Resemblance?

So...what do you think?

Personally, Kim R., her mom, and I think the resemblance between the...1909, I think...Coca-Cola lady and my mother is uncanny.

Problem is...Mom would be a Dr. Pepper girl, not Coke.

I have finished the top of Reese's OHGWQ! And 20(+) questions.

I have finished piecing the top of Reese's 100 Good Wishes Quilt. YAY! Now, I just have to buy batting and backing and get around to actually quilting it. It is about 55" by 78".

I am collecting squares for my nephew, Jonathan's, 100 Good Wishes Quilt now. I have 45 so far, 6 without wishes connected to them (a nice lady sent me some spare gender neutral fabric she had- thanks!).

I am so proud of this quilt top. It's not perfect, not by far, but it's made with love, and that's the important thing...and the whole point of OHGWQ.

Also, I have decided that I would like to do a 20(+) questions post/series. I'm sure somebody here has questions. So, please, ask away. If it is not too personal, I'll do my best to answer it. I love comments, and I don't mind answering people's questions, particularly about living with Reese's SNs and things like that, because the only way to raise awareness and understanding is to answer people's questions. I feel that way not only about Reese's special needs, but about adoption, in general. People have a tendency to be afraid of or make inaccurate assumptions about things they don't understand. Like, until recently, I was scared to ever do domestic adoptions (not that we're thinking of any) because I, and my family, have always been worried about the birth mother coming back, wanting her kid, and the court ruling in her favor. A friend of our's who works for Dillon International as a social worker and has a little girl from Vietnam recently corrected me on that so-called "fact". It really doesn't happen that often, but the only domestic adoption stories you ever hear about are the horror stories, where the family loses a child they've raised its entire life to the birth parents due to court law. Until she told me that, I was propagating a myth that may or may not have stopped some families from adopting these children that so very need homes. So I have an all new understanding in the fact that questions NEED to be asked. So ask away everyone in internet-land. I will do my darndest to answer them. I think this could be really fun and informative, but I can't do it without audience participation.

Thanks!
~Monica (and Reese)

Happy Easter!

Mom and Baby Caroline

Looking for easter eggs...

Meaghan's puppy, Roxy

"Are there any over here, Roxy?"

"Over here?"

Chasing after Roxy

"Look! I found one!"

Meaghan and Roxy helping Reese find eggs.

"I'm free!"

"Jump!"

Landing.

Hop, hop!

Mom, Reese, and Meaghan.

Uncle Jeff and Reese.

Scott and Meaghan.

Passed out in the car afterwards with the hard-boiled eggs.

We went up to my Mom's grandparents' house for Easter, like we do every year. Obviously, this was Reese's first year to do so. We saw Papa Jim, Granny Barb, Granny Edith, Papa T., Granny T., Uncle Jeff, Aunt Mandy, Baby Caroline, Scott, Meaghan, and Meaghan's dog, Roxy, Lacey, and Grandma Debbie. Roxy has gotten much bigger since we last saw her in February.
Scott and Meaghan hid the eggs (some plastic, some I dyed last night) and helped Reese find them. She's not so great at finding eggs, but she hasn't done it much, so it's okay. Maybe she'll be better next year. Reese had lots of fun finding eggs, teasing family members, hanging out with Scott and Meaghan, whom she loves, chasing and being chased by Roxy, and hopping off the porch. She also liked seeing Baby Caroline for the first time.
She also had her first visit by the "Easter Bunny" this morning, before we left for the great-grandparents'. She got a Disney Princess dress up basket, which for some reason was missing one slipper and the earrings broke about 10 minutes after she opened it. She also got a blue plush duck from the Bunny, while I got a purple one. Yes, you still get visited by the "Easter Bunny" when you're 17, at least if you live at home and have a 3 year old who would ask why the Easter Bunny didn't bring you any thing.

Easter Portraits

Our sister, Michelle, gave us this dress for Reese when we got home from China. It is a 3T, and we were guessing she'd be able to wear it in the spring. Well, the spring is now, and she sure can. We decided to take Easter portraits today, so we wouldn't be rushed tomorrow. It's rained tons here lately, so we laid down 2 blankets to take the pictures on. The quilt used as a backdrop/ground cover we believe was made by our Granny Edith (our nearly 90 year old great-grandmother), and, impressively, it brought out the colors in her dress quite excellently. She's been wanting to wear that dress since she first saw it. And, yes, I took the pictures. :) I think they turned out wonderfully.

Meet Ben

First meeting.

Ben

Playing, somewhat together, in Shae's room. (Reese's sort of cranky face is due to her not having warmed up to the whole thing yet.)

Ben playing with Rachael

Meet Reese's fiance', Ben. ;) They met for the first time today. Paula and her family had something of an "open house" to meet Ben, because their welcome home at the airport was thwarted by airplane malfunctions. It's funny when you wait for a child, until you meet them, even seeing them in pictures with people you know, they don't seem quite real. I felt like yelling, "He's real! He's real!". Yeah, yeah... He's so adorable. Reese didn't really warm up to the whole situation (there were lots of people she didn't know) until we were about to leave, so I don't really know how they feel about each other. Paula and I are thinking of having a calmer, more one-on-one play date with each other for them. I think it'll be good for them to grow up with another kid with a birthmark around.

He's so cute, I can't wait to see him again. He vaguely reminds me of Reese before she lost her "baby face". It's also strange, I never thought Reese would be head and shoulders taller than him, even though she's a year older than him. He'll catch up before long, I'd think, though.

Adopting William

This family is adopting a little boy from Liberia. They also have an older daughter adopted not long ago from Liberia. This little boy has some serious special needs, and this family felt moved to adopt him. Now, they need everyone's help to bring him home. They are currently trying to raise some $15,000 for this adoption, and when they get home, they get to go through multiple surgeries with this little boy that they are naming William. He has a severe cleft lip/cleft palate. The cleft lip was recently repaired to some extent. The cleft goes up basically into his left eye, and he needs surgery as soon as possible to preserve vision in that eye. He is also missing his left leg. Hospitals in Liberia are not very sanitary, and malaria runs rampant. The sooner this boy gets home, the better chance he has of having a more normal life and getting the help he needs in a sanitary environment.

Please pray for this family that the funds come through, and that their little boy is kept safe and healthy.

Preliminary Egg Hunting

"Look! A yellow egg!"

"Put it in Backpack!"

"Another one!"

"Look! Lots more!"

"See me and Mommy with all my eggs!"

Seeing as I don't believe China is real big in the Easter Bunny/Easter Egg business, we opted to believe Reese would have no clue.

We were right.

Reese is having an Easter party at school tomorrow which involves finding eggs. Reese has never done this before, and the whole concept of stuffing eggs with candy and finding them is still a bit beyond her, I think. Or maybe this is a 3 year old thing? She gets the candy, she sort of gets the eggs (they're pretty and come apart, why not play with them?), the finding thing, I think still needs a bit of work. She doesn't seem to fully get why we're hiding them and then finding them, seeing as it's Mom whose hiding them, and therefore knows where they are, why do the rest of us have to look for them? Yeah, it's fun, that's obvious. Reese likes looking for the eggs. Problem is: I think the child is color-blind. If she didn't identify things by color all the time, I'd really think it. Mom never made finding them very hard, and they're bright, nearly-neon colored eggs. I'm trying to figure out why it seemed nearly like rocket science to locate them. Maybe it's my 17 year old, see the eggs, grab them, and relish in the mass amounts of candy you found, forget the eggs, mind pertaining to large, some 16,000 eggs hunts. *shrug* I vaguely remember egg hunting being the niftiest thing ever, even hard. Now...well, since the hunting isn't hard, I opt to make the dying of the real eggs as complex as possible. I blow my eggs out so I can keep them after Easter. Makes me feel like I didn't waste 3 hours of blowing and decorating, I suppose.

And as I ramble off subject, I must mention that while digging the candy out of my plastic eggs at hunts, I have always been anal about looking at the candy in the eggs and then somehow cramming the candy back in. I would not have candy floating lad-de-da around my basket. Yeah, how OCD can you go?

Anyway, I think Reese will enjoy it as the idea sinks in. And with our "practice rounds" today, I think that's getting closer. Hey, at least we're not throwing her up the river without a paddle to figure this weird-o "egg hunting" thing. Where the heck did eggs and bunnies get connected anyway, out of my own morbid curiosity?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Watching the show.

Snuggled with Mommy

Shirt says "Kiss Me, I'm Irish".

Two young O'Donovan School Girls

I can't remember the first girl's name...eek..; Susan, Michael, and Whitney.

Our section of the parade, I'm the one at the far right waving.

Me waving.

Before our performance.

Dancing the light jig (I'm on the far right).

Doing our hornpipe, I'm the 3rd from the left.

These pictures are actually from Saturday. I participated with my Irish dance school, McCafferty School of Irish Dance, in the Little Rock/North Little Rock St. Patrick's Day Parade. We all marched in the parade and had a performance at an Irish pub afterwards. Reese and Dad walked in the parade with us, with Reese's stroller- which she has hardly been in since China- fully bedecked. It was fun. Reese had a good time, too. She loves Irish Dance, I think she can hardly wait until she's old enough to take it. At my school, you have to be 5, at least that's what Mrs. Judy is saying right now. Reese is getting pretty good at it, I think. And she loves my dance instructor, Mrs. Judy.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!