Emily's first day of Fifth Grade!

Emily started fifth grade today at a brand new school. She is now attending the local Catholic school. (No, we aren't Catholic.) The only good thing about it for Em? All her friends going to the public school started about a month ago, so she's had an extra-long summer break.

How does Em feel about attending this new school, where uniforms are required?






I think she looks very nice. We braided her hair last night after her shower so it would be nice and wavy this morning.









Evie had to get in on the first-day-of-school pictures, too!

Brookfield Zoo

Last weekend we drove to Chicago and took the girls to the zoo. It was such a nice day, and we had a really good time.

We loved the butterfly garden. Some butterflies even tried to land on Evie! I wasn't fast enough with the camera to catch it, though. Em found this beautiful blue and black butterfly.
















After we saw the condors, the girls tested out their wings:









Evie and Emily liked to play in the fountain:






The children's zoo was a big hit. The girls tried to pet the goats, but the goats were pretty skittish and hid behind the fence most of the time.








There were also piglets, cows, horses, chicks, and other animals to see. They also had a raccoon, groundhog, and a skunk that all lived together. Richard teased Emily that the skunk was in love with her.






Partway through the zoo, Evie sacked out in her stroller. She missed the stingrays and most of the bears. I mostly stayed back from the crowds as much as possible, and Em and Richard went up to look at the animals. Em was so sweet and kept offering to watch Evie so I could go look, too. She is a good girl.






While Evie was asleep, Em and I stood in line forever to see the stingrays. It was a very long line. Em was lucky to finally touch one. They seemed to know right where the line was that people could reach, and they mostly stayed on the other side.









We also liked to see the primate house. We had to leave the stroller outside for that, so I carried Evie in our ring sling, and got lots of hugs. She loved to see the monkeys. Em did too, and had fun pointing out the baby gorillas to us.

Right before we left, Richard took the girls on the carousel. Emily was on an African wild dog, and Evie was riding an anteater. The little boy next to Evie thought I was waving and blowing kisses at him.














When the ride was over, Richard brought the girls out to meet me, and we realized that Evie was crying silently. She loved the carousel so much that she didn't want to leave it! It was so sweet and sad. We promised her a ride on the carousel at our zoo sometime, and that made her a little happier.

On Saturday, we went to see Rich's cousin Fred, his wife Robin, and their new baby Freddie. Freddie is a very cute baby, but when we asked Evie if she wanted a baby, we got a big, fat, NO!!!

pictures from our July trip

We found the lost camera, so here are a few pictures from our trip to western Kansas for my cousin's wedding.

On our way there, we stopped at the geographic center of the 48 states near Lebanon, KS. It was a good place to stop and let the girls run around and stretch their legs. We were the only ones there at the time. It was a beautiful summer day.












We attended my cousin Eli's wedding on Saturday.
The happy couple:





Em and Evie at the wedding, with Mom in the background (I don't think that Evie was feeling very good!):

Happy Family Day!

One year ago today, we met Evie for the first time!

Our first picture of Evie was her referral picture:






This was sent in an update, and I was so happy to see it:






A wonderful woman who was in China to adopt her son from Dongguan took this picture and sent it to me:






Then, it was finally time to really meet Evie...

We had been in China for less than 24 hours. After a sleepless night and a nervewracking bus ride to the adoption center, we had to fill out paperwork and wait for what felt like hours... then I saw one of the most beautiful sights of my life:







It was so wonderful to finally be all together.






Evie has changed so much since our time in China:
























I think we are the luckiest family in the world!

More cooking funnies...

Tonight I told Evie that I was making pancakes and bacon for supper. She loves bacon. I asked her what she wanted to go with her bacon, and she replied, "monkey." I thought that I heard wrong, so I asked her again. "Monkey." "You want Mama to cook monkey for supper?" "Yes. Monkey soup." Well, I was fresh out of monkey, so she had to live with the pancakes. I don't think she really cared - she ate 4 small pancakes and 3 slices of bacon!

After our walk this evening, Evie was playing with her cooking toys. She was stirring her little orange pitcher with her little blue spoon. There was a plastic Chicken McNugget in there, too. I asked her what she was cooking, and she told me that it was frog soup. Yum. She gave some to Muh and Name and her new lamb, Dandelion. Ernie and Blue and Elmo got a bite, too. She also offered some to Grandma and Papa Al over the phone. They both thought it was quite tasty!

Our interesting dinner last night...

Richard grilled Jerk Chicken outside. (it was good!) Inside, I made yummy Black Beans and Rice. Lots of veggies and garlic and black beans cooked together, then mashed a little and served over rice. Evie loved the rice. The beans were a little scary, though. She poked them with her finger, looked at her finger, then screamed at her Daddy to get the poop off of her finger. I'm sure she was wondering what the heck I was thinking, serving poop at a meal. She wouldn't taste it for anything! For the rest of the meal, Em and Richard referred to the dish as Poop and Rice, and wondered if I harvested the beans from the bunny cage. Yes, we are a strange family.

Speech therapy

Evie started speech therapy this summer. She loves it when her speech therapist, Kelsey, comes over for her class. (We say that Kelsey is coming over to play with Evie!)

Kelsey brings over a big box of toys, and when Evie says "open the box", Kelsey will open the box and pick out a new toy to play with. There are picture books, puzzles, matching games, a baby doll, and lots of other toys. They make lots of sounds, and play lots of games, and try to say lots of words. It seems to be working. Evie is talking a lot more now.

In fact, Evie just said her first four-word sentence (all spoken, no signs involved!). She told Richard, "Yaya, Mama broke light". Yes, she was tattling on me! At bedtime, I unplug her light from the wall behind her bed so she can't turn it on. She wanted her Daddy to come and fix it for her!