7 things we have learned about our daughter in the past 4 weeks!

Happy Girl (brother's b-day cake is coming)

The 3 posing in Lia's room

1. She has the most awesomely infectious laugh I have ever heard. It is this really high pitched giggle. Seriously you cannot hear this and not burst out laughing. If you surprise her (she's a little jumpy if you come up behind her) and smile and laugh, she will laugh back, otherwise she will cry. She does not get peek-a-boo at all! She looks at you like you're nuts!

2. She wants cuddles- on her terms. She will let you know (raising her arms and then throwing them around your neck when you pick her up) when she wants a snuggle. She'll say 'Mwah' when she wants kisses. If you try to smother her with kisses or hug her when she is not in the mood she will wiggle away (unless it is one of her brothers, then she'll usually tolerate it). Although she's incredibly ticklish and will let you kiss her lots if you're tickling too!

3. She LOVES to eat. The last few days she has out-eaten her brothers COMBINED! Seriously, one of us has to sit at the table with her for about 10 minutes after everyone else is done. She loves fish, chicken, bread of any sort (toast with jam is still a big favorite), ADORES fruit and is a big fan of whole wheat waffles with blueberry. Not so big on grapes or rice (she has a hard time eating it) and HATES any sort of baby food. She will scream like crazy if she sees her bottle while you're making it (we've enlisted the boys in distracting her while we 'hide' it). She loves drinking out of a straw when we're out and about (it's what her brothers do so of course she has to too!)

4. She is generally an easy-going baby. When she cries we know she is either tired or hungry. Otherwise she is happy to sit on the floor next to me and play with a few toys while her brothers create mayhem around her. She does get mad when they run around and she can't keep up with them but she generally follows us around from room to room. She has a weird love/hate relationship with her brothers' Geotrax trains. She always crawls over when she sees them playing with them but then when the trains start up she howls (but will crawl right back over when you move her away from them!) She loves carrying around empty Pez poppers (weird). And even though we have loads of girly toys her favorite thing to play with so far are her brothers' cars. Figures!

5. Naptime is challenging. It's not really all her fault though. Although she can sleep through almost anything once solidly asleep she needs virtually complete silence to fall asleep. As you can imagine that is hard to come by in our house. Generally, once I have her almost there one of the boys will burst in loudly or I will hear something worrisome coming from the room next door where the boys are. Arrrgh. Frustrating. And keep in mind since there are 3 naptimes a day here (2 for her and 1 for Jack) I pretty much always feel like I am putting somebody to bed. I have learned that if I hold her close against my shoulder (no eye contact, she thinks it's playtime if I look at her), rub her hair and humm softly (I think it blocks out some of the background noise) I have a better shot. But it is immensely frustrating to do all that then lay her down and have her eyes open up wide. As beautiful as those big eyes are it means I have to start all over again as I have learned there is NO chance she will fall asleep on her own.

6. I thought I would love light pink on her. But while I think she would look absolutely adorable in a paper bag I was surprised to find I really love darker, more vibrant colors on her (deep purple is my favorite but also bright orange, yellow and red). Someday maybe I'll figure out how to get a bow to stay on her head, not there yet.

7. She is a smart cookie. Not that I'm biased at all, of course : ) But we have been so impressed by her waves (she gets hello and goodbye), her sweet little "Mama" and "Dada" squeals (still uses Nana for food and bottle). She will repeat pretty much anything we say repeatedly- our little parrot! How quickly she is learning to walk (we're up to 12 steps in a row now!) The studious little look I catch occasionally on her face when she seems to stop and check us out, as if confirming to herself, 'ok this is the deal now and these are the food and cuddle people'.

**** We have learned that she is a perfect fit for our family and we learn more about her and love her more every day!****

Smushed Cake Fiestas! (and other updates)

Too tired to put these in the right order, sorry!

My sweet baby growing older, and toothless.

He was sooo excited.

The cousins (and grandparents' dog) at one

of Lia's mini-celebrations.

Here's the devious boy (see below)

Sweet birthday girl.

Notice there is already frosting on the finger!

In our typical over-the-top fashion baby girl got not one cake but three over the course of the past few days! And she happily devoured small slices of all three and even more happily smooshed frosting all over her face, hair, hands and booster seat (as well as anyone who dared to venture close to her). Good thing she loves baths too.

Devious boy also stole a piece of his brother's cake when he wasn't looking. The impatient brothers began the present-opening without us (or the birthday girl) so no real pictures there. Jack has no patience (the boy eats his waffles frozen because he can't bear to wait for them to cook- no idea where he gets such impatience after all I am the epitome of zen-like patience : )

I made it through my first day alone with the two toddlers (okay, it was only half a day) and it went well! She is generally a happy little girl. The sleep (less) monster has reared its head a little. We swore she had an ear infection because she would grab her ears and howl for short periods the last few nights. But nope doc told us "the good news and the bad news is her ears look beautiful". So apparently it's adjustment and attachment related. Lest you think all is sunshine and roses over here I am apparently going to be just as sleep deprived as ever for awhile (ah well, knew it was too good to be true). But otherwise we are happy and well!

Birthday Season Begins!

Both the littles are sleeping at the same time (this is a first!) and Gavin is away at school so with my 5 minutes of free time:

Happy Birthday to me!

Wow, is it hard to get 3 kids to look at the camera!

The littles!

Yup, he's gonna hate this picture someday.

Sadly, he wore the bow about 5x longer than she did!


I am now one year older! But who knew last year at this time all the changes we would go through; then I had no idea we'd have a referral by now and certainly not that we'd be home with her already! The roller coaster year of waiting has ended and we're beginning to settle in at home. Despite the fact that we have infected all 3 kids with viruses we brought back with us, it has been a remarkably easy transition. We have no earthly idea how we managed this so I have no advice but by the 2nd day home Lia had her days and nights straightened around and was taking 2 solid naps and 10-11 hours of sleep at night. We are praying this is not a fluke. Bonding seems to be going well- she wants to be held more & more so I think we have a velcro baby in our future. The hour of night-time screaming she had for about 4 days in a row has been gone since Sunday (what a relief! It was both heartbreaking and extremely frustrating to not be able to soothe her during that hour). Our only issue has been food- she hates any sort of baby food and the only thing she'll allow us to spoon in is yogurt. She'll eat small bites of chicken and fruit but really all she wants to eat is toast with jam! Ah well, we'll fight the food battle later.

We have managed to stay pretty close to home (the rampant illnesses and banshee screaming in the car have made this not as difficult as I would've thought) but as Lia screams anytime anyone leaves without her I think she may be ready for a mini-outing soon to go cheer on her brother at field day on Friday.

It is birthday season around here- mine sets off a month of many, many family and friend birthdays, the second of which is Lia's tomorrow! I'll be sure to post infamous cake pics afterward (I envision much cake on her face as the child LOVES anything sweet!)

The boys are adjusting pretty well. Gavin is super sweet with her (although he seems to save his dark side for his brother!), Jack is better than we expected (although there have been a few bops on the head).

The real test is still to come (Greg has been home with me this week and next week my Mom will be here, but the next week watch out- Gavin will be out of school so it will be me and the 3 kiddos all day in hot, hot weather! Friends please come play and help me keep my sanity!)