Ours, forever.

 

Today we finalized Poppy's adoption and she became a US citizen...



We had a great time at court, our judge was so nice and was very impressed with Poppy's sense of style.  And we spent the rest of the day celebrating as a family of 3.  She's our little Korean-American, forever and ever.

I Heart Faces

I've decided to join the fun and participate in the weekly photography competition at I ♥ Faces.  This week's theme is black and white.  I took this pic of Little Miss a few months ago, the day I got my beloved 50mm lens.  Check out their website to see all of the other fantastic entries!

choo-choo!

We tried to cram as much fun as we could  into my last couple of days before returning back to work (again)...

 

The sun decided to show itself for a few hours on Saturday, so we decided to head to the park.





 

And today we stopped by the brand new Burchfield-Penney art center... 



They had a little room with these flowers that Poppy could "pick" and "plant".  Super cute.



The museum was beautiful-  we'll definitely be making many visits back.

 

And the best part of Poppy and dada's weekend - getting this hand-me-down train set from my friend Michele.  They were both more excited over seeing this box of trains than they were on Christmas morning.  And they played with it all weekend long.  And I have a feeling our living room is going to look like this for a while.

(catching up on some emails together)

....................

There was something about our time together today that just made it an absolutely perfect day...

we started off with a trip to the art gallery...

...taking a snack break at Muse...

We had such a great time we ended up getting a membership.

(signing "wash hands")

Have I ever mentioned her obsession with watching "Baby Signing Time"?  It's all she wants to do, all day long.



And then tea parties were had.



And cookies were made.

And I don't even have pictures of the ice cream sundaes we had over at Uma and Upa's after dinner tonight.  Perfect day.

Valentine's Day (just a few days late)

We had lots of Valentiney fun this year...

Earlier in the week I made a little heart shaped cake and let Poppy decorate it. I'm still finding sprinkles all over the house.

.........

And to avoid the Valentine's Day crowd, we went out for our annual v-day sushi on Friday. Mmmmmm.

(According to Poppy, chopsticks are for playing with, not eating with.)

You 're gonna pick up the check for us Poppy? Thanks!

..........

And then it was chocolate-fest bright and early Saturday morning...

Chocolate heart from Upa.

And I turned away for 2 seconds, and Poppy popped an entire truffle in her mouth. Breakfast of champions!

"Don't you want a truffle at 7am mama?"

.........

In other news, as of last week, Poppy has officially caught onto the fact that I am a working mama. And she doesn't like it. She is still having a great time at both daycare and with the grandparents, but when I get home from work, she has been having a difficult time. One day she would not make eye contact with me for hours, which was heart-breaking, and other days she is just very emotional and clingy. It sucks, but it's also expected. So we're both loving on her and holding her a ton lately. And I had a couple days off last week and I have this entire week off, which is awesome.

Yesterday was Carter's first birthday party and Poppy was having a blast playing with her cousins, and then suddenly she stopped playing and just had to be held by either me or Marc. She wouldn't eat a thing and was whiny and clingy. By the time we got home she had a fever (her first fever and it even though her temp was only 102, it was so alarming to feel how hot she was!) and was restless the first couple of hours after she went to bed. At about midnight I went in her room to lay down with her and then it happened - the first time she puked!  Dear God that was gross.  Luckily there wasn't too much and we were able to just change her sheets and she fell right back to sleep, but I could barely sleep because I was so sure she was going to puke again.  Thankfully, she slept straight through until 7, but woke up with a fever of 102 again.  After some tylenol and a bath, she was back to her regular old self and has been going strong all day.  So I guess it was just a 24 hour bug?  Wish us luck that she has a good night tonight...

21 months.

Sweet, sassy, stubborn, adorable. There are so many words I can use to describe this little girl.

She is so sweet. She loves giving mama and dada hugs and kisses all day and night. She loves to share food with us, loves to have pretend tea parties and pour us tea (sound effects included). And luckily, for the most part, she is over the "let's squeeze Lola until she yelps" phase, and is now extra gentle and sweet with her best friend.

She is sassy because she loves to tell her mama and dada - "nooooooo, no-no, no-no, no-no, nooooooooo" all day long. She also likes to watch us out of the corner of her eyes as she goes to play with something that she knows is off-limits. Speaking of, she is all about testing the limits lately.

And she is stubborn. If she doesn't want to do something, she will not do it. Every couple of days she decides that she doesn't want to have her teeth brushed. So she will sit on her little potty and tuck her head down and freeze like that for hours if she had to. The head-tuck is her newest move and she thinks it will get her out of anything (and it usually does). When she decides that she doesn't want to wear a jacket, she wraps her arms around herself and will not budge them. And she can hold out for so much longer than I have patience for.

Adorable. Freaking adorable. She is so adorable that I can barely even stand it. Will I ever get used to how adorable she is?

Well, I survived my first few days back at work.  I'm totally exhausted, but it's actually going a lot better than I anticipated.  And Poppy is doing great with all the changes this week.  She is going to a home daycare close to my work 2 days a week.  We were so nervous about putting her in a daycare, but I feel soooo lucky to have found this place (thanks Sarah!).  She absolutely loves it, she's making friends, socializing and learning new things.  And the woman that owns the daycare is my new favorite person.  She holds Poppy and comforts her as often as she needs it, she calls me to let me know that she stopped crying within minutes of me leaving, and she emails me updates all day and even sends pictures and videos of what Poppy has been up to.  Oh, and did I mention that she holds Poppy and lays down with her until she falls asleep during naptime?!  Seriously, this woman is awesome!  And then on the other days, she is being watched by my parents and Marc's mom.  So basically she is spoiled silly by all of her granparents 3 days a week.  We all still have a lot of adjusting to do, but it really is going good so far.

 

........................................

 

And before I headed back to work, I wanted to make a trip up to Toronto for some shopping and sushi.  So off we went this past weekend...



And check out this pic taken at the same place last year... what a difference a year can make!

Tub-time!

Silly girl...









Wish me luck tomorrow - my first day back to work!