Random Pictures of Life at Home

Jia continues to grow and thrive. Her beauty is breath taking. Her wit and intelligence are a daily joy. Life is good and something we never take for granted. Enjoy these wonderful pictures - I need to get some of these framed and on the walls!

Happy Birthday PaPa

We celebrated my dad's birthday yesterday at my folks house. As usual the house was vibrating and shaking with energy! It paled to the energy when the Illinios cousins were visiting but still a big time and a great day with my dad. Happy Birthday Pop!! My mom cooked up another amazing meal and we all feasted on cake and ice cream as well! You'll notice Jia was not in the best of moods during the photo ops. She hates to sit at a table and eat. It makes her (and thus the mom) crazy to be restricted to one place for any reason! Very typical 2 year old in some ways - and amazingly above the curve for a 2 year old in many, many other ways. She is having a vocabulary burst and is talking up a storm. She continues to understand things we say that absolute amaze us. Her ability to follow multistep requests astounds even the most seasoned parents!

Here a few pics of the day. I still need to get posts up detailing the Illinios clan visit and our trip to the beach and I'll get to them soon. We've been having some computer issues with the laptop I use to do my blogging but my ever talented husband has it all fixed up! All it took was my mentioning that I was going to get onto Amazon and order a new one and presto, change-o - the computer was fixed!! Terrell does SO much around here that it wasn't a matter of ignoring the issue or being disinterested - I just had to get it moved up on the list of priorities. Threatening to pull out the ol' credit card shot the computer issues up to first place! Heh. Anyway - we're on countdown to vacation and we're all very excited. But first we have to get through some very busy work weeks. Speaking of which - I need to get back to it!

Summer is Awesome!

Jia has been having tons of fun this summer going to the pool and hanging out all day with her cousins. LaLa has an amazing amount of energy to take that brood to the pool but Jia is always so happy when I pick her up. She's changing so much every day and is such a very happy little girl! She has now taken to carrying around her "bankie" which started out as a slept in t-shirt belonging to her dad. It's still her daddy's t-shirt but at least now she's willing to accept a newly laundered one as well! She must have it at all times. It's really sweet (and a little hard for the mom - knowing she uses it to provide comfort because she misses us) but that is a very normal and desirable developmental stage. We are all most certainly bonded as a family! She is getting so much from her daddy these days. As with most kiddos, for a long time, she wanted and would only take mommy when she needed comfort. But now the dad rules and she loves being with him. It's all falling into place and she continues to grow and expand her abilities at what seems like lightning speed. She's communicating very well now too. No full sentences but she can clearly get her point across. She even said "do it myself" one night in the bath when I was obviously overstepping my bounds by pouring water from her little watering can into the flower pot! Jia turned 2 in June and she has just continued to amaze us with her speech and growth everyday. The IL cousins and Aunt and Uncle were just in town as well and that kicked the fun up even more! We visited the beach for the first time since Jia came home and that can be a post all on its own! I have tons of pictures to share of a lot of summer fun! Hope all is well with all of our friends out there and I hope your summer is full of fun too!