What's your name?

Leeza just started to say her name...but if you ask her her name...she says MAMA. :)

Leeza's first trip to the "Big D"

Leeza and my dad "Bobbo"


Leeza made her first trip to "Big D" to visit my parents this past week (July 5-12th). She has met my parents twice, and has also met her cousins, but that was last December, and she'd only been home a couple months, and she was only 15 months old so I don't think she really grasped who anyone was yet. She is quite the social butterfly, but I wasn't sure how she'd react to my huge family as everyone was coming home! She took an instant liking to my Dad, and my brother, and her Uncle Jan (my sister's husband). Seriously, she is not even 2 yet she is already boy crazy???!!




She was fawned over by her cousins, and had a total blast in the pool. My nieces had a speedo life jacket that they used when they were small, and I put that on her in my parents pool. She jumped off the diving board, floated on her back, swam the length of the pool, and felt very comfortable in the water. I'm not sure if that is the best for her learning to swim or not, but she sure had a blast being able to "swim" with the big kids. She had no qualms about jumping off the diving board and going under water. I was really proud of her.






She had her first popsicle out by the pool. It was a sweet life--swimming all morning..having Mimi bring you popsicles by the pool, and being the center of attention of all your cousins who love you. I want to be Leeza when I grow up. :)





We got all the cousins (or, my parents Grandkids) all matching outfits to get their photo's taken out on my parents lawn. It was a pretty hilarious endeavour. Leeza did not feel like cooperating and kept running off. I finally threatened her and told her if she ever wanted to see Elmo again-she better shape up. I guess she could tell I was really mad cuz she decided to straighten up,but then of course, the other kids were over it. However-I still think we got some good pictures, despite everything. They all looked so cute in their blue and white, and it's amazing how much Leeza looks like her cousins!!! The professional ones look better-but here are a few I caught with my camera. :)







My brother's girls, Giulia and Georgia, are the sweetest, most beautiful and loving kids. They adored Leeza-and she adored them (as you can tell!)





Due to the vast age difference of all the grankids, there is a huge arsenal of vehicles available for the kids to drive around the circular drive of my parents house..from scooters, to trikes, to bikes with and without training wheels, and even lil jeeps and mopeds! I'm telling ya...a real kid's paradise. :) Leeza got a ride from Will-my adorable 4 year old nephew. :) She also enjoyed rides on the wagon..a future homecoming queen maybe? LOL







In addition to all the fun things there are to do right in our own backyard, we got out and about some too. We went to Nicole's (my sister's) for dinner one night, to my brother Carlton and his wife Elizabeth's one night, then to some family friends one night who had the most magnificient sand box where all the kids spent a couple hours digging and generally having a blast. :)






















We also ventured out for some "field trips" to the Dallas aquarium, a water park (not a big water park, but one at a local park in Hearst, TX that had a great area for lil ones and big slides for the big kids) and a really killer Science and Children's museum that was the coolest children's museum I think I've ever been to. It entertained the kids of all ages! She also had her first frozen yogurt at I Heart Yogurt and found it to be DELISH!




I loved seeing Leeza in action at the water park. The water was about waist high on her in some parts, and she was running around, and even went down some pretty big and fast slides on her own, and got dunked pretty good. I was always at the bottom to catch her, but I was impressed with how much she loved it and how she was really fearless once she got her bearings. There are a couple "spray parks" here locally that we will defintely try now that I saw how much she loved it!





























Needless to say, all this activity, although super fun, was EXHAUSTING. Leeza feel asleep within 5 minutes of getting in the car-and man,she fell HARD.

Leeza and Sean-July 5, 2009

Leeza had her first trip to Dallas and she had a BLAST! She had so many cousins to fawn over her and had so much fun in the pool and playing in the yard. I have over 400 pictures to download so I will do an update later when I have more time. There was not a dull moment and we all need a "vacation from our vacation."

I just wanted to post some of the pictures that we had taken with all the cousins...they all look so much alike it's eerie, isn't it?

22 months already!!

I can't believe my baby is 22 months already...in just 2 more months she will be 2!!!
Technically, she will be 22 months tomorrow (on July 5th) but we leave for Dallas tomorrow so I won't have time to blog and I like to do this for each month so I remember all of her favorite things. Right now-Sesame Street and mermaids top the list of Leeza's favorite things. Her food preference seems to change with the wind. She always seems to like Mac and Cheese, and this week she loved Cinnamon and Raisin mini bagels. Last week she loved grapes, and ate bowls of them, but this week she wouldn't eat any grapes. She loves her vanilla milk and drinks a lot of that-and she likes pretzels with peanut butter as a snack (like her daddy!) She continues to be the best sleeper-sleeping 12-14 hours a night and typically an hour and a half to a 2 hour nap. She likes going to Gymboree class and Kindermusic-but still doesn't always like to do what everyone else is doing. When Sean joins us, he says she's not very good at class partcipation. However, since I've been going with her for many months, I see an improvement (most of the time!) She is defintely not one of the best behaved kids in the class, so I am not sure she'll ever be a teacher's pet like her mother was. :)



I can tell she's getting closer to the age of 2, as her new favorite word is No! She will even nod her head YES when while she is saying no. It's pretty funny! Shse is learning to control her temper though, so that's good.

She is also getting sneaky. Today, I was packing for our trip to Dallas and she was "helping" but I guess she got bored. I was in my closet and came out and she was gone. Joe was outside in the backyard so I started calling her name. It always scares me when there is silence. Sean found her...she had gone into our guest room , but had swiped my chapstick off the bathroom counter and when Sean opened the door, she jumped and was putting on many layers of chapstick. STINKER!




I think the BIGGEST change in Leeza this past month is her affection. She has been really huggy and kissy-and she has learned how to give a really good hug. She really hugs you with all of her lil heart and she's learning empathy. Sean was faking crying tonight and he was saying "mommy, hug me, kiss me" and Leeza was reading with Daddy and she got very upset and insisted on stopping the book and wanted to hug Sean. It was sweet!

Her attention span is also getting much longer. She actually watched an entire episode of Sesame Street this week-more than once! She still shows zero interest in any other show, but is a loyal Elmo and Sesame Street follower. It's fine by me because I really like Sesame Street. Her favorite way to watch is sitting on my lap with a blanket over us. I love how snuggly she likes to be. She also likes to plop in our laps and read several books at a time. She's rather particular about which books (and has DEFININITE opinions on which books she likes) but I'm so happy I have a snuggly book reader. Sean is a bit heavy to sit in my lap anymore. :)




Physically-she is defintely growing and her feet are getting wider. The other day, Sean cracked me up when he told me to "check the baby percentage thingies cuz Leeza has the FATTEST BABY FEET HE'S EVER SEEN.". Her hair is growing too-more like getting thicker-not so much getting longer. She is also getting stronger. She is able to pull herself totally out of the pool now (thanks to lots of practice with Emily during swimming lessons). She had a great week in swimming lessons this week, but still isn't swimming on her own. We leave for Dallas tomorrow to visit my family for a week, so we'll work with her in my parents pool. We have 3 days of lessons left and I have a feeling I will end up adding at least another week. She does so much better learning from Emily than she does from me. I guess this is why I would not be a very effective home school teacher. :)

We celebrated our first 4th of July with our newest American citizen today-mostly in the pool, with a cookout with family over. We didn't even bother going to see fireworks-Leeza was exhausted from an afternoon in the pool and most likely the loud sounds would freak her out. I was lazy with the camera and didn't get any pictures of her in her cute red white and blue...but she did look pretty cute. :) Joe got a few fireworks and we did those in the yard so Sean wouldn't feel jipped. We can also see a few of the big ones from our yard-so it was still festive.

Here she is in her cute lil Etsy mermaid dress-and she snagged her big brother's shoes.

Finley meets Leeza!

It was really special meeting Sandi and Finley in Orlando today. Sandi was the first person I met "in real life" after we started the adoption process. She was the VERY FIRST COMMENT on my VERY FIRST post on this blog..WAY back in July 2007...
We met in Orlando and went shopping for our baby girls and it was really special to be WITH OUR BABY GIRLS THIS TIME!

It was really pretty hot and humid but we walked around Downtown Disney and had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. Sean was a big help so I could catch up with Sandi and he was a sweet big brother.














Leeza was a bit of a pill on the way home because she was super overtired but wouldn't take a nap-so when we got home, Leeza and I BOTH took a nap.

Finley is a beauty and such a happy happy baby-and it seems like Sandi and Finley have been a mommy-daughter team forever and ever. It's easy to see why Sandi has had such a seamless transition to mommyhood-her daughter is an angel and Sandi radiates this calm, inner peace that's refreshing. :) She had a long wait to Finley-but her positive atttitude and constant encouragement to others were rewarded with her very happy,healthy, beautiful Finley Faith Alexanda Martin. :)

Pigtails!!

They didn't stay in for very long-but I got em in!
At Gymboree class today, a lil girl with less hair than Leeza had cute lil pigtails in her hair so I asked her mom if she thought I could get them in Leeza's hair. I still need to practice, because they fell out soon after the pictures were taken.

I put them in again so Daddy could see them when he got home, and he said her hair is too short for pigtails, then Leeza pulled them out. I thought they looked cute though. I am sure my nieces will teach me when we go visit them in Dallas in a few days..I'm not very good at girl hair. :)

Unexpected Blessings at midnight

This picture has nothing to do with the midnight wake up call, but it shows my happy girl so I wanted to post it. :)


Leeza is a WONDERFUL sleeper. As long as I have had custody of her (almost 9 months now), she has NEVER woken up during the night crying. We've had some wicked thunderstorms that shook the house, but Leeza never stirs. She is one sleeping beauty that girl!

So, imagine my suprise when I was awakened from a very sound sleep at midnight with the distressing sounds of my baby girl crying. My bionic ears picked it up, while of course Daddy slept on. :) I ran into her room, and scooped her up.
She wrapped her lil arms around my neck and buried her head in my neck, and crying ceased immediately. My heart swelled as I hugged my sweet baby girl.

Why is this such a big deal? Clearly, she wasn't hurt, she was fine, maybe she had a bad dream. The big deal was that she totally and completely relaxed in my arms and nestled into her mommy and gave herself to me to be comforted. I think I've mentioned before that although Leeza always loved to be held, and loved to be carried, I just didn't think she was the "cuddly" type. She didn't want to sit in my lap and rock, or read too many books-she was too busy. However...as time went on, I began to notice subtle changes in her.

Recently, whenever she bumps her head, or arm, her foot, or whatever, she immediately runs to me and wants me to kiss it (so sweet!) and when she kisses me, she grabs my face with both sides of her hands and just grabs me toward her and gives me the sweetest, most heartfelt kiss. It's been a process to watch her become a more and more affectionate and loving child and it's been beautiful to watch.

It does break my heart to think that giving and receiving affection is indeed a learned behavior, and I wish I had been her teacher from September 5, 2007, the day she was born. Thinking of her before we knew her, although she was certainly well taken care of and loved by the baby house staff, still makes me sad. We had to wait almost 11 months later to meet our beautiful angel-but then again-it's been a wonderful transformation to witness first hand.

My sweet baby girl KNOWS she is loved, and she is learning to SHOW her love back to us-no holds barred. It makes being woken up from a very sound sleep a blessing instead of an inconvenience.

So..why did Leeza wake up at midnight, crying for her momma?
I think it freaked her out too-but she had to pee!! Yes-Leeza Peeza's body must be learning that it can wake up and she can go potty-and it must have freaked her out! After I took her to the potty, and hugged her some more, I put her back in bed with her elephant, her soska, and her blanket, with joy in my heart that my baby girl knows she's loved. And, who knows, maybe someday soon the pullups at night time won't be necessary anymore-but I am not sure that I will ALWAYS feel such joy at being woken up from my peaceful slumber, so I am all for her building some stronger bladder control before we go down this road. :)