A sample clip of our day at Tree Hill

Christmas Day with Jamie!

Fun with Nature

We went to our neighborhood nature santuary today for a fun morning making Peanut butter pine cones and walking and seeing nature.



Feeding the goats

Walking the trails

Making Peanut butter Pine Cones

The real Miss Owl

Well we have finally gotten a Card-worthy pic

This was among the last of our third attempt of getting a Christmas card worthy pose of Jamie for our annual card. Too bad that I had already had another card made, but just like last year I didn't order enough so I had another batch made with this photo today. After I think all have gotten their cards (they were just sent out on Sunday!) - I know, they are late as usual!), I will post both cards here.

What follows is the previous attempts on Sunday morning. The girl does not like to pose for pictures!

Elfin Silliness

Come see us as elves. Fun and funny.

I had a SAHM afternoon with my girl today. Was wonderful to be able to just 'be' with her instead of herding her up to get changed, fed, bathed, read to and put to bed like the usual night time routine. I have some time saved up for vacation and will be using it up now. THis weekend is a long one being off on Friday and Monday then to work Tuesday and Wednesday and then off til the 2nd! Hooray!

On another note Jamie has become a bit of a whiny little girl, dare I say a 'terrible two'? It's hard to have to put her in time out and be firm with her when our time together is so limited. With family coming over the holidays it will be a challenge, but she so loves the attention, and I will be off most of the time, so it should be wonderful.

I went ahead with one of those pictures for our christmas cards. I am not really happy with the card, I had another picture of the three of us on the card, in fact it is the small one to the right on this blog of us at her adoption party, and had cropped it a certain way so we would be in the center of the shot and the date was cut off, and it recentered the shot the way I didn't want it. Maybe I will scan the card soon and post it.

I may still try to do another Christmas picture of Jamies...We'll see.

Christmas Pictures take two

We tried again to get a good Christmas photo for the cards again now that the tree is up. No go. At least she was happy about it this time. But as you can see we weren't prepared - we didn't have her dressed in any pretty Christmas outfit, just jammies.

Christmas picture attempt

We spent a good part of Sunday afternoon trying to get a good picture for our Christmas cards this year. Here our some of the results. THis first one really highlights her curly hair in the back.


THis one is about the best of the bunch ...I think so, do you? (but it isnt a perfect sweet look into the camera grin like we got last year, so I am not really satisfied.)


She acted like we injured her by putting that hat on her head!

THis one is cute, but not festive enough.


Let go Daddy!

This one is sweet too...is this the best of the bunch?

Thankful for Jamie

Thanksgiving was wonderful. We are truly thankful to have our sweet baby Jamie as our daughter!

She's a Dancing Queen!

Fun with our girl tonight- I had a short video that really shows her shaking her stuff but I can't get it to post! She used that little box as a rattle as it had plastic toys inside of it and made a neat noise. She loves standing on the stepstool dancing and twirling like she is on stage!

The Fair and the Parade

This is a 3 day old baby goat - the highlight of the fair experience for Jamie!


Her First Merry Go round ride - She tantrumed a bit when we took her off.







We enjoyed this three day weekend thoroughly with friends and fun for all. Saturday we went to Aunt Patty and Unka Johns for dinner for Chris' birthday; yesterday we went to the fair and today we took the train to the parade. Something messed up with the camera -I had it set to the wrong setting and each picture during the parade was completely bleached out, so the pictures from today are all afterwards. Jamie enjoyed her first lollipop during the train ride back to the car.

Ander's party

Our good friends son turned 2 and we were invited to his party. Ander met Jamie the day after she joined our family and it has been a joy to have the two of them 'come up together'! A good time was had by all, and Jamie got more Cake!

Click on the badge to go to Flickr for more pictures of the big day.

Jamie at the Halloween Carnival!

Let her Eat Cake!

My friends had us over for my birthday last weekend and served my favorite - Steak and Cake!! I love chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. And now Jamie does too! She really doesn't usually get cake candy or cookies, but for my birthday we had to let her try it and she absolutely loves it. We took home the rest of the cake and every night for the next few days she would yell Cake!! Until I gave her some. A girl after my own heart.

More pictures on Flicker, you can find them by following the 'badge' on the right of this blog.

Trunk or Treat

We will be taking Jamie to a Halloween event tomorrow at a church. We took her last year and it is a safer alternative to going door to door. She is still a bit young for the bouncy house, but I think she will enjoy getting out with other people. Aunt Patty and Unka John will be meeting us there like they did last year. We took her trick or treating at the Beaches town center Sat morning. It was supposed to have a costume contest, parade and musical performance but all events expept trick or treating got cancelled. We had fun anyway, Jamie got the hang of it after our first few stops. She enjoys being with us both and being seen so I am sure we will have fun.

End of Summer Blues

This is one of the two costume choices we have for Jamie to wear for Halloween. See what I am talking about with the clarity of that camera! (See below) Its a fairy princess of sorts, but she won't wear the tiara but for a minute, and isn't interested in carrying the wand. I also have a very cute hooded ladybug costume with antenna that would look so cute with black tights and red shoes. But she isn't interested in headgear and its made out of fur, so would be very warm to wear unless Halloween is cold. We probably won't do the Door to door routine with her this year, but may take her to a church fest like we did last year.

With Kimba passing away and the onset of the autumn I have been feeling a little down. I used to struggle with SAD (seasonal affective disorder) when I lived in Michigan and it always happened at this time of year, because in Michigan it would turn grey and cold in October and not get warm and sunny until April. Thank god I live in Florida now, it reached 90 degrees today (I think it was a record) and the sunny days are pretty plentiful all year long, so I don't have the long doldrums I used to experience.

I am sorry I haven't been posting. Other than my not so great mood lately, I returned the digital camera I had bought from Walmart shortly before the adoption ceremony in August. It had such a lag that I missed most of the cute shots of Jamie and lots and lots of shots were so blurry that I just got frustrated with it. I know that I probably need to spend closer to $300 to get a camera with a quicker response and more consistent clear images. I need to investigate soon as I really hate not having a camera!

RIP Kimba 1995-2007

Our middle kitty Kimba died today. He has been at the vet for over a week with urinary blockage and they couldn't save him. We lost Katie 2 years ago at Christmas, and Poncho is the youngest kitty and he is 10.

It's so painful to lose a pet. But I wouldn't trade the experience for anything to avoid the pain. Why can't they live longer!? I am sure he is at the Rainbow Bridge right now and Katie is greeting him.

I am sad.

Rally Pictures

Rally Reading event

We went to the library Saturday as we do most Saturdays for Toddler art and story time. THis time there was an annual event for Rally. It's a reading initiative that the mayor of our city uses to encourage children to read. They gave every child a teddy bear, four year olds got book bags, and there were games and music and fun. Jamie enjoyed meeting Clifford the big red dog, and Mommy enjoyed meeting Pippi Longstocking. The toddler jumping pit was also a hit. This was a wonderful family adventure and we hope to do it each year.

Chatty Cathy

Jamie loves to chat on the phone. I have always talked to her on the phone from when I first put her in daycare with my good friend when she was 7 mos old. However this summer she began to 'hold her own' on the phone. She reaches for it, wants to hold it and will often go to her chair to chat with whoever is on the other end. Usually it's one of her grandmas, or her mom or dad. She doesn't have alot to say usually but lately she is starting to get a bit more vocal. She does not want that phone taken away!

New words this week - Blue and yellow - and yes she can identify them too! And Cheese! - her favorite snack.