A few quick photos from the last couple months!

Stock show

We went to the stockshow last week. Here are some photos from that. I will not be going again anytime soon. Hoards of people, stinky cows and $5.00 corn dogs are NOT really my thing!!! LOL

I WILL try harder!!!

Okay, so I am TERRIBLE at keeping up at this blog thing. I guess I kind of got the impression nobody ever looks at it and I was talking to nobody. But now my brothers family has moved to S.Carolina. This should be a great way for me to keep them up to date on the happenings back here in Colorado. Brianna is growing so fast and doing so many things new every day, they will miss her growing up. My nephew Ashton lives in Oregon and I swear he is a different person every time I see him. He comes out every Christmas and during a big chunk of the summer. Just a few months can make a huge difference at different stages of childhood. Lately my moms health has not been so great either. The Lupus puts her in a lot of pain and leaves her feeling very tried. She isn't able to come around as much as she was before. With the blog she can check out whats going on and see pictures more regularly. So I vow for the year 2010 to do more regular updates and post lots of pictures.

We have had a busy 3 mos since I last posted. Brianna has been doing Ballet and is loving it. They will have a recital in June and I cannot wait to see what she does on a stage with people watching her. She can get so shy when she is put on the spot. I really want to get her involved in some swimming lessons this summer. She loves the water and I just know she would do well at it. She has always been very brave about the water. She is still in preschool also and seems to really enjoy her days there. She likes her teachers and talks about her classmates all the time. She is learning her letters and tries to rhyme EVERYTHING...LOL She loves McKinley, she likes to hold her and feed her bottle to her. She is very sassy these days, 3 going on 13 I think. Sometimes I am scared of the girl drama that will come when puberty hits.

Brianna and I made a decision recently and we are getting ready to add a sister to our little family. I am doing all the paperwork, and we are going to request a 5-8 year old little girl. Brianna thinks having a big sister will be great and I have always felt pulled to add an older child to my life. Because of the situation foster kids come from, it could take a while to get an appropriate placement for our home. She must be able to be placed with younger kids and not have any issues that could endanger the children already living here (innappropriate sexual behaviors, vilolence or extreme needs.) We are excited about what the future has in store for us and cannot wait to be a family of three. She will likely still be a foster to adopt placement so we will have to do visits and take that risk of losing her, but we are ready for those challenges. The rewards are worth it in the end!

Speaking of which, McKinley is still with Michele. She is doing great aside from some acid reflux that gives her a lot of tummy trouble. It seems much better though since they put her on prevecid. She also seems to have a little thing in her neck the doctor called torticolis. It is a tightening of the muscles in her neck, which causes her to keep her head to one side all the time. We are not sure if she will need PT for this or not. It can be a sign of other physical issues, but she has no other issues that the doctor can see, so it was probably caused by her position in the womb. She is giggling quite a lot now and she is so so sweet. She smiles at everything and seems to really love everyone. Her birthmom was in jail for the last two mos so the case hasn't really done much. She was released last week and was suppose to resume visits yesterday, but she never showed for the visit. That is a good sign for us and we hope to continue on this path.

Abby is doing great! She is really becoming a big girl and is such a good helper with her baby sister. She is also doing ballet and seems to be a real natural for dance. She is such a girlie girl and loves all things pink and pretty. She also is doing great on school and loves making friends. She has really been trying to be helpful and sweet and is coming out of all those stubborn toddler behaviors with flying colors. She seems to think she wants to give soccer another try this summer. We will see what happens, she has tried it twice before and really just did not show much interest. She insists thugh that she wants to give it a shot and that she is a ig girl now!

Well, I need to be off to the task of being a mommy, housework, groceries laundry...FUN, FUN, FUN!!!

NEW ADDITION!!

Big News!!! We have a beautiful new addition to our home. Please help us to welcome McKinley Grace to our big happy non-traditional family. McKinley was born on November 3rd an was &lbs 1oz. and 19 inches long. Michele and Abby have a long foster/adopt road ahead. Let's all send out positive energy and prayers into the universe. Michele and Abby are hoping that eventually McKinley will be adopted and become a part of their family permanently. Although we adore Charlotte's (Annabelle's) family and feel that she is in a warm, wonderful loving place, we miss her terribly and hope that we do not have to go through another loss like that one.

Currently, McKinley is still in the hospital. When she was born she aspirated a little merconium and was put on oxygen for that as well as having a small infection she is on antibiotics for. She should be able to come home on Wednesday when she completes the antibiotics. She was weened from her oxygen over the weekend.

Day Trip

Hey everyone! Well today we decided to take the girls to Tiny Town. For those of you who do not know, Tiny town is a place up near Morrison and Conifer Colorado. It has little tiny houses, some replica's of Denver historical places or business'. Some are donated for a particular person or place, some are decorated inside and some are just cute from the outside. They have a few that the are a little bigger and the kids can play in them. They have a really pretty picnic area and playground and they have a couple little coal fueled trains the kids can ride on. We brought a picnic lunch road the train saw all the little houses and had a great time. When we were done with that, we went to see the changing Aspen leaves up at Kenosha Pass. They were beautiful and of course my favorite part of the day. Kenosha pass looked like a sea of aspens. Mostly gold but speckled with a little red and orange. This had to be the peak weekend, because they were awesome. Now the girls are at Grandmom Judy's having a sleepover. It was the perfect day for this, the weather was nice and we had a phnominal day! I love beautiful Colorado!!!

This last week we took an extra long weekend and went up to Grand Lake with some of Michele's family. The kids had a blast. Michele and I took Brie and Abby on a peddle boat on the first afternoon. That was sooo scary for me, because I have a bit of a deep water fear! The fear is only there on little boats like that, I am usually okay on bigger boats. But the girls did great and they both kept telling me it was okay. They loved it and were both far braver than I was. The next day we met up with the rest of the family and we took a bigger boat tour. It was great, I loved that one. It was so pretty and it got really cool and breezy. After that we took the kiddo's to the stables for a little horse ride and then went back to the house and had a camp fire. We roasted marshmallows and made smores, but I don't think the girls wee impressed with the smores. They preferred eating the cold marshmallows in the bag. On the next day we went over tail ridge road and I got a little altitude sickness... LOL... Then we headed into Estes Park for lunch and then Michele and I headed home with the girls. We were all very tired and I had a house full of kids the next day, but it was great to get away. We really need to vow to be better about enjoying this beautiful state we live in.

Brianna and Abby riding horses! Brianna loved it!

The kiddo's enjoying the boat tour.

AAaaahhhhh can you feel the love? Just look at 'em!

Mommies baby girl!

Little boaters! How cute are they in the little vests?

It is a beautiful lake! Did you know Tim Allen owns a house on this lake?

Beach babes!!!

As Promised!

Well, as promised here are some pictures of Brianna's first day of preschool. She is so big and she has been so excited every day to go. She has been going a little over two weeks now. She takes the bus to and from, I think that was much harder for me than it was her. Her teacher is Mrs. H (short for Hughet.) I already went to her open house at school. They told us all about the class and had us make little paper dolls that looked like our children...LOL She also got to order books from a book order, just like a big kid and we have our first field trip coming up this next week. She is taking a lot more interest in letters and writing her name even in this short time. She talks about her new friends like Lily and Jaxon and all the things they do at school. She has already decided which child in her class is "a little but naughty", LOL! Grandma Deana came over and stayed with the other kids her first few days so I could take her and get her acclimated, the Bus followed that next Monday. I think she is going to do great, I have never seen a kid so excited about school!!!