Bad Mommy Move!

Ok, so I was WRONG, I am not ashamed to admit it.  Even Papa told me not to mess with Mina's cute hair, but I couldn't resist.I cut the bangs, and now we have to wait twice as long for them to grow out,  and she has a new nickname "M squared" which stands for Mullet Mina... Can you tell, she is ticked, well at least she doesn't look so happy about it in this photo, can you blame the poor kid..I was having to put her hair back every day before but at least we had some options.. now we have one: a fountain head style ponytail right up front. This week is our last all out week of swim team so things will slow down a bit around here, Mina is going to miss the goggles and swim cap though, I have a feeling she has a future in swimming. I mean seriously who likes to wear goggles around like that.  She also like to go for bike rides, just like the others..... what a workout, riding these kids around on the bike. Too bad we can only take one at a time. Not like I could pedal up and down the hills with all 3 of them. Am I the only Mama in the world that still uses these bike seats? We look like a bunch of nerds, but we have fun so who cares, right???  

Father's Day weekend

We had a nice relaxing Father's day weekend.  We spent time hangin' by the pool which is always more fun when Papa is there.  Mina has this little inner tube shirt that is a "life-saver" for my summer sanity.  Girl is fearless!!! This thing is the best.  She can float/ swim all over the place, and I am not rescuing her every five minutes since she is thouroughly convinced that she can swim all by herself.  We are having a fun summer so far and looking forward to having some quality family time when we go on vacation next month.   After dinner we made homemade strawberry ice cream for Papa, which is his favorite. The kids all LOVE to help & Mina just joins right in.  She is a little worker bee, always busy and trying to get things done.  She has about 20 words now, and uses them when she should.  It is really cute.  Her word list is growing daily, but for now includes, Hi, Mama, Papa, Hot, All done, Night-Night and several others.   The last photo is a close up of Mina, Moms of little girls will get this,,,, so I am at a cross-roads with her Hair-do..Bangs or no bangs,,, if I decide bangs, then she is ready for a trim. If no bangs, then I have to keep it back all the time...  I am leaning toward trimming up some bangs, which is strange since neither KC nor I have never had them, but we also don't have good hair for bangs... anyhow, probably more than you needed to know on this subject...

JC T-ball

Our great friends from FL came to town last week, we had a lot of fun.  It was so nice to see them and have them stay with us.  The kids had a blast as well.  The girls have been friends since they were just a few months old, it is so neat to see them get back together and not miss a beat. We miss them very much.  True friends are such a blessing.  

J.C. had T-ball and it was my turn to go to watch him, and Papa's turn to watch K.C.'s swim meet. So here are some photo's of his practice.  It is quite comical to watch these little ones try to figure out all the little rules and tricks of the game.  The coaches have patience that I have never known. Sure is cute though, and he really likes it!

Swim Team

So summer is full swing here at our house!  Which means we are BUSY! KC joined the swim team and she is digging it!  I think she may have her sport.  Any sport that the "meet" consist of 4 hours of sitting and playing Poly Pockets and snacking with her friends and a combined total of 3 minutes of actual activity, this is right up her alley!  Actually she really loves the whole thing, even the very long practices 3-4 days a week. She is doing great and it has been really fun.  JC is doing T-ball (photos of that next week, Papa and I have to split up and I got the camera & the swim meet this Saturday) and they both are in Karate.  We are not usually so committed with our time, but they are having so much fun.  Mina loves to tag along, and I know that she is going to love to participate as soon as she is old enough.  She is such an active little one, and loves to be in the middle of the action.  She is jumping in the pool like she could swim a mile.  She is FEARLESS! which is a little scary.  But she is so full of joy, so fun. We are having a great summer so far, and have tons of family fun planned. "Big Brother" is spending the week in Maine, hanging by the lake and boating, tough life.  We miss him, but know he is having fun.  Happy Summer all, and stay cool! 

SO, I saw this video on an amazing adopting Mom's blog -it is really a great perspective.  Please take the 4 minutes to watch this and let me know what you think, let's start something BIG...

Here are a few random photos from this weekend. Aunt "Nenny" came to see us and the kids love her so much. Mina took to her right away.  We had a laid back weekend, the weather was beautiful, we spent the afternoons poolside, cooked out, and played at the park.  Jenny is so good with the kids and got them out there playing football with all the big kids.  Now J.C. is all about playing football.  I also threw in some photo's of Mina wearing the silly swim cap that she loves, and her other favorite thing,,, talking on the phone. 

Pre-school Graduation

It's official, Our little girl is not so little anymore.  She had her preschool graduation this week, there was a short program and then we headed outside for a picnic with all of her friends and their families.  The kids had ice cream sundae's and Mina, was all over it!  It was a bitter-sweet day, we love seeing the people are babies are becoming.  She will be starting Kindergarten in the fall, but not until we have a super fun summer.  We are really looking forward to spending some quality family time and fun in the sun.

I also had to post this cute photo of Mina sporting the glasses,  I can tell she is going to be one of those little girls that love to play dress up, she thinks she is so funny when she puts on someone's hat or glasses.  Our big girl started a swim team and Mina became very attached to the swim cap and wore it all night.  I was worried that she was going to fight me on taking it off before bed.  I will make sure I post a photo of her in the swim cap soon.  It is pretty funny!

Some Serious Catching up!!

So I have been seriously slacking on keeping up with the blog, so here are some super fast posts where the photo's will have to speak for themselves a bit... 

First off Mother's Day!! I feel so spoiled... I had my shower on Saturday and Mother's day on Sunday.. what a great day.. we went to church, to breakfast, and then I came home and spent the entire afternoon on the couch working on a photo book of all our 1,500 some photo's from China. A serious undertaking, but it will be nice to have it done, and it was nice to actually be able to sit down for a few hours and work on it, instead of my usual working on it for 5 minutes at a time and getting 

sidetracked by Mommy things, while i was working my amazing husband, made me a feast,,, check this out, steak, lobster tails, baked potatoes, veggies, and Bailey's white chocolate, pecan cheesecake,,, Yeah!!!! I am the luckiest girl in the world..also for a gift, and because pictures of my kids are my favorite thing, he went out one day last week and took a bunch of photos of each of them and put them in a frame for me and had it sitting on the table nice, right? I love this kinda stuff, Makes me feel wonderfully loved and special... 

And today we took Mina to the pool for the first time,  as you can see, she loved it.  The water was freeeezing, but gotta love the kids, they don't mind a bit. Also Mina's new favorite thing,,, the juice box.  Don't even let her see it unless you plan on giving it to her right away... what a mistake.

So my amazing girlfriends thru Mina and I a beautiful shower.  It was the perfect day... 

My favorite thing about my neighborhood is that they have these huge swings in this one section. of course the kids love it and we took Mina for the first time the other day,,, she loved it too. Check out the last photo of Mina working the chopsticks.. she actually picked up a few pieces using one hand until she figured out that stabbing the food with one chopstick works a bit better.  too cute.