Mother's Day Surprise!

The big brothers came home to visit!!  We LOVE these guys!!!

Happy New Year!

We hope your new year is filled with joy, love, and a whole bunch of fun!

The SPOON

Lily now insists on using her spoon at every meal.  She hasn't been able to actually get any food to stay on it yet but she is definitely giving it the old college try.

 Gotta love babies and spaghetti faces!

The bowl and spoon make a great percussion instrument!

LOVE this messy face!

Locks of Love

Maddie has been wanting to cut her hair for Locks of Love for quite a while.  I have been the one dragging my feet.  None of the girls have had their hair cut short since they were very very young and I just wasn't sure I was ready for this!!  But I finally relented, took the requisite before photos, and off we went.

 In the chair -- note all the missing upper front teeth!  I gave her one last chance to change her mind.  I think I secretly hoped she would.  But she stayed steadfast in her decision.

 The first big chop!

One very THRILLED little girl!

Yes, there were a couple of teeny tiny little mommy tears during the process.  But I gotta admit that she looks pretty darn cute in her new short do.  And hair always grows again, right?

Six Ladybug Princesses Together

The SIX Ladybug Princesses -- together at last!

It seems like it took forever to get all the girls together in one photo.  Either someone was sick, or I was sick, or the camera was missing, or the baby was crying, or someone had their finger up their nose (or their sister's nose!), or . . . . . well, you get the point.

Everyone had been outside playing in the sprinklers so they are soaking wet.  No one is looking in the same direction.  But there they were, all together, and no tears in sight!  I couln't believe my luck.

Then our computer crashed.  Thankfully I had most of our documents and photos backed up so we didn't lose anything of much importance except ALL my contacts in my address book (so dear friends, please e-mail me if you haven't heard from me in a while as I have lost you all!).  I have been using our little laptop which is temperamental to say the least.  All this as an excuse for the fact that I am a bad blogger!  I really do mean to post more often -- the days just seem to get away from me!

And I realize that I need a blog update -- I don't have enough little ladybugs after my name.  Diana -- help!  I lost your contact info in the great computer crash! 

Trouble Posting

I have been trying to post to my blog for a few days now and something is wrong.  I write everything up, add the photo, and then – nothing!  Nothing will post.  And now tonight after I tried it the site kicked me out and I can’t re-log on – shoot, I can’t even get to the blogger home page.  I am trying the e-mail route to see if this works.  Not sure what the problem is, but with the way things have been going around here I am sure that I broke blogspot!!

Finallly Coming Up For Air

Oh. My. Goodness! The past month has been absolutely crazy around here! We will have been home four weeks this Saturday but much of that time is just a blur.

Four days after returning home from China I dragged myself in to see my Dr. After every adoption trip I have ended up with a very nasty sinus/respiratory infection, and this time was no different. I am sure I caught it from someone on the plane ride home.

I drove home with my Zithromax Z-pak in hand and as I was getting out of the car I noticed that our big wheeled garbage tote was still sitting at the curb. I pulled it down the driveway to put it away but as I was adjusting it into its proper place, I dropped the #*&**# thing smack dab on my little toe! by the looks of it (and by the searing pain that has lasted over three weeks) I am pretty sure I broke the toe but I haven't had time to try to get back to my Dr. again to have her look at it.

Very early the next morning (as in 4am early), Annie came into our bedroom saying she didn't feel well. I touched her and the heat coming off her little body was shocking! I immediately took her temperature -- it was 104.3! An hour later Abby came in with the same story about not feeling well. Her temperature was 103.5! The next day it was Ruby's turn -- 103.2! Three days later Maddie joined in -- 102.5. The next two weeks were spent going to the pediatrician and pharmacy, constantly taking temperatures, measuring out amoxicillin, charting who I had given tylenol and motrin and when they got it, cleaning up sickness, and hobbling to the store to replenish our supply of meds. Between four very sick girls and the ear infections, sinus infections and who knows what else they were fighting, we had SEVEN bottles of amoxicillin in the fridge. At least I didn't have time to think much about jet-lag.

Amazingly Ellie and Lily have managed (so far) to escape everything. And our sweet Lily is an absolute joy! She is the happiest baby and her adjustment to our family has been amazing. She sleeps all night, with only a few little noises here and there but no waking up. She is now eating baby food well and is just starting to nibble on graham crackers -- she won't eat any other solid food yet (unless you count paper scraps that sisters leave on the floor which she loves for some reason). She continues to crawl at lightning speed and she can now easily pull herself up to standing. She is beginning to cruise along the furniture and, much to my dismay, has discovered the water in the toilets. All the other girls are working very hard on trying to remember to close the lids and the bathroom doors. She weighed 17 pounds at her first pediatrician visit and all her tests came back normal and healthy -- she is just small and slightly delayed developmentally for her age. We go again in three weeks for her next visit. It will be interesting to see how much weight she has gained as I can tell she is getting much thicker around the middle.

Now that things are sort of settling down around here, hopefully I will be able to take some photos of the SIX ladybug princesses all together. My camera was actually lost for a couple of weeks in the craziness of sickness and unpacking from the trip. But things are all put away now, laundry is as caught up as it ever will be, and we are slowly working on finding our new "normal".

Hanging out with Annie and Ruby playing wii

Lily and Maddie