I think I need to come back to this......

Looks like I need to do some housekeeping here and refamiliarize myself with Blogger. But this is my family now. All ten feet of us. We're helping other feet on a short-term, emergency basis but don't plan on adding any more feet to our family.

Finally???

Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully we finally have a breakthrough with Sierra sleeping. We've always considered it a good night if she'd sleep til 5 and then cuddle awhile. And a good nap is an hour, then cuddles. This week she was in her bed by herself til 6 every day. And naps are improving too--right now she's been asleep 2 hours but today has to be a fluke! More predictable sleep will make things easier on momma. At least til the next developmental change! 

Tomorrow

I should have time to sit down with my laptop and do some blog-keeping. I hope. But there's some I'd really like to write about that I can't publish because the littlest love isn't ours. Sigh. 

My loves

Oh dear

I just looked at my profile and blogs I follow. Really need to do some updating there. Need to log in on my laptop to do some housekeeping here. I'll try to do that this weekend.

Hello?

Anyone there? I'm still here. Blogging has obviously been hard this year. Not a lot of time to just sit and type. Plus, baby L is still with us and is such a part of our family now but not officially so so I can't blog about her. Still I hate that I haven't had really any record of this year other than pics. Isla started kindergarten and Taekwando. Sierra has this huge personality that is so different than her sister. And watching them both with baby L and everything she's been through and how that personality is developing. It's all pretty amazing. I do want to start blogging again. For tonight, pics will have to do but I'll be back in a few days to talk about my oh-so-verbally-gifted girls.

My loves.

Hmmmm

I have written in the past few months but for some reason they never posted. They're stuck in cyberspace looping and on my phone. I'll try to do better. This was from April and never posted.

Busy, busy, busy

This baby girl is so busy. Constantly. Things her big sister never did--go exploring in rooms without us, try to climb stairs, investigate the toilet... She seems to know what 'no' means but doesn't respond as desired. She still loves anything with a cord, all things paper, her sister. Momma is her preferred person most of the time but she gets so excited to see Daddy and any of her grandparents. She also loves the lady who does childcare at our gym. A few weeks ago her separation anxiety got drastically better--so glad she doesn't scream when PopPop holds her anymore! Of course, she doesn't sit still long enough for anyone to hold her long. Still only 2 teeth. She's started letting go while standing and cruises well. I'm surprised she's not walking yet but you do have to be still in order to work on balance. 

Here are some pics:

Goldilocks and the 5 Bears

Isla wanted to tell me a story a few nights ago. She takes creative license with the classics to make them her own. This night it was Goldilocks and the 5 Bears. There was Poppa Bear, Momma Bear, Baby Bear, Puppy Bear, and an extra little Baby Bear who was staying with the Bear Family for awhile cause it's momma and daddy couldn't take care of it right now.

Anxiously awaiting more feet

When Isla was born I was overwhelmed by feelings when I'd look at her--pretty much every feeling imaginable. One of the things that always struck me was the awareness of how vulnerable she was and how there are people that could hurt someone so innocent.

Fast forward to our adoption journey. We dismissed the idea of trying to adopt through the foster system--too many unknowns and too much heartbreak.  Perhaps we could provide respite care for families we know that foster.

Then Sierra was born. Those feelings I had when Isla was born were back. And this time I knew how many foster families there are in our area and how many kids in care. And this time I realized it's not okay that there are kids in our community that don't have a safe place to stay. But we had reasons for not fostering--we just had a baby, another car seat won't fit in our car.... But we were going to adopt last year right before Sierra was due. One day I realized that my excuses were all convenience issues. And our convenience is not more important than a child having a safe place to stay.

So we talked. We prayed. We completed the foster parent classes. Now we wait for paperwork to be finished and wait for two more feet. 

Slacking...

Wow! I haven't posted in a long time! I haven't even had a chance to read the blogs I follow and I just discovered my blogger app was missing from my phone--someone deleted a couple apps recently when she was rearranging the icons on my phone. I'll try and sit down and write a post soon if someone will start napping for more than 30 minutes a pop.  For now, here are some pics!

Gggrrr--twice now I've tried to publish this and I go back and it's still a draft! Here's hoping third time is the charm!

A Day In My Life....Or What I Tried To Eat Yesterday

A photo-ocumentary by Sierra

Hi....I'm Sierra. WHOA--close-up on that selfie. Looking a little blurry. Oh well, Momma turned over the blog to me today and let me pick my topic. So here we go....these are the things I tried to eat yesterday.

A chair cushion and the leg of my play mobile. 

Toys. BORING!

Momma's toe. WHOA--she needs a pedi STAT! She never lets me get a good taste of that. Maybe she would after a nice pedi.

Speckles's tail. Blech. I don't get the whole "hair of the dog" thing.

The leg of Sissy's easel. 

That's momma's thumb. Actually, any part of her hand I can get in my mouth is good. She doesn't let me do that anymore since I have these two hard things in my mouth.

I also gave Momma a big, wet, sloppy kiss yesterday. She went for the cheek and I turned. HAHAHA! I love my Momma. I was playing in the floor yesterday, crawled over to her, let us a fuss for her to pick me up (she's getting trained pretty good about that), put my head on her shoulder and went right to sleep.

But back to the things I like to put in my mouth. Momma and Daddy BOTH get all worked up when I try to put those long things in my mouth....what do they call them? Cords? I like cords. They try to hide them and put things in front of them, but I can find them. I took the one out of Momma's computer and put it in my mouth the other day--she got really excited about that. They moved my bed out from the wall cause I was trying to get the one to that camera thing they spy on me with. Gotta keep them on their toes.

Well, time to get take a nap. Later peeps!
Sierra

Sweet baby...

I hate when I realize that things I've written never publish on here. This is from a couple weeks ago. Isla has her glasses now and Sierra is finally starting to sleep better.....

Sierra isn't sleeping through the night yet but she's the easiest baby to put to bed. When she's tired and fussy, she usually wants to be put in her bed.  Occasionally she'll want to cuddle. When she's ready to sleep, she flips on her belly, pulls her arms in at her sides and pulls her knees in, pushing her butt up in the air.

My sweet big girl has to get glasses. She failed her 3 year old screen but was just "borderline" for needing glasses last year so the doctor recommended waiting and seeing. This year the doctor said glasses.  Hopefully she'll outgrow it (she's farsighted). Right now she's excited. Here are the glasses she picked out. She said she wanted pink sparkly glasses but fell in love with these--pink, no sparkles. I think I'm going to have a friend of mine add some bling for her!

Another pair she tried on...

And some of this year's "vintage" pictures from school.

A true princess...

We took Isla to a princess festival in Logan, UT yesterday. There were lots of princesses running around, doing skits, teaching lessons about cleaning up after yourself, finishing what you start, etc.

Today we were at a park playing and Isla was very patiently waiting her turn for the tire swing and I told her we were going to have to leave soon. 

"But I haven't had a turn."

" I know but sometimes people are kinda rude and take a real long time with things and don't share. What can we do?"

She kept playing in her swing a few minutes.

"Momma, can we ask them for a turn?"

"YOU can ask them if they'll let you have a turn."

She got off her swing and went to the tire swing with two bigger girls. I could barely hear her so I told her she had to step closer and speak up.

"You've been on here a long time and I'd like to have a turn too. Can I have a turn?"

"Don't forget to say please."

"Please?"

The two older sisters said sure and got off the swing and headed to their mom and grandpa. I heard their mother thank them for sharing as Isla called out "thank you."

Isla started to swing and then stopped and said "A true princess is always thinking of new ideas."

After playing a few minutes, she commented about it being fun to play alone sometimes and fun to play with others sometimes. A little girl about her size had been playing on the swing next to us and now she was walking around. I asked Isla if she saw anyone who might like to play too and what she should do.

"Invite her to join me!"

She asked the other little girl to join us and I pushed them both on the tire swing for several minutes, listening to an interesting conversation about Disney World (both had been), Cinderella (she had a Cinderella doll but lost one of the glass slippers--the girls didn't see the irony I did), swimming suits, vacations, and other 4 year old topics.  They were fast friends until Isla suddenly realized she'd spun too much and was about to get sick. We thanked our new friend and I carried Isla out of the park. The girl's mom headed her way and thanked Isla for playing and me for pushing them. A very fun park visit!

My babes...