Not Preppy Autumn and More Valentine's Day!

I finally uploaded my Valentine's photos. I loved that Mike got to go to Autumn's class party. Look at how cute they are!

They did ice cream sundaes. We have to watch Autumn's dairy intake so I let her pick out some ice cream and I brought it along. She wanted coconut milk ice cream instead of her usual soy or almond milk which surprised me because she despises the coconut milk that comes in a carton. I'm glad she was open minded because it tasted great!

They set up a little "photobooth" and of course Autumn was a princess. I am so relieved that the photos on my camera look pretty good. The ones on the room mom's camera were awful. I thought I looked kind of nice that day but the other photos? I looked ROUGH. I mean, I'm not winning any beauty contests but man. Hahaha.

I'll have some photos from the weekend next week--we went to Birmingham for Hudson's birthday party. We had a good time. After driving from Orlando to Memphis in December, that Birmingham to Memphis drive is a piece of cake! For now, here's something kind of funny. Autumn's been super attached to this blue sweater. She wears it **everywhere.**

Thursday, she walked into aikido with her sweater wrapped around her shoulders like a prep school kid!! She was, of course, adorable but I'd never seen her do that so I asked her if she was feeling preppy today. I don't think she has any idea what preppy means but she adamantly said NO. She's WEARING A CAPE LIKE ELSA. I love it!

Even on Friday, she spent the whole day with her sweater like that! Autumn's teacher told me that she and some of her friends play Frozen at recess so I'm just picturing her and her friends sweeping around building imaginary snow castles and singing Let it Go. I used to think I'd be sad when Autumn wasn't a baby/infant/toddler anymore but the nice thing is that every stage seems to have it's Really Cool Thing and suddenly growing up isn't so hard. :) I'm super thankful we get to experience it with her.

February Fun!

I hope everyone had a super fun Valentine's Day!! We did. Mike got to stay home from work Friday as a surprise. He's been working extremely long hours so it was nice to see him for more than a few minutes before bed time. We went to Autumn's Valentine's Day party and I totally have photos of that but they are on my camera downstairs and I'm too lazy to go get it! But, we did some other things, too. Like the dentist. Autumn has gone from being absolutely terrified of everything about the dentist to looking forward to her visits.

It helps that she and her friends can slide on the chair.

We also made Valentines for Autumn's class. I got the kiwi crate valentine kit for her. We also thought about Doc McStuffins or Lalaloopsy Valentines but decided that she likes crafts so much that it was worth doing. I love what she did. She did the pop ups and then wrote a special note to all of her friends. SO SWEET.

I don't remember if I've mentioned this but Autumn is in a new ballet class. It's great because she's one of the younger kids so it's a challenge for her. It's been going well. Even better? It's during one of the aikido classes I teach. So, She hangs out for a little while, goes to ballet, changes into pajamas, and then I'm done and we go home! Soooo convenient. We didn't do swim team this semester because the timing was just too hard on our schedule as a family. With Mike's work going crazy, it turned out well because he can't take Autumn to swim on Tuesdays anymore. We'll probably do some swim lessons this summer and then see if Autumn wants to try out for the swim team rather than doing the Lil' Gators. I guess it's going to depend on how into ballet she gets. Anyway, this is Autumn waiting on me SO PATIENTLY (not) while I talked to some students, hahaha.

Oh, some of you might have seen this but here's something funny...a failed project. I made these fun yarn balls to put in some vases for a shower I'm giving next month. Well. Only one turned out. It was suuuuper messy so I haven't decided if it's worth doing again!

Here's your monthly Molly report. She's doing fine. She even survived the onslaught of teenagers determined to pet her!

Until next week! I might even have a video of Autumn belting out Let It Go from Frozen!!

Breakfast with Mickey!

It has been a crazy weekend. Our aikido school brought in an instructor from Georgia. We had a great time and he and the students he brought were so good for our students to meet and train with. Did I mention they all stayed here? I haven't updated the pinwheel blog in too long but my next post is going to be on that! In the meantime, here are the last of our disney photos!

First up, sad Autumn. I had the flu over Christmas so when Autumn's sniffles were joined by a fever, we put her on tamiflu. It worked out well and she barely missed a beat. Our second day at Disney was her last day of tamiflu. We didn't get in until 2am and woke up around 8:30 to make a 10:45 character breakfast. I should have given her a snack buuuut I didn't because she didn't really want one. When Autumn started drooping on the way in, I thought it was simply tiredness. We're pretty scheduled so late nights like that never happen.

Because we had some stragglers, we couldn't be seated to eat immediately. Autumn was kind of squatting in what I call her island baby position and mumbled something. Then I heard a panicked, "MAMA, I THREW UP---blarhgk." Yup. She threw up the medicine. POOR AUTUMN I FELT SO BAD. Lainey got her to the bathroom, Brad got someone to clean up the mess, and when I caught up with Autumn, she was more upset than sick. After resting a bit, she seemed pretty back to normal and was almost 100% once she had some easy to digest food in her. And, of course, these guys helped:

The breakfast was good and although it took a really long time to actually get started, the characters were really great. I can't imagine being one of these workers sitting in that costume and having kids paw at them all day. Mickey was extra nice, it seemed.

Autumn thought Minnie was beautiful:

And Ellie was downright fascinated:

Interestingly, Goofy was Autumn's favorite! She said it's because he's so tall and silly. One of the coolest things we discovered is that the characters even have signatures in character. Every time she got a new autograph Autumn would giggle and dance because their writing looked just like she hoped.

We had such a good time. I definitely want to go back someday! We have a list of things we didn't do that we want to do next time--mostly roller coasters but Autumn is dying to see Doc McStuffins who just joined a different character breakfast. :) Until next time, Disney!

Epcot Adventures and Mike's Photos from the Trip

Mike made this cute photo/video montage with one of the apps on his phone. It's so fun! And it reminded me that I have more Disney photos to post! Like this one. All of these are from our last day. We hit it pretty hard since we weren't there as long as the others so we kind of wavered from delirious to exhausted. Delirious might be the face here.

And I think these qualify as Crazy Eyes™. 

Aaaand it devolved into exhaustion! Autumn was determined not to take another step, hahaha. But the promise of food got her moving again. This is actually a retake because the grumpy face lasted a very short time. I asked her to do it again for me because she looked so funny.

After dinner and the holiday fireworks--which were AMAZINGGGGG--we realized it really was our last day! So, picture taking had to commence. Uncle Brad went first. He's in Doha now so his was our last hurrah with him before he headed off to the Middle East!

And then Aunt Lauren, who got to come to Mike's annual fajita dinner last night! I am so mad at myself because we had dinner with Mike's family and then a community group lunch today AND I TOOK NO PHOTOS. Arg!

Last, the reason for that particular season--Lainey and Pd. Check out Autumn's hand tangled in Lainey's hair. I don't know why but that cracked me up. Next week I have stories and pictures from the character breakfast we went to!

For more Disney Adventures, check out Passing Pinwheels!

Of Cats, Zebras, Seahorses and, of course, Kiwis

It was a low key week. Today we got to go outside and ride bikes and feed the geese at the park!! But on either side of getting out of the house on a warm day, it's been so cold that I'm generally unmotivated. Not Autumn. She pretty much stays in "motivated" mode. This includes cooking. Nothing like cooking in rain boots, footie pajamas, an apron and a hat. She also made a delivery to Kyle and Lindsay in this outfit. Fun times. 

This wasn't last week, but soon after we got back from Disney, Autumn did her first scrapbook page. Not too bad!

Oh, this one *is* from last week. At the zoo, we picked up a new friend. This is Twinkle the Seahorse. She has joined the sea creature menagerie and got to take a trip to Lainey and Pd's house. She traveled in style with Kiri!

A few days ago, Autumn accidentally cartwheeled over the sofa when she was doing hand stands. I laughed so, so hard. She kept doing it and cracking up at herself.

I really don't think that all of these photos took place on the same day so I'm just going to not think about how many times Autumn wore this outfit. Lainey got Autumn a Doc McStuffins kit. Some of you guys marveled at this on Facebook already but Molly actually let Autumn listen to her purring through the working stethoscope Penny gave her one birthday.

Winter makes Molly chill. Chill-ish. She barely submitted to this indignity.

Okay, so this is chill. She's actually laying on my lap like this.

Miracles. They happen.

Cheer Up Weekend

Well, it's a different post than some of you guys might have expected--no baby this week. The adoption fell through the day we were supposed to bring him home. There were some, um, mistakes and bad advice so we're going to be making some choices around whether to continue and with what agency. You can read more here.

Autumn was, of course, heartbroken. But, she is much better this weekend. My mom came back to the US from the Philippines on Wednesday which was great. I called her to ask her if she'd come over Thursday even though she was probably jet lagged but Autumn was so very sad. When I got her on the phone, she said, "I'm 5 minutes from your house!" Lainey was also at Lindsay's so between family and baby Ellie, Autumn was smiling again before the end of the night.

Friday, I took lunch to her at school. We had a great visit. And, her teacher is super sweet. I talked to Mrs. B, who cried when she found out, and told her some of the words we're using with Autumn.

That afternoon, we went to Bed Bath and Beyond because Santa brought her the wrong bracelet kit. We found the right one and she saw these Flipeez hats. She saw them on some friends and has been wanting one so I told her she could use her Christmas money from Nanny for it. So here we are!

And, um, she made me try it on, too. And took a picture.

Saturday, we went to the zoo with Lainey, Pd, Lindsay, Ellie, and papa. We had a good time but I think I'm still tired from teaching aikido and a strength class and then walking the zoo for the afternoon.

It's hard. And we don't care for it much. But, we have each other. So, we keep smiling. :)

Christmas Day!

Sooooo, this is a weird feeling but I totally bought baby stuff on Amazon about 5 minutes ago. Just a stroller and car seat cover thingie but it's still really weird. For those of you who might not have heard, we have a placement date! You can read about that and some other things that have happened around the adoption in this post. And, I wrote about the first part of our Disney trip here!

Last week I did some pre-Christmas photos so I thought this week would be a good time to wrap up Christmas before we, hopefully, change gears. I probably have one more Disney post to put up over at the Pinwheel blog, though, so keep an eye out there or I'll link it here if you're not a regular reader of that blog! Anyway, isn't this the sweetest picture of Autumn and Nanny on Christmas morning?

The Kyle/Lindsay/Leah/Ryan/Lauren part of the family didn't arrive until later on Christmas Day so Autumn only really opened her stocking on Christmas morning. We had been doing the 25 Days of Kindness during advent so as part of her stocking gifts, Santa brought one last note and gift from Jerry. The note told her what a great job she did and how Jerry hopes Autumn keeps on being kind all year long. And, while he's in the North Pole, he left her a gift to remember him by--a soft doll he named "Little Jerry."

Autumn was pretty thrilled! I'm not usually all "MY KID IS SO CUTE" but I'm going to break my normal routine and just say that she's really pretty here. I think pink and green might be her colors.

When Tyler did arrive, Autumn STILL had to wait for presents until after dinner! She was very patient all day but she couldn't resist getting Tyler to scavenge a little to see what gifts might be for them.

A few minutes later, this happened. :) I told Leah that this should be part of our joint Christmas card next year.

We did attempt to get a nice photo of the three of them but it wasn't quite happening!

When we FINALLY got to dig in to the gifts, Ellie wasn't exactly as pumped as everyone else. Poor little Ellie was sick on Christmas day! No fun!

But a few days later at Autumn's princess makeover day, I got this super cute shot of her!

That's it for my Christmas pictures so I'll leave you with this one. Mischief making: