Totally RANDOM post !

 

This post is going to be of just Random things. first we have had a really good day today, Madison & I went to the school and had lunch with Morgan, she has been begging me to bring her so she could show all her friends her new sister:)

Madison loves to help out around the house I walked in the kitchen the other day & saw this:

when we were in China we had all the girls names written in Chinese to hang in their rooms.David hung them this weekend.
I really like the way they all turned out!

I got an underwater case for mu Iphone the other day & tried it out on McKinley :

 

 

 



I told you this was going to be a random post:) ! In closing, I made a little video this morning of Madison

signing "twinkle twinkle little star" ... Enjoy

 

 



 

ENGLISH

Here are some words/phrases that Madison is saying:


Watch TV
Calm down ( she hears this a lot;)
Let me see( every time I take a picture of her she says this)
Potty
Thank you
Good morning
No touching
Swim
Hair, nose& ears
Help
Brush my teeth
Daddy,mommy, Morgan, & McKinley
Paw paw
Ketchup ( we gave her some in china & she wants it on everything!) even grapes..yuck
She said " fork" last night for the first time

She puts an " A" on the end of a lot of her words. I know that in a few months I am going to miss hearing her say words in half English half Cantonese;)


Madison is now bowing her head & closing her eyes when we say the blessing, it's a very sweet thing;) McKinley has taught her the " God our father" prayer


She knows the colors yellow & purple but still keeps getting the others mixed up. She also can count to 10 in English. She sings several nursery rhymes in Cantonese but now she will sing " twinkle twinkle little star" & " Old McDonald" she will start off singing them in English & then halfway through she's signs in Cantonese;)


I've had several people ask about her night terrors . She has not had any night terrors in over a week! She slept good last night but the night before she woke up twice, she's doing much much better but still has nights where she doesn't sleep through the night. Today she woke up at the ungodly hour of 5:50AM & would not go back to sleep !

So while David & Morgan are at church this morning me & the " Little's" played with some playdoh

This was taken with my phone, so it's not good:(

 

Then we had a little "photo shoot"

 

 

I am telling you, McKinley was born to be a big sister!She is so good with Madison, although I am ready for the "new" to ware off:) She wants to pick her up & do everything for her all day long!
After that, we went outside to ride scooters & bikes:

 

Then we played with puzzles:

 

AHH! And it's only NOON....I'm tired already:~) Happy Sunday!

 

WEEKEND WRAP~UP

Another week down & it has been a pretty good one. Friday was the busiest day we have had since coming back from China. Madison had an appointment to get an EKG done (just to cover everything, nothing was found). That is one thing I like about our Dr...he is very proactive and just wanted to give her a full check-up.  David said she did great. He took her to the Dr while I went to Grandparents Day at school with the girls--their Grandparents couldn't come back since they were just here. :(

Back to Friday, the girls got out of school at noon, and it was my Birthday so I took Morgan & Madison to the mall and David took McKinley on a little father/daughter lunch (I think she is going to need a lot more of this one on one with David & I).  Then we all met up at the mall...we only lasted 2.5 hours (three kids at the mall was a little harder than just two).  So we went home and since it was my bday I made all the girls put on their fall clothes so I could take a few pictures...They all act like its torture to get pictures made so I pulled the ''It's my day, so do what I want" card. I didn't get any REALLY good ones, but a few turned out OK.

Sorry I cannot figure out how to make this bigger:)Oh, how I wish I was more Techie! 

And in other exciting news David & I finally got around to cleaning out our garage...riveting I know!!

We moved into this house about 6 weeks ago, but we have kinda had a lot going on. :) So this has been on my "to do" list for the last 2 weeks, I know it sounds crazy but I feel so much better now that

the garage is cleaned & organized!

 

Tomorrow I am going to post about how Madison's English is coming along, I'm sure you all can't wait for that, but It is really more for me to remember than anything:)

 

One more week staying home from church YaY!Well not yay that I'm staying home from church ,but yay that its the last week I am staying home . I  have an AMAZING pastor & can't wait to get back to

church to hear him preach:)So please join me in prayer that Madison will do well next week when I attempt to take her to church. I don't think she will  sit through the whole service so I am going to try to keep her with me during the worship and then Morgan works in a preschool room on Sunday nights anyway, so I am going to put her in the room with Morgan and hopefully she will feel comfortable. I will let you all know how that goes next week:)

 

 

Blessings,

Melissa

DR. Visit

Maison did AMAZING at her DR. visit today!! They had to draw more blood because her veins are so small that they could not get all they needed the last time( she is in the 5-7 percentile in her weight). At the last visit she screamed and then proceeded to scream an hour AFTER we left. But today she was such a brave girl:)

Notice she wanted a band aide for her smurf too!

 

 

Madison is doing much better each day. I said a few days ago I can now "see the light at the end of the tunnel" and that light gets brighter & brighter each day:) She still has some challenges but for the most part things are SO much better. I can hardly believe we have been home for 2.5 weeks!

 

They past 2 nights she has slept through the night.. ALL NIGHT LONG !yay!

I am hoping that we can start getting out a little next week ( staying at home all day, everyday is driving me INSANE).

 

 

Happy Tuesday!

 

This and that

We have had a very low key weekend, we are still not getting out that much with Madison. I am SO ready to go back to church tomorrow but I know that it isn't what's best for her right now, so we plan on staying home 2 more weeks before going back. Madison had been 6 nights without an night terrors until last night....She had one but it wasn't as bad as before, so please keep praying that they go away completely. She also had not had any major tantrums during the day until today :( She had one that lasted close to two hours!  But other than that, she has been doing really well.

Here are a few pictures of our weekend:

 Lots of outside fun!

She even got her first manicure from her big sis!

I hope everyone has a great Sunday tomorrow!

Melissa

A DAY IN THE LIFE.... PICTURE ADDITION

I thought I would take pictures throughout our day and just do a post of a typical day around here. We are all sill trying to get in a routine as a family of 5!!

   Eating bfast... she did not like the powdered donuts :)

 A little ipad and book time

As you can see Madison LOVES her car seat and going to pick up girls from school.

Morgan found Madison sitting in this little tiny box.

 On the verge of losing it...

Playing with some Lego's

 

We went to school & ate lunch with McKinley & daddy even met us there too!

After school today I made all the girls put on their ALABAMA outfits to take a few pictures ( I didn't have 1 photo of all 3 girls together) Well you would have thought I told them they were all getting a beating....All 3 of them whinnied! But once they got outside I think they had a good time.

My three Crimson Tide girls!

BROKEN

That is the word that keeps coming to my mind as I  think about David & I over these past 10 days. So I decided to look up the definition (disclaimer: me looking up something in the dictionary will probably NEVER happen again).  BROKEN : violently separated into parts :damaged or altered by breaking: having undergone or been subjected to fracture : being irregular, interrupted, or full of obstacles *disrupted by change :made weak or infirm.

Broken- It is such a negative word and trust me when I say, if you are in the process of being broken IT IS NOT FUN, but when you come out on the other side closer to God and you start to see the beauty from the ashes  you realize that maybe, just maybe it wasn't so bad. The Lord is teaching us so many things about Himself through this adoption, things that I could have never learned if not from going through this myself. I know David shared this on Sunday but for those of you who don't go to our church I will say it again, How many times do we throw tantrums  kick, scream & hit at God  when He asks us  to do something? He loves us and wants to give us this amazing life but we push Him away Just like Madison is screaming & pushing us away when all we want to do is love her & hold her, We just want to give her a future that she would have never gotten in China. But she misses her old life, even as bad as it was. We too, act this way with God & would rather stay in the "pit" of our old life, when all He wants to do is give us a hope & a future, If we will just stop pushing Him away. Now in my head I have known this concept for a while but man oh man, now I have a vivid, visual picture of this that will forever be ingrained in my mind. If not for the brokenness, I wouldn't be able to grasp this like I have.


Please don't get me wrong, I haven't figured it all out & I have certainly NOT handled these past 10 days with grace & dignity like God would have wanted. I have cried plenty "ugly" tears. But yesterday I felt all the burden, stress, clouds, even the brokenness I have been feeling being lifted off of me. When David got home yesterday I looked at him and said " we CAN do this" up until about noon yesterday I wasn't so sure about that. The Lord is hearing your prayers & mine and He is giving me these little glimpses of hope throughout my day that Ive been praying for. So thank you all again, for the prayers. Our heavenly father is answering!

 Look at that beautiful smile :)

Here is the chart that we have been using to help communicate things we want her to do & she gets to put a sticker on it after she completes the task.



In closing...
Laura Story sings this song that I have loved for a while but when I heard it this morning while taking the girls to school It spoke to me in a whole new way. I will leave you with the lyrics.
Have a blessed Tuesday!
Melissa

BLESSING:

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
comfort for family, protection while we sleep
we pray for healing, for prosperity
we pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering

all the while You hear each spoken need
yet love us way to much to give us lesser things

'cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
what if Your healing comes through tears?
what if a thousand sleepless nights
are what it takes to know you're near?

what if trails of this life
are Your blessings in disguise?

we pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
we doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
as if every promise from Your Word is not enough

and all the while You hear each desperate plea
and long that we'd have faith to believe

'cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
what if Your healing comes through tears?
and what if a thousand sleepless nights
are what it takes to know you're near?

and what if the trails of this life
are Your blessings in disguise?