AMAZING!!!

I just had to share these 2 stories with everyone!!!

One day last week Brady and I were in the basement and he was playing with his *Little People* nativity set. He proceeded to get up and go get his Story of Christmas book from his bookcase and and then he announced, "this baby same in book" or something close to that!!!! Needless to say, I was taken aback!!

Then today in the car he was totally just chilling in his car seat. In fact I was a little worried he might fall asleep he was so relaxed! Anyway, I was on the phone with my mom and then I hear him say, "same mommy puter (computer)", and I'm trying to figure out what he's talking about and I asked if he meant that the car in front of us was the same color, but then he says, "song same as mommy puter" and I'm desperately trying to figure out what he's talking about and then it dawns on me that the song on the radio (*1,2,3,4* by the *Plain White T's*) is on my blog and we listened to it the day I uploaded, which was at least 2 weeks ago!!!! This kid never ceases to amaze me!!!! Boy am I in trouble!!! LOL

She's Growing & First Care Package

I know neither has anything to do with the other, but it seemed like a good idea to pair them!! LOL

We got updated measurements of Emily today. She is now (at almost 12 weeks) 9.7 lbs and 20.86 inches long!!! Hard for me to imagine if that is big or little at her age, I guess I need to compare that to Brady at the same age.

I also found out that the dress Emily is wearing in the July update photos is one that a fellow blogette left at TWCA and is a size 0-3 months, so that helps a bit.

I mailed Emily's first care package today via the US mail. I did this primarily to save money as *Fedex* and *Ups* can easily be over $100!! I only spent $47 today but I will have no way of knowing if the package gets there unless I see something in the next set of update pictures, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!!

I KNOW I totally overdid it with the care package, but I've been buying boy clothes for almost 2 years now, so it was LOTS of fun to pick out little girl things!!!(and my mom sent a few things for her as well) We sent 3 dresses, 4 onesies, 3 t-shirts, 3 pairs of shorts, 2 pairs of pants, a sleeper, a photo album with pics of the 3 of us and the grandparents, a dragonfly rattle/crunchy toy, a blanket we slept with for the past week and a giraffe that Brady picked out for Emily. All of the clothes are 3 month size so it will be interesting to see if she's wearing any of them next month.

The contents of the care package

GOOD NEWS!!!!

We received an email from our agency letting us know that Emily's Court Hearing will be on August 12th!!!! Interestingly, this is 2 years and 6 days after Brady's Court Hearing, which means there's a VERY GOOD chance that we will travel before the end of the year to pick up Emily!! It's SO hard to say how the courts will move, but seeing as how our dossier (paperwork) only got to Taiwan on June 29th, I was quite surprised to already be notified of a court date. 

For comparison, here is how we moved along in the courts with Brady:

Dossier arrived in Taiwan on 6/1/07

Hearing Date on 8/6/07

First Ruling on 8/22/07

Final Ruling on 9/14/07

Gotcha Day on 10/1/07

SO, if by chance we get/got the same judge we had last time we could certainly be traveling in October or early November to meet Emily!!!! OH how I want her home for Christmas!!!!!

FYI, Mom and Dad.....you might not be going on that cruise you have booked for October!!!! Or maybe you'll be coming directly here once you get off the ship!!!

Emily's July Update Pics!!

The wait for these update pics was very frustrating, but I'm glad we finally have them!!!! I found out at 3 pm that our agency had received them, but we didn't get them til almost 6:30!!!!! As you can see, her cheeks are still GINORMOUS!!!! LOL We love them!!!! And I'm very impressed with the dress she is in as it's not something we sent. We think she's just adorable!!!

PIZZA FOR DINNER!!!

Brady really seems to like cooking and often imitates me while I cook dinner, so this past Friday I thought it would be fun to make pizza at home!! I went to the store and got some *boboli* crusts and the toppings of choice....pepperoni for Brady and veggie for me (Alan will eat anything so he didn't really care!!). As you can see by the pictures Brady LOVED it and I have to say as I make this entry on Tuesday, Brady and I actually made pizza again tonight because he asked to!!!! I apologize for amount of pictures to this entry, but there are two reasons for that; first he was just SO cute and proud of himself, and SO very focused that I couldn't decide what to cut out and second, after 2+ years of having the blog, I just figured out how to have more than 5 pictures on one post!!!! LOL

getting ready to start

starting with the cheese

"this is fun"!!

"CHEESE"

on to the pepperoni

this was a very precise process and each pepperoni had to be place "just so"

see, I told you he was focused....now he's using 2 hands to get it in the right place!!

he asked to put peppers on the pizza (he loves to eat them raw), but as you can see (barely) he only put ONE on the entire pizza!!! LOL

now on to the second pizza

CHEESE.....again

adding the peppers

we also added mushrooms, black olives and onions

like any good chef, he had to try some of the ingredients!!

getting ready to cut the finished pizzas!!!

*CURIOUS GEORGE*

Last Wednesday Margi, Kristi and I took all the kids to see *Curious George* at the movie theater!! One of the big chains offers free movies every Tuesday and Wednesday during the summer and I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to see if Brady could "handle" going to the movies. I am happy to report that he did remarkably well especially considering that we had to first wait in line, then had to sit in our seats for at least 30 minutes before the movie actually started!!! The popcorn and fruit punch definitely helped, but nonetheless, I'm VERY proud of him!!!

Poor thing isn't heavy enough to hold the seat down and he didn't want me to hold it down with my hand so he was sitting a "V"!!! (you can see Blake and Ty down the row)

POPCORN!!!!! I know it looks like he was watching the movie here, but he's just watching the adds!!! LOL

An attempt to get everyone in the picture!!! Brady was definitely happy with his popcorn!!!

PAINTING/ 4th of JULY

We spent our 4th of July weekend painting our kitchen and family room. I have HATED the walls since the day we moved in and it actually irritated more and more the longer we were here. I would say the "color" was like a dirty cement or something equally as unpleasant!!  SO, I decided since Alan had an extra day off from work we should use that time wisely because I know we won't have much time to do stuff like this once we bring Emily home!! LOL 

I had wanted to use the same color that my cousin had used, which was called Buffed, however when I went to HD to get the paint I found out that it was no longer available unless you had something you could color match. So, I found some paint swatches I liked and taped them to walls.  Alan and I finally decided on one we liked...... until I painted some patches on different wall areas and we had a few days to look at them!!! So, I went back to HD and tried one called Peanut Butter and slapped that on the walls next to the other colors for comparison. We both definitely liked this better, although I was still a bit unsure we decided to take the plunge and boy, am I GLAD we did!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!! It TOTALLY warms up the room and brings it into this century!!! LOL Now the only thing left to do is get some window treatments...UGH!!!! :-)

Kitchen "before" and you can see the 3 different colors we were testing.

Family room "before"

A large area of "testing" to make sure we liked it

Brady was a BIG help!!!

Kitchen "after"

Family room "after"