Jazzie and Tahlia

Gymnastics

Here are my two sweeties ready to go to gymnastics yesterday. Tahlia has been in gymnastics since she was two and is doing really well with it, but Jazzie has really surprised me this summer. I signed her up for this class called gym jam. It focuses more on stretching, coordination and strength training. I wasn't sure if she was going to like the class, since it is very different from Tahlia's class (which Jazzie took last year and loved). However, she is too old to take the same kind of class that Tahlia is taking this year, so my only option was the gym jam class. It has turned out to be the best thing for Jazzie. Not only does she love it, she has made a lot of progress and it has been good for her. Jazzie is very thin (always has been) and not very strong. However, since starting gym jam she has gotten stronger and a lot more flexible. She knows it too, because she is always "flexing" her muscles and asking us to feel how big they are ;-)

Watch out people, we are here to pump you up!

 

 

Even when I wanted to take a regular picture of Matt and the girls, Jazzie couldn't stop admiring her muscles!

Rainy day

What do you do on a rainy 4th of July weekend? You get out the pogo stick and you practice until you master it ;-)

 

 

 

 

Of course Matt had to show the kids how it is done:

 

 

 

 

Uno

 

Jazzie's speech

I often get asked how Jazzie's speech is with her cochlear implant. We think she sounds great. Jazzie has done amazingly well and we couldn't be happier with her progress. The greatest compliment people can give is when they tell us that they can't even tell that Jazzie is deaf. We agree, you can't. For those of you interested how Jazzie sounds, there is a clip of her talking here. 

Make sure you listen to the end where Jazzie's sense of humor comes through when she is talking about her aunts and uncles :-)

Weekend in review

We had a great fourth of July weekend and I hope you all did, too. The highlight of our weekend was when we had a couple of the families from Jazzie's travel group come to visit us. We live relatively close and we get together a couple of times a year. Once at Christmas and once around the Fourth of July. This time it was our turn to host and the girls had a great time together. They share a special bond for sure.

 

Not only are they cute, they are silly as well:

 

Fourth of July itself turned out to be a very rainy day, so we stayed in. Alex came over to hang out with us and I tried to take some family pictures. We did get one decent one of the four of us, but Jazzie was definitely more cooperative than Tahlia was :-)

 

 

 

 

Yesterday was a much nicer day and we went to a cook out at Matt's sister's house. The weekend flew by and here we are on another Monday. And I want to know if anyone out there has studied Matthewology? I have been studying it for over 18 years and I think I am getting close to mastering it ;-)

Family picture

We don't have nearly enough of them...

Happy 4th of July!

 

  

Four years ago...

...I first got to hold my Talley. As you may know, I wasn't in love with her referral pictures, and I really wasn't sure about how I was going to feel when I first saw her. When we first got to the Guangdong Register of Adoption, we saw a group of babies and children and our travel group (including myself) was convinced that those were our babies. I thought I recognized Tahlia and was struck by how big she was. This wasn't a baby, this was a toddler. A toddler who was walking already. This was not at all what I had imagined her to be like and I didn't feel like this was my child what-so-ever. The other parents in our group were so excited when we were waiting in that small room to receive our children, but I was so apprehensive. When they called our name, Matt had to literally push me forward. I remember walking up to the door, being so afraid that I was going to reject this child. Then the orphanage director brought in this adorable, little baby with the chubbiest cheeks and the prettiest smile. This was my Tahlia! It was not the little girl I had seen earlier; this was my daughter. I took her in my arms and cried happy, happy tears:

Yes, I was in love:

Tahlia, four years ago I became your mommy and I am so glad you came into our lives. Your smile lit up our world then and it still does today. Thank you for being such a happy and funny girl and for making our family complete. We love you so much!

In China:

Mommy is sorry

Mommy is sorry she yelled at you tonight.

Mommy is sorry she grabbed the marker out of your hand.

Mommy wishes she could do bedtime all over again.

Mommy loves you SO much.

<tears> Tomorrow is another day, I hope it will be better.

Sneaky chef popsicle

I love making popsicles for the girls, because I can put in them whatever I want. The other day I made some with blueberries, beets, banana's, orange juice, wheat germ and some tofu. The girls loved them. I know Tahlia looks unsure in these pictures, but she is upset because she could hear the ice cream truck and I told her she couldn't have any ice cream. That darn ice cream truck; it comes every day and the fact that the kids want ice cream each and every time it comes is driving me crazy! I am not buying ice cream every day. Besides, I could buy an entire box of popsicles or ice cream cones for the price the ice cream man charges for one. Again, I know Tahlia looks a bit upset, but it's about the ice cream truck, not the popsicle :-)

 

 

 

 

 

Daddy and his girl

 

Cooling off

 

Out of the blue...

... Jazzie mentions to me this morning that she wishes she had grown inside my belly. What? Where is this coming from?

I took her in my arms and told her that I sometimes wish she had as well, but that she grew in my heart instead and that I could not love her any more even if she had grown inside me. Then she asked me what her Chinese mommy and daddy look like. We have had similar conversations many times, but I thought this one was going to be different. Something about Jazzie's face told me that she was really thinking about some things. So I carry Jazzie to the couch, put her on my lap and get ready for what I think is going to be a deep conversation. I once again tell Jazzie that if she has any questions, she should never hesitate to ask them and that I will answer them the best I can. Jazzie thinks about it for a moment, then says: "I have no questions, because you are my mom and daddy is my daddy".

And that was it for the deep conversation I thought we were going to have. Even though Jazzie is obviously thinking about how she came to be with us, to her I'm her mom and Matt's her dad.

Sometimes it's just as simple as that.

Sunday

We had a nice and lazy Sunday today. Matt got up early to pick basil from our garden. Now you have to understand that when I pick basil, I simply break a stem from the plant and then take off the leaves that I need. Matt on the other hand is extremely patient and picks the basil leaf by leaf. At our old house we had a huge garden and one day Matt picked herbs for almost three hours. We have a much smaller garden now, but he still managed to be out there for about an hour and a half picking basil. He loves being in his garden. I guess it's therapeutic for him:

 

 

Basil, anyone?

Tahlia has been obsessed with the book "Curious George goes to the hospital". In the past week I have read it several times a day, every day. Needless to say, Matt and I are both a little tired of reading "Curious George goes to the hospital". However, Jazzie came to our rescue today and offered to read it to Tahlia. It was so sweet to see my big girl reading a book to my little girl :-)

 

 

 

And look what I found on clearance at Party City this afternoon for three bucks:

 

It was a big hit with Tahlia, but of course anything with Tinkerbell on it would be ;-)

Bullets

• Jazzie's glasses are lost. I have looked everywhere for them and they are nowhere to be found. She has an appointment with her eye doctor next month and I can't decide whether to replace the glasses now or wait until after her appointment just in case her prescription has changed.
• I am still catching up with laundry from our camping trip.
• Several people have asked me where we went camping. We went here, which is only about an hour and a half East of Cincinnati.
• It is hot here and it is making me grumpy.
• The girls asked me if they could clean the window sills. For the past 30 minutes they have not only cleaned the window sills, but cabinets, trim and furniture as well. If I had known before how much fun they would have with a few cleaning wipes, I would have had them clean every week! It smells lemony fresh in here :-)
• I am totally fed up with the girls whining and fighting. Now I know how my mom used to feel when my sister and I would go at it. All this fighting has not made for a lot of proud mommy moments today.
• I totally messed up my diet while on our trip, but I am back on track today. The good thing is that I managed to walk every day while we were camping, so that should have burned some of the extra calories I consumed :-)
• Jazzie and Tahlia's birthdays are coming up in July. At first I was going to have a party for them here at home, but after attending another party at our local Jump Zone, the girls begged me to have their party there. Since it will be a lot less work for me and there will be no clean-up involved, I agreed. I wonder how much longer I can get away with combining their birthdays together.
• Next weekend we are gettingtogether with a couple of families that we traveled to China with when we adopted Jazzie. We have remained in contact with eachother over the years and I am so excited to see them again.
• I've been coveting this one particular refrigerator for a long time and come Thursday, it will be in my kitchen. I'm excited :-)

 

We are back

We returned from our annual family trip and we had a great time. We played lots of games, swam a lot, ate way too many cookies and had good old family fun. The girls are exhausted after five days of running around, having fun and staying up way too late ;-)

Tahlia loved pushing her little cousins around in this little turtle: 

 

Jazzie and cousin Isaiah: 

These two girls have gotten so close over the years. They spent many hours playing games and doing crafts: 

 

A camping trip is not complete without s'mores:

 

 

 

 

The go carts were a HUGE hit:

 

 

Not just the little ones - but the big ones, too :-)

 

 

 

We went down to the lake every day to swim, make sand castles and go down the two big water slides: 

 

 

Tahlia and her best buddy, uncle Larry: 

 

 

 

 

All that swimming made for a very tired little girl:

Tahlia and her pappa: 

 

Our cabins - I like this way of camping MUCH better than the whole tent thing. We had air conditioning, a bathroom, a kitchen and a coffee pot. All the essentials :-)

 

The gang:

 

And now it is Friday night, almost 8 PM. The girls are in bed (I wanted to make sure they were in bed early tonight), I have my fourth load of laundry in the dryer and I am getting ready to open a bottle of wine, because I have a date with my DVR ;-)

Going camping

I will not be posting this week, because we will be on our annual family camping trip. I use the word camping very loosely since we will be in cabins with air conditioning, a kitchen and a bathroom, but that is the only way this city girl does camping :-)

Pictures to come this weekend.

Have a great week, everyone!

Father's Day and Family Reunion

Today was our annual Family Reunion. We had a great time, had some great food, caught up with family and played some fun games...

Matt and his 94 year old grandmother. She is a very feisty lady and when I grow up, I want to be just like her :-)

Four generations: 

 

Tahlia and cousin Jake:

 

The craft table:

An important message from my niece: 

 

 

Cera, John and their baby Kirk :-)

 

Poor Kirk had a hard time with that chicken bone staring him in the face ;-)

Sisters!

Jazzie and big bro, Alex: 

 

All American girl:

Water balloon toss: 

 

Cooling off with an ice cube: 

 

 

 

My sister-in-law with her oh-so demure cup:

Having fun with Alex' I-Phone: 

 

   

On the way home:

And finally, Matt with all his kids. Happy Father's Day, babe. I love you...

Just because...

...I love this picture of Tahlia and her best buddy J. This picture was taken at the preschool graduation and unfortunately the girls will be in different schools in the fall.

I am sad that these two won't see each other as often as they used to, but we will continue getting together when we can.

However, I cannot wait to see what friendships my little one will develop when she will be in Kindergarten this fall!!

Baking with my girl

Jazzie and I did some baking together this afternoon while Tahlia played outside with friends. Tahlia LOVES being outside and it is hard for me to even get her to come in to eat dinner. Jazzie on the other hand would much rather stay in and quietly play a game or do a craft by herself. Sometimes I feel bad that she spends so much time alone (even though she likes it that way), but she is always up for helping me in the kitchen.

 

 

We have a big family reunion coming up this weekend and a family camping trip next week, so we have been prepping for it :-)

 

We made a double batch of these WONDERFUL molasses cookies from Pioneer Woman. Like she says, they are seriously delicious!

I love being in the kitchen. And even though I am most happy when it is just me cooking or baking up a storm with all the time in the world, I also love it when I get to share it with one of my girls...

Visit

I had some wonderful visitors today. She got here first and we were able to have some great chit chat. After a while we picked up the girls from camp, had a nice picnic lunch and then took the girls to their swim lesson. It was great to have Stacy there andto have her see how proud Jazzie was of herself :-) The best part was to have an extra pair of hands afterwards to help me get the girls dressed. Stacy, can you come up here every Wednesday to help me out???

After returning home from swim class, she showed up with cute little Soph. It had been a while since I last saw these two and I had a great time chit chatting and watching Sophie and Jazzie cook up a storm and serve us tons of food :-)

Later in the afternoon, she showed up with her cute little Boo. Even with all the toys that were out, C seemed to prefer Lily's dog bed.

After some more chit chatting we had dinner. I think I was able to bring Mare back to her childhood with some yummy Indonesian food. Little C was also really digging it! Here is a picture of Jazzie and Sophie at dinner:

 

Can you believe I didn't take any other pictures? I was too busy chasing after kids, cooking and talking; lots of talking.

Stacy: thanks for coming all this way to visit. Each time we get together the day goes by too fast and I love that you were there for the girls' first swim class. Thanks for bringing the treats, too; they were yummy!

Mare and Soph: I loved that you were able to come and visit. I think Sophie had fun and I hope it was a nice change from the RMH. Thank you so much for the gifts for the girls, the Indonesian food packages and those terrific mommy cards. They are awesome and I love them! 

C & C: I know things are crazy for you guys right now, but it was great to see you again. And remember that I am here for anything you might need.

I love my new deck

We have lived in our current house for almost four years, and last week I finally got the deck I have been wanting for so long. We opted to do other home improvements first (like getting granite counter tops, finishing our basement and remodeling our bathroom).

Even though we still need to stain our deck, I have been enjoying sitting on it SO much. This morning the girls and I had our breakfast on the deck and it was like I have been envisioning it for so long. We just sat there listening to the birds, watching the hummingbirds drink from our feeders, looking at the all the greenery around us and just chit chatting. I loved it and I think the girls did, too.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to sitting on the deck for lots of chit chat with her, her and her. I know it is going to be a great visit :-)

 

Both girls insisted on 3 sugar donuts for breakfast. I know it's not the healthiest breakfast in the world, but hey, it's summer break! And each girl was only able to eat 1 1/2 donuts anyway...

 

 

Afternoon by the pool

The girls and I spent a few hours at our neighborhood pool this afternoon. Unlike the last time, Jazzie actually enjoyed herself. I figured out that right after lunch is a good time to go, because hardly anybody else is there.

Tahlia and our neighbor K. They are best buddies :-)

Jazzie decided that the temperature of the water in the big puddle was MUCH warmer than the pool, so she spent quite a bit of time just hanging out there: 

 

 

 

Cannon ball!!!!

 

 

 

It is SO much nicer to see my girl smile at the pool instead of scream :-)

 

Are you looking at me?

 

Note to self: Must explain to Jazzie the power of subtle make-up :-)

Can you see it?

 

Our deck is almost done! Can you see me sitting there this weekend with a nice glass of wine?

I can.

A pool drama

Yesterday afternoon the girls had an argument about whether we should go to the neighborhood pool or not. Tahlia wanted to go, Jazzie didn't. I know, what kid does NOT want to go to the pool, right? At one point Jazzie tells me: "Okay, I'll go to the pool if you play one game of Uno with me". Great, problem solved. We play the game and as soon as we were done, Jazzie tells me she changed her mind and does not want to go to the pool after all. I asked her if she lied to me when she said she would go to the pool just so that I would play a game with her. Her answer was yes...

When Jazzie was in first grade, she wrote this book called "Words of Wisdom". In it are sayings like "Treat others the way you want to be treated", "Learn to listen and listen to learn", etc. Also included in her book are "Always keep a promise", "Never tell a lie" and "Always keep your end of a deal you make". I explained to Jazzie that she not only lied to me, she also did not keep her promise, and she did not keep her end of the deal she made. I told her I was disappointed and that she had to go to the pool with Tahlia and myself because that was the promise she made after all.

So I made Jazzie change into her bathing suit, I slather sunscreen on her and we make our way to the pool. The entire time she is crying and telling me she does not want to go and that she is not going to go in the pool. When we get there, we find a seat and get all situated. Tahlia and I get in the pool and Jazzie is sitting on a chair with her arms crossed, still crying. Then she starts screaming that she hates the pool and that she wants to go home. I get out of the pool and tell her that she needs to stop screaming or she will be grounded. I get back into the pool and every time I look over at Jazzie, she is signing that she hates the pool. Smart little thing; at least she's not screaming :-)

At this point I am wondering if she does not like the pool because of her cochlear implants. It is true that Tahlia would MUCH rather go to the pool than Jazzie. And the last few times that we have been at the pool, I observed Jazzie watching her friends play in the water while she is off on her own. She cannot hear anything in the pool because her implants are off and I wonder if she is feeling isolated.

After a while Jazzie comes over and tells me she is getting hot. I asked her if she wants to come in the pool with me and she finally agrees. She gets in and just like that her mood is over. She is giggling, laughing and having fun. Remember that a mere 15 minutes earlier she told me "hates the pool", but now she is telling me that the "pool is so joyful". We ended up having a very fun time at the pool despite of all the drama that went on before.

Aaah, the drama. Don't you just love it?