Elena's Dance Recital

(A few more catch-up posts to go, then we'll be up to date!)

Elena had her dance recital on May 30th and 31st. Her ballet was "A Spoonful of Sugar" from Mary Poppins, and her tap was "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story. I thought the pink ballet outfit was SO sweet, but the fun tap outfit was her favorite.

She was so excited that our friend Lya and her daughter Haylee were able to come and watch Elena dance! It made her feel extra-special. Recital is usually stressful for a lot of moms, but it seems to be getting better each year for me. This one didn't seem particularly stressful at all. I hadn't expected to be here for it - I thought for certain we'd be in Africa by now with Akos!

That's all for now...pictures of our Ghana adventure to be posted soon, I promise! :)

Jeanie

A Double Birthday Party

May 24-25
Since we assume that Lydia and I will be in Ghana by the time of her birthday on June 17th, we decided to go ahead and have her party early. We also made it double as my VERY belated 40th birthday party – almost two months late. One funny gift was a faux-hair clip-on ponytail. It was a bit too light in color for her, so we gave it to Elena and got Lydia another shade darker (they aren’t returnable.)

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She also got Speed Stackers, and has been practicing them for hours on end. For those of you not familiar with Speed Stacking, it is now considered (by some) to be an actual sport, with tournaments and everything. It involves stacking and collapsing structures of plastic cups, in a very specific pattern, and as quickly as possible. It is supposed to be excellent for fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination. It sounds boring, doesn’t it? Well, you just have to see it in action to appreciate it. Click HERE to see an amazing video clip!

Lydia also got a new (used, actually, but new to her), iPod. She already had one, so why did she need a new one??? Well, her goofball mother took it away one day in January or February due to failure to turn it off when instructed to do so, put it in a “safe place,” and then forgot where the safe place was. I have pretty much turned the whole house upside down looking for it, to no avail. I really felt it would help her so much to pass the time on our transatlantic flight, and it didn’t seem fair that didn’t have it anymore, since her mommy was the one who lost it. Fortunately, you can get the previous models on eBay for VERY little. I wrapped it in a HUGE box, and pretended it was SOOOOO heavy, I could barely lift it. She was really surprised! ☺

Don and Elena made a cake for Lydia, and she made one for me. We had a lot of fun!

See you again next time...

Jeanie

Dance Recital Dress Rehearsal Day

(This is not a live post - previously recorded episode - LOL)

May 17

Today was the dress rehearsal for Elena's dance recital. Since Elena's hair is so short, I made a fake bun for her to wear in her recital. I bought a faux-hair scrunchie, pinned it into a nice little bun shape, and wrapped it in a hair net. Worked great, and was pretty fun, too!

After Elena's recital dress rehearsal, I came home to find Lydia mowing the lawn for the first time! She loved it and wants that to be her special job...Don, especially, thinks that's a GREAT idea! (I do, too - helps him get his work done and lets them spend quality time working in the yard together.)

Until next time...

Jeanie

Mother's Day Weekend

(Yet another belated post...still catching up...)

May 8-10

We got back from our trip to South Carolina on the Friday before Mother's Day. My wish for Mother's Day was to camp in the new RV with my family, so here we are on our first night, enjoying hot dogs roasted over the fire.

Kente and the dogs accompanied us for the camping trip - PJ gave Kente a tongue-bath (you can see the circle of slobbery marks on him!), then the three of them snuggled up for a nap.

Lost Valley has a great little restaurant called the Creekside Cafe. Sheila, the owner, makes pancakes as big as plates!

Kente like to sit on the back of the dinette bench to watch for the door to open. He also like to watch movies - he gets very interested if there's a lot of action on the screen!

May 12

The playsilks we bought the girls for Christmas were a big hit. Today, they used the silks to create numerous different fashions - and gave us a fashion show. I love having these open-ended toys - they are so good for stimulating the imagination!

And finally, just some more cute critters-snuggling-together pictures!

See you soon...

Jeanie

Birthday/Camping Weekend

(This is a catch-up post, written long after the fact...)

We decided that if we’re going to consider getting an RV for our camping, we’d better try it out first. So, we rented one for the weekend! We also invited the girls’ friend Autumn to spend the night with us, and her mom (our friend!) Kelly to join us for a cookout. We had something else up our sleeves, too…

April 27^th was Elena’s 6^th birthday, so we planned a surprise birthday party on the camping trip! Don had decided Elena should have a new bike, as hers was a bit too small for her, so her hid it in his van and drove separately. He also got her a special cupcake-shaped birthday cake, made by our friend Paula at Chocol’Art in Washington. Yum! She makes the BEST desserts, and Elena has admired those cupcake-cakes for at least a year now!

Elena seemed fairly surprised, although I think she knew we were up to something.

Kelly pinned the “Birthday Girl” ribbon onto Elena’s shirt – what a happy girl!

Elena’s only request for her birthday was a toy phone. Same request as for Christmas – and she got one! Hmmmm... Well, she very sweetly and delicately explained to me that the phone she got for Christmas wasn’t the one she had really wanted. I felt so bad for her – that was the only thing she had asked for, and she never told us that we had messed it up – I was proud that she didn’t complain about it, but I would have corrected it back then if I had known! Anyway, what she really wanted was a pink princess phone with the old-fashioned receiver that sits on a high cradle. I found it, and boy, was she happy!

Don called Elena outside on false pretenses, and surprised her with the bike – she did a funny “happy dance.”

A special moment with her sister Lydia.

Cake time! This is our very sweet little friend, Autumn.

The next morning, Kente took a nice, deep nap on my shoulder – he was in such a funny position, but seemed quite content. Autumn joined us for a little while.

The girls had a great time swimming later in the day.

More next time…

Jeanie

I have a travel companion! :)

Well, with the help of the wonderful online friends I've made, as well as the advice of our adoption agency's director, we have finally come to a decision about our travel plans to Ghana. Since he confirmed that it is not really necessary for Don to go, he is going to stay behind, and instead plan to take some extra time to spend with our new daughter once she gets home. Elena will stay with him, but hopefully with some visits to grandparents as well. She's just not really sure she would want to go.  Hopefully, we'll all go to Africa together someday in the not-too-distant future - maybe to Kenya or Tanzania for a safari adventure!

But, Lydia, our (very emotionally mature) 8-year old, is going to accompany me to Ghana.  I think this will be a great choice for all of us. Lydia will learn a lot (and yes, it will count as social studies and geography lessons for her schoolwork), she describes herself as "not a fancy girl," and is prepared for roughing it quite a bit, and she has a great desire to help others in need.  It will be an experience of a lifetime for her to be able to bring books, paper, crayons and other things to the orphanages in person. She is so socially conscious at her tender age - she's like a little Peace Corps volunteer in the making!

I will benefit from having the extra company along with me - plus, she will be great at keeping our new daughter occupied when I'm doing the boring paperwork and all, and helping learn to just be a kid!  We'll apply for her passport tomorrow, and schedule her for her travel vaccinations. She's very happy to be going, but prepared for the reality of it (to the extent I'm able to prepare her) - we've talked a lot about the not-so-pleasant things that will be part of the trip, pictures from online and all.  She's up for it, and I'm glad...and proud of her! We're in for such an adventure!

I have to say I am SO grateful for the wonderful people in the Ghana adoption groups I've participated in. The advice from those who've already been there is going to make it so much easier for us to plan our journey.

And, through one of their blogs, I learned about the Ghanaian delicacy of bushmeat.  Look it up if you want to know what it really is...if you dare...   I'm starting a poll (see the top of the blog) to find out if any of you have ever actually eaten bushmeat! LOL

-Jeanie