Puddles!

(Double click on the scrapbook page to make it bigger) It's springtime in New England! All the rain has washed out the bottom of the driveway, and we haven't fixed it yet. We have some puddles! Today, after the rain stopped, Noah went out to play. Sophia wasn't far behind; she loves to do whatever 'boy' (what she usually calls Noah) does. It was only 48 degrees out, but they didn't care! Rubber boots are a wonderful thing!

Friday's Photo Challenge-Gotcha

Friday's DOUBLE HAPPINESS Photo Challenge was Gotcha Moment Outfit pics. Here is Sophia (Guang Fei Ling) being handed to me by the orphange director, September 11, 2005. Sophia is 11 months old. I've heard of many children being dressed in many layers, covered by a special outfit at Gotcha moment. Nothing special here, just a cotton, sleeveless onesie type outfit. Nothing under but a diaper, and only socks, no shoes. It makes me sad there was a blood stain on the socks (from a boo boo weeping?) but Sophia didn't have any boo boos. Needless to say we've washed the socks and the outfit, and put them away for her.


Paige (age 11 at the time) took this picture, it is one of my all time favorites. We were just leaving the Civil Affairs building, where we had received Sophia about 30 minutes prior. We were on the bus, headed back to the hotel. I wonder what was going through her mind? I was over the moon.



April 2007 - Sophia is 2 1/2 now. This last picture is a recent one that I like. I wasn't able to fit Sophia into the outfit from Gotcha Day, she has outgrown it.

Matching Dresses

Noah Gets Glasses

Noah is 7, and in the first grade. Today he got his new reading glasses. He's pretty excited about the glasses, and wants to wear them all the time. He's only allowed to wear them for close up work. He looks so handsome and studious!

Sophia & Daddy Play Balloon

I took this video today -- WARNING --- May cause smiling, and you might just giggle right along with her!

A BOY AND HIS WAGON

Noah gives Sophia a wagon ride down the dirt road. I think Sophia loves Noah's new wagon as much as he does! (I just love this picture!)


Sophia waves to Papa while he works to smooth the dirt road.


Noah gives Paige, Sophia and his cousin Carolyn a ride down the driveway.



Noah loads a stump into the wagon. He's a hard worker!



Noah worked hard much of the weekend raking the rocks from the lawn that the snowplow pushed this winter

Toddler Art... well sort of...

This week's PHOTO CHALLENGE was toddler art. Sophia isn't much for arts and crafts, but I thought it to be the perfect opportunity to show the pics from our Friday night AWANA club. We had Mr. Potato Night, where the kids were to decorate potatoes to look like people (or animals as it turned out!) It was fun, here are a few pictures! We gave bags of potato chips as prizes.

Noah's New Wagon

Noah got a new wagon yesterday. He had a Little Tikes wagon, but he used it so much, and loaded it so heavy with wood (and other things), that the axles were bent, and it had seen better days. It was time to upgrade!


Noah woke me this morning, to tell me he would be out raking the dirt and rocks from the side of the driveway. The first picture I took from the 2nd story window of the house. Notice he's not wearing a shirt - when I took that picture it was 47 degrees out, and he was hot! When I went down to get my close up pics, he asked me to bring him down shorts! An hour has passed, and he's still working. The weather's been so yucky here, it's so nice to get out and get something done. Over the next few days it's going to be 60's, even getting into the 70's. It feels like SUMMER!

Standoff over

They got the guy - everyone is okay. No shots fired. Phew!

I'M SO FRUSTRATED!!!!

This isn't my usual post. No picture of Sophia, just frustration here. I just found out there is a gunman at the store I shopped at this afternoon. Right now as I type this, he's in the store. Not much more info yet, the news crews haven't arrived yet. Many people evacuated, there are still people inside.

Sophia and I were in that store late this afternoon. To top things off, it wouldn't be out of character for me to run up to this store in the evening, to grab a few things, so I wouldn't have to make a trip tomorrow. I do that often.

A gunman. I feel sick. I wonder what I would have done if it had happened just a few hours earlier, and Sophie and I were there. I guess we would have hidden... could I have kept Sophia quiet enough, so that we wouldn't have been discovered? Or could we have escaped? We would have been sitting ducks. I hate being a sitting duck. I've just downloaded a concealed weapons permit. Will I turn it in? I don't know. At least I wouldn't be a sitting duck. What a crazy world we live in. I'll watch the 11pm news to see how this turns out.

How I'm seeing this is that plenty of bad guys, scumbags, etc get guns (legally or illegally). If more of us law abiding citizens carried a weapon (legally of course!), we could help. If a professor at VT had a weapon, so many people probably wouldn't have died. Someone could have stepped in and stopped that guy before it became a massacre. They were sitting ducks.

Would I want to shoot someone? NO. Would I do it if I had to? Yes. Would I shoot a man to save 32 people? You bet.

Sorry these thoughts are so random, things like this aren't suppose to happen here! It's just too close to home. We're in New England. I live in a town with less than 3,000 people. I don't want to be a sitting duck. :(

WIPED OUT!

Sophia didn't have a nap today. It was about 6:30 PM, and she asked for 'One Mitee Mouse Cub House (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse), and then nun-night.' 7PM is very early for her to go to bed (she usually goes between 9 and 10 PM), but since she didn't have a nap, I wasn't going to stop her.

I ran Noah up to Nan & Papa's house for a sleepover, and left her to watch her 'one' show. Ted was working right there in the upstairs bath (doing a re-model). When I returned, I found her crashed out, just like in the picture. I didn't expect that! Noah was my boy that would crash anywhere when he was tired, but not Sophia. I guess she's more like her brother than I thought!

Sophie drops 'Awe Love'

Sophia has a blanket, that she's rather fond of. She calls it 'Awe Love'. When I put her down for her nap, or when she goes to bed at night, she must have it with her. Other than that, she'll take it or leave it. When we go somewhere I'll ask her if she wants to bring it, and she'll most always reply, "Love Love stay home". No problem. When she's watching TV, she might hold it, or cover up with it. It's made out of cotton, so it's soft and cool to the touch.




When she goes to bed, she plays a little game with it. She'll lay down, and I'll cover her with her 'Awe Love', then her Wiggles blanket. We say goodnight, and I leave the room. A couple of minutes pass, and she calls me back. "Me drop Love Love", she says. I tell her to go ahead, and she smiles, and drops her blanket to the floor. She's still smiling. I pick it up, give her a hug and kiss, and cover her again. She goes to sleep. Isn't that little ritual funny? Almost every day at nap, and at night it's the same routine.

Then and Now...

Here is a picture of Sophia taken last year at Easter, and this year's picture. She's growing up on us!

Sophia & Daddy Dance (& Sophie sings)

I took this video tonight, of Sophia & Daddy dancing. It's not very long, please watch the whole thing. About 1/2 way through, it gets CRAZY! LOL You'll see... Turn up the volume so you can hear Sophia singing along. Besides, it's a GREAT song. Enjoy!

Here we go again! This is the forecast: "The snow arrives in the Portland area after noon tomorrow (Thursday) and things quickly get messy by the evening commute. Snow continues to the interior and a mix continues at the coast all the way into Friday morning. A slippery Thursday evening commute and a slippery Friday morning commute is expected."

What does this mean? It means the kiddos will probably come home after 1/2 a day Thursday, and may not/probably won't have school on Friday. This is especially funny because they have the whole next week off, for April vacation. It's also the MIDDLE OF APRIL! :)

Scrapblog.com

Bear with me, I'm trying something new. It's a website called SCRAPBLOG You upload pictures and create scrapbook pages, that can be put on your blog. It's free, and easy to use. It was fun! Some of these pictures I posted already, but wanted to see how easy or hard it was to upload it onto my blog. There are 2 pages in this scrapbook. Click on PLAY SLIDESHOW to see both pages. Click VIEW FULL SIZE, and it will open a new page, and you'll see the whole thing much bigger. It was easy to do, and I think I like it! What do you think? Create your own when you get a minute, you just might get addicted to the fun!

Easter Sunday

Sophia, Paige & Noah, Easter Sunday

Sisters

Handsome Noah

Sophia before church

Sophia

Jellybeans are yummy!

A chicken in my easter basket? How silly!

After church we had lunch at a friend's house. Here are Vanessa, Paige & Nicky

Sophia likes Lorene's cooking!

Sophia missed her nap with all the excitement, and fell asleep on the way home. She only slept about 10 minutes at the most, and woke up when I carried her in the house. She wanted to lay like this (covered by her blankie) with her favorite 'Minnie Mouse'. I hoped she'd fall back asleep, but not a chance. We're so blessed, even when she's tired, she's not very often a grumpy girl. She was in great spirits tonight, and finally conked out for the night about 9 PM as usual.

I have to apologize for so many pictures, I just couldn't help myself! I didn't realize there were so many I wanted to put on, I should have made a slide show. Maybe next time!

Sophie's New Easter Dress

Here's Sophia, modeling her new Easter Dress. Thought I'd better get a picture before something gets spilled on it tomorrow, or who knows, she just might refuse to put it on! (She is 2, remember?) I found this dress at Macy's, probably 2 months ago, when they first put out their Easter dresses. I just loved the ivory and old fashioned green colors, and I KNEW it was the one. I know she'll probably wear it only once, but I'll put it away for her. Maybe her daughter will wear it one day!

There's a website Double Happiness that has a photo challenge each week. This week is spring dresses, so here's my entry for: Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #26.

My New Scrapbook

Press 'click to play'.

Make your own | Click to play

Sophie Cooks

Sophia was doing some serious cooking tonight.

Okay, some 'not so serious' cooking...

Notice her shirt - it says, "My Daddy is Handsome". Sophia has been wearing the Sophia necklace we got in Disney, and today she even wore the bracelet we got while in Nanchang, China. It is sterling silver, and has Chinese characters written on the outside, and has her name engraved on the inside. It's so cute, but I don't want to lose it. It's not big enough to slide off her wrist, like the one we got in Disney (that we lost at the grocery store last week). It's hard to find a little bracelet for a little wrist!

Snow in April? Oh yes...

Yes. We got just over a foot of the white stuff yesterday. I was too lazy to venture out to get some great pics of it, so I took these from the front porch, and back door. Just the day before, we had grass that was just starting to turn green. There's a saying around here... 'If you don't like the weather, wait a minute!'

I spy with my little eye... something CUTE!

Global Warming? Hmmmmph!

It's April! Here's the forecast for today into tomorrow. Pretty good chance the kids will be home from school tomorrow. We're in the 5-10" range, but I think there's suppose to be sleet and freezing rain, too. Ah, the warmth of Florida is just a distant memory...

Did you check out the video of Sophia below this post?

Paige Videotapes Sophia

Last night, Paige took the video camera, and had some fun with Sophia. Here's the end result!

Sophia & Meisi Dancing in Epcot

Here are Meisi & Sophie dancing and having fun while the other brave folks in the group were on Mission Space. I am NOT brave, so I quickly volunteered to hang with the girls. I think I had more fun! :) In the last picture, Sophia is doing her 'Gangsta' pose.