A low-key birthday

By the time Madeline's actual birthday rolled around this year, she had already been to Disney and had a party.  So we decided on the actual day, we would keep things a bit low-key.  While Patrick ran some errands in the morning, I snapped a few photos of the dumplings together.  Madeline is sporting a new top I made her.  My sister picked up this gorgeous Amy Butler and Sandi Henderson fabric for me *cough cough* a long time ago.  Thankfully the pattern I wanted to use it for called for the same yardage for the next size up.  I adore this pattern, as does Madeline...for its twirl power.

Once Patrick returned home, it was time to head out to lunch at one of his favorite-y favorite spots on the beach.  Being the homeschooling mama that I am, I try to get the kids to read in the car whenever possible.  Since we were going on two straight days of no school (the kids were sick the day before), I had Madeline read to me while we drove to the restaurant.  I think she preferred playing with her gum.

We ended up getting to the restaurant later than we wanted to. Our timing couldn't have been better though, as a table opened up by the window.  I know you can't see it in the images below because I was exposing the images for Madeline and not the background.  However, the ocean was right outside the window.  Although it was rainy, the view was still hard to beat.

Once we wrapped up lunch, we headed over to my favorite cupcake shop.  The dumplings picked out some candy while Patrick picked out a bunch of cupcakes.  I had wanted to make Madeline some cupcakes and a mini cake for her birthday, but I was also feeling under the weather the day before.  So I had to scratch that idea.

After finally making it home for some downtime and dinner, we regrouped and headed back out to the one place Madeline had been asking for all.day.  Chuck-E-Cheese.  The two of them couldn't stop smiling.  They had a fabulous time.  I didn't drag my big girl camera with me, though I did snap a few shots with my iPhone that I will have to share if I ever get around to doing an iPhone post.

Anyway, I just can't believe our girl is 5 years old.  It's hard to believe that three years ago, we were experiencing quite the adoption paperwork rollercoaster.  Wow.  I don't ever want to go through that again, thankyouverymuch!

Happy 5th birthday, for the umpteenth time Mei Mei Mooster!
We love you like crazycakes!

She's at it again...and an update

Let's just say that 2013 is starting off with a bang for Madeline.  This little girl of ours is bound and determined to do it all.  Last month, she learned to ride a bike without training wheels.  Last week, she declared to me that she learned how to hula hoop.  And to my surprise, when I walked outside to said hula hoop, she was hula hooping!  You may recall the photos I took of the dumplings hula hooping at the Winter Carnival.  Caleb was hula hooping then; Madeline was faking it. lol.  Now, she no longer has to fake it.  

And if learning to hula hoop wasn't enough, she has learned to tie shoes!  As with Caleb, I had Madeline tie my shoe when learning because adult laces are longer and, therefore, easier to work with.  She's had the first part down for a while, and she has watched me tying my shoe one-handed.  (I figured I'd better learn how to do it myself one-handed if I was supposed to show her how to do it one-handed.)  Well, she found her own way of doing it!

This was her very first time tying it by herself.  I wasn't even sure she was going to do it because she did it completely different than what I had just shown her. But she did it!  After she ran off to play, I watched the video several more times so I could see exactly what she did.  Then I figured out a way to tweak her version to make it easier.  Instead of holding the loop in her left arm, she now just pins the loop down with her left arm so she can take the other lace around.  Also, she generally uses her left arm to help make the criss cross and pull the laces tight.  She was just being a bit silly using her toes because she knows she can't tie both shoes that way.  Stubborn and silly.  That's Madeline!

Oh, and one more thing....she's reading!  She's still working through Webster's syllabary and using the Writing Road to Reading phonogram cards to learn all the multi letter phonograms.  But  we've now added the McGuffey Primer and the Abeka K readers to the line up. She's something else, I tell ya!

Well, the reasons I have been MIA from bloggy land lately are many.  We are in the process of updating our home study for Havi, which has required me to collect a long list of documents (like practically all of the documents we needed for the original homestudy, with some of them needing to be updated.)  We finally sent that off to our agency this week and hope to get this update completed before our LOA arrives.  Our hope is to submit our Supplement 3 along with our I-800.  And we're hoping and praying that our Supplement 3 will be ready and waiting for our LOA to arrive and NOT the other way around.  I'm dreading the idea that this update might delay this part of the process for us, and that might mean bringing Havi home in July rather than June.  I soooo want to go in June.  *sigh*

And speaking of the little peanut, I have been busy sewing for her.  Prior to bringing Madeline home from China, I had the privilege of my niece Leah trying on new garments because she was/is just 5 months older than Madeline.  Well, my nephew Josh is also 5 months older than Havi, and I've already hit him up with a cute little romper.  My sister and brother-in-law are being such good sports and helping this mama out. lol. But unlike with Leah, I will NOT be photographing Josh wearing Havi's clothes!  I will, however, have to take some photos of the garments so I can share them here on the blog.

We are also preparing for a few special visitors who will be heading down here next week from Connecticut to help Madeline with an early birthday celebration.  We're looking forward to seeing Aunt Shell and Lydia!!!!  And we apologize in advance that the weather won't be bringing its A game.  But hopefully it will still be warmer than the winter you've had to endure this season.

I also haven't had much time lately to take any photos with my big girl camera.  So I just might have to whip up an iPhone photo bomb or post some older recents shots I've stumbled across.  I'll see what I can get around to...if I can pry my fingers away from my sewing machine.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Costumes and candy

This week the dumplings had a couple of opportunities to dress up and indulge in some candy eating.  Madeline's dance class had the chance to dress up during class this week.  I'm so glad they let us back there to snap a group photo.  Although she's partially hidden by sweet little pirate in front, you can see that she is a...drumroll please... Flamenco dancer.

I used McCalls 6418 to make the dress.

It really came together easily, although I didn't care for the zipper instructions.  So I just inserted it the way I wanted to.  It has three gathered layers for a lot of twirl power.  Gosh, I do love to sew for her.

Okay, back to the festivities...both kids had the opportunity to fill their bags with candy at our church's trunk or treat.  Caleb wanted to be an astronaut this year.  He loves to study science, so I'm not at all surprised by his costume choice.

Since it takes a long time to make your way through the line of trunks, we brought the stroller along.  Madeline was so funny getting her dress pulled up so she could sit comfortably. She's wearing six yards of fabric!

Madeline graciously let her brother rest in the stroller at times.  He's not a big gum chewer, but he thought he might chew some while he was waiting to move on to the next car.

Lollilops, of course, are never far from Madeline's mouth.  

Another favorite around these parts are Starbursts.  So we had some pretty happy kids.

And then after all the trunk or treating was over, the kids hit the bounce houses.  We actually packed a change of clothes for Madeline in case she couldn't bounce in her dress, but she did a fabulous job holding it up.  No wardrobe change was necessary.

Then it was time to head home.

And dig through each others bags at least one more time, looking for pieces to trade.

And there she goes again with another lollipop and her "I'm gonna look at my brother and pose" pose.

On Halloween night, we headed over to our friends' neighborhood to trick or treat with them.  This is how they passed out candy.

And here's our little candy eating crew.  The three big kids headed one way and the four little ones another.

The kids had a great time going door to door.  While a lot of people sat on their front porches passing candy out, some of them stayed inside and waited for little ones to ring the bell or knock. Well, Miss Madeline was so very eager to ring that bell.  She was too funny.

For more fun photos, stop by Lisa's blog.
Have a great weekend!!!

Way to go, Team Gina!!!

Last week, 80 plus members of  Team Gina came out to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to celebrate Gina and the amazing woman she was.  The race began at 8:00, but we all met up at 7:00am because it can take a while to gather that many people together.  Thankfully, the sun chose to show itself at sunrise because it was a chilly start to the morning!  Okay, maybe the mid 50s isn't chilly for most, but it sure is in our neck of the woods.  It was the coldest morning to date this fall.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take any shots while I was walking because I had to push Madeline in the stroller.  Last year, my sister and Andy took turns pushing both Madeline and Leah in their strollers.  However, Andy carried Josh in his arms because he's bigger now (and they only have one stroller.)  So that left me pushing Madeline the entire walk.

And unfortunately, this was the best Team Gina shot I could get.  I didn't have time to move all the extra strollers out of the shot before the group decided the previous photographer's shot was enough. So everyone started dispersing.

Will and the kids had special shirts made.  Will's said "My wife", and the kid's shirts naturally said "My mommy."

I'm not gonna lie.  It hurt to do that walk without Gina.  My heart was heavy, and no doubt, I was not the only one.  This entire month has been difficult.  She is missed by so many people.  Will and the kids are doing as well as they can.  They are all in counseling, and they now have a nanny living with them, who has been a tremendous help.

We all hung around for a little bit, enjoying the breakfast foods provided, including cupcakes as the evidence below demonstrates.

And this is what happens to your tutu when you sit in your stroller for the entire walk.

Here's a closeup of the back of Lexi's shirt.

Not only did my sister Deb make the girls tutus for the walk, but she also made some for the both of us.

Like last year, I also took a photo of the POPS girls.  Debbie (middle) and Donna (right) also worked with Gina and my sister at the same pediatric outpatient surgery clinic.  It breaks my heart that Gina is not in this photo.

Most of the team headed home after the race, but the POPS peeps headed into Brighthouse Stadium to see all the fun freebies folks were giving away...stickers, pens, paper, cups, scarves, etc.

Then I figured it was about high time I embraced the camera.  That's me on the right with my twin sis on the left.

I love this shot of Madeline with a pen and pad in her hand, sporting her bunched up tutu and the "leggings" I made her. This girl loves to write. So very Madeline, indeed.  And yep, you read that right.  My sister made the girls' tutus, and I made leggings to go underneath.  Since these "leggings" were my first attempt at sewing with knits, I went with an easy interlock, which you're not supposed to use for pants.  And I already knew that, but I wanted "easy".  So I did it anyway.  Well, they don't have as much stretch as leggings typically do.  So they're more like "skinny" knit pants.  But hey, I'm pretty proud of myself for figuring out how to add those cute ruffles on the bottom.  I had to whip out my walking foot for these pants, especially the ruffles.  Knits are not like wovens at all. They are very different.  But I'm eager and willing to learn.  Anyway, I can't wait to make more knit garments because knits are just so comfy to wear.

Well, our little crew finally decided to pack it up and head back to Deb and Andy's place.  The kids played together for a little bit before we headed back home.

It was great to see my sister, Andy, and Leah.  And it was great to see a lot of Team Gina members come out and show their love and support for Gina, her family, and breast cancer research.  I sure do hope a cure can be found soon.  So many ladies are being diagnosed these days and earlier too.  Cancer is a truly horrible disease.  And despite all the ups and downs during Gina's journey, she was like a bright shining star, always full of encouragement.  And it is the goal of her foundation, the Gina McReynolds Foundation, to provide encouragement to other families who also find themselves battling this awful disease.

We love you Gina, Will and family.  We hold you close to our hearts and will continue to lift you up in prayer.