And we have a garage....

Well, I am very happy to say that the construction on the garage is finally complete!  I can't complain because it did go up pretty fast, but I won't miss the mud.  We were lucky to have a wet spring, which was great for the garden.  However, it also left the floor covered in muddy paw prints!  The garage took up a big portion of the backyard, but the backyard looks better despite losing some space.  We have a lot more privacy in our yard, and it's a lot less grass to mow.  I am itching to get started on the landscaping, but since the heat has arrived, I think we may need to wait until fall to start planting.  That sucks a little, but at least we can start planning!

Hana enjoyed the construction though.  She liked the beginning the best because all the machines were here digging and moving dirt around.  I think she will miss the activity, but it will be nice to settle back into some normalcy.  I'll be happy to be able to come downstairs in my PJs again!

Hana also enjoys the garden.  Every day, we go out and check our garden, and she gets so excited pointing out all of the tomatoes and how big they are getting.  She watches the other vegetables too, but the tomatoes seem to be her favorite!  I hope that watching them grow from flower to full vegetable will also mean she will actually eat some of them when they are ripe!  I know, wishful thinking, but a Mommy can dream!

She will also be attending a couple summer camps this summer.  They are offered through her school, so I am hoping they will actually help ease her into school in the fall.  She is also pretty excited to start dance classes in the fall.  She dances ALL the time, and she has been talking about going to ballet class since February.  She has been performing her "recitals" daily for us, so I think she will love dance class.  More coming in the fall on the dance front!

We have vacation coming at the end of the month, which can't come soon enough for me!  We are meeting another family, who traveled to adopt their daughter the same time we got Hana.  The girls are from the same SWI, and they were very close in China.  We think they may have been crib mates, or at the very least, their cribs were next to each other.  I can't wait to get the girls together.  The girls are going to have a blast, and so are Melissa and I!  I will try and post about the vacation, along with pictures of the beautiful girls!

Happy Earth Day!

Spring arrived a little early in RVA this year, but you won't hear any complaints from us.  We've been spending a lot of time outside and trying our best to break the nasty TV habit.  She's gotten extremely good at going "SUPER FAST" on her bike, while getting me into better shape by demanding, from the bike trailer, that I go super fast too!  I spent the winter training for my first 10K, which I completed with Jess on March 31.  It was a lot of fun, and hopefully a yearly ritual for us!

Spring also brings a new garage!  We officially broke ground this past week, and I don't know who is happier, Brian or me.  He, of course, will finally get to move his tools out of storage to their new home in his workshop.  So, I guess it's fair to say, he will be happier once it is built.  Right now, I think I am the happier of the two of us though.  Since Dominion Power relocated their line, and Verizon finally buried theirs, we were able to start building my raised beds.  Brian built the first bed yesterday, and we removed the sod for the second today, but the rain halted the construction on the second bed.  I guess I shouldn't complain because we really did need the rain, but I wish it would have chosen a week day to rain instead.  Oh well, I guess we will just have to work on it this week if possible.  Herbs galore is next weekend, and I plan to buy lots and lots of pepper plants from "The Pepper Guy".  It'd be really nice to come home and get them planted, so I'll cross my fingers that it works out.  Hana is pretty excited about the garden, and she helped out a lot yesterday.  She LOVED digging in the dirt!  She even scolded me for taking a water break, telling me to get back to work.  So, under her supervision, I foresee a bountiful harvest this year!  I'm looking forward to watching her develop a green thumb that would make Auntie Jess and PupPup proud!

And of course, showing Daddy some love for working so hard building the beds!

New Year or Semi-Annual Post

Yes, I know, despite all my promises and good intentions, I really do suck at keeping up the blog!  Most days, I can barely find the time to complete the daily tasks, like cooking, so blogging takes the back burner!

It's been a busy couple of months, especially December!  We hosted Thanksgiving this year, so we officially broke in the new house.  Jess and Mark came up with Wyatt, and Mark's parents and his sister and her family joined us as well.  Mom drove up from Virginia Beach and Judy came over for dinner.  It was a big crowd, and we had a really nice time.  The next day, we went to Williamsburg for the weekend.  We went to Christmas Town at Busch Gardens, and Hana was mesmerized by all of the lights!  I kind of figured this was going to be the first year that she really got into Christmas, and her reaction when we entered the park proved it.  Unfortunately, it was ridiculously crowded, so the lines were much longer than her patience.  So, we made due with the lights, which was still fun for her.  However, I started to feel bad that Hana didn't get to see Santa or the Penguins, so we decided to go back to Christmas Town the following week.  We got there when it opened and went directly to see Santa.  We only had about a 10 minute wait, so now we know that is the way to do it next year.  We also got to see the penguins before the line got too long, which was probably the highlight of her trip since she is a huge fan!  Even though we had seen all the lights the week before, it didn't seem to lose the magic for her.  I have always loved Christmas, but it is even better through the eyes of your child.  Words can't explain how fun it was this year!

As hard as it is to believe, Hana celebrated her 3rd birthday this year.  It's hard to believe she is already three... it's gone by so fast!  She has been looking forward to her birthday and a party since June.  She has been asking me about her birthday and party for months, so as you can imagine, it was a very big deal this year.  She's really into trains, so we had a Thomas the Tank Engine themed party for her at Cartwheels and Coffee in Carytown.  She had a really good time playing with her friends, and it was very easy on Mommy and Daddy since everything was pretty much done ahead of time.  She had such a great day, and it was like a Christmas dress rehearsal from the presents to an exhausting day for her.

Needless to say, Christmas was a huge hit as well!  She really got the whole Santa Claus thing this year.  She knew who he was last year, but I think she realized that he also brings presents to her house if she is a good girl.  She got a letter from Santa, as well as a special video message from him, and he confirmed that she was on the nice list.  Santa did mention in his letter that he was checking his list twice a day, so she needed to be good because she could still end up on the naughty list.  However, I quickly learned that this could back fire on me.  One morning, I told her that she couldn't watch TV, so she called Santa and asked him to put me on the naughty list.  I didn't have the heart to break it to her that I was probably already on it!  On Christmas Eve, we would check the Norad Santa tracker to see where Santa was last spotted.  She told me that she wanted to go to sleep around 5:30, but I told her she had a little longer before she needed to sleep.  We went outside and threw out some reindeer food before dinner.  She had a quick snack before bed, and we left Santa a snack, Walker style.  He got a latte, biscotti, and some cookies.  She even left some broccoli and carrots for the reindeer.  Then, she almost ran up the steps to bed, making me wish that every night was Christmas Eve!  The next morning, she was up at 6:45 and ready to see what Santa left!  She was so excited when she found that Santa had left gifts under the tree and she had so much fun ripping into packages.  This really was the magic Christmas for her and us!

Slack or Reality Struck?

I know that I promised to keep up the blog, and I truly had every intention of doing so. However, that was before I realized how much time a baby takes and that spare time for blogging was non-existent. I guess it's the naivety of every new parent. Yes, we all knew parenthood came with challenges, but I really had no idea the actual extent of those challenges. Sleep deprivation was probably the harshest reality of parenthood. While I used the term pre-parenthood, I had no idea what it truly meant until I become a mother. I quickly realized I was completely unprepared! In one of those overwhelming, in over my head days, I finally realized that there is no right way to parent, and no parent is perfect. Parenting is more of a practice, and we all just learn along the way. Flexibility is essential and mistakes are inevitable! It was this philosophy, coupled with lots of caffeine, that got us through teething, ear infections, night wakings, and the gross stuff that no one ever tells you about.

During the 18 months of blogging silence, I watched my tiny baby become a beautiful little girl, complete with her very own personality. I whole heartily believe that the Chinese truly have a gift for matching babies with families as I can't imagine a child who would have been more perfectly suited for us. Don't get me wrong, we aren't perfect, it's just that we simply fit. She has my stubborn streak and fierce independence, but she has Brian's compassion and inquisitiveness. Right now, we are pretty much taking things day by day, and as such, have found that two is challenging. I see why they are commonly referred to as the terrible twos because some days, they really do feel terrible. However, I once had a man call them "the terrific twos" and I like his description so much better. Despite the challenges of two, I have found so many more terrific moments than terrible. Even on the most trying days, a big hug from her is completely worth any of the trouble that she managed to find.

It is clearly impossible for me to write everything that has happened in the last year and a half, so I won't even try. I will just promise to do my best and blog a little more frequently. I did write a couple of posts after we got home, From Slow to Hyper Speed and Merry Christmas. However, since I am starting afresh, and frankly, this is a whole new journey, I think it is time to start a new blog. While we were still waiting, I had created a really pretty blog that I had intended to use after we returned home. It's been left empty for too long, and it is ready for our stories.

Sometime Soon....

We will be traveling to China to bring our daughter home. Once we return, we will begin posting pictures and updates.

Please check back soon!