SOCCER TOTS!!!

Brady is going to Soccer Tots again and LOVING it this time!!! We switched locations, which also means we have a new "coach". I really, really like this coach, especially compared to the last one we had!!! Coach has SO much energy and it really seems to get Brady that much more involved. I swear I can already tell that Brady has improved since the first session and it's just so cool to watch him grow and improve!! The first week we went it was just Brady and one other little boy, then the next 2 weeks it was just Brady, which was both good and bad. The last two weeks my friends daughter Leah has been with us, which has been fun/good for all of us!!! (Leah had been in the class right after ours with the 3 year olds, but was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of kids so her mom thought being with just Brady would be good for her, and so far she seems to be doing better). After class we sometimes go to Target and then out for lunch, so it's turned into a whole morning!! LOL Check out our future soccer star!!!

Doing his "butterfly" stretch

"tick tocking" (dribbling)

coming through the tunnel (this is part of an obstacle course)

NICE kick!!!!

at the end of class they always get to play with bubbles!!!! Of course this is always a big hit!! :-)

Gift Swap!!

Some of the ladies on my Yahoo group are participating in a monthly gift swap. Each month is a different theme and each month we get a new secret buddy to shop for!!! This month the theme was "Bedtime" and Robin sent some lovely things for Emily as well as a cool Bedtime Stories CD for Brady, which I thought was SO nice!!! Brady had so much fun opening his gift and then seeing what his "baby sister Emily" got!!! :-) THANKS Robin, we LOVED everything!!!!

Brady opening his CD



Look at the wonderful things Robin sent for Emily!!! That blanket is SOOOOO  soft!!!! You can't quite see them, but the feet the of pj's have little bears on them....sooo cute!!!

FATHER'S DAY PART II

More pictures from the festival! Lunch and rides!!

Ewan and Brady enjoying their hot dogs!

Brady and mom on the carousel

FUN!

Ewan, Norman and Nyah on the carousel

RED CROSS WATERFRONT FESTIVAL/FATHER'S DAY!!

We spent Father's Day at the Red Cross Waterfront Festival in Alexandria with our good friends Norman and Shelly and there two kids Nyah and Ewan!!!  We were very lucky with the weather as the storms held out but provided some cloud coverage so it wasn't so hot!!! We started the day with a metro ride and then we had about 30 minute walk to the actual park where the festival was. When we arrived we watched the kids band Rocknocerous, who were actually pretty good!! Brady got up and danced a bit but generally just had fun being a kid!!! Next it was on to lunch, then some rides and then ice cream before making our way back to the metro to head home! It was a long day, but LOTS of fun!!! Brady fell asleep in the car on the way home so we put him straight to bed at just after 7pm since he didn't get a nap and he still managed to sleep til 7am this morning!!!! Alan and I never heard so much as a peep from him all night long!!!!  Take a look at the fun we had!!

having fun listening to Rocknocerous

playing with the inflatable bat a vendor gave him...I think he was going for Nyah here!! LOL

just running around being silly!

clapping along to the music!

getting an autographed copy of the Rocknocerous CD PINK!

DC UNITED GAME

Last weekend we went to the DC United (professional soccer) game. We were invited by our friend and realtor, Vivianne who takes her clients each year as a "thank you"! I wasn't sure how Brady would do, but I have to say he seemed to be VERY into it!!! It didn't hurt that DC United has a large group of fans called "Sam's Army" who play drums and make tons of noise the enitre game!! We left shortly after halftime as it was already after 8:30pm and Alan had just arrived earlier in the day after a week in Europe, so he was just as tired, if not more, than Brady!!! We're looking forward to taking Brady to another game later in the season!

watching intently!

Brady and Mom

VERY into the game!!!!

SHE HAS A NAME!!!

Emily

No middle name just yet, we're still working on that, but at least we can call her Emily instead of "the baby" or "baby sister"!!!!

THINK PINK!!!!!

OMG!!!! Yesterday at 2:30pm our case worker, Lindsay, called to say she had a referral for us and THEN she said it was a GIRL!!!!! My hands were literally shaking!!!! We TOTALLY thought we would get another boy so this was a SHOCK, but we couldn't be any more thrilled!!! 

On to the details: she was born 4/30/09 so she was just 5 weeks old yesterday. She weighed 7.49lbs and was 18.89 inches long!!

And now on to the rest of the story of "the call". Lindsay called my cell phone and she asked me if I wanted her to try and conference Alan in, so of course I said "sure", but I knew he was in a meeting so I didn't think he'd answer, but I thought that maybe if he saw a NY number calling he would. No such luck. So, I also tried calling from the home phone with no luck. Then Lindsay asks if I want he to go on with the details and OF COURSE, I said "YES"!!!!  So she told me all the birth details and some of the info on the birth mom and said she was sending an email with the pics, video and medicals. Meanwhile I have updated my FaceBook status to "OMG OMG OMG OMG", which of course piqued people's curiosity. And I have to give a SHOUT OUT to my friend Kathy, who is another adoptive mom with a son from "Brady's Class" (if you want to see how cute he is, check out the blog to the left titled Journey of a Lifetime), b/c she was online and I was "chatting" with her about the whole thing!!! She knew the details before Alan!!! LOL But I am SOOOO glad she was there because my head was spinning, in a good way, and it was pre-occupying me from looking at the pictures since I was TRYING to wait for Alan so we could look at them at the same time! I even called a friend that works with Alan to see if they could help me get ahold of Alan, but he didn't have any luck either!!

So, Alan FINALLY calls and he's like, "you rang"? And I say, "ah, yeah, we have a referral" and he says, "OH" and then I said "it's a GIRL" and he said, "REALLY?" Then I think the next statements out of his mouth were, "now we have to get all new stuff and pay for a wedding"!!!! LOL Typical male!!!!

Now I have some VERY cool coincidences to share about this referral. First of all, some of you know that we received a referral last month of a little boy who had a medical condition that Alan and I were not 100% comfortable with, so we made the difficult decision of declining that referral. We knew at the time that we made the right decision, but that fact that we received a referral of a little girl this time, just made it that much more clear!!! EVERYTHING happens for a reason!!!

Secondly, yesterday was Alan's Dad's Birthday!!! 

Thirdly, the last name of this little girl is Alan's Grandmother's maiden (?) name and Alan's Dad's middle name!!!!! 

And lastly, the birthmom was very happy that Alan is Asian. You might think this is an obvious point, but it NEVER came up with Brady's adoption!!!

I'm pretty sure that all the stars were aligned for us yesterday!!! As I said we couldn't be more thrilled!!! And I CANNOT wait to buy some of the cute as can be girl clothes I see every time I go to Gymboree!!!! LOL Alan thinks Brady has a lot of clothes....he ain't seen nothing yet!!!! LOL

Oh, and if you are wondering about names....NO IDEA!!!! LOL

Without further ado, here she is!!!!!

Look at those CHEEKS!!!!

SO sweet!

THOSE CHEEKS!!! This one actually reminds me of one of Brady's referral pics!!!

these 2 were taken shortly after birth and the others above were taken more recently.

Play Date

Just a few quick pictures of a play date from the other week with my friends Margi and Kristi and their kids, Blake, Kyle and Kayla. As usual, a good time was had by all, including the moms!!

Brady having fun on the swings!

Brady and Blake discussing some VERY important things!!! LOL

more fun on the swings!

cute Kayla on the swings!!

UNDRESSED!!

Two or three times in the last month or so I have gone into Brady's room when he wakes up in the morning or after nap to find him with no shirt on, or almost no shirt on. One time he even managed to get his diaper off!!! The day I took the second set of pictures, I actually went into his room because he was saying, "STUCK" over and over. Now, he says this ALOT and 90% of the time he's not in any way stuck, but I could tell from the video monitor that he was in a precarious position, so I figured I better go check it out!!! Of course when I got in there and saw him, I told him, "mommy will be right back", so I could go get my camera!!! LOL

These two pictures are after a good nights sleep!!! :-)

These are the "stuck" pictures!!! You can see in the top one he was scared, but when I started to laugh he thought it was funny too!!!