Yikes, I disappeared again, didn’t I? Life has been so busy! But it’s also been good. Here’s a quick rundown of what we’ve been up to.
Sweet Pea turned 3 in February. We had a small family party at home and a little cupcake party at her daycare with her friends. She’s still pretty shy and doesn’t love being the center of attention amongst people she doesn’t know well, so a big party was just not an option. And that’s fine by me!
I bought a house! I just moved a couple of weeks ago and am still trying to unpack and get settled. It is not so easy to do with a 3 year old under foot, and a full-time job during the week, but we’re managing. Sweet Pea has transitioned amazingly well. She’s had a little anxiety about it and has asked to go back to the old house a couple of times, but overall she is adjusting well.
Here are some pictures of her birthday. You can click them to see them larger.
by Amy on January 23, 2012
It’s the Year of the Dragon! We made our annual trip to a city about an hour from here for their annual Chinese New Year celebration on Saturday. We did a little shopping, then ate Chinese food, then made our way over to the festival. Sweet Pea LOVED the dragon! Overall, we had a great time.
by Amy on January 14, 2012
There’s not much going on right now. We’re just enjoying this mild winter (so far, anyway) and going about our daily routine. We have a lot of activities coming up though – my mom’s birthday, Chinese New Year, Sweet Pea’s 3rd birthday, and a trip to the circus, all in the next 3 or 4 weeks. So I’ll be posting some updates soon. Meanwhile, I thought I’d upload this cute picture. She is such a happy child most of the time and this picture does a decent job capturing that.
by Amy on December 25, 2011
We did our big family Christmas on Christmas Eve this year. We went to my Mom and Dad’s house where my brother, sister in law, and 2 nieces were also staying. We opened presents in the afternoon and then had a yummy Christmas dinner. Sweet Pea got a Leapster Explorer and a gorgeous baby doll, among other things.
This morning we had a lovely morning by ourselves at home. Santa came for a visit and Sweet Pea was thrilled with the loot! She got a Melissa & Doug Easel that has a chalkboard, a dry erase board, and a roll of paper. So far I’ve only given her chalk and crayons. I’m too chicken to get out the water colors, finger paints, and markers that I bought. And everything I bought is washable, but it’s going to have to wait. I kind of figured with all the other gifts, it would be too much. In a couple of weeks when the newness of everything has worn off, we’ll experiment with more art. She also got a Dora the Explorer doll house, a Dora plate and bowl set, a toy cash register, a stuffed toy lamb, a sheep pillow pet, some books, and another baby doll.
She is a happy girl and I’m a happy Mama. What a wonderful Christmas!
by Amy on December 23, 2011
by Amy on November 5, 2011
A couple of weeks ago, Sweet Pea’s daycare took a trip to a local pumpkin farm that offers hayrides, a petting zoo, and of course a pumpkin patch. So I went with them. It was fun! Although keeping tabs on a dozen or so 2 and 3 year olds was exhausting. LOL! Here are a few pictures of the day:
Based on the pictures in the last two posts, you might be thinking that she wears that orange hair bow everyday. I promise she doesn’t! She’s worn it maybe 4 or 5 times total in the last month or so, but it always seems to be on days I have my camera out!
So next up was Halloween! Last year I chose not to go trick or treating with her since we had only been home a couple of months and she was too young to understand. I did get her a costume and we went to a church festival with her wearing it, but that was it. This year she was totally into Halloween. They had been talking about it a lot at daycare and doing Halloween crafts, reading Halloween books, etc. So she was very excited. I let her pick her costume and she chose Elmo!!
She was able to do 3 different trick or treating events. One was at a local nursing home, one was a trunk or treat event at her daycare, and the other was in my parents’ neighborhood on Halloween night. She was great at saying Trick or Treat and then thanking everyone for the candy. I was super impressed! All in all, it was a great Halloween.
by Amy on October 27, 2011
September seemed to fly by without much activity. Just the normal stuff – work/daycare and back home again. But October has been PACKED with a ton of fun and exciting things. So many things, in fact, that I’m going to split the post into two parts.
First, a little cuteness:
The month started out with a trip to Kentucky. I grew up there and my parents grew up there. They moved east when I was in college and I joined them a few years ago. But we still have family and friends there. The first weekend in October was my mother’s high school reunion, so we decided to go together and make a weekend trip of it. My family and friends in the area had never met Sweet Pea so we thought this would be a good time. The problem was that it’s a 600+ mile drive (each way) and we only had 4 days to do the entire trip, including travel time. Sweet Pea had never been on a car trip that long before, so I really wasn’t sure what to expect. But she did great! We spent over 11 hours in the car on a Friday, went out to eat that night after we arrived with several relatives she’d never met, spent Saturday visiting with more family and friends she’d never met, spent Sunday with even more family and friends she’d never met, then turned around and drove the 11+ hours back home on Monday. All while staying in a house she’d never been in and in a bed she’d never slept in. She never cried or whined or caused any trouble. The worst behavior I saw was when my good friend Andrea and her two slightly older kids came to visit and Sweet Pea got jealous of them playing with her toys. But even that wasn’t horrible. Just a little bit whiny.
Honestly, I couldn’t have been more proud of her. That was a hard trip for anyone, but she was a trooper!
Lunch with family at Cracker Barrel
During the second weekend of October, we stayed in town, but decided to try our hands at making some cute Halloween cake pops. They were delicious! Our technique needs a little work, but they weren’t too bad for our first try.
The next day we went to a local walking trail down by a local river and fed the ducks and geese. Fun!
Last weekend, we made a trip to a nearby city to see Yo Gabba Gabba Live! That was awesome. It was like a rock concert for toddlers. Super fun stuff. These pictures stink – cell phone camera, dark theater. Oh well.
In part two, I’ll talk about our trip to the pumpkin patch and of course Halloween!
by Amy on September 6, 2011
Sweet Pea’s daycare has a preschool curriculum that starts the day after Labor Day for the 2 year olds and up, so today was her first day! It will be a more structured learning environment with actual lessons and workbooks and such. We’ll even be getting report cards! I can’t believe she’s already in “school”. But she loves it! Here are pics from this morning.
P.S. Those pants are supposed to be capri pants but they come down to just above her ankles. LOL! So it looks like her pants are too short, but really they are too long. 
by Amy on August 16, 2011
Today is the one year anniversary of the day Sweet Pea and I met. The adoption was finalized the next day. It’s been an amazing year and I can’t imagine my life without her.
Happy Family Day!
Here’s a recap of photos of that day:
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And now (taken over the last couple of weeks):
At the snack bar waiting for her popcorn!
This has been a HOT summer so far. We are spending a lot of time indoors and I’ve been too lazy to blog about it. But, a couple of weekends ago I decided to take a chance and take Sweet Pea to her first movie!
She absolutely loves Winnie the Pooh and takes her precious Pooh Bear stuffed animal everywhere (thank goodness I have several backups in rotation!). So when I heard that Winnie the Pooh movie was coming out, I knew it would have to be our first movie together in a theater. And so it was!
She LOVED it! It was just about an hour long, so definitely not too long for a little one to sit through. And it was definitely sweet and cute and very child friendly. The whole experience in the theater was exciting for her. I worried it might scare her when it was dark and loud, but it didn’t even faze her.
My mom went with us and Sweet Pea spent about half the movie sitting in the seat between us and the other half sitting on Nana’s lap. But she really didn’t get too restless or loud, which surprised me a bit.
I definitely recommend the movie for little ones, especially as a first movie in the theater.
