A great Fair Trade store

I love this online store that sells beautiful items from Guatemala.  They are having a great giveaway right now also for anyone who leaves a comment on their post. 

http://littlemangoimports.blogspot.com/

Guate Mall to support school in Guatemala

I have many wonderful items for sale in my Guate Mall.  All profits will go to support two schools in desperate need in Guatemala.  If you are interested in purchasing any of these items, let me know by leaving me a comment and I can give you the prices.  I will send you a PayPal invoice and after payment is received, I will mail you your items via USPS.

Please consider giving to this wonderful cause.  My friend Vanessa will be travelling down to Guatemala for a month starting the end of May to help these two schools.

Thank you!

My Crafty Girl

We finally made it back to the library for story time last night. We hadn't been since before Thanksgiving due to the holidays, vacation and snowy weather. Evelyn really did very well with following the rules and sitting and listening. I was really amazed last night in the changes in her ability to do the craft by herself. I have noticed a change in her drawing also in the last month or so when she brings pictures home from school. She used to just scribble but she has moved on and is now "drawing" people and faces. One day she excitedly showed me the picture that she drew and said "its you and me mommy!" There were definite faces and not much for bodies but I could see a big and little person.

Last night at the library she was very independent and didn't want my help in putting together her craft. She made a penguin which had 9 pieces to be glued together. She looked at the example once and then went about putting it together. She was concentrating so hard. I happen to have my camera in my purse so shot this video of my crafty girl.

She is now 3 1/2 years old. One of her best friends just turned 4 which just doesn't seem possible.

Here is a picture of her conentrating so hard.

My Band Hero

Uncle Allan's family brought their band hero to Grandma & Grandpa's house on Christmas. Evvy really liked the drums. I think it is funny cause she played the drums 2 years ago down at Uncle Allan's house. She is quite the performer. Here are two videos of her serenading us with some medlies of songs playing the drums.

Christmas Recap

We had a great Christmas this year. My company "gave" us some extra vacation days (without pay or choice) so we headed down to TX a couple of days sooner than planned. This gave us a chance to take more time to get there and back and have a more relaxing trip.

We got to TX on Tuesday afternoon and hung out with Grandma and Grandpa. Then on Wednesday we drove down to Austin and I went Christmas shopping with SIL and mom and Evvy got to spend time with her big girl cousins Abby & Ally. She said she had a good time with them and was not scared like she was last year. She even greeted and talked to Uncle Allan which was a huge deal since she would see him and cry last year.

Christmas Eve we just hung out at Grandma and Grandpa's and got ready for Christmas. Grandma bought a 1000 piece puzzle of tropical fish in the ocean that was really hard and took all week to put together. Mommy lost a lot of sleep over that puzzle but was determined to get it finished.

Christmas Eve Evelyn opened her traditional Christmas Eve present of new jammies and slippers. She loved her Hello Kitty character slippers and snowman soft pajamas. Soon after that Uncle Robert, Aunt Aimee and cousins Ethan & Elise arrived. We then visited and got the kids all wound up and then somehow expected them to go to bed so Santa could come. They actually all did quite well.

Christmas morning of course Miss Evelyn was first awake as she is just about every morning. She was very patient and quiet and went out to the living room and saw the train that Santa brought her (courtesy of Uncle Allan's family) and her stocking. She looked at her stocking while we waited for everyone else to get up. Then it was present fest and confusion. This was the best Christmas so far I think because she is so verbal and excited about EVERYTHING. She could easily pick out which presents were hers because she knows how to spell her name. It was very sweet watching her find her presents. She was really pretty calm and looked at everything as she opened them. Her big present was the train set and then she mostly got books, puzzles and playdough. Those are the things she likes and plays with most. We don't need more toys cluttering up the house! Most of the books she got are in Spanish because she is now taking Spanish class and really enjoys it. It is fun to speak Spanish to her and know she understands (even if she answers in English a lot of the time).

We stayed in TX for 11 days before heading back home where we found that it had snowed A LOT. In fact, 2 weeks later it has snowed more and there is still A LOT of snow on the ground. It is finally starting to warm up so it will probably be gone in a couple of days. That was the most snow we have seen in many years. It did flurry in TX while we were there too. It was unseasonably cold. We only had 2 really nice days where it was mildly warm but it was warmer than home and we were with our family. This was one of the best Christmases I can remember in a long time.

Here is a photo show of some of the pictures from our trip.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Evelyn meets Santa

Evelyn was so excited this year to meet Santa Clause. She just sat there and patted his hands. I love how her hands are just sitting right on top of his. This was her first year to not be terrified of Santa.

The Carnival!

Every Labor Day weekend our city puts on a wonderful festival. It is only about 5 mins from our house. In years past, I have gone every day to listen to the music, eat the yummy food, shop and just people watch. They also have a decent little Midway area with rides and rip off games. Last year Evvy rode the Merry Go Round and we convinced them that even though she wasn't 36" tall to ride on the "elephant" ride--she was really quite pitiful and cried and cried so they finally let her ride with an older child.

We started by torturing the children and dragging them to the quilt show. There were a few really pretty quilts that I liked. I did get a couple of Christmas presents bought so I guess Christmas shopping season has begun for me.

We went with our best friends and spent too much money riding the rides. I can't believe how expensive it is. I bought 20 tickets for $20 but luckily most of the kiddie rides are only 2 tickets so she did get to ride a lot of rides.

This year, Evvy is 38" tall so had no problem riding the kiddie rides. The first ride she wanted to ride was the Elephant ride. Then P, E, Evelyn and I all rode on the swinging basket ferris wheel. I haven't been on a ferris wheel in many many years. It was a lot of fun and Evvy loved it. She had no fear at all and really enjoyed the view of the city and being above the trees. She also went on a sweet canoe ride with E and then they also went on an alligator roller coaster that went pretty fast. We then rode the Merry Go round of course and ended riding a flying bumble bee ride that went up in the air. I asked Evvy if she was scared when we looked at the pictures tonight and she just laughed and said no. I think I have a fearless girl who is going to love amusement parks as she gets older.

I was a little disappointed with the food this year. It had nothing to do with the food itself. However, I have had a cold, sinus infection, upper respitory infection for the past 3 weeks and have been on antibiotics for 2 weeks. I still can't taste anything but a yucky taste which is a side effect of the latest antibiotic. It is such a waste to buy chocolate or anything and then not be able to taste it. I bought what looked like a really good steakburger with onions and the whole work and bbq sauce. I couldn't taste a thing. Maybe my sense of taste and smell will return b4 the weekend is over and we can go back and try a fried pickle or twinkie and cotton candy.

Here are some pictures from our day.

Susan

Miss Independent

Evelyn has become very independent in the past month or so. It is really quite a transformation. All of a sudden, she gets up in the morning and goes in and gets dressed all by herself. She can get up and down off the toilet and wipe her own tushy and flush all by herself. She can turn on the bathroom faucet and wash her hands by herself. If I try to help her with just about anything, she firmly tells me she can do it by herself. I also am enjoying the fact that when she gets up on the weekend I can get her to go into her room and play with puzzles, read books or play with her toys by herself and let mommy doze in bed a little longer (I can't really go back to sleep because I am a little too paranoid that she will get into something and hurt herself like I did when I was her age).

One of my earliest memories is from when I was about 3 years old. I was apparently at this independent stages and was going to get myself a drink of water all by myself. We had a glass water bottle in the fridge to keep cold water. I apparently climbed up on to the lip of the fridge and pulled down the water bottle and then proceeded to drop it and fall in the glass. I ended up cutting a tendon in my left hand and having to have surgery. For many years I couldn't make a tight fist and I still have a visible scar on my hand (I always thought it was a pretty cool scar). Anyway, my memory is sitting in the hospital at a little table and having what must have been the doctor come around to check on me--I just remember a man in a suit coming into see me. I don't remember being scared or anything.


Anyway, the point of telling that memory is that I am afraid that Evvy in all of her indendence might try to do something for herself and accidentally hurting herself.


Here is the picture of Evvy that I snapped this morning after she went in to play with puzzles. She got herself "dressed" in a much too small slip that she found recently and she was clicking around the house in her high heal princess shoes. It was pretty amusing and cute.

Reading her card from her BFF.

Didn't quite get everything "untucked"

Susan

Catching up

I have been missing blogging lately so I am going to start again. I haven't blogged since February and was looking back over some of the last posts. Evvy has changed so much and is a totally different person. She is such a joy to me and I feel so blessed to call her my daughter.

So what has happened since February?

• March we had a lot of fun playing in the snow. Evvy LOVES snow and is looking forward to winter again already.
• April: We had a fun visit with Grandma and Grandpa. They came and spent Easter with us. Evvy "rode" in Grandpa's airplane. Still hasn't gotten off the ground but she now has high hopes that maybe next time Grandpa will take her up to "touch the clouds." We had a fun visit to the Deanna Rose Farm where Evvy fed some baby goats with a bottle. She was disappointed that they wouldn't let her ride a pony because she wasn't 3 yet and her mom couldn't lie.
• April 18 marked the 2 year anniversary of Evvy coming home from Guatemala. We celebrated by going to one of our favorite Guatemalan restaurants "El Quetzal" and ended with a trip to Evvy's favorite Guatemalan bakery for a BIG SPINKLE Cookie (galleta).
• In April we also took a long weekend and drove to Omaha to go to the wonderful zoo and children's museum. Evvy still talks about the fun hotel which had an indoor waterpark with a double size hot tub and a "current pool" The hotel wasn't crowded so we pretty much had it to ourselves. Another highlight of the trip to the zoo was riding the carosel 3 times (a zebra, elephant and horse). Evelyn LOVES Merry Go Rounds. She had a little meltdown after the 3rd time because she wanted to go yet again. Instead we went and saw a beautiful peacock that spread its feathers and let Evelyn get very close to it.
• May was pretty warm so we had a couple of trips to the splash park and hung out with our friends.
• June 6 Evelyn turned 3 years old. We had a small party with 3 of her little friends. They just played water games and swam in her little pool in the front yard. I can't believe my baby is 3. She got a new scooter, tricycle and some nice new clothes from Grandma.
• June 8 Evelyn started "pre-school" at the local elementary school. She had no anxiety at all about going. She has gone joyfully and happily every day. At the same time, she greets me every day with a huge hug and "mommy" when I pick her up. Evelyn is very social and quickly made lots of new friends in her class. After a picnic with her class she came home and told me that "J" is my boyfriend. Just the way she said it was so cute. He is her special friend. However, since then she tells me that all of the male students are her boyfriends so I stopped worrying when I realized she was just classifying them by their gender. J is still her best friend though if you ask her. He is a very cute hispanic boy.
• July we celebrated the fourth of July with our friends at an annual picnic that we attend. Evvy really likes the fourth of July and fireworks. We went swimming a few times at our local waterpark but the summer overall was pretty cool. It seemed that the weekends were either rainy, cold or one of us was sick. Evvy did take swimming lessons though and really enjoyed them and learned some skills that will hopefully help her become a good, safe swimmer. She still needs a lifejacket but she can dive under and retrieve rings and sticks from under the water. She can also swim underwater to and from the steps of the pool. She still LOVES the water.
• August was a great month for us. I took 1 1/2 weeks off of work and we went on a couple of vacations. First we headed down to the Lake of the Ozarks for our 3rd annual MOGUATE gathering. There were 46 families that attended this year with close to 100 people. We had such a good time seeing friends from previous years and meeting lots of new friends. We were able to participate in some good "giving back to Guatemala" projects while there. We raised money for a group that does a lot of good work in Guatemala by raffling off a Guatemalan quilt and basket of other toys from Guatemala. The other project is called "Project Santa." We were blessed to have a friend and her family from Louisiana come to our gathering. V does a lot of good work in Guatemala and will be going down in a couple of months to distribute supplies that she has gathered to the needy in Guatemala. She has been responsible for giving Christmas to hundreds of children in families in Guatemala over the past several years. Visit Vanessa's blog to see how you can help or see the wonderful work she is doing for Guatemala.
• After MOGUATE we came home for a day and then got in the car and drove to Chicago to meet some of our friends that I have known through the adoption process online but had never met in person. We had a great time in Chicago. We spent 3 days in the suburbs going to the park, eating great food, going to the zoo and to a great splash park and just hanging out at the hotel pool. We went to our Chicago friend's condo and had yummy Chicago style pizza one night. The kids had a great time playing with each other and all of Andrew's wonderful toys. On Friday of that week Evvy and I headed downtown. We stayed at the Hilton hotel right downtown for an incredibly inexpensive price thanks to Priceline.com. It was a gorgeous hotel. The location was great. We were able to park the car in the garage and walk every where. Our favorite part of Chicago was Millenium Park and the "giant jelly bean." We went there 3 times in less than 24 hours. We enjoyed some outdoor concerts also and really just had fun walking around and people watching. Evvy had fun chasing "pingins" aka Pidgeons. There was also a wonder water sculpture area that kids could play in the water. It was great because it was a warm day. We also went and got some yummy Garretts popcorn. Have to say it was some of the best cheese and caramel corn that I have ever tasted. We also took a 2 hour bus ride on top of a double decker tour bus so we really saw all the sights of the city. We definitely want to go back again so that we can go to some of the museums and maybe the ferris wheel at Navy Pier. After our long day, we went and had Chinese food (Evvy's favorite) and then went back to the hotel for a nice swim. Evvy totally crashed watching a movie in bed. The next morning we took a walk down to Dunkin Donuts to get some donuts and juice and went back to Millenium Park and the Jelly Bean. It was a totally different experience because there were hardly and people. Then we were off for a long drive back home.

I will try to go back and add some pictures to this post over the next few days since that is really what people really want to see on the blog. I really just wanted to capture "our story" and what we have been doing in the past 6 months. I want to be a bettter blogger so that we have a record of the story of our wonderful life.

Happy Birthday mommy!

Yesterday was my birthday. I have decided that it isn't about me, but about how much Evvy enjoys my birthday. She was very sweet and sang me happy birthday numerous times and gave me lots of birthday kisses. Then she would say, "we have cake and ice-cream?" The balloon that my friend gave me of course was really for Evvy. The musical card was really for Evvy :) It was really a great day.

I received the most incredible gift from my uncle. He sent me a quilt that was made by his uncle's mother in law when she was a teenager. The quilt is over a hundred years old and is in excellent condition.


Here are a couple of pictures from my big day and some video of Evvy and Erica shaking their groove things. The music was from my birthday card. I don't think I caught the funniest ones on camera but these are pretty good.