Car Chat

Yesterday was a FULL day - in a good way. That morning before we left for church we had to once again 'show ready', we brought our dog, Max, to my parents house since we'd be gone all day...and you never know when someone will call to see the house. (This 'just in case' mode is starting to wear me out....and it's only been 3 weeks.) And of course, no one called to see the house.

After our fun day with our dearest friends, we picked up Max and from my parent's and desperately tried to keep Gianna from sleeping in the car since she had missed her nap and was whooped!  She asked to hold Max (which I usually don't do - for Max's sake) and I obliged. 

It was really comical.  I didn't get the funniest part of the ride on video, but I did manage to flim a little chat.

Mardi Gras 2011

Apparently, I forgot to post about Mardi Gras 2011.  No biggie.  We're not revelers of epic proportion by any means.  We just did the children's parade and that was about it.  Gianna was ripe for the pickin' this year. She was SO excited to be going, but she was a little  disapointed when she discovered that she was not actually marching IN the parade....but she soon got over it.

She caught a precious Mardi Gras Queen doll, and showed it to all the the parade folk, exclaiming....

She got the hang of the jargon fairly quickly...


* * * * * * *

I just came across these pictures of her first Mardi Gras parade when she was 8 or 9 months old.

My heavens - she was so adorable.

Oh how I miss that baby!

G's New Ride

So, last Christmas we considered getting Gianna one of those little battery operated four wheelers.  It was on sale and in our hands and we saw that it was for kids up to 35 pounds.  We figured she wouldn't get much use out of it since she was almost 30 pounds, so we scrapped the idea. (Who knew she's be at 29/30 lbs for over a year?)

Last week, she and I walked over to our neighbor's house they have a 7 and 2 year old boys with a YARDFUL of fun cars, trucks, four wheelers, etc.  Gianna was in a sweet little embroidered dress and her rainboots.  When she saw those little vehicles, she kicked off those boot and sloshed threw the mud as fast as little once-white socked feet could carry her.  She hopped on the four wheeler like it was horse and she was gone.....giggling as hard as she could.  She aimed for the biggest mud patches she could find and squealed with delight as I tried to redirect her. She had a BALL!

When Iain got home that night I told him that our four wheeler call last Christmas was a mistake.  It just so happened that the next day we saw a sale ($40 off) and thought it would probably be worth the investment.

We were right!!!!!

Here's a little taste of her big fun...

And a few other shots thrown in for good measure.

Happy Spring, Y'all!

A Page of Favorites

A Page of Favorites

You may have noticed that within the last year, Blogger has introduced the ability to add separated pages to one's blog.  I've seen some of you taking advantage of these pages too.  I use them mostly to organize things so I can find them more easily and have them all on one site - my family blog.

I already mentioned I keep my Jelly Book on a separate page, our Photo Books from Shutterfly, a bit of our adoption story, etc. I also added a page called G's Faves where I linked up little 2-5 minute videos of songs, music videos, movie clips, etc that Gianna loves to watch.  It's been a tremendous hit for her and help for me. If I'm trying to cook or clean or take a phone call, I can put a quick little video clip on to divert her - without having to put a 30 minute video on the tv. 

If you want to add pages to your blog, just go to your your dashboard
1. Go to the place where you customize settings (like beginning a new post.)  This will give you the tabs: Posting, Settings, Layout, Monetize
2. Click on Posting.  This will show 4 choices (as hyperlinks)  New Posts, Edit Pages, comment moderation. Click on  Edit Pages
3. You will see a blue button that says New Page.  Click on this to create your page.
4. Voila!  You have your page.
5.  Now you can go into Layout (big tabs) to figure out where you want to put the page.

An appropriate name, indeed!

An appropriate name, indeed!

from Living in Lewis Land by Maria

Sweet Hunter is 6 years old and I had the privilege of caring for him for most of his first three years of life while his parents worked.  He had prayed and prayed for Iain and I to have a baby and was shocked and hugely delighted when we received Maddie (4) and Collin (2) three years ago.  He had instant playmates and was so happy....until their stay with us abruptly ended.  Hunter was devastated and he was pretty mad at me after that. (He couldn't understand what was happening and surmised that we just 'gave them away.')  So sad.

He was equally excited when Gianna joined our family, but was a little put off that she couldn't play with him.  Every time I talked with him on the phone, he would ask,  "Hey ReRe, is Gianna a kid yet?"  He was always exasperated by my answer.

This past week Gianna and I spent some time with Hunter while his mom had an appointment. He could not have been more precious and sweet to Gianna and was very attentive to her.  He referred to himself as "Bubba" to her. 

"Don't be afraid, Gianna, Bubba will help you."

It was really just the most precious thing to witness - and Gianna was in HEAVEN (although I'm pretty sure she was confused by the whole Bubba thing.)

When I mentioned to Hunter how special I thought it was that he treated Gianna so wonderfully, he replied,  "Well, ReRe, that's cuz she's finally a KID!"

* * * * * * * *

Hunter is a lover of all things outdoors and since he was a baby loved catching any living amphibian or insect he would find outside.  Anytime there was an intruding lizard in my sun room, I'd send 3 year old Hunter to fetch it and free it for me. (He wasn't big on freeing anything he caught but we convinced him that the captives really needed to go find there mommas.)

When he knew Gianna and I were coming to stay with him the other day, he made sure to catch a few creatures for Gianna to entertain and teach her.  Even though I've managed to squelch my mini freak outs regarding lizards, frogs and the like - it is interesting to watch G's reactions to them.  She's very much interested in seeing them and even wants to touch them, but when she gets close - she freaks out just like me. 

He first caught these poor caterpillars to show us.

They didn't move much and he was certain they were sleeping.

I was certain rigamortis was in full swing!

Gianna got a kick out of the capture cage.  She liked the idea of being close, but not too close.

And finally, Hunter had the idea of  bringing G to go hunt for turtles.  She squealed with delight and he quickly fetched 2 nets and headed up the street to a destination to which we never arrived.

I was so glad I had my phone on me to take this picture.

What a lovely memory.

Hunter...

....an appropriate name, indeed!