More hair experiments

Just one ponytail, with a beaded hair tie. Her hair is just barely long enough for this one, but it looked pretty cute!

She's already mastered hamming it up for the camera :)

Ducky

Positive Adoption Language

Here is a link to the post I made in March about positive adoption language in case you need to brush up.  One of my missions is to educate people on proper adoption language. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but asking me if we've heard from Vivi's 'real' mom lately is not only incorrect, but also offensive. A person's REAL mom is the mom who is up with them all night, rocks them to sleep, tends to them when they are sick. I am Vivi's mom, Eric is Vivi's dad. Kapri is Vivi's birthmom. This is not only important when talking directly to us, but also when talking to others. Now that you are the aunt/uncle/cousin/friend of an adoptive parent, you are all ambassadors for adoption, and it is your responsibility to make sure you are using positive adoption language when talking about us, or about adoption in general. The more people we educate, the less ignorance there will be about adoption. :)

Dedication

Vivi's dedication at church was on Sunday. We didn't invite anyone because we didn't plan it until just a few days before, since our pastor is leaving at the end of this month. We really wanted him to do it because he was with us through the whole adoption process and we didn't want to wait to find someone else to do it, since last time it took 2 years to find a new pastor.

It was a nice little service, and she did so well! She let pastor hold her and just looked out at the congregation the whole time.

Pig tails!

Jenavieve's hair is long enough for pigtails!

Road Trip

We're getting back into the swing of things after our family road trip to Missouri! Its a long entry, if you want to just see the pictures, you can click here.

We had a rough start on Thursday-my parents came to our house to help load up the top carrier we borrowed from the Moores. We got the car loaded up and started to pull out of the sub, but there was so much noise on the top of the car that we were sure something was wrong. We pulled over and checked it out, Eric and dad made some adjustments, and we tried it again. Still more noise, so we pulled over again to call Ron and ask what we were doing wrong. He said that it wouldn't be as noisy when it is full, and that it was the straps making the noise. Dad had the idea to use pool noodles to pad the straps, so we drove over to Toys R Us. While the guys went in, mom, Vivi, and I hung out in the car. Mom was turned to the side looking at Vivi and suddenly her neck started to hurt. By the time we got to Janelle and Ryan's house, her neck was really sore and she took an aleve while they packed their stuff in the car. By the time she was ready to get back in the car, it was almost 10pm, 2 hours after we planned to be on the road. So we piled in and got going. 

About 5 minutes down the road, there were 2 cars pulled over on the side. As we drove up, the car in front did a u-turn right toward us! The car behind it had its lights on and the driver couldn't see us coming. I thought for sure we were going to hit her, but Eric was able to steer us out of the way, missing a big ditch and finally stopping in a driveway. It was pretty scary, and at this point so much had gone wrong we were wondering if we should even keep going. 

We collected ourselves and got on the highway, and everything went smoothly until we stopped for gas in Indiana at about 4am. My mom's neck started to spasm and she couldn't move, so we changed our gps to find the nearest hospital and spent an hour or so there while they checked her out and gave her some good drugs. Luckily this was the time that Jenavieve woke up and ate and played a little, and she was ready for bed by the time we got back on the road. 

We stopped for breakfast at a Cracker Barrel in Illinois, and made it to the hotel in Eldon, MO a little after noon. We unpacked and relaxed a little and then spent the afternoon at my Great Aunt Selma's house. Uncle Bill and Aunt Selma's 3 children stopped by to visit.

Back at the hotel, we got our suits on and took Vivi to the pool for the first time. The water was cold, we didn't think she would like it but decided to try anyway. I was freezing-but Jenavieve loved it! It was very cute. 

On Saturday, we went to the family reunion, which was fun. Good food, visiting with family, lots of pictures. A lot of people hadn't seen me since I was very little, so that was fun. We went back to the hotel for dinner, and then it started to storm so we spent the evening in the hotel playing games.

Sunday we packed up the car, checked out of the hotel, and drove out to the Ozarks to do some touristy stuff. It started to storm again so we headed to Ralph and Judy's house. They had gone through old pictures and gave my mom pictures of her mom and her siblings, and a letter that her mom wrote to Ralph's parents just weeks before she died, which was nice to read. They also had a family history written by an older relative. While my parents stayed and visited, the rest of us went to Staples to make copies of the book. Coincidentally (or not...it is Missouri afterall) we were assisted at Staples by the great granddaughter of the man who wrote the book- our 4th cousin. That was kind of cool. 

We said goodbye to Ralph and Judy and headed over to Uncle Bill and Aunt Selma's again. They pulled out old pictures too, and let us take them home to make copies for ourselves. It was fun to see pictures of our older relatives when they were young. I don't have the pictures yet but when I get them I'll post them.

The ride home was very smooth, we stopped for gas when Vivi woke up to eat and hung out and played for awhile, and stopped for breakfast when it was time for her to wake up again. We made it home safe and sound (and tired!). It was a good trip, we're excited to go back.

 

Bumbo!

We got Jenavieve a bumbo since she likes sitting up so much. Bumbo is a foam seat that helps little babies sit up. I didn't think it was necessary but she gets so annoyed laying down-she likes to either sit or stand while we hold her arms, or be held so she can see what we are doing. 

We tried it on the floor and she liked it, then we put her on the counter while we made lunch. She got really excited when she realized she could see what we were doing, and kept smiling at us. She enjoyed having lunch with daddy during his lunch break.

Can I have some?

Family pictures

This isn't a family one but she looks so cute!

My cousin Jessia's son Jace. He was just over a week old when the picture was taken. Vivi kept looking at him like "what is that thing??" He is so cute, all pink and bald :)

4 generations

Nap time!

Reading with Grandpa

Jenavieve loves reading, and the other day Grandpa read Caps for Sale with her. She liked it, and paid attention for the whole book!

Miss Independent

Jenavieve is figuring her hands out more and more, and has decided to take on a more active part in her eating. 



 

3 Months!

Jenavieve is 3 months old today! She's still a peanut, but eating like crazy so she's definitely growing! She may be able to fit into her 0-3 month summer clothes by the end of summer...maybe. We did some reorganizing in her room over the weekend and pulled out some of her preemie outfits, its hard to believe she was so tiny!

She has started consistently sleeping for a lot more of the night, last night she slept for 7 hours! Its amazing what a difference 7 straight hours can make to your day.

If our scale is accurate, she has hit 11 pounds too, which means she has doubled her birthweight!

I got the idea to take pictures of her with a bear every month from my friend Mandi, and just a couple of weeks ago she said that getting a good bear picture only gets harder as they get older. She was right! Now Vivi can see and feel the bear and all she wanted to do was play with it!

Kiss!

Telling secrets

I love my bear!

Can we have some privacy please?

Tummy Time

Discovering her hands

I forgot!

I forgot to post that Jenavieve laughed for the first time on Friday! She's only done it a couple of times since then but its really cute! We'll have to try to get it on video.

Cloth Diapers

Vivi has grown into all of her nice cloth diapers, so we aren't using the prefolds and covers as much anymore. Apparently cloth diapers used to be much more difficult, with pins and such. Now there are plastic pieces that hold the prefolds (aka burp cloths, you have to fold them and attach them and put a cover over them) instead of pins, and in the following picture she is wearing an 'all in one' diaper, which works just like a disposable diaper-no pins or covers to mess with. Those are also a one size fits all, with snaps to make it smaller. Since she's on the very small end, they're pretty bulky on her and make her look like a barrel under her clothes, but they're so cute  on her!

Red reading

We were able to combine 2 of Jenavieve's loves-looking at books and the color red. The book is so cute, its called I Can Eat A Rainbow by Annabel Karmel. Each page is about a different color, and is filled with photos of fruits and veggies of that color, and cute captions "Mrs. Pepper, sweet and nice-Mr. Pepper, full of spice" She tolerates the other pages, but red is still her favorite.

Busy Weekend

Vivi had a couple of days out this weekend-we went to Janelle's house to visit on Friday. We had dinner and did some shopping at Whole Foods, and Vivi enjoyed reading books with Aunt Janelle.

On Saturday we went to the Farmington farmer's market. We got potatoes (red and purple), corn, peaches, blueberries, and cabbage. The corn and potatoes were really good, we haven't gotten to the rest of it yet. Smashed purple potatoes make for a very colorful dinner plate.

Today, we went to my parents' for dinner. Vivi has been very alert and enjoys studying everything. She particularly enjoyed Grandma's cat plates today. Good thing daddy is tall!

Casey and Amira came for dinner and Vivi and Amira got to 'play' together. Vivi is 9 weeks older than Amira, so its interesting to see the differences 9 weeks makes. 

Standing with Grandma