Leeza's first haircut!!

Leeza got her first haircut yesterday, even though I didn't think she had enough hair to cut yet. Her lil curl in the back is gone...SADNESS!
However, Amber,my wonderful hairstylist and friend, assured me that by trimming her hair, it will help it grow in thicker and quicker.

Leeza has been with me to get my haircut a couple times, so she knows the score. She was oh so anxious for her turn. She was so into it-sat on my lap like a princess and never shed a tear. I seem to recall Sean pitchin a hissy for his first haircut, and actually, every single haircut since. He screamed all the way to the barber until he was like 5...and I'm not even lyin. He still doesn't like to get his haircut, BUT, he does really like Amber so he will let her cut his hair because she is good and makes him look cool. Sean hated his hair cut and his fingernails cut-STILL DOES. Joe always used to tell him that "he hated to be groomed."

However, Leeza LOVES to be groomed. She holds her lil hand out like she's getting a manicure when I cut her nails, and she loved getting her haircut. It cracks me up-I do realize I am going to have my hands full with this one, but hopefully I won't have to beg her to take showers and comb her her like I do with her brother....






All done!! My favorite curl..ALL GONE! Let's hope Amber is right and it grows back even thicker. However, rest assured, I love my lil diva, with or without her luscious locks. :)

Godzilla and the new "water and sand table"

One of Leeza's favorite new activities is to play in Miles' water bowl. She especially likes to drag things around from around the house to throw them in his water bowl. She has been found sitting in the water bowl, and of course, dumping it out on the floor. I hate to be the kind of mom who just says 'No, No, No, No" all DAY LONG, (but I am quickly becoming one!!) so I decided to get her one of those "water and sand tables" at Target. We have a nice screened in porch and the weather is perfect, so Sean and I put it together today. Leeza kept taking the pieces away and storing them in her laundry basket that she hauls around the house, containing various treasures such as a dog bone, some tights, some socks, some spice from the cabinet, and a sealed container of "Triple Greens" to help mommy get her veggies in.



Finally...we got the thing put together despite Leeza taking all the stuff. I am NOT putting sand in it because it will be way too messy and I don't need Benjamen (the cat) taking a poop in it either. I was going to put rice in it so she can play with that-but after watching her with the water, I don't think I am going do to rice and water TOGETHER. It will be ONE or the OTHER. We had to let her play topless because her shirt ended up sopping wet after about 5 minutes. So, hope no one is offended by the "topless toddler". :)



Sean was CRACKING ME UP. He says Leeza is too young for it and that is why it says for "ages 2 and up" on the box. She only wants to splash in it and let water of the drain and splash in the puddles. Frankly..I DON'T CARE if she splashes or lets the water out. Frankly, it keeps her entertained and she's OUTSIDE. However, she got smart and started dragging her laundry basket around adding stuff to it, then taking all kinds of NEW treasures to dump in the water...like the tights, the socks, etc. I don't really want that kind of stuff in there, so I gave her some measuring cups and stuff. She had a blast-and she is now down for a nap.







I had to take some video of her and Sean-he called her Godzilla, destroying New York City. He can be such a punk at times-but then he makes up for it by cracking me up and entertaining his sister. Miles also likes the table because he drinks out of it, as did Leeza. They are now "saliva siblings"

Pretty Pink Princess Dress in her pretty pink shoes!!

Leeza went nuts over this pair of lil "Ballet shoes" at Target. She saw them, had to carry them out of Target, and was trying to put them on in her car seat over her other shoes on the way home. She is SUCH a girly girl..and I LOVE IT!
She came and plopped in my lap and gave them to me to put on when we got home, and I remembered that my parents had got her a pretty pink dress up dress for Christmas,so I got that out. She ran to the mirror to check herself out! She heard daddy coming home (she hears the garage door go up) and ran to greet him by the garage door. It was SO cute! She is also sick, poor baby. She has a chest cold and an ear infection, but you wouldn't know it looking at these pictures. Pink is TRULY her signature color!!!!

She is talk talk talking up a storm. We have no idea what she is saying most of the time, but that doesn't stop her from joining all conversations. Yesterday, Sean cracked me up when he said, "Leeza, man, when you start talking, you are NEVER GONNA SHUT UP!!" Ahhhh...the joys of having a little sister. :)

Just to show you is not all wussy girl, here is she is trying to climb the cabinets...


I LOVE this lil curl....


Doesn't she look like a prima ballerina getting ready for a performance?

My "Perfect" Toddler

This is what happens when Leeza is told "No"! As you can see, she is not a fan.

Leeza FINALLY got her meet her favorite Aunt Sandi last Sunday, when we got together with Shannon and Alexa over in Shannon's neck of the woods. We went to lunch, then to the park. Leeza was throwing her toys out of her high chair at lunch and pitchin a mini hissy. Sandi said, "It's a relief to see she is not perfect!"
So, I thought I should share a "not so perfect" Leeza moment so that when she goes back to read her blog, that she will see that she is not ALL angelic, ALL the time,and to let her dear blog readers know the same. :)




Leeza at the park wearing the ADORABLE outfit that Shannon and Alexa gave her..thanks guys!!!








Leeza is a pretty fun lil gal to hang out with, and is mostly happy. She DOES NOT care for it one bit when you don't let her do what she wants to do, which of course, all happen to be her FAVORITE activities. Those include going thru every cabinet not on lock down, playing in the dog and cats water and food bowls, stealing other children's snacks at the park, trying to rifle thru other women's purses at the play area at the mall, or steal other lil girls brand new build a bear's.





We were at the Gymboree store at the mall yesterday, because I got a 20% coupon for joing the Gymboree play group, plus they had that $10/$20 sale. Leeza is growing out of all her 12 month clothes, and even though she has a lot of 18 month old hand me downs, I wanted to buy her some too. :) So, as Mom is busy buying out the store, she wanted out of the ergo. I let her out and she was having fun climbing in and out of the chair and listening to their lil Gymboree tv show with music. Next thing I know, she is harrassing this poor lil 3 year old boy in his stroller, trying to swipe his goldfish and steal his milk. I grabbed her and his mom said, "OH, it's ok, I have extra. She's so cute!" I said, "well, thank you, but she just ate, and she needs to learn that it's not appropriate and take random strangers food.". Being cute doesn't give you that right..sorry Leeza Grace! As we were checking out, the nice sales lady commented how much Leeza looked like me. awwwww!





I took my 2 ton bag full of darling new clothes for the goldfish stealer down to the play area. She went off to play, but soon was wondering towards the benches and trying to pilfer women's purses. She tried to steal some scraggly looking kids stuffed animal out of his stroller, then tried to swipe this darling lil girls brand new build a bear she had just made. It was REALLY CUTE though...a bunny with pink shoes, so I admired her taste, but YOU CAN'T JUST DO THAT!

However, as imperfect as she may be, I love her more with each passing day. I have moments where she drives me insane (like this morning when she doused her "baby" in Miles water bowl and I caught her eating dog food), but then the next moment I am crazy in love with her. I realize that these toddler moments are fleeting..and all too soon she will be too old and too cool to hang out with her momma...so I am doing my best to relish every moment.

Here are some pics of her in some of her new duds...(but not any of the Gymboree ones yet)

She was just 17 (mos) and you know what I mean....

and the way she looked was way beyond compaaaare..
I'd never danced with another....WHOOOOOOO--When I saw her, standin there.....

The Beatles sure had it right!!! :)

My "Baby Kaz" is 17 months old today. The longer she is here, the more and more obvious it becomes that she truly was meant to be our daughter. She is (complete with stomping her feet temper tantrums) a "perfect lil Serra". Not that she is a perfect lil angel all the time, with a bow in her hair and a spring to her step (HARDLY!), BUT she just fits in so well in our life. I continue to be completely awed and humbled (and yes, occasionally frustrated) by this lil spitfire of a lil girl.





She is into EVERYTHING, all the time. She definitely jives with my busy life, as she is not one to like to "stay home" and chill. She thrives on being out and about. It's a good thing too-because we are busy with Sean's activities after school too and she is a trooper about being confined in the ergo during basketball games. The first game or two were pretty horrendous, she only wanted OUT and screamed loudly in protest. When I would try to let her out, she would not stay in the area where she was allowed, and tried to run on the court. It was GREAT fun (NOT!) Aftter the first two games, she got much better and happily stayed in her ergo, as long as there were snacks and cheerleaders next to us to keep her entertained. She is defintely a charmer and loves to "work the crowd" and luckily for her, all the kids are enchanted by her and the adults give her TONS of attention. It works quite well for the diva that she is. :)




She is growing, growing, growing. Her 12 month pants are becoming "high waters", and I've had to get rid of shoes that we bought in December, even though she still tries to cram her feet into them. :) She is SUCH a girly girl, and loves her bracelet, and her "girly clothes". She MOST DEFINTELY knows when she looks cute. I got her her first pair of shorts and flip flops at Target yesterday. The 18 month shorts are big in the waist (she totally is a plumber) but fit her "athletic" lil legs. She loved her flip flops, but it takes practice to learn to walk in them. :)








One of her new, rather annoying "tricks" is that she removes her shoes AND socks whenever we get into the car. She also will not stay away from the water cooler, the dog's water and food bowl, and the pantry. She is always in there dragging cans of soup out, or emptying boxes of granola bars and oatmeal. I feel like all I ever say is "No, No, No Leeza, Walk away Leeza, that's not safe Leeza, LEEZA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" It is exhausting, but on the other hand, I like her curiosity and I love to see how fast she is learning. It's SO amazing how much these children understand!! We talked to Tatiana on skype this morning and Leeza showed Tatiana her pretty bracelet, her earrings, her head, her tongue her mouth, and her Ms. America wave. It's so neat to see how excited Tatiana gets to see how the kids she helped unite with families are thriving! She said she could not believe a few months ago that Leeza did not even understand English and now she is so smart! :)

It's so funny how when I had Sean, I was fully prepared for the "rough and tumble" boy, the climbing, the into everything, etc. kind of kid. Sean was NOT that kind of a toddler. He was VERY laid back, mellow, and loved to sit and watch videos and even went to his first movie when he was 18 months. He was such an easy baby. Then..comes Leeza. She does everything that I was warned about that boys do...climbing, into EVERYTHING, won't sit still to watch any kind of video, and wants to swing HIGH and slide down huge slides. I love how brave she is, but it's rather exhausting!! I took her to a gymnastics place yesterday for an hour of "Open gym" (only $5) and she LOVED it. They had foam pits, trampolines, and all kinds of cool stuff. She was very brave and loved being thrown into the foam pit. Howevhe oer, after about 30 minutes, she had a total meltdown. She was rolling around on the floor, and screaming. It was really weird. I think she got totally overstimulated. After about 5 minutes, she wanted to be held for awhile, then she resumed playing. About 5 minutes before our hour was up, she went and got my shoes and waved bye bye, and grabbed my hand. I guess she was ready to go!

I will close with a funny video of Leeza after we put on her new outfit and her flip flops. As you can see, Miles is always close by. She drives me crazy because she constantly sneaks him food and gives him her food, and then cries for more and gets really mad when I tell her NO, stop giving it to the dog. She then WAGS her finger at Miles and tells him 'No, no, no' when SHE is the one who gives him the food.
She KILLS me. :)

Lemonade award...awww thanks Gretchen!!!

I would like to give a big thank you to Gretchen for this lovely lil blogger award called "The Lemonade Award", with the gist being a recognition to someone who has a positive attitude, the whole "glass half full " mentality and when lives gives em lemons..they make lemonade.

I met Gretchen (Journey Near, Journey Far) at the beginning of our adoption journey after she was home with her adorable Kaz cutie, Serik. Serik was a tiny munchkin but after a few months home with Gretchen and Chris, he looked like a totally differnet kid. They decided to adopt again, domestically, and were blessed with Austin, 15 months at the time, only a couple months younger than Serik, and his newborn infant brother, Asa. I am so amazed at how well these children has thrived with Gretchen and Chris as their parents. It's so heartwarming to see the difference and realize how loved and blessed these children are, and how much joy they bring to their parents as well!

The rules for this spunky lil award are that you post the graphic for it, write a post that links back to the giver, and then pass it on to up to ten others. Leave a comment on the blogs that get the award, so they know what's happened.

I have so many friends in "blogger nation" that helped me thru my long wait to Leeza, and who have continued to inspire me along the way. I decided to limit it to 5 so that I'm not an award hog. A couple of these gals already got awards (Sara Tennen with her diva daughter Rylie, and Jennifer, momma to Gianna), but I didn't want them to go without a mention. :)

The first person I met on this adoption journey was Sandi {Journeytomydaughter} and she lives in Orlando. We were using the same adoption agency, and we started the process around the same time. She is waiting to travel very soon, with a different agency, after an unsuccessful first trip to Kazakhstan. She has been thru the wringer, yet solidly supported us, while we were assigned the same region and baby house of her first trip. She has been unbelievably patient, and supportive of everyone, and I am SO excited for her to meet her daughter VERY SOON! Her resilient spirit and strength of character are amazing, and her daughter will be one very blessed lil angel to have her as a momma!!

Angela (Seeking Alia) and I met our daughters the same month-and I started following her blog when we were both still paperchasing. She is one of those "really hard professors" you have in college that you really hate while in the class cuz they challenge you so much, but then you are so appreciative after the class was over because of how much you learned. I love her intellectutal approach to everything,and while you could probably not find 2 different personalities in the two of us, for whatever reason, the friendship "works".

Karen {Our Adoption Journey to Kazakstan} has been an amazing cheerleader for us, way back when I was freaked out everyday that Joe was going to be too old and we'd never get to Kaz. She and Glenn adopted their adorable son, Max, from Ust and loved it so much they're on their way to number 2!

Steve and KJ (Kazmo adoption) and their wonderful daughter "Tougy" have been not only a great support system for us, but their pictures are the most amazing I have ever seen. Tougy is certainly a beautiful child, but Steve is able to capture her beauty, and KJ's beauty, with such an expert eye that his photographs are truly works of art. Their first journey to Kaz was not successful either, which kept my faith that everything happens for a reason and the right children end up with the right families.

Karen {Little Kazman} has been one of the people that I was fortunate enough to meet in "real life" as she came to Florida. Her and her husband Bob adopted Garrett. They have had their challenges, but Karen is such a wonderful advocate for Garrett and has also been such an amazing mentor to Sade, her "lil sister" in the big brother, big sister program. Karen has such a big heart and I love watching her "mama bear claws" come out as she gets Garrett the resources he needs to succeed.


I feel incredibly blessed to have met so many wonderful, fantastic people on this journey, that seriously, I could easily name about 5 more people, but Leeza is milling about, and Sean is about to start homework, so Mom's time in blog land is officially over. :)

Go Bucs!!!

I told Leeza we were having a superbowl party to watch FOOTBALL!
She said "Dada!!!" cuz she knows that Dada likes football. She wasn't clear on the players, but she is a Bucs girl regardless of who is in the superbowl. :)

She wanted to change her outfit and wear her cheerleader outfit to cheer her team on. She came out all cutesty in her Bucs cheerleader dress that was a handmedown.

Sean wanted to know WHY she was wearing it cuz the BUCS aren't even the superbowl.
Clearly, he misses the point...she's just a cute lil cheerleader!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BUCS!!!!

AND GO MOMMY-for making her OWN chicken wings instead of having Beef O Brady's make them! Leeza has motivated her mother to start COOKING and planning meals. Though at first I fought it for all I was worth, I am proud to say I've turned a corner and I am actually enjoying it and hope that maybe one day soon Sean will eat something that I make! Leeza just makes me want to be a better mommy. Sean was, and is, such a picky eater, but Leeza continues to be such a GREAT eater, I want to make sure I don't feed her "junk" so she can continue these great eating habits for life.

Basketball season ends next week, and then FOOTBALL season starts for Sean. He is playing TACKLE FOOTBALL and Joe is helping coach. The games are Friday nights and practices on Sunday, so Joe can work his out with his insane work schedule. I am not super thrilled about Sean playing tackle football, but he is soooooooooo excited and Joe played as a kid, so I figure it will be a good "Father-Son" bonding thing.
I always wanted to be a cheerleader (but never had the confidence to even try out, what a wuss!) so Leeza and I will be cheerleaders! GO BELLEAIR BOLTS!

Don't worry...be happy!

Leeza's new favorite thing is to raid her brother's room, much to her brother's chagrin. He has now started locking his door to keep her out. His room is just so much more interesting than hers and way more fun to get into! She came out yesterday with his Halloween costume-our own lil Bob Marley!

I often hear Sean telling Leeza.."You're a real piece of work sister", and he's got that right! She is SO "Dennis the Menace" and into everything that she shouldn't be, and she gets super irrated if you tell her no. Poor lil Leeza...No one lets her have any fun.

Fortunately, for Leeza, it's a party, on the potty, when you have a big brother who will entertain you.
Leeza was havin a fit because I left her on the potty to do her business while I went to the kitchen to finish dinner. Sean to the rescue...our entertainment committee.

Leeza has also learned to do her "Ms. America wave" on command, it's really pretty funny.

Happy Superbowl Sunday and enjoy Party on the Potty...LOL