out in Neyland Stadium.



Cuteness.
Love this part of my "other family" to pieces.

Next week: more painting...I hope!!  :}


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