Soccer!!

Abby had fun playing soccer last fall so we decided to give it a try again in the spring. She loved it! This time she was on the Silver Rockets team with her friend Alyssa. Alyssa is a little natural. Abby was pretty content to assist Alyssa but Abby did score a couple of goals herself too!

Abby and Alyssa going for a goal.

Abby and Alyssa's team played their best buddy Jackson's team. After the game they ate snacks together. Just like the pros.

Easter

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I'm a little behind with posting. So it is June and I'm just posting about Easter. Ah well. What can you do?

Easter this year was in a word, cold. So Abby's Easter dress this year was long sleeves with a warm jumper. It was still lots of fun and she looked cute as could be.

Four years old!!

Abby turned four years old in March. Four! I have a four year old. How it is even possible that my precious baby is four is beyond me. This is a really fun age. So confident, so funny, so inquisitive, so imaginative. "Why?" is a pretty common question in our house. I'm amazed how much she is now able to do herself. She puts her own dishes in the dishwasher, feeds our dog, and helps me in the yard. She loves to help me in the kitchen, especially anything involving stirring, measuring, and tasting.

We started the birthday with presents at home. Yes, it was the year of the bicycle! Abby already asked when the training wheels can come off. Later my mom came down and we went to her new house and then had a pre-party lunch of pizza. The actual party was at the Little Jumping Bean. Abby truly squealed with excitement as each of her friends arrived. Lots of friends, lots of jumping, and one very tired little girl at the end of the day. My personal favorite part of the day was the blowing out of the candles. We had barely begun singing the Happy Birthday song when Abby blew, the candles went out (leaving us in complete darkness), and the singing momentarily stopped as everyone tried to figure out proper protocol for singing when the candles had already been extinguished. Abby was just ready to get to the cake!

The birthday girl on her new bicycle. She was ready to go riding right when she first got up despite the fact that it was still dark outside.

Ready for her party!

Cake!!!

This picture was made on her actual birthday. Happy Birthday my beautiful girl!!!

Lots and lots going on

Wow. I can't believe it has been two months since I lasted posted. We have truly had so much going on. First for the big news. I finished my dossier at the end of January. While it normally takes about two weeks at the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington D.C., I managed to have it there over the Tet holiday so it took mine four weeks to get back. But after this long wait, my dossier was submitted to Vietnam on March 1!

And then just days later I received that magical call from my agency - they had my referral!!! I held my breath as they emailed me pictures. And then suddenly, there he was! My son!!! I know I am a proud mom, but he is just beautiful!!! He has the most amazing eyes. I'm not posting pictures of him here since it is a public site but once the adoption is complete I will.

I immediately printed out the pictures and took them with me when I picked up Abby from school. I will never forget the look on her face when she saw his face for the first time. It was a combination of wonderment, excitement, pride, and pure love. She is truly going to make the best big sister.

Henry was almost 6 months when I received his referral at the beginning of March and we will travel to Vietnam in hopefully June or July. He will be 9 or 10 months by then. The wait is already extremely hard and I know it will just get harder. The one good thing is that my agency does send new pictures as they can. It is just difficult to watch him grow and change when I wish he was already here.

I have so much more to update but will have to catch up a little each night. Until then, here are a few pictures of my girl from the last few months.

Ready for Christmas Eve service at church. And ready for Santa later!

Painting a picture for Mommy.

Playing dress up with our friends in Charlotte, NC. Lots of kids and lots of dressing up make for a very fun weekend!

Abby is very into dressing up these days. Especially as a princess.

Abby picked out this outfit to wear to her friend Alyssa's 4th birthday party. I love it!!

New York - Day 2

This year we decided to try a show. We got tickets to see the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. Let me just say that the show is very appropriately named. It was indeed spectacular! We all loved it.

Before the show we ate breakfast at a little deli near our hotel. Though the bagels were roughly the size of her head, Abby managed to eat the whole thing. That's my girl!

Mmmmm bagel!


At Radio City Music Hall before the show. Abby truly loved the whole show.


Ready to check out the rest of the city!


Only in New York. :-) We were in search of a bathroom when we found just that. Charmin has a public bathroom in Times Square. While waiting in line, patrons are entertained with a very addictive song and a stage. Charmin employees clean each bathroom after every single person while other employees dance on the stage. It was the most memorable bathroom experience.

Abby slept while we were waiting in line but woke up in time to join Olivia and Katy on the Charmin stage. Here the girls were dancing for all those waiting in line.

Dancing on stage can be tiring business. :-)

We walked to Macy's to see this year's window display. I definitely liked this year better than last year. While walking we noticed a LOT of police officers. There were even more outside Macy's. As we were leaving, I asked one officer what was going on. He got a very sheepish look on his face and replied, "Um, it is a demonstration against police brutality". We found out the next day that Al Sharpton had been at the rally.

We stopped by Bryant Park and bought the girls hats. We got asked more than once if they were triplets. :-)

Abby and Olivia laughing down 5th Avenue.

Before dinner we went back to Central Park. We stumbled on a Santa convention of sorts. Apparently the only qualification to attend was some kind of Santa attire. There were thousands of Santas and most of them were in various stages of inebriation. We all got creative explaining this to three 3 year olds.

After dinner and ready for bed.

New York!! Day 1
In December 2005 Abby made her first trip to NYC. The week before Christmas that year we met our friends Julia and her daughter Katy and Amanda and her daughter Olivia. People said we were crazy because at the time all three girls were just two years old. We had an absolute blast and decided to make it an annual trip.

So this year we again set out the week before Christmas and headed to NYC and we again stayed right in Times Square. It was another fantastic trip! It was so much fun to see the girls together again.

Walking down 8th Avenue Abby and Katy held hands from their strollers. They were so happy to see each other.

Swinging in Central Park

Dancing in Central Park

Riding the carousel in Central Park

And riding the real thing. Last year we also did the carriage ride through Central Park and had the grumpiest driver known to mankind. This year was just the opposite and our driver even pointed out places where movies were filmed.

First ice skating

Before Christmas we met Kris, Avery, Dawn, and Alec at Centennial Park to go ice skating. It was one of those really cold mornings but it was also beautiful. The kids were all very excited about putting on ice skates. For Avery, the excitement kind of stopped there. :-) She and Kris went around one time. Abby and I went around two times. Alec and Dawn made it around multiple times. When we first arrived and I saw the sign said you could skate for 90 minutes I just laughed.

She looks like a little professional skater doesn't she?

Abby truly did great on the ice. She fell a few times but got right back up.

After ice skating we went to CNN Center and found a Christmas tree where the kids exchanged presents.

As you can see, they had a great time!

Christmas Cards
Taking that one perfect picture for the family Christmas card can be a comical event. One happy, giggly girl plus one happy, silly dog equals lots of out takes. I thought the out takes were just as cute as the chosen picture.

Christmas Parade
I took Abby to the Atlanta Christmas parade. We rode the train downtown and Abby loved that as much as anything. :-) It was a beautiful, cold day - perfect weather for the event at hand. We found a nice section of curb which provided us a very close-up view. Abby's favorite part of the parade? Every single marching band. Yes, that's my girl! She did, however, express great concern every time a band marched by because the dancers/flag corp/twirlers had on no coats and very little clothing. The giant balloons were pretty cool too. I really dug the Grinch balloon but Abby favored the Coca-Cola panda drinking Coke. And she has never even had Coke.



Yay parade!!

After the parade and lunch at CNN Center, we decided to hang out at Centennial Olympic Park for awhile. It warmed up a lot that afternoon and the park was all decorated for Christmas.

The day after Thanksgiving
I love Thanksgiving. It is my favorite holiday. All the family, food, and time off work but none of the stress of holiday shopping. We went to Rome for the day. My mom cooked a delicious meal and for those of us not cooking, it was a very relaxing day.

My mom spent a few days with us after Thanksgiving. We even braved the shopping crowds of Black Friday. It wasn't too bad actually. I was expecting much worse. We also put up our Christmas tree. Abby loved looking at all the ornaments and decorations. She also loved reading all her Christmas books. And, like last year, our tree is definitely ornament heavy at the bottom of the tree. Just as it should be.

The Pink Pig
One of the great Atlanta Christmas traditions is the Pink Pig. I have the best memories of riding the Pink Pig when I was a kid and now I get to take Abby to ride. Last year was Abby's first time riding it. The train looks different from when I was little. It used to be a monorail train with a cage. They have the old train displayed now and I get claustrophic just looking at it. Today's train is a regular train. Abby loves it. Abby even has her own little Priscilla Pig courtesy of our friend Vicki. Abby has slept with Priscilla every night since she got her.



Waiting to ride the Pink Pig!



When you go before Thanksgiving you can still snag the front seat! After Thanksgiving, the lines to ride are LONG.



Here you can see the original train behind Abby. Like I said, it is like a case of claustrophobia waiting to happen.