Posted in Uncategorized on March 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »
So that’s why it’s was so quiet upstairs in the “naughty spot”.
Maybe being tired is part of the reason she was being so naughty to begin with. Maybe.
Um . . . also, she’s supposed to actually be inside the naughty spot. See that rectangle behind her? Yeah. That’s the boundary for our time out area. This girl is a feisty one.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 27, 2012| 1 Comment »
After Rose’s quick success on learning to ride a bike, Pendo wanted to give it a try.
She does a great job with balancing on her new bike, but she doesn’t quite understand the pedaling part yet. We will keep working with her, and I’m sure once she figures out how to make the pedals go around continually, she will also be off and down the sidewalk on her own.
In order to celebrate a great report card for Kait, and super-sweet encouraging Pendo, and a new pedal pusher, we all went out for ice cream.
The perfect ending to a really great weekend.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 26, 2012| 2 Comments »
Last summer G and I decided to buy the little girls balance bikes for their birthdays. This was taken on Pendo’s 3rd birthday.
Feel free to google it if you are interested, but the idea behind the balance bike concept is that the hardest part about learning to ride a bike is learning to balance. A balance bike doesn’t have pedals, so you glide on it by balancing. Both of our little ladies have really taken to their balance bikes, and we knew they were ready to try a real bike this summer.
Long story short(er), one of my friends happened to be getting rid of two 12 inch bikes, the exact size we were looking for. We gratefully brought them home, cleaned them up, adjusted them then waited a couple of days until we had time to work with the girls on learning to ride them.
Rose got to go first since Mommy wanted to take pictures, and Rose is 10 months older. 🙂
Yesterday afternoon we had the time and the beautiful weather, so we gave it a try.
Rose was determined to learn and ready to go!
Look at that smile! She was beyond excited to be practicing with a bike like Kait’s.
Pendo trailed behind on her balance bike, cheering and encouraging Rose like she’s never done before.
In less than 10 minutes (probably closer to five), Rose had it down and was riding on her own!!!!
Amazing! Rose rode her new bike for at least the next hour. She needs to practice starting and stopping on her own a bit more, and the pedals really scratched up her legs as she practiced that, but she can totally ride a bike by herself now! She never needed training wheels, thanks to the balance bike. By the way, she’s only 4 1/2 years old. I still cannot believe she can ride without training wheels.
Way to go, Biker Girl!
Posted in Uncategorized on March 25, 2012| 1 Comment »
We’ve had a busy, fun weekend.
Aunt Mel came to see us and we celebrated her birthday. Yay!
We all had fun in her hotel pool on Saturday morning,
then on Sunday afternoon . . . another big thing happened.
More to come on that.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized on March 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »
For the past few days we’ve had gorgeous spring weather. We’ve treasured every minute of it, well . . .not the crazy thunderstorm and tornado and loss of power part. Other than that we’ve been outside as much as possible.
Grandma and Grandpa were here for a few days, and we celebrated the first bubbles of the year
and the first spring flowers blooming
and the first rollerblades and bikes.
Welcome, Spring!! We are soooo glad you are here, at least for a few days.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 17, 2012| 1 Comment »
Another way we celebrated St. Patrick’s day was making and eating some delicious rainbows. I found another idea online here and was determined to make it happen. Their rainbow pudding looked vivid and perfect, so I tried following the recipe exactly. It went well . . until it didn’t set. It just stayed loose, even after being in the fridge overnight. I looked online to see if I could save it, and I tried cooking it again. It did finally get thick but the texture and flavor were strange, so we had to discard it.
I tried again with Jello instant pudding. That worked well except the pudding was yellow so the colors in the rainbow didn’t turn out as I had hoped. It still tasted good, though.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 16, 2012| 2 Comments »
I found some fun leprechaun crafts that I just couldn’t pass up this year. When I saw these beards, I just had to figure out how to get the girls to help me make them.
The directions are here. I adapted it by recycling a couple of cracker boxes for the base of the beard, and I’m glad I did because it added a lot more stability.
The girls really only helped me glue on the curls. Kait helped me (a little) roll the orange paper, but it took a lot more paper and a lot more time than I expected. Oh well. It’s cute.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Did any leprechauns visit your house?
(Please try to ignore the fact that the lighting is wrong in these pictures. These leprechauns were not very cooperative and actually couldn’t wait to get the beards off. The beautiful weather was calling to them.)
Posted in Uncategorized on March 13, 2012| 3 Comments »
So, it took us almost the entire week to finish it, but we did it!
I really like the little details, like the mailbox slot,
and the chimney that’s cute and helps to hold the house together.
Just look at the precious door, doorbell, and light. Not to mention the basket of outdoor toys.
The girls used it as a house, a school, and a doctor’s office then I folded it away and saved it for another day.
It is made out of cardboard so it won’t last very long, but it’s been great fun so far.
Posted in Uncategorized on March 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »
When Daddy is away, his girls will paint and play.
While G was in El Salvador for a week, I decided that would be a perfect time to get out one of the girls’ Christmas gifts. I knew it would be a project, so I was saving it for a special time. It was the perfect project for that week.
This house was one of those cardboard, decorate-it-yourself kind of houses.
They suggested coloring it with markers, but I knew our markers weren’t up to the challenge since they are used every single day for some project or picture. Instead I decided to have the girls paint it and am SO glad we did it that way.
It took about four different shifts to paint it all, and that was fine for all of us.
Pendo and Rose painted most of the larger areas,
and Kait and I took care of the smaller, more detailed sections.
It was really fun to paint, and (bonus in my book) the girls didn’t mind that we had to make a special trip to Jo-Ann Fabrics’ super store to buy more paint and look at several other craft supplies for other ideas floating around in my head.
Tomorrow I’ll show you some pictures of the completed project.
Kait joined our lives eight years ago. She is our sweet, sensitive, daughter who LOVES school. She is energized by being with her family and friends, and we can easily describe her as a social butterfly. She loves making crafts, devouring books, playing school with the little girls, drawing, baking with mommy, and keeping her favorite toys in her own space away from her little sisters. She usually enjoys being the big sister.
Rose arrived in our family 3 years ago. She was born three months early, and her life has been one miracle after another. Currently she likes anything and everything that is red and brown, prefers to wear sparkly shoes, reading books with her family, letting us know exactly what she wants, singing songs loudly, playing dress up, carrying things around in purses or buckets, collecting rocks and sticks, and playing with her sisters.
Pendo was born in Kenya in July '08. She joined our family in June of '09, and our lives will never be the same. This sweet, social little lady loves to make people laugh, climbs on absolutely everything that doesn't move, learns new things amazingly quickly, loves to imitate both of her older sisters, thinks she is part fish, is certain that she can do everything that Rose can do, and LOVES music. 
austin adoption 