Finalized

We are so blessed!  Words cannot express our joy, our gratitude, and our love for this little girl! 

April 13, 2011 - Seven months to the day after our first custody hearing for Samantha, our attorneys went to court and finalized our adoption of Samantha Grace!

Portion of the adoption decree

Adoption is a beautiful, emotion-laden process, riddled with anxiety and uncertainty.  We count ourselves lucky in that we had a very positive experience.  Make no mistake though, until we received that phone call from our attorney on April 13th, regardless the positive experience with Samantha's birth mom, anxiety levels in our home were high...for seven months!  Can you imagine having that constant fear in the back of your mind? 

Again, we wish to express our gratitude to Samantha's birth mom. I called Samantha's birth mom the day the adoption was finalized. I didn't want her to find out about the finalization from receiving an emotionless piece of mail from the state. I wanted her to hear it from me. She is a wonderful woman and we are so grateful for her decision to place Samantha with us. Thank you!

April 13, 2011 - We celebrated Samantha's finalization with a family dinner at a local Mexican restaurant :)

 It's official, baby girl, you are stuck with us! 

We love you!!

Seattle Mariners...for better or worse

The M's have been called many things over the years.  Some good, some...not-so-kind.  I tend to think of them as unreliable.  Regardless your thoughts on the Seattle Mariners, attending a game in-person at Safeco Field is a good time!!  A beautiful field, state-of-the-art facility, and awesome garlic fries!! 

Hmmm, reminds me of a time my sister and I went to a game, pigged out on some garlic fries, and then made a friend suffer the consequences the next morning at aerobics when all of the garlic smell came oozing out of our skin as we sweated our way through class on either side of her (Sarah!).  But I digress...

Batting Practice

Back to the Mariners - Eddie won some tickets from work so we go to have a date night on April 12th to watch the M's battle the Blue Jays.  They were great seats - right up the first base line, Section 118, Row 18!  At this point in the season, the M's had just broken a 7-game losing streak the night before with a come-back win, so we were prepare for the M's, in true M's-style, to lose that night's game.  I mean really, how many games in a row can we expect them to win? :)


It was a great game!  With Pineda on the mound, the M's took a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the 3rd inning, thanks to a home run from Ryan Langerhans.  We almost lost hope when the Blue Jays came back for 2 in the top of the 8th, but when all was said and done, the M's triumphed with a 3-2 win!!

The view from our seats

A beautiful, rainless, night in the Emerald City, a win from the Mariners, and we came away with a little souvenir for Samantha! :)

The "Mom" Haircut

I've noticed, when women become moms, magically, their hair shrinks.  I've discovered that there are many reasons for this, but let me explain mine.  As Samantha is getting older, she is learning she can use her hands for many things: reaching for toys, picking up pieces of food, holding others' hands, and wrapping them up in mom's hair and pulling...really hard! 

My solution, the "mom" haircut.  Why not just pull my hair back into a ponytail?  Well, that's how I started, but when I'm having to resort to that everyday...not so flattering.  Instead, I decided that with one action, I could do some great things:

1. Eliminate the wrap/pull motion that Samantha had learned so well :)
2. Get a low maintenance hairstyle
3. Get ready for Spring and Summer by losing the long hair
4. Do something good for someone else by donating the cut hair (minimum 10") to Locks of Love so they can use it to make hairpieces for kids who have lost their hair due to various medical conditions.

Donated hair

So, here is the end result...

What do you think? :)

Ode to a Harry Potter Weekend

Every couple months or so, ABC Family has their "Harry Potter Weekend."  It just means they show all of the HP movies they've bought viewing rights for, this time, #1-5, back-to-back all weekend long.  Now, we own all of the HP movies that have been released, #1-6, but there's something more exciting when it's on television.  We like having background noise in our house anyway, whether it's television or music, and what I like about the HP movies is that I don't have to worry about content.

Yep - so guess what was playing in my house ALL weekend - Harry Potter!  I don't think I saw any one of the movies all the way through but it doesn't matter - just having Harry Potter on was magical.  :)  Thank you, ABC Family!





By the way, Harry Potter #7 part 1 comes out on Blu-Ray / DVD in less than a month...and part 2 comes out in theaters in July. 

So excited - I don't know what it is, I just love the Harry Potter movies!

March 10th - 6 Months Old!

It's gone by so fast, I can hardly believe that Samantha Grace is 6 MONTHS OLD!  She has brought joy and laughter beyond measure into our lives.

Because a "half" birthday is a big deal, we decided to celebrate...with cupcakes! 

I know what you're thinking, "she's only 6-months-old and you're giving her a cupcake??  She doesn't even have teeth yet!!"  I know, but don't underestimate this little girl! 

The intention was only "half" a cupcake, with "half" of a candle...because it's only her "half" birthday :)  But the candle would just look silly in only half a cupcake.  So we just put the half of a candle in the small cupcake...and she got to eat half of her cupcake (which is about her limit anyway, so it was just perfect!). 

We sang, "Happy half-Birthday" to her (notice Daddy is holding her hands because we did indeed light the candle) and then, with a little help and hopefully a good wish, she blew out her candle!

Happy half-Birthday, little Princess!

A Baby and Her Food

When Samantha reached 5-months-old, her doctor said that she's old enough and big enough to start introducing other foods into her diet. We have had such fun trying out different baby foods, mashing up "real" food for her to try, and seeing her reactions.

We started out simple - a little rice cereal. Boy, that didn't go over well. But then again, you try eating that stuff plain - it's horrible!

So, we moved on to fruits and vegetables. Samantha loves bananas! Mash 'em, piece 'em, mix 'em with rice cereal or other fruits - the girl is a little monkey! She just loves bananas! It's gotten to the point that if she sees me eating a bananas, she whimpers until I share! I see how this is going to be...

Anyway, I was a bit surprised at the next one - she just LOVES sweet potatoes! Now I like yams anyway, but to see it all 'liquidy' in baby food form was enough to turn me off, until I tried them - they're pretty good, I see why she likes them.

She likes any and all fruit! Of course she prefers bananas to anything else, but she also really likes pears! If it were a choice between pear sauce, applesauce, or peaches - she goes with pears!

Ok, success so far...on to vegetables!! First, we tried carrots - who doesn't like carrots, right? Oh, the face this little girl made when I stuck that spoon full of carrots in her mouth - priceless!! She gave me the look as if to say, "Ugh! What is this stuff and why would you put it in my mouth?!" So, the first spoon full didn't take...maybe she just needs to try it a couple more times to adjust to the taste and really decide if she likes it or not. Well, that's what was going through my mind at least. After the third spoon full, she was so done with carrots. Whatever I put in her mouth came right back out of her mouth! Oh well - no carrots, I guess.

Maybe peas? Nope, wrong! I think she liked the carrots better.

Ok, so this is where it gets funny. I want her to be exposed to different foods and not be as picky as her mom and dad (Ed and I both have LONG lists of foods we do NOT like :) So I decided to try vegetables again. This time, it was a mixed veggie that contained peas, carrots, and potatoes. Now, she had some mashed potatoes one night and liked those, so I was hoping the potatoes would make the peas/carrots combination in there a bit more palatable. SUCCESS!! She loved it! Ate the whole container of mixed veggies in one sitting!

Was it mixing in the potatoes that solved the peas/carrots distaste? Well, we tested the theory. At some friends' house the other night, we had peas. I mashed up a few of them and tested them out on her...she LOVED them! What a funny little girl!! (will add pictures later! :)