Labor Day Weekend

We really didn't do much this weekend, it kind of snuck up on us quick.
Megan gave Malia her first manicure.



Malia will now actually play with lola. Before Lola wasn't allowed anywhere near her or she was having a fit and crying. Now Malia will get on the floor and play with her.




Every year on Labor day weekend they have a large fair along the river front in Harrisburg called "Kapona". We went today, it was fun.
Here is a pretty nice shot of the river.


There was some kind of canoe race going on, check out all the people in the one canoe! it looked kind of dangerous.





This boat is called the "Pride of the Susquehanna".


We then walked across the bridge to City Island, Its where the Harrisburg Senators baseball team plays. They also have these little shanties that are little food shacks, an arcade and a little children's sized train that goes around the island. I think they have other areas set up for children but we were pretty tired and decided to head back without exploring the rest of it. We only live 30 minuets away and can always come back another day.




I'm not sure if i mentioned this before but Megan lives with us now and started school here last week. She already made a new friend named Brea and they were together all weekend. They had a good time all weekend !




We had one tired little girl this afternoon.


Here are some random shots

Potty Time?

The other night Malia came up to me and said poop, and fanned her hand near her nose, lol. I just assumed that she has already gone in her diaper but then I saw her "assume the pose". Let me just say that it is very easy to know when she is doing her business. So Megan asked if she could take Malia to her potty to see if she would use it. Guess what? She did !!!! And boy did we cheer her on and praise the heck out of her.

Every year I try to get around 30 doz ears of corn to cut and freeze for over the winter months. There is NOTHING like having corn off the cob with your Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner or just with a warm dinner on a cold night. Its also very good for making chicken corn soup.
So corn is what we did all weekend.





Here are some random pics from over the weekend.

Camping

We finally were able to go camping this past weekend. We normally would have went around 9 or 10 times by now. It was a GREAT weekend we all had a good time.

Malia and Aunt Shelly having a good time around the campfire.




This was the best part of Malia's weekend. We could not keep her off this golf cart.



Malia playing with Lola.



And some random pictures

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!

Today is Malia's Birthday, but we had her (first birthday party ever) birthday party yesterday. It did not start out so well but she was a trooper and enjoyed herself. It started out Friday night about 12:00 P.M. She woke up crying, so Gary went over and got her and brought her to our room and about 4 minuets after she was in our bed she started crying again and then threw up all over the bed and us. Argh! So we get up clean everything up and give hugs. We noticed that she felt really warm and it turned out she had a 104 temp ! Yikes, this is how my illness started out a few weeks ago. We gave her some Motrin and then we all went back to sleep. We woke up around 7:00 and she was still pretty warm so I gave her a tepid bath and Tylenol, that made her cool down a lot and she pretty much stayed that way all day. I cant believe that she was sick for her birthday ! She has never thrown up since we had her, its just weird

Dylan and Leigh got this neat Play-doh kit.



It's all about Elmo or Momo as Malia would say.


Grandparents always give the BEST presents


Nana got me really cool Elmo things!



Even Lola had a great time.


She tried soooooo hard not to smile when we sang Happy Birthday to her.


After the cake we all went out for a swim.



I have 3 butterfly bushes in the pool area, they really do draw in the butterflies.

Malia's getting a sister !

Well, not quite.
I had my heart set on going back to China for a sister for Malia. After my illness, it had me thinking that maybe going back to China was not the right thing to do. So, instead of going back to China we are getting her a sister from Florida! And we don't even have to go get her, she is being "escorted" here by a stewardess on US Air.

She is a Coton De Tulear. They are a small breed that is very smart and very good with children. They are sometimes referred to as the toy Labrador because they are such happy go lucky dogs. The standard is 10-12" tall and 12-15 lbs. They remind me of a Yorkie, only white and a tiny bit bigger.

Here is what she will look like full grown


Ahhhhhh, I'm being attacked by a puppy


I'm soft and fluffy



She really doesn't want to touch the puppy too much.

50th Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday we celebrated Gary's parents wedding anniversary. Wow, 50 years, that's amazing. Try and find a gift or card for that occasion once, lol. They don't make a lot of stuff for that, I guess its because not a lot of people make it that far anymore. Here are some pictures......

Sitting with Aunt Tory


Uncle Dan showing me how Grams scooter works



Hanging out with Pap



Grams 'bitter beer" face. lol. She did not like the champagne.

One Year ago Today..................

Wow, its hard to believe that its been one whole year since “gotcha day”.

Malia has come such a loooooong way since then.
When we got her she could not eat solid foods, could not walk and could barely even stand up. The first four days we had her she had “shut down” and by that I mean she never changed the expression on her face. Didn’t smile and didn’t cry. Nothing. No matter what we did to try and make her smile or giggle she never did. She would not drink anything and would barely eat either. Then on day four, you could see a very small smile, it was minimal and you really had to look to see it but it was there. That gave us hope. From day 5 and on she would open up more and more.

She was walking within 2 months of being home, she just needed to be given the confidence that she could do it.

Today she is the most giggly, smiley, and happy little girl. She has a lot of confidence and is very smart. She eagerly shows us love and is more then happy to receive it too. Here are some pictures starting from the day we got her, you can almost see the changes in her during the first week in pictures.


My dearest Malia …..Thank you for bringing light and love into our hearts…..

Say What?

Wow,
What a week this has been !
It started out last Saturday, I kind of started to feel a little weird but thought nothing of it. By Sunday night I had a raging headache which is again nothing big because I get Migraines quite a bit but this one was different because my normal migraine medication was not working and I had a bit of a fever. I went to my doctors on Monday with the complaint of a major headache and a 101 grade fever. He told me that I have some kind of infection going on but what, he didn’t know because it was nothing obvious. Well all Monday night and all day Tuesday my fever went up and down from 101 to up to 105. My husband finally talked me into going to the emergency room Tues afternoon, so there we sat in the waiting room for 4 hours. For some unknown reason they decided to take an X-ray of my chest and guess what ? As it turned out I had Pneumonia. I had no idea ! I took a turn for the worse overnight and by the next morning could not breath very well. I got majorley out of breath by just trying to over turn over in the bed. I was very scared that this was it, I was going to die. I felt like I was suffocating, and that’s NOT a great feeling! Even though my lungs are not clear, I don’t have a fever anymore so they sent me home today. So I spent the past 6 days in the Hospital. I must give kudos’ to Gary for stepping up to the plate and doing an excellent job with Malia, right now I think he is as exhausted as I’ am. Of course he had help from Dylan , Leigh, and Megan and for that I’m very grateful!

Some new words.

It seems the past 2 or three weeks that Malia is surprising us with more and more words. She now says, no ( and shakes her head at the same time) Leigh (she pronounces it wee) and Dyl for Dylan. She will tell us these big looooooong stories now and with all of facial expressions and body movements (especially the "hand" talking) that go along with the story its real hard not to laugh at her, but you just pretend like you understand and talk back to her. She loves it!

Its hard to believe that we are almost at the one year mark for "gotcha day"

I got hungry for a chocolate cake with peanut butter icing the other night. She loves the peanut butter icing.



These two aren't smitten with each other are they?